# Signs of a good Marriage Counselor



## Riverside MFT (Oct 5, 2009)

As many are often looking for marriage counseling here are some ideas from Bill Doherty about good marriage counselors. Taken from What to Look For in a Marriage Therapist

*What to Look For in an Experienced, Competent Marriage Counselor: *The Do's and Don't of Marriage Counseling 

Most people don't know what to expect of a competent marriage therapist. Here are some qualities and actions that researchers have found to promote effective couples marriage counseling. 

Do's of Good Marriage Counseling 

•The therapist is caring and compassionate to *both* of you.
•The therapist actively tries to help your marriage and communicates hope that you solve your marital problems. This goes beyond just clarifying your problems.
•The therapist is active in structuring the session.
•The therapist offers reasonable and helpful perspectives to help you understand the sources of your problems.
•The therapist challenges each of you about your contributions to the problems and about your capacity to make individual changes to resolve the problems.
•The therapist offers specific strategies for changing your relationship, and coaches you on how to use them.
•The therapist is alert to individual matters such as depression, alcoholism, and medical illness that might be influencing your marital problems.
•The therapist is alert to the problem of physical abuse and assesses in individual meetings whether there is danger to one of the spouses.


*Don'ts of Bad Marriage Counseling *

•The therapist does not take sides.
•The therapist does not permit you and your spouse to interrupt each other, talk over each other, or speak for the other person. 
•The therapist does not let you and your spouse engage in repeated angry exchanges during the session. 
•Although the therapist may explore how your family-of-origin backgrounds influence your problems, the focus is on how to deal with your current marital problems rather than just on insight into how you developed these problems.
•The therapist does not assume that there are certain ways that men and women should behave according to their gender in marriage.


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## YinPrincess (Jul 31, 2011)

This is very helpful! Thank you for posting this! I am currently looking for a counselor, but am kind of clueless, so this helps a bunch!


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## Laurae1967 (May 10, 2011)

This is a good list. I would also add that a good therapist has appropriate boundaries with their clients.

YinPrincess - I have had really good luck with psychologists. They have more extensive training and in my experience have been a lot more effective and professional than other sorts of therapists I've seen. It might be a good place to start.


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## Riverside MFT (Oct 5, 2009)

I am always interested in hearing experiences regarding MC, good or bad.


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