What is Hope-Focused Marriage Counseling?

The number of couples looking for marriage counseling is big. Actually the number is bigger than the number of people looking for help with various well known psychological issues such as anxiety, depression, crisis and past trauma.

When marriage problems and challenges are getting too big, a lot of couples look for help from their pastors. Often the advice they receive is not effective and will cause disappointed couples to divorce and leave their church.

Professional marriage counselors are able to help about 50% of the couples that are seeking therapy to improve their marriage. It is likely to beleive that these statistics also apply to pastors. To increase the success rate, it is neccessary for pastors to be able to offer effective counseling. This is why learning hope-focues marriage counseling techniques will be useful for pastors.

Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Ph.D is the author of Hope-Focused marriage counseling. The book was written to help couples through serious marital problems in a compassionate and effective way. In contrast to some counseling methods, this is a method that is hope-focused rather than focused on problems and help the couple observe that change is possible.

In his book he offers a three-part hope-focused approach to counseling that teaches couples methods they can use to help them change and to strengthen their determination to wait on God.

We all have our areas of weakness that we should consider working on. Worthington's method help couples correct their weaknesses and the book is further exploring eight areas where couples often experience marriage problems.

The main focus of this therapy method is to increase hope between the lovers, using principles from the Holy Scripture and depending on the Holy Spirit to work in the couple and help them deal with challenges and issues. A variety of psychological methods are integrated with Christianity to form this counseling method.

In hope-focused marriage counseling, hope is defined as having willpower or desire to change, knowledge of how to change, as well as having waitpower or a faith that Jesus is always there and helping us get through it. Hope is required to change and is therefor emphasized througout the counseling sessions.

For many marriage counselors and partners the goal is to improve marriages and reduce the divorce rate, while others opinion is that the goal is figuring out what is best for each individual. In hope-focused marriage counseling divorce is considered a failure, however, that does not mean that saving the marriage is always the most important consideration. The safety of the couple seeking relationship counseling is always the most important consideration.

Find more Christian marriage counseling information to help improve your marriage. Learn how the key concepts in Hope-Focused marriage can help you experience that change is possible.