Second interview with John

The second interview with John began with a report of further relaxation of tension between them. It went on as follows:
c. You feel a bit more optimistic about it?

j. Yes, this is the best hope I’ve had because it seems to go deeper, but I still feel more organized than I like. But somehow Mary seems to be more generally approachable and even cordial. She told me she had a better understanding of how I’ve been feeling, since you and she got down to talking about how we grew up. I hadn’t realized that would be of any great importance.

c. Would you like to tell me something about your own childhood as you see it?

j. Mary told you about Dad walking out, didn’t she? But Mom did a magnificent job in bringing up my sister and me and holding down a job as well. Grannie was a great help and we all managed to get on well together. I’ve only seen Dad about twice since he left-he was a pretty hopeless alcoholic, and he was killed in a motor car accident a few years ago. I’m sure Mom was a lot better without him. She has still been a great help to me when I’ve felt pretty despairing, although she got Mary’s back up. I still feel I owe her more than I can ever repay.

c. You still feel a pretty close relationship with your mother?

j. I’ve felt it more since things became difficult with Mary; and at about that time Mom had to give up her job and she needed more help from me.

c. I’ve noticed that Mary seems to be a maternal sort of person. Could it be that at the beginning she was giving you some good “mothering”?

j. I don’t know about that-she was tremendously attentive and very loving, and she seemed to be able to anticipate most of my needs-that’s what made it so difficult to understand after Jimmy came, when he seemed to take up a bit too much of her attention. I don’t think that’s good for any baby. But perhaps you could call it mothering-and after all she’d been pretty good at that sort of thing with her father and that stupid brother of hers-she still gets him out of an occasional scrape. I don’t like it and I don’t think he’ll ever learn, and his father has never been able to do anything with him. Mary’s father has always been a good natured chap, but he’s weak and utterly ineffectual. Mary used to order him and her brother about till they could hardly call their souls their own.

c. Do you think that could have something to do with the way you felt Mary organized you; that she’d developed the habit of running the house that way, and got a real feeling of satisfaction out of it?”

j. Well, yes, I suppose that’s why she does have such a passion for organizing. But I didn’t notice it much in the early years of our marriage.

c. Could it be that you were getting such a lot of “mothering” attention at that time that you didn’t notice the organizing?

j. And when I missed out on the attention because of the children I began to resent the organizing? I think I can see daylight there. But I still can’t see any reason why I should put up with being managed. I’m not quite in the same category as her weak father and irresponsible brother. I don’t want to be the big shot, but I am supposed to be the head of the house!

c. Do you thing that if you can stand on your own feet a bit more, and not be so dependent on what we’ve called the “mothering” or the attention, it may help Mary to ease up on the organizing?

j. Well, you know I’ve been doing that a bit since I came here last time-it’s only a very short time-but I think I can make up my own mind what I ought to do in the house and the garden, and with the kids, and if Mary starts to disparage it I think I can let her think what she likes about it, without feeling so deeply insulted.

c. If she likes to think you’re an incompetent fool you think you can let her think it without having to convince her immediately that you’re nothing of the kind?

j. I don’t know whether I could go quite that far yet, but I can see what you’re driving at, and I’m determined to have a try at becoming less sensitive to her comments -if she goes on making them-and more steady on my own feet. You know I feel as if a big load has lifted from my shoulders, and I know what I’ve got to do, whatever Mary decides to do about it herself. And I’ve got a feeling that she’s feeling a bit that way too.

Notice in these last interviews with Mary and with John how the counselor waited until there was a natural opening for his attempts at clarification of their feelings, and then how he set out to do it by asking questions, such as “Could it be that -?” rather than making dogmatic statements, such as “I think you feel that way because -.” Dogmatic statements would be likely to stir up some opposition, and the counseling would then become sidetracked into a conflict between counselor and Mary or John. When it is put in the form of a question, Mary or John can easily say, “No, I don’t think that’s quite the way it is,” and the counseling can then proceed to further elucidation without disruption.

#TITLE#Analysing the counseling session with John and Mary#/TITLE#

As previously mentioned this was a fairly straightforward case, and John and Mary were capable of good insight. Also the account given has omitted some of the less applicable elements in the discussions and condensed the material into fewer interviews than would have actually happened. In many cases a great deal of patience is required on the part of the counselor before the two people come to achieve sufficient insight to be able to build a strong relationship. Sometimes one or both have such neurotic personalities that they can’t do much without deeper individual psychotherapy. But this account may give some idea of what is being attempted in marriage counseling, and how a counselor sets out to do it.

