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What Happens in Marriage and Family Counseling?
Many people find themselves needing some kind of marriage or family counseling, but they're nervous about taking that first step. That's a natural reaction to the unexpected, but starting counseling doesn't have to cause anxiety. Here are some things you can expect to learn.
- Stop fighting. Or, rather, how to fight in healthy ways. Marriage and family counseling will help you manage conflict and express disagreements in ways that don't hurt the other people and still validate their emotions.
- How to listen. People think they know how to do this, but they often don't. Sometimes' the listener's assumptions, fears, and agendas get in the way of true listening. The counselor will teach listening skills to everyone involved.
- How to affirm each others' feelings. Feelings are what they are—they are morally neutral. Yet they influence every relationship and every choice within that relationship. Every member of the group—whether couple or family—has to truly understand that all the other members feel their emotions equally strongly. A simply affirmation, “I hear you saying you sometimes feel insecure,” can go far toward family or couple healing.
- How to help each other feel safe. When there is an imbalance of power or control in a relationship or a set of relationships, it often happens because some participants don't feel safe in expressing their true thoughts or feelings. The one who intimidates or controls is often surprised to find that that's what they've been doing, but no progress can be made until everyone feels equally safe in expressing themselves honestly.
- Unhealthy patterns. An outside party, such as your counselor, can identify behavioral and emotional patterns that people within the patterns often can't see. Sometimes just having those patterns brought to light is enough to begin changing them.