The special assets and problems of ministers in marriage counseling

Whatever may be thought by the minister or anyone else about his fitness or otherwise for marriage counseling, in actual fact he is generally quite unable to escape some responsibility for it, because people will come to him for help in their marital troubles, and because ministers are found in many small towns and isolated places where trained marriage counselors are not easily available.

Apart from his geographical availability one of the greatest assets of the minister in marriage counseling is the fact that in his pastoral visiting and general pastoral care of his people he will often have a better opportunity than anyone, except possibly the family doctor, to discover and deal with many marital stresses and conflicts at an early stage, often long before the partners would have taken the necessary initiative to seek proper help. In this way a minister can do a great deal of creative work in the healing of marital disorders before they grow to serious enough proportions to reach the marriage counselor. This is quiet and unobtrusive work, which could be still better if all ministers were given more training in marriage counseling as an essential part of their theological course.

Another asset of the minister is that in many cases he already has the confidence of both partners, especially if he has watched them grow up, and has prepared and married them, and as long as he has shown himself to be a man of discretion and understanding who is not prone to gossip. He also has the privilege of calling on people on his own initiative.
In himself also the minister will generally have the spiritual awareness and sense of vocation which are valuable in any such “helping” activity, and which give power to his pastoral attitude and skill. He may also have behind him a strong and warm Christian Church fellowship, from which reunited couples may draw much further strength, and to which they may give grateful creative service, and deepen their own union in so doing.

Professionally the minister has an important asset for marriage counseling by virtue of the conviction that economic, sexual, personal, parental and social adjustments between marriage partners can only be adequately achieved when they are woven into a relationship which is basically spiritual, whether they realize it clearly or not. As long as this is offered in understandable terms to partners and not obscured behind words which may not have meaning to them, the minister can offer the central factor in all personal relationships to counselors with whom he comes into contact, as well as to his parishioners.

Alongside these and similar assets of the minister there are some special problems implicit in his position. One of these is time. He has a special responsibility to the whole body of people committed to his care, and specific duties which need careful and time consuming preparation apart from the hours involved in their performance. He has the difficult task of allotting his all too little available time between many conflicting claims on it. The same applies to his energies. This would seem to be something worthy of considerable discussion by groups of ministers, so that their whole scale of vocational priorities can be reviewed in the light of present day needs and demands. Many ministers agree that it is impossible to give more than about twelve hours per week to counseling in general without detriment to their total work.
Another special vocational problem of the minister in marriage-(and also in individual) counseling is found in his relationship with people apart from the counseling. This may have several consequences.

Tags: Counseling