Marriage Counseling

Relationship counseling is the process of counseling the parties of a relationship in an effort to recognize and to better manage or reconcile troublesome differences and repeating patterns of distress. The relationship involved may be between members of a family or a couple (see also family therapy), employees or employers in a workplace, or between a professional and a client.

History of Marriage Counseling
Relationship counseling as a discrete, professional service is a recent phenomenon. Until the late 20th century, the work of relationship counseling was informally fulfilled by close friends, family members, or local religious leaders. Psychiatrists, psychologists, Counselings and social workers have historically dealt primarily with individual psychological problems. In many less technologically advanced cultures around the world today, the institution of family, the village or group elders fulfill the work of relationship counseling. Today marriage mentoring mirrors those cultures.

With increasing modernization or westernization in many parts of the world and the continuous shift towards isolated nuclear families, the old support structures are no longer there and the need for relationship counseling is greater than ever. In western society the trend is towards trained relationship Counselings; these are often volunteers who wish to help others, and are trained by either the Government or social service institutions to help those who are in need of counseling. Many communities and government departments have their own team of trained voluntary or professional relationship Counselings. Similar services are operated by many universities and colleges, often staffed by volunteers from among the student peer group. Some large companies maintain a full-time professional counseling staff to facilitate smoother interactions between corporate employees, to minimize the negative effects that personal difficulties might have on work performance.