CHARACTERISTICS OF SHORT‐CONTACT MARRIAGE COUNSELING

• Date: 01 December 1963
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.1963.tb00966.x
• Author: Meyer Elkin
• Published date: 01 December 1963

CHARACTERISTICS OF SHORT-CONTACT

MARRIAGE COUNSELING

Meyer Elkin

Supervising Conciliation Counselor

Conciliation Court

of

Los

Angeles County

(These are excerpts from a lecture given on April

5,

1963,

by

Meyer Elkin, Supervising Conciliation Counselor,

Los

Angeles

County Conciliation Court, at the School of Theology, Claremont,

California. The class consisted

of

ministers preparing them-

selves for pastoral counseling.

-

Editor)

In

this portion

of

my presentation

on

the

Los

Angeles Conciliation Court,

I

will focus

on

the character-

istics

of

the counseling process

itself

in short-contact

marriage counseling.

I

will

relate

myself to questions

often asked of

us,

by both lay and professional people,

such

as,

“How do we approach the partners in the mar-

riage?”; “How do we help

families

in marital conflict?”;

and, “What are the similarities, or differences, between

counseling in the Conciliation Court and marriage coun-

seling performed by counselors in other settings, public

and private?”

One important factor in helping

a

person

is

crea-

tive listening. Listening

is

one

of

the arts of counseling.

When you listen carefully to

a

human being in stress, and

your interest shows, and you convey

to

that person that

you care, and that you would like

to

be

of

help,

I

feel

that this dignifies that human being. At that moment in

time,

he

is

given

a

sense

of

self-worth. This

is

important,

since people who ask for help come

to

you

at

a

time

when they

no

longer

seem

able

to

find answers to prob-

lems

by themselves.

The listening I refer

to

is

a

disciplined listening

and a nonjudgmental listening which enables

a

person

to

let you share

some

of his private world with him. This

private world

is

a

troubled one, filled with conflict, con-

fusion and fearful impulses.

The process

of

listening

is

a

process

of

sharing

between counselor and client. In listening, the counselor

is

also giving

of

himself, and this may be viewed

as

a

form of love for another human being.

Love

in this sense,

in which the counselor respects

the

client’s individuality,

shows interest in his welfare, accords him dignity, and

is

sensitive to his feelings and motivations,

is

one of

the most mature forms of love. Without

these

kinds of

feelings for the client, there cannot

be

a

true helping

relationship.

In

counseling we provide ego-support at a time

when people are suffering from

a

great sense

of

failure.

When

a

marriage

is

falling apart, the partners in

it

many

times

feel

a

deep sense of personal inadequacy and

personal failure. Ego-support helps them keep their

heads above water

so

that they can take

a

look at what

is

happening

-

so

that they can make decisions.

Ego-

support helps them feel more worthwhile and

less

defeated;

it

stimulates self-respect. It cuts the chains which

im-

mobilize them and their ability to make constructive

changes and decisions.

We

work with the family in

a

crisis situation. I

think that this

is

extremely important in terms

of

results.

When

a

person comes

to

us,

he

is

in an acute

crisis

in

his

life.

A

crisis

often ,does something to

a

person’s

motivation to take this painful look

at

himself. It has

been said that

a

little bit

of

counseling when

a

person

is

“hurtin’ real bad,”

is

more effective than

a

lot

of coun-

seling when that person

is,

“not hurtin’

so

much.”

Relative to short-contact counseling, we are

asked, “HOW much information do you obtain from the

marriage partners?”

We

try

to

obtain only enough infor-

mation to understand the following: The problem areas

as

perceived by the client; what the basic problems

seem

to

be

(for

the presenting problems may be symptomatic

of

more basic problems), the motivation

to

preserve the

marriage, the desire and the capacity

to

use professional

help, the degree of awareness and insight into the prob-

lems,

the manner in which each partner in the marriage

has handled stress situations, and how both partners

have approached the decision-making process in the

marriage.

In

addition we strive to achieve

some

under-

standing of the dynamics

of

each personality and how

both people are interacting within the framework

of

the

marriage.

Each conciliation conference covers

a

period of

about two hours, in the course

of

which the parties are

seen separately and together. In the short space

of

ap-

proximately two to six hours per family

it

is

necessary

for the counselor to engage in sharp diagnostic thinking

and

to

provide intensive short-contact treatment. In this

process,

if

the counselor

feels

that

the problems are

extremely severe and that there

is

a

great deal

of

pathol-

ogy present, he will encourage the parties to accept

a

referral for ongoing counseling. If the parties agree to

this the counselor helps them

to

find

a

qualified commu-

nity counseling agency such

as

Family Service or

one

of

the private, nonprofit counseling agencies

on

the

Con-

ciliation Court referral

list.

About one-third

of

all

the couples served y the

Conciliation Court have problems that can

be

dea

P

t

with

through short-contact counseling. The other two-thirds

of

the clientele have problems of

a

psychological nature

that require ongoing help. Unless these latter couples

can accept sustained professional help their reconcilia-

tions are often short-lived.