Marriage Encounter: A Critical Examination (original) (raw)

Marriage Encounter: A Critical Appraisal

Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 1978

This paper describes and evaluates the Marriage Encounter movement from theoretical and clinical perspectives. While acknowledging that Marriage Encounter responds to a need among many couples for greater marital closeness, the authors raise concerns about potentially destructive and illusory effects of the Marriage Encounter experience. The paper calls for more dialogue between professionals and leaders of the Marriage Encounter movement as well as for empirical evaluations of the program's effects.

Marriage Encounter Weekends: Couples Who Win and Couples Who Lose

Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 1986

This study examined interview and essay data for 50 married couples who had the most positive or most negative reactions in a larger sample ofparticipants in Marriage Encounter weekends. We were interested in describing the experiences of couples who years later believed they were strongly helped by the program or who believed their marriages deteriorated because of the program. Content analysis of interview transcripts and written essays indicated that 7 couples experienced highly positive changes apparently related to Marriage Encounter, and that 9 couples experienced significant negative changes apparently related to Marriage Encounter, The other 34 couples were equally divided between "somewhat positives" and "neutrals." Retrospective analysis of the condition of marriages prior to the Marriage Encounter weekend revealed that both the highly positives and the negatives were likely to report grave marital distress prior to the weekend. Based on the findings reported here, the authors suggest that distressed couples who attend Marriage Encounter weekends are susceptible to serious further deterioration, The paper concludes with recommendations for clinicians in treating Marriage Encounter casualties, and for the Marriage Encounter organization in screening participants and modifying the program to diminish the likelihood of program-induced deterioration. This study is the fourth in a series of reports on potential hazards of Marriage Encounter, a Church-sponsored marriage enrichment program whose leaders claim has enrolled more than one million couples since its inception in 1967. In the first paper, Doherty, McCabe and Ryder (1978) noted that Marriage Encounter is responding to important needs in many couples for greater marital closeness and that many couples testify to very positive experiences with the weekend program. At the same time, the authors faulted the program's emphasis on marital unity, emotional "highs," ideological purity, and authoritarian methods. This paper also discussed the authors' personal and professional concerns about the ideology and methods of Marriage Encounter. The second report, by Doherty and Walker (1982), analyzed 13 clinical examples of couples whose therapists believed had been harmed by participation in a Marriage

Couples' Long-Term Evaluations of Their Marriage Encounter Experience

Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 1983

This retrospective survey was conducted to determine how couples felt about their Marriage Encounter experience an average of four years late,: One hundred twenty-nine couples were randomly selected from those who attended a National Marriage Encounter weekend in Eastern Iowa over a ten-year period. The results indicated that about 80% of the couples reported a totally positive experience. The most frequently cited positive aspect of the program was the "dialogue" or communication technique designed to encourage the expression of feelings. Nearly one i n ten couples reported three or more negative effects of the program on their relationship. The most frequently cited negative effect was that needs were identified on the weekend but not subsequently fulfilled, resulting in greater frustration for the respondent. Within the design limits of a retrospective survey, we concluded that Marriage Encounter is viewed as a helpful experience by most couples, but that a significant minority of couples may experience negative consequences of the program.

Marital Psycho-Spiritual Intervention (MP-SI): An Intervention for Blessing Marriage Relationships

Jurnal Pembangunan Sosial

This article presents the Marital Psycho-Spiritual Intervention (MP-SI), which provides the married couples and helping professionals with knowledge and skills for strengthening marriage relationships. MP-SI is an intervention that specifically developed to help Muslim married couples build a close relationship with Allah SWT, with themselves, and with their respective couples. This intervention is a structured format. In each session, the participants are exposed to the knowledge of Islamic marriage. The content of this intervention takes into account the content of the Holy Quran on man’s creation, which consisted of four important elements, nafs (soul), aql (intellect), qalb (heart), and ruh (spirit). The participants are exposed to effective communication skills, worked as teams to resolve problems, managed conflicts without decreasing closeness, preserved, and enhanced attachment through communication elements, conflict resolutions, forgiveness, sakinah (tranquility), mawaddah ...

