What Is Your Favorite Approach in Therapy / Marriage Counseling

We saw a woman who specialized in couples communication and therapy. We each saw her for solo sessions and than for a couples session. It really helped having the solo sessions each time before the next couples session because you gave you a safe place to explore ideas and vent without risking hurting the feelings of your spouse, but the therapist has to be good about keeping the sessions separate and knowing what they are allowed to talk about in the couples sessions and what needs to remain private. Mine was great, she saved our marriage.

The most helpful thing for me was to find a no-nonsense counselor who could see the garbage for what it was and respectfully point it out. Someone who was not intimidated by either my husband or I.

We've seen more than I can remember and they have had all different backgrounds. Three who were exceptional:

One was a guy who was referred from a message board that I was on for women who had husbands who had a specific issue that was affecting our marriage. He had every degree under the sun, was freaking brilliant and did not take insurance, so we only did a few sessions because we could no longer afford to pay him $160 per hour. He was super-direct, didn't dance around things and was very "in your face" to my husband, which he responded well to.

Another was a female pastor of an evangelical Christian church that we do not attend (I'm Catholic, he's Jewish). She was referred by a friend and was wonderful. She refused to take payment and my husband really connected with her, even going to services at the church. She was so compassionate, hopeful, nurturing and realistic. Her qualifications are that she was divorced, is re-married, and had a blended family so she understood some of our problems first-hand.

Our current guy is my husband's psychopharmacologist. He has worked well because he is already an expert on my husband's mood disorder and knows how that affects our relationship.

My point is...it's largely hit or miss. We've seen people who look impressive on paper and have great credentials but they were a poor fit. There were people I liked but my husband hated and vice-versa. There were people we liked but they didn't really help us get anywhere. You should know within the first 2 sessions whether or not someone will work for you (the first session is an endless amount of HIPAA forms and payment agreements, the 2nd is when you actually get started on things).

Good luck to you - we've kissed a lot of frogs in our journey but the ones who have been helpful have kept us together.

Our couples counselor was recommended to us from the woman I saw for individual counseling. He regularly leads premarital counseling sessions and has his Master's in Divinity. Had I not had the referral, I might have sought someone else, but he was great. (the counseling group is a Christian group but with no dogma involved.. I loved the people I've worked with there.)

What I liked about our counselor is that he was able to validate both my husband's and my feelings without putting anyone down; he had a great sense of humor and was very empathetic. There are pieces of advice from him that I carry with me now, years later. He really encouraged us to talk, to describe what we were needing/feeling, and taught us how to 'fight fair', as they say. I couldn't specify an approach, and just checked their website to see if they specified any-- no.

The best thing I can say was that our time with our counselor really helped us. We went every two weeks for a year or so, then once a month. (we were moving through some different events in life and this support was so valuable). My best recommendation is to prepare that things don't get 'fixed' as quickly as we want, but that over the long term, marriage counseling is worth every penny.

No experience with Solution Focused Brief Therapy (but boy, that sounds intense!) or EMDR.