Word: therapists
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...divorce rate was 2.5 per 1,000 people; it reached a high in 1979 and 1981, with 5.3 per 1,000. Today the figure hovers at about 4.0, pretty much where it has been for five years. In some quarters, the suspicion has lingered that the therapist's job is to validate a patient's complaints and act as ministers in reverse, putting couples asunder. "The idea of therapist neutrality often came down to support for breaking up," says William Doherty, director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota. And therapists weren't appreciated...
Lately, however, a new breed of therapist and "marriage educator" is shaking up the profession. These therapists reject the passive, old-style therapies that emphasize personal growth over shared commitment and take a more aggressive, hands-around-the-neck approach to saving marriages. "They feel therapists have been too quick in calling an end to relationships and having people move on," says University of Chicago sociology professor Linda Waite. The new breed also advocates premarital skill training and early intervention in problems--learning the ropes before tying the knot. "It's like a vaccination," says Waite, "instead of having...
That cranky quarter of the peace-seeking married contingent may find a sympathetic soul in David Schnarch, author of the book Passionate Marriage and creator of the Crucible Approach to marital therapy, which upends nearly all the conventional tenets of couples counseling. He says he is the therapist of last resort for many couples who go to his Marriage and Family Health Center in Evergreen, Colo., for an intensive four-day session: "The worse shape your marriage is in, the more this is the approach of choice." Nor does he recommend that a warring couple break up--that's just...
...Wapman, 45, manager at a Bay Area software firm, and Margee, 45, a therapist, had been married 18 years when they signed up for Schnarch's program in 2001. Busy with their jobs and three kids, their marriage was somewhere between O.K. and icky. "The relationship was sustainable but not very satisfying," says Ken. And their sex life, he says, "was like your commute. You could practically do it with your eyes closed"--er, don't a lot of people do it that way?--"but you don't really look forward...
...create a sense of connection between the couple, the EFT therapist creates an environment in which both spouses feel safe talking about their feelings, needs and fears. Like Suzanne and Tom, most couples are pleasantly surprised to hear that the feelings behind apparently hostile behavior are not rejection but a need to connect with their partner. Without that emotional security, Johnson says, all the communication skills in the world won't rebuild a relationship. "You can teach people communication skills up the wazoo," she says, "but if they're afraid of losing the person they depend on, they...