Marriage as a Spiritual Discipline: Principles and Benefits

2014

Christians use spiritual disciplines such as prayer, fasting, and journaling as methods to enhance their relationship with God. However, Christian rates of divorce are not different than the United States average where more than one in three first marriages ends in divorce. This is despite a Christian belief that marriage is a special relationship. The rate of divorce among Christians should be reduced. Marriage can be practiced as a spiritual discipline that will benefit the relationship as well as yielding sought after spirituality. Marriage as a spiritual discipline would help couples increase marital satisfaction, thus driving down the divorce rate. A survey on marriage attitudes and needs given to random adults will expose areas of marital agreement and discord. Principles of practicing marriage as a spiritual practice can be shown through survey, case studies, and analysis of existing data.

Couple Therapy with Religious Couples

Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2008

Although 95% of married couples identify with a particular religion, there is great variation in how couples rely on their religion to define or structure their relationship. Various denominations will imply particular "rules" or will shape how the couple deals with interpersonal and family challenges, such as sexuality, parenting, and power. In this article, we review couple relationships within a religious context and advance several treatment principles for treating religious couples. We present a clinical case to illustrate marital therapy with a religious couple, with an Adlerian context.

Marriage as a Conjugal Reality

Marriage As A Conjugal Reality ~ From the Frontlines to the Sublime: Why Man & Woman?, 2018

Marriage as a Conjugal Reality is a resource for those called to promote and defend the Catholic understanding of marriage as the joining of one man and one woman. The first section recounts the Marriage Battle of Massachusetts (1997-2007) from the author's frontline perspective. The story of the heroic witness of those Catholics and their allies is told to inspire and encourage future witnesses. The second section offers a theological reflection on why sexual difference matters to marriage as the means for understanding who God is, who we are, and what is the nature of the bond of love that exists between God and humanity. That bond of divine love is conjugal because by it God has become one flesh with us--and thus the conjugal, one-flesh union of man and woman, joined as husband and wife, is uniquely capable of reflecting and making present this supernatural reality. Removing sexual difference from the definition of marriage eliminates marriage's capacity to be the principle sign of the intimacy that God desires with each one of us. Recognizing marriage as a conjugal reality is thus central to conveying the entirety of the Good News of Christianity.

Journal of Clinical Psychology ♦ 2009 ♦ Couple therapy with religious couples.

Although 95% of married couples identify with a particular religion, there is great variation in how couples rely on their religion to define or structure their relationship. Various denominations will imply particular ''rules'' or will shape how the couple deals with interpersonal and family challenges, such as sexuality, parenting, and power. In this article, we review couple relationships within a religious context and advance several treatment principles for treating religious couples. We present a clinical case to illustrate marital therapy with a religious couple, with an Adlerian context.

Marital Aspects of Religious Life

In religious life members live in community, permanently vowing the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In marriage, a man and woman exchange vows and consent, permanently committing to both the ends of having and educating children, and supporting one another (Cahall 2014, 104-105). Both of these commitments are community-based and lifelong, yet while marriage is an "intimate partnership of life and love" (GS 48), religious life "derives from the mystery of the Church," that it may "show forth Christ and acknowledge herself to be the Savior's bride. Religious life in its various forms is called to signify the very charity of God in the language of our time" (CCC 926). It is therefore apparent that while religious life is not the same thing as holy matrimony, it nonetheless represents an equivalently allencompassing commitment, even a "marriage" in verisimilitude. What follows then offers context and reflection on different marital aspects of religious life, that it may be better understood as a marital commitment in its own right. First I refer to scripture, in which the bases for each commitment are rooted. In a Christian context, marriage is by far the elder, described in Genesis 2:21-25: