The General Setting of Marriage Counseling – Where should marriage counseling take place?

IT SEEMS INEVITABLE-when marriage counseling may be performed by such a variety of people, informally as well as formally-that it will be carried on in various kinds of locations, but some principles that seem worthy of emphasis bear on the “geographical” aspect of the work.

When marriage counseling is carried on through a voluntary social or professional organization it is generally regarded as essential that all such work should be done at the official headquarters of the organization. Matters of crucial importance, such as the comprehensive team work and the necessary supervision together with the absolute necessity of keeping all case records and other documents strictly confidential and under lock and key, can only be safeguarded in this way. It is also an important part of the necessary counseling relationship that it should be left to clients to take the initiative in actually coming and seeking help rather than just allowing the help to come to them. There are many other valid reasons why marriage counseling at the homes of clients is inadvisable, except in very special cases when it may be absolutely unavoidable.

Many social and religious organizations offer a marriage counseling service as part of their contribution to the community welfare, and this again, for the same reasons, is generally carried on at the headquarters of the particular organization.
Private professional marriage counseling by psychiatrists, physicians, psychologists, social workers and others, is again generally carried on in the practitioner’s consulting rooms, whether it is accepted as an exclusive activity or is included in a more varied and wider professional range. The same principles and reasons apply to this as to the more organized marriage counseling.

Ministers of religion cannot escape frequent requests for help in marital disorders, and some ministers become very competent in marriage counseling. Here again, however plausible and urgent any requests may be for counseling of this kind in the parishioner’s home it seems much better in general for it to be done in the minister’s own study, which throws the initiative onto the client. In a disturbed marital relationship there is always some deep emotional involvement, and the fact that a minister, or any other kind of counselor, calls repeatedly at the home of a wife who is estranged in any way from her husband, may well bring about deep and serious misunderstandings not likely to be helpful to the particular case or to the professional standing of the counselor.

Lawyers would seem in most if not all cases to perform the function of attempted reconciliation of estranged partners in their professional chambers, and when any divorce court judge decides to see the partners with a view to reconciliation he would naturally do so in his own chambers.

Lastly it may be emphasized that the place to which clients go for marriage counseling should be as unobtrusive as well as reasonably accessible as possible. People do not wish it to be obvious that they are visiting a marriage guidance or counseling agency.

Tags: Counseling