Marriage Counseling or Couple Therapy

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Marriage Counseling or “Couple Therapy” is a term that is used to describe a type of counseling a couple attends in order to help them overcome issues in their relationships to avoid separation or divorce. Today, people view divorce as something that occurs commonly between married couples who have difficulty maintaining a relationship with their spouse. For the past thirty years, the phrase: “fifty percent of marriages end in divorce”, seems to have been ingrained into people’s mentality because it has become extremely common to come across individuals who have either been through one or more divorces. Divorce or separation not only affects the couples, but also their children. Having a strong family plays a major part in the lives of children and is crucial for their mental well-being. A report done by a team of senior academics for DailyMail UK found that “the damage caused to a child by divorce continues to blight his or her life as far as old age” and that “parental separation in childhood was consistently associated with psychological distress in adulthood during people’s early thirties”. Not only does the report show that children are affected by the effects of divorced but, the report also suggests that as divorce and separation continues to grow more common in society, the effects it has on the mental health of children does not reduce. Until the 1970’s, divorce was considered a taboo; the subject was either completely avoided in discussion or hardly ever brought up at all. Since today divorce is so common, people really seem to hardly ever pay attention to it and consider it a quick fix to a serious problem in their relationship. People are so exposed to the concept of divorce/separation that once they feel dissatisfied... ... middle of paper ... ... see if same sex couples have a higher rate of separation than heterosexual couples. Some immediate steps needed to reduce divorce and separation within couples would be not to rush into marriage at an early age. Statistics have shown that younger couples are at a higher risk for divorce. Before marrying someone couples should make sure that they have effective communication with each other and that they are comfortable enough with each other to be able to tackle problems together instead of individually. Also, steps that can aid in reducing divorce should be to make counseling more readily available to couples. Usually when one thinks of counseling they think of it with a negative connotation, but if people are more informed of the benefits of counseling they will be more inclined to look for it. Sources: Dr. Meyer, Catherine F. Personal Interview. 14. Dec. 2014

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