The personality types of the clients

During the interviews with each client the counselor will be gradually gaining some perception of the type of personality shown by them. This has considerable bearing on many of their reactions to one another, and also on the essential process of building a more harmonious relationship, and as the con-selor comes to realize something of this inner personality type he becomes better able to act as a mediator between them.

The counselor may come to see how rigid or flexible either personality may be, and he may make some assessment in his own mind of whether either personality is of the introvert or extrovert type, the suspicious “schizoid,” the over-dramatic “hysteric” type, or the very particular “obsessional” type. He may see evidences of any of the neurotic, psychotic or psychopathic reaction types in one or both clients. It is not his business as a marriage counselor to make any very accurate assessment of these psychic patterns, that is a task that is often difficult enough for a psychiatrist, and much more appropriate for him to attempt than for the counselor.

The counselor, however, needs to have some awareness of the indications of these manifestations so that he can avoid persisting with a problem which needs expert professional help, and make a sensible and appropriate referral as early as possible. Such referral does not demand any accurate assessment by the counselor, but rather the belief that there are sufficient indications of such deeper elements to warrant psychiatric consultation. It is then for the psychiatrist to assess the conditions and if necessary and acceptable to arrange for the appropriate treatment.

Another important service which the counselor may be able to offer in many cases of marital disorder arising from gross incompatibility of personality type is in the helping a less deeply disturbed partner to cope with the more deeply disturbed one, whether or not under psychotherapy. Some of the indications by which the neurotic, psychotic and psychopathic personalities can be recognized have already been discussed in the section dealing with contributive factors in marital disorder, and some of the ways of helping a bewildered partner to cope with difficult situations will be dealt with in a later section. It may be emphasized that any “diagnosis” arrived at by the counselor is not stated to either client, that is not the counselor’s function. It is kept in his mind as a tentative assessment, continually open to further testing, and used to help in the counselor’s handling of the situation in his subsequent interviews with either of the partners or with both of them together.

For example, if one partner consistently dramatized everything and the other one shows perplexity at the apparent irrationality of such attitudes and responses, the counselor might help in the clarification by some such remark as, “You notice that she seems to exaggerate everything and to make far more of things than you would think appropriate. Could it be that she is somehow built that way, that that’s her nature?” When the client comes to some acceptance of that possibility the counselor might then put it to him that if she is built that way he might accept her as she is and not take her dramatizations quite so literally. There may well be some opportunity to go into the husband’s tendency to take such things so literally, and to open up for him some insight into his possibly obsessional personality, which may have been initially attracted by his wife’s dramatizations.

A more difficult problem is that of delusional manifestations, for example when a husband is deeply troubled about his wife’s completely unwarranted accusations of infidelity. Here again it is not for the counselor to make diagnoses to either of them, but rather to help each to deal with the problem from his own or her own standpoint. In the early interview with the wife, for example, he might say, “You feel sure your husband is being unfaithful, even though he denies it and you only have indirect evidence for it?” and when the counselor feels that there may be a delusional element in this he might set out to try to induce the client to have some specialist advice.

With the bewildered husband in such a case the counselor might say something like this, “You find that all your emphatic and repeated assurances of your innocence are utterly useless. Would it be worth trying to allow your wife to think and say anything she likes about you to you, and to let your life and your attitudes speak for themselves?” The counselor might add the suggestion that the most helpful attitude to his suspecting wife is that of acceptance of her feelings, however irrational they may seem, in the assumption that she can’t help having them. This “agreeing to differ” without hostility on his part may at least preserve some stability in an impossible situation while further help is being sought. This can be done without “labeling” anyone.

To summarize what has been considered so far in the interviews, we began with the establishment of rapport through the encouragement of unburdening on the part of the client and response to the expressed feelings rather than to the facts in the narrative on the part of the counselor. When the feelings have been as fully poured out as the client is disposed to do, the counselor sets out to discern, and to clarify with the client, such underlying influences as role perceptions and expectations in marriage, habitual attitudes and responses, uncritical assumptions, emotional needs, and ways of seeking their fulfilment, background personal “conditioning,” and personality type. This may go on with each client separately, often over the same period, but at certain points, and under certain conditions, it may be most helpful, with the consent of both partners, to have one or more interviews with the two of them together. This will be discussed later, remembering that it may happen at any earlier stage of the interviewing.

Tags: Counseling