Relationship counseling is the process of counseling the parties of a human relationship in an effort to recognize, and to better manage or reconcile, troublesome differences and repeating patterns of stress upon the relationship. The relationship involved may be between members of a family or a couple (see also family therapy), employees or employers in a workplace, or between a professional and a client.
Couple's therapy (or relationship therapy) is a subset of relationship counseling. It may differ from other forms of relationship counseling in various regards including its duration. Short term counseling may be between 1 and 3 sessions whereas long term couples therapy may be between 12 and 24 sessions. An exception is brief orsolution focused couples therapy. In addition, counseling tends to be more 'here and now' and new coping strategies the outcome. Couples therapy is more about seemingly intractable problems with a relationship history, where emotions are the target and the agent of change.
Marriage counseling or marital therapycan refer to either or some combination of the above.
The methods may differ in other ways as well, but the differences may indicate more about the counselor/therapist's way of working than the title given to their process.
History
Marriage counseling originated in Germany in the 1920s as part of theeugenics movement.[1] The first institutes for marriage counseling in the USA began in the 1930s, partly in response to Germany's medically directed, racial purification marriage counseling centres. It was promoted in the USA by both eugenicists such asPaul Popenoe and Robert Latou Dickinson and by birth control advocates such as Abraham and Hannah Stone who wrote 'A Marriage Manual' in 1935 and were involved withPlanned Parenthood.[2] Other founders in USA include Lena Levine andMargaret Sanger.[3][4][5]
It wasn't until the 1950s that therapists began treating psychological problems in the context of the family.[6]Relationship counseling as a discrete, professional service is thus a recent phenomenon. Until the late 20th century, the work of relationship counseling was informally fulfilled by close friends, family members, or localreligious leaders. Psychiatrists,psychologists, counselors and social workers have historically dealt primarily with individual psychological problems in a medical and psychoanalytic framework.[6] In many less technologically advanced cultures around the world today, the institution of family, the village or group eldersfulfil the work of relationship counseling. Today marriage mentoring mirrors those cultures.
With increasing modernization orwesternization in many parts of the world and the continuous shift towards isolated nuclear families the trend is towards trained and accredited relationship counselors or couple therapists. Sometimes volunteers are trained by either the Government or social service institutions to help those who are in need of family or marital counseling. Many communities and government departments have their own team of trained voluntary and professional relationship counselors. Similar services are operated by manyuniversities and colleges, sometimes staffed by volunteers from among the student peer group. Some large companies maintain a full-time professional counseling staff to facilitate smoother interactions between corporate employees, to minimize the negative effects that personal difficulties might have on work performance.
Increasingly there is a trend toward professional certification and government registration of these services.
Couple's therapy (or relationship therapy) is a subset of relationship counseling. It may differ from other forms of relationship counseling in various regards including its duration. Short term counseling may be between 1 and 3 sessions whereas long term couples therapy may be between 12 and 24 sessions. An exception is brief orsolution focused couples therapy. In addition, counseling tends to be more 'here and now' and new coping strategies the outcome. Couples therapy is more about seemingly intractable problems with a relationship history, where emotions are the target and the agent of change.
Marriage counseling or marital therapycan refer to either or some combination of the above.
The methods may differ in other ways as well, but the differences may indicate more about the counselor/therapist's way of working than the title given to their process.
History
Marriage counseling originated in Germany in the 1920s as part of theeugenics movement.[1] The first institutes for marriage counseling in the USA began in the 1930s, partly in response to Germany's medically directed, racial purification marriage counseling centres. It was promoted in the USA by both eugenicists such asPaul Popenoe and Robert Latou Dickinson and by birth control advocates such as Abraham and Hannah Stone who wrote 'A Marriage Manual' in 1935 and were involved withPlanned Parenthood.[2] Other founders in USA include Lena Levine andMargaret Sanger.[3][4][5]
It wasn't until the 1950s that therapists began treating psychological problems in the context of the family.[6]Relationship counseling as a discrete, professional service is thus a recent phenomenon. Until the late 20th century, the work of relationship counseling was informally fulfilled by close friends, family members, or localreligious leaders. Psychiatrists,psychologists, counselors and social workers have historically dealt primarily with individual psychological problems in a medical and psychoanalytic framework.[6] In many less technologically advanced cultures around the world today, the institution of family, the village or group eldersfulfil the work of relationship counseling. Today marriage mentoring mirrors those cultures.
With increasing modernization orwesternization in many parts of the world and the continuous shift towards isolated nuclear families the trend is towards trained and accredited relationship counselors or couple therapists. Sometimes volunteers are trained by either the Government or social service institutions to help those who are in need of family or marital counseling. Many communities and government departments have their own team of trained voluntary and professional relationship counselors. Similar services are operated by manyuniversities and colleges, sometimes staffed by volunteers from among the student peer group. Some large companies maintain a full-time professional counseling staff to facilitate smoother interactions between corporate employees, to minimize the negative effects that personal difficulties might have on work performance.
Increasingly there is a trend toward professional certification and government registration of these services.
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