Modern Marriage Counseling Methods
The modern marriage faces a number of challenges that marriages did not face in the past. Perhaps that is why it is so important that you have a number of modern marriage methods for ensuring that your modern marriage is strong.
The methods we discuss below have been refined over the past few decades to provide the best counseling methods available for modern couples.
Three Useful Modern Marriage Counseling Methods
Solution Focused Therapy (SFT), as the name shockingly suggests helps couples focus on solutions to their problems. It is more goal-oriented than traditional therapies, which focused on understanding the root cause of the problem. ÂÂ
The Three Principles that Bill O’Hanlon postulated with the therapy are:
- Understanding and validating couples’ experiences and current reality.
- Shifting couples’ perception of the problem and the associative patterns.
- Have couples use their own knowledge, experience, and expertise to find a solution that helps them avoid the problem. The therapy then guides couples through the process of implementing that solution.
By focusing on solutions, couples are able to see how to successfully navigate through life’s little twist and turns that they face along the way. The therapy session provides the framework.
Psychotherapy was pioneered by Milton H. Erickson, M.D. His book Uncommon Therapy is an implementation guide to this therapy.
The practice is heavily influenced by using medical hypnotic techniques without inducing a trance. For couples, this strategy therapy helps them uncover the core problem and create a course of action to recovery.
Over the past few decades, medical hypnosis has been seen as a great way to uncover subconscious challenges that many couples face.
Many of them might not even know the issue at the core of their problems. By using hypnosis, it is possible to understand both sides position on a fundamental level.
Gestalt Therapy was developed by Paul Goodman and Fritz and Laura Perls in the 1940s. It is a humanist reaction to conventional psychoanalysis that Freud advocated.
Gestalt means shape or form in German. It is appropriate, because couples are encouraged to creatively shape and experience an enhanced awareness, freedom, and self-direction.
Gestalt therapy heavily stresses people associations to their environments around them. They believe that context affects all of our decisions.
This means that no one can be purely objective, because we all operate based upon our own experiences or context. Therefore, working with couples to enhance their empathy of each other’s position is a crucial step to understanding the needs and emotions of your partner.
Final Thoughts
With all of the modern methods available for married couples today, one thing remains the same. They need to be able to have an honest and open dialogue with each other.
These methods provide the tools to do so. However, you need to be able to take the first step to do so. If you need help with that, my office is available as neutral ground. Feel free to call 847-824-8366 to see how we can help.
