Does Marriage Counseling Work?

For couples considering marriage counseling, it's often difficult to accept whether seeing a marriage counselor will actually help their relationship. We have been trying to obtain objective information, such as data which is gathered from national surveys of marriage and family counselors and their clients. We analyze several interesting opinions given by people who have actually experienced marriage counseling themselves and were asked to comment on the effectiveness of seeing a marriage counselor to try and help their relationship. Most honest marriage counselors would agree that the motivation level, or committment, of a couple to save their marriage may be the single biggest success factor in determining the successful outcome of marriage counseling. It's extremely rare that marriage counseling would be able to save a marriage where one partner has already decided upon a divorce. Even a mediocre marriage counselor would however be able to help a couple who are truly committed towards wanting to save their marriage. Keeping this in mind, research has been conducted to determine, on a more measurable level, what the effectiveness is of marriage counseling.

An article published by the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, reports from couples attending marriage and/or family counseling across more than 15 states on their experience with counseling. Their findings show that when marriage and family counselors treat an extremely wide range of marital problems over relatively short periods, couple and family therapy turns out to be much briefer than individual therapy would. Also, that client satisfaction and improvement of relationships are quite high.

Specifically, clients from 526 marriage counselors in 15 different states:

98.1% rated marriage counseling services good or excellent,
97.1% received the type of help they expected,
91.2% were satisfied with the amount of advice they received,
93% said they were aided in dealing more effectively with their marital problems,
94.3% would return to the same marriage counselor if required,
96.9% would recommend their counselor to friends,
97.4% were generally satisfied with the service they received,
63.4% reported improved physical health due to stress reduction,
54.8% reported improvement in how they functioned at work,
73.7% indicated improvement in the behavior of their children,
58.7% showed improvement in children’s school performance.

While studies like the above provide raw data that supports the assertion that marriage counseling does indeed work, a very interesting discussion on the question "Does Couples Counseling Work" from a public forum devoted to this topic offers a less clinical, but still very much positive view. Based on what seems to be a honest and frank discussions among couples who've been to marriage counseling, the answer to the question of whether or not marriage counseling is effective is a positive one.

Regardless of the number of studies and results which seem supportive to the effectiveness of marriage/couples counseling, there are always going to be those who question it's value. An article hosted at the about.com portal, had this to say:

 "The science of marital counseling is being studied in great detail these days. Research is showing that it is not as effective as people think, that women seem to get more from it than men, and that it might not have a lasting effect on the couple's marriage. What type of couple gets the most from couple therapy? The answer is young, non-sexist, still in love, open couples. Which couples receive the least from therapy? Some factors that can make couple therapy unsuccessful include couples who wait too long before seeking help, and often one or the other is set on getting a divorce and is closed to any suggestions that may save the marriage." Excerpted from the marriage.about.com portal.

Unfortunately, the data supporting the above-mentioned research is not specifically cited in the article, thus cannot be taken as empirically true. The article does seem to imply that couples who seek counseling because they want their relationship to work have a higher chance of success with marriage counseling than are those who enter into counseling with the (perhaps hidden) decision that they just want out.