Communication Skills: A Basic Ingredient Of Most Marital Counseling And Marriage Counseling Books

By Author: R Moss
Total Articles: 5
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There are a variety of professionals who offer couple counseling. These include psychologists, marriage and family counselors, licensed professional counselors, and social workers. The theoretical orientations used by counselors also vary greatly. Some of these include cognitive-behavioral, humanistic, psychodynamic, and family systems.

Given such variety, a reasonable question is whether there may be some shared approaches used by therapists, regardless of specialty or orientation. Although not the case 100% of the time, most will at some point focus attention on the manner of communication used by a couple and ways to modify this to make it more effective.

The reality is that many, if not most, individuals think they communicate well and it is the partner who fails to understand. Additionally, many people believe they know their partner so well that they believe they know what the partner is thinking and feeling without having to be told. Some authors have called this mind reading. In actuality, poor communication is a major contributing factor for distress in relationships.

Professionals who have written ...
... marriage counseling books or are involved in providing marital counseling using a cognitive-behavioral approach will often discuss the use of active listening. To understand this, it is first important to know that when one partner initiates a conversation, that partner has in mind what he or she wants the partner to hear. This can be called the intent of the verbal exchange.

The partner on the receiving end of the communication has the information register in his or her brain. This has been termed the impact. As noted in many marriage counseling books, effective communication is present whenever intent = impact. Unfortunately, in distressed couples this rarely happens. In fact, the only way one knows that one's partner has clearly understood the intent is when the partner repeats it back to him or her.

This is the basis for what marital counseling professionals call active listening. In this case, the partner on the receiving end does not respond to the speaking partner's comments until the speaking partner indicates the listener has accurately repeated back the communication. At that point, the listener responds and it is the originating partner's turn to repeat back what has been heard prior to proceeding. Obviously, the process can be difficult initially, though many couples learn how to use this effectively, particularly when disagreements occur.