Marrying Well: The Clinician's Guide to Premarital Counseling

Abstract

Premarital counseling is a relatively new professional sub-specialty, and twenty-first century clinicians are encountering new types of couples, with new problems. People marry later in life, often outside of their ethnic, racial, or religious backgrounds, and they frequently cohabit prior to marriage. The problems of today's couples are unlike those encountered by their parents or grandparents, and a new crop of premarital issues arise well before the walk down the aisle. It is undoubtedly less costly—both financially and emotionally—for couples to obtain counseling before marriage than to face significant, potentially marriage-threatening conflicts after tying the knot. Premarital counseling or therapy can help couples not only stay together, but stay together happily. In Marrying well, two seasoned marriage and family therapists introduce the wide variety of couples a clinician may see, and explain how best to guide them through the maze of premarital issues. For example, readers will meet a 40-year-old man, never before married, engaged to a woman with two children from her previous marriage—children who are not happy about the remarriage. Lesser Bruun and Ziff also introduce a couple that want to marry despite the fact that the woman is fully aware that the man is not in love with her. And then we meet a 55-year-old Caucasian man who wishes to marry his 25-year-old former student—who happens to be Chinese. These examples, based on actual cases the authors have worked with, illustrate the diversity of couples seeking premarital therapy today. Interweaving practical tips and strategies into the case stories, Lesser Bruun and Ziff provide a brief yet comprehensive overview of the history and evolution of the institution of marriage, as well as a summary of the major research findings on couple therapy and premarital counseling. They go on to present the eight premarital stages most couples experience, offering an effective framework and providing helpful guidelines for all therapists and counselors who work with couples. Warm, humorous, and optimistic, this book is an engaging and eminently useful introduction to a forward-looking, evolving, and increasingly in-demand discipline. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: jacket)