Marriage Counselor

Marriage Counselors work with couples who are having problems with their relationship. The couple might be considering divorce, or dealing with communication issues or other conflicts that need outside mediation; no matter the problem as a Marriage Counselor you help the couple work through the existing issues, and discover ways to deal with problems that might arise in the future.

You need to really believe in the institution of marriage to do your job as a Marriage Counselor well. Your ideal end goal is to have a couple leave still married, happy and armed with new ways to resolve issues. However this outcome isn’t always in the couple’s best interest and so you will need to evaluate the relationship, giving an outside perspective on a problem that might seem too big and overwhelming for the people stuck in it, and help them figure out how to move forward.

In order to do this, you hold hour-long talk sessions with a couple where they describe their different problems and emotions within the relationship. You use questions or role playing to get your clients to discover their fears, needs and desires and then discover ways they can get them met by the other half of the couple.

Since you’re dealing with the relationship of two people, you do most of your counseling sessions with both the husband and wife. Occasionally however, you’ll do individual sessions to learn more of one person’s point of view or hold group sessions with different wives or husbands discussing problems with others in their same situations. You’re different from a traditional Counselor since you focus less on internal problems and more on interactions and relationships with others.