When did Marriage Counseling become obsolete? When I learned to teach couples how to have a happy and successful marriage in “22 HOURS”. I said this in my excitement after 27 years of trial-and-error learning to do that. However, I was not including marriages in trouble. Marriages on the brink of divorce do require counseling. With my new method, counseling is not as long and arduous as it was just a few years ago.
What is my new method? Most couples who come to me are on the brink of divorce. This is because of my reputation of saving those types of marriages. Some hear about me from their friends, others are referred by therapists. Such marriages are usually very complex and complicated to resolve. I do not allow such a couple to spend months complaining and blaming. I give them only a few sessions to do that. Such complaints are usually the distillation of a host of other issues I refer to as “Communication Structures”.
The couple has developed these structures over the years without knowing it. Now the structures serve as barriers to their communication. Many of these structures began when one of the couple needed to bring up an issue but didn’t know how. He or she simply swept it under the proverbial carpet. Marriages become “troubled” when all of these issues come out from under the carpet to overwhelm the couple. When I begin working with a couple, we do three things. I help them learn to bring up issues or resolve old ones. I help them identify their Communication Structures. Then I teach them the skills for having a happy marriage in 22 Hours. This process may take months, but certainly not the years traditional counseling has always taken.
NOTE: You may want to check out my other courses listed on my website CounselingServicesAtlanta.com. My CounselingCondensedCourses teach in a few hours what it would take years to learn in counseling.
With regards,
Lane A Stokes, LPC, SMHC
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