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Q - Dear Annabelle,
After 25 years, my wife and I are reached a crisis in our relationship. We've resolved to consult a professional marriage counselor.
Two professional associations have provided me with 6 names. I want to screen for the best resource. How would you recommend I go about it ? Here is the list of questions I have thought of asking:
1. How long have you been doing marriage counseling ?
2. What % of your practice is it ?
3. What are your degrees and other training in the subject ?
4. Any particular schools, methods of therapy you subscribe to ?
5. How long does a typical session, total intervention last with a couple ? your % of
success ?
6. Your $ rates ?
7. Available nights, weekends ?
8. Operate out of your home, office ?
9. Your age, married yourself ?
Any important factors I forgot ? What should be the most important criteria ?
A - Dear Claude,
You certainly want to ask the therapist's rates and time availability.
The other seven questions reflect naive ideas about therapy in general, and marriage counseling in particular. (It isn't a business service intended to produce Īmeasurable resultsā appropriate and attributable to its cost). It isn't surgery that Īrepairsā or medicine that Īcuresā. Marriages don't Ībreakā and Īcan't be repairedā, don't contract Īdiseasesā and Īcan't be healedā. (When people use those terms, it's only as figures of speech).
There are no hard data, but the marriage counselors I knowgenerally agree that about half of couples seek therapy hoping to save their marriage, about half seek therapy hoping to dissolve their marriage, (without destroying themselves or their children in the process). And, at the beginning of therapy, many people aren't quite certain which of those two categories they're in.
Marriage counseling -- any form of therapy -- is intensely individual and beyond mere logic. It can't be reduced to probing questions. Since you seem to be a logical man, you'll probably appreciate being told why, before being told what is, in fact, appropriate to ask.
You see, Claude, each of your questions rests on one or more Īunbased assumptionsā:
#1-How long have you been doing marriage counseling?
#2-What % of your practice is it?
Unbased assumption: Experience and the ability to understand and benefit from it and apply the lessons learned can be quantified. You got the six names from professional associations, so you can assume they're not amateurs. Beyond that, get in touch with your intuition, and trust what it says.
#3-What are your degrees and other training in the subject?
#4-Any particular schools or methods of therapy that you subscribe to?
Unbased assumptions: That you know which schools or methods of therapy will do Ībestā what you and your wife want. Even if you yourself are a professional, Claude, you don't Īknowā in advance what will work best...or work at all. (Also, you assume that degrees and choice of method indicate how good a therapist will be for you.) They don't. Only your intuition and your wife's can indicate that.
#5-How long does a typical session, intervention take? Your % of success?
Unbased assumptions: That there are Ītypicalā sessions, interventions, Ītypicalā couples. There aren't. This is entirely about individuals, not types. That success can be defined. That success with anyone else indicates probability of success with you.
#8- Home or office?
#9-Age, are you married?
Unbased assumption: (That any of those is a reliable predictor of effective therapy.)
ThereIS one more appropriate and useful question: "Now that you've met my wife and me, heard our situation, and what we want to accomplish, do YOU think you can help us, if we both decide WE think you can help us?" The therapist's answer to that, ......and you and your wife's reaction to the answer...... may tell you whether you've come to the right place. The answers to the other questions will only speak to your anxious need to control.
- Annabelle
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