John and Mary came together for an interview about ten days after the last session with John, and it was obvious that there was not much more to be done by the counselor. They were able to talk quite frankly about their new insights about themselves and their new understandings of each other, and to laugh good naturedly about John’s choice of someone four years older than himself without realizing that he was looking for another “mother.” And John could also point out that Mary, in choosing a man younger than herself, was gratifying her maternal feelings without altogether realizing it. The counselor asked Mary how she felt about the prospect of John’s asserting himself more, and Mary thought for a few moments, and then made the significant observation, “I think I can do with someone to depend on, and I hope he can do it. The children can do with a strong daddy too!”

It may be noticed that there was no discussion about the sex relationship in this case. This was mainly because neither John nor Mary referred to it at all, and because the counselor felt that they were growing so well in insight and in their relationship that there seemed no reason to ask about it. He was ready to follow their sequence of thought as they expressed themselves, and to accept whatever direction their feelings developed. By accepting their feelings and moving with them all the time the interviews were kept alive, and the two people were able to move forward to better and better understanding. When this acceptance is not offered by the counselor there will often be long pauses in the interviews, and then it is easy for the counselor to begin “fishing,” asking all kinds of questions unrelated to the train of thought. This is generally an expression of the counselor’s anxiety, and it will devitalize the interview and tend to bewilder the people being interviewed.

Finally in the case of John and Mary it is easy to see why all the previous efforts of well meaning relatives, and the most genuine efforts of John and Mary themselves, were doomed to tragic failure. Until they could come to realize why each of them felt that way, and how much they were at the mercy of their uncritical assumptions and their unrecognized emotional needs, any attempt at reconciliation was sabotaged by the eruption of some of these hidden elements in the situation. By winning their confidence through giving each of them a full and attentive and accepting hearing, the counselor was then able to look with them at some of these unrecognized elements in such a way that they could face them and deal with them. That is the kind of approach that the marriage counselor makes. It has been fully confirmed that when people have been able to unburden themselves of their intense and conflicting feelings then, and only then, do they become able to “see,” and to respond to “sweet reason.”

This case record gives some confirmation to the growing feeling among workers in this field, that people are more likely to come to a more successful partnership by being helped to find their own way through their difficulties than by any direct advice from even the most “expert” counselor. There is certainly a place for directive advice, but it is found that the more experience any counselor has in marital or other kinds of counseling, the less prone he is to give advice, and the more effective his counseling becomes.

A good definition of marriage counseling is that given by Emily Hartshorne Mudd, M.S.W., Ph.D., Director of the Marriage Council of Philadelphia: “Marriage counseling is defined as the process whereby a professionally trained person assists two persons (engaged or marriage partners) to develop abilities in resolving, to some workable degree, the problems that trouble them in their interpersonal relationships as they move into marriage, live with it, or (in a small number of instances) move out of it. The focus of the counselor’s approach is the relationship between the two people in the marriage rather than, as in psychiatric therapy, the reorganizing of the personality structure of the individual. The theoretical framework behind this approach presents the following hypothesis: If an individual can experience, during the counseling process, new ways of understanding of himself and his marriage partner and more satisfying ways of using himself in his daily relationships in marriage and with his family, he should be able to apply these acquired abilities to other problem situations as these arise in his daily living.”1

As we shall see this definition may involve some clarification of the term “professionally trained person.” In America the organized marriage counseling agencies are staffed by university graduates in one of several fields who have undertaken special training and gained experience in marriage counseling. In Great Britain, Australia, and some other countries much of the work is being carried out with acknowledged success by people without university degrees, who have however been very carefully “selected” and given what is tantamount to “professional training and experience.” With this clarification the definition can be well applied to the work of marriage counseling everywhere.

The work of the marriage counselor touches that of the psychiatrist on one side, where it comes into contact with intra-personal disorders which may bring strains to the marital relationship; and that of the social worker on the other side, where it comes up against environmental strains on the relationship. It also comes into contact with the work of religious organizations in that many of the strains on the marital relationship have to do with religious attitudes. The more the marriage counselor can work together with each of these professions the better his work will be. Before discussing the actual work of marriage counseling it would seem advisable to give some attention to the many interlocking contributory factors in marital disorder, and this will be the subject of the next chapter.

1 “Man and Wife” edited by Emily Hartshorne Mudd, M.S.W., PhJD. and Aaron Krich, Ed.D. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 1957, p. 211.

Tags: Counseling