![new directions in social work genogram new directions in social work genogram](https://i1.rgstatic.net/publication/298976988_Bestiality_The_best_kept_secret_in_America/links/56ee050108ae59dd41c63d41/largepreview.png)
For Johnson, emotion is not simply part of the problem of marital distress but a powerful and positive change agent. Johnson notes that marital distress is usually attended by a flood of negative emotions trapping the couple in narrow, constricting interactions. Rassieur offers a structured five-stage model (with up to seven sessions) for short-term marriage counselling with couples whose marriage is troubled.Ī more detailed model is EFT, championed by Susan Johnson and colleagues. His model involves counselling with a couple and individually. Referring specifically to marriage counselling, Rassieur argues that short-term therapeutic intervention can enable a couple to interrupt destructive relational patterns. Relationship counselling based on David Olson’s circumplex model, which I have found pastorally useful in pre-marriage and marriage counselling, may de-escalate presenting problems and symptoms, and facilitate changes in cohesion and adaptability, separateness and togetherness, stability and change, communication skills, and the client’s ability to negotiate system change over time. Observable qualities that may be addressed through relationship counselling include dependency needs, adult conflict, interpersonal proximity, social presentation, expression of closeness, assertive/aggressive qualities, expression of positive and negative feelings, and global centripetal/centrifugal style. When is relationship counselling appropriate? Beavers and Hampsom refer to centripetal and centrifugal emotional and behavioural disturbances in clients as warranting relationship counselling. The popularity and usefulness of EFT derives from its emotional (rather than cognitive or behavioural) approach to counselling, and from its emphasis on wholeness in the context of interpersonal relationships. However, modalities such as emotionally focused therapy (EFT) emphasise the present and the specific, though not necessarily in a systemic or problem-solving context. Cognitive-behavioural approaches often stress the specific while relationship-oriented therapies tend to stress the general. Similarly, relationship counselling is the focus of a wide array of therapeutic modalities.
![new directions in social work genogram new directions in social work genogram](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/7e/ec/59/7eec5950e6597be20acc0aa46cd1d713.jpg)
Restructuring the personality, uncovering the unconscious, creating social interest, finding meaning in life, curing an emotional disturbance, examining old decisions and making new ones, developing trust in oneself, becoming more self-actualizating, reducing anxiety, shedding maladaptive behavior and learning adaptive patterns, and gaining more effective control of one’s life.Ĭorey places these goals on a generality/specificity continuum. More systematically, Gerald Corey identifies therapeutic goals as
![new directions in social work genogram new directions in social work genogram](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c7/39/6c/c7396ccf16e0aefbae99b2238350bc12--therapy-ideas-art-therapy.jpg)
According to Howard Clinebell, “the overall goal of marriage crisis counseling and also marriage therapy is to help couples learn how to make their relationship more mutually need-satisfying and therefore more growth-nurturing.” This applies also to other forms of relationship counselling. In addition, a counsellor may utilise individual counselling in conjunction with marriage or group counselling in order to achieve specific goals that would be difficult to attain in a group setting. The arenas in which relationship counselling often takes place include individual, couple (or marriage), family and group counselling (Palmer & McMahon). But they are processes and ideals worth pursuing. In my experience healing is always a relative process, and absolute wholeness is an elusive ideal. The efficacy and goals of relationship counselling in general, and emotionally focused therapy in particular, are usually more modest. At their best, counselling and counsellors are capable of facilitating healing, growth and wholeness in every field of human experience.