Counseling

Counseling

Counseling offers you a chance (often the best chance) for you and your spouse to save your marriage. And even if you end up getting a divorce, counseling almost always helps couples get through it with a higher level of trust and with more money in their pocket. When you're marriage is troubled, counseling makes sense.

I have reluctantly concluded that I don't work to save marriages, but I applaud, affirm, and appreciate those who do. Counseling allows you and your spouse can confront the issues that threaten your marriage in safe setting.

You could check out a therapist in Minnesota who offers counseling by telephone. He offers the first session free, and after that he charges $45 for a 45 minute session. His site is called Marriage Builders, and it advertises that it has more than 100 pages of information about what you can do to save your marriage.

Here's a site called My Private Therapist that offers online assistance at prices that seem to me not just reasonable but downright inexpensive. Here's another site offering counseling by telephone. Here's a link to Ask the Internet Therapist, where you can actually sign up and pay for an appointment online.

Here's a site called www.find-a-therapist.com They offer a nationwide network of counselors by location, showing their address, telephone number, and focus areas.

Perhaps the best way to find out more about the process, though, might be to read the FAQ's about Marriage and Family Therapy on the web site of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.

There's a great deal of confusion about the professional qualifications of counselors and therapists. Briefly, here's how it breaks down: A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who can prescribe medications. Although there are exceptions, most psychiatrists aren't particularly adept at counseling, because they don't do it much. Their hourly fees are usually higher than those of other mental health professionals.

A psychologist usually has earned a Ph.D. in the field of psychology. The psychologist's training may have emphasized practical counseling, but it might also have emphasized some narrow research interest of limited application to your case.

An L.C.S.W. (Licensed Certified Social Worker) has completed a certification regimen, including a master's degree plus two years of supervised clinical experience.

An L.P.C. (Licensed Professional Counselor) has a master's degree and has also completed a professional certification regimen with an emphasis in practical counseling skills. Standards vary from state to state, but in general the clinical requirements tender to be more demanding for LPC's than for LCSW's.

If you're serious about saving your marriage, my hope is that both of you will make two solid commitments as you enter counseling: Commit to continue counseling for a fixed number of sessions (six or so).

Commit to take no action inconsistent with staying married until the fixed number of sessions is complete. This means no moving out (unless you're already separated), no relations with third parties, and any extraordinary expenditures or withdrawals of cash must be by mutual consent.

This may seem threatening to the spouse who wants to leave. He or she may accept it, however,