Premarital counseling, a specialized type of therapy usually provided by Marriage and Family Therapists (MFT or LMFT) and offers benefit to couples considering a long-term commitment such as marriage. Typically, the goal of premarital counseling is not only to identify and address any potential areas of conflict, but strengths as well.
Partners seeking counseling before marriage may also find that premarital counseling can help them better understand their expectations, and possibly misunderstandings, about marriage and address any significant differences in a safe and neutral environment.
Sometimes a church, mosque, or synagogue will require a couple to receive premarital counseling before being allowed to marry in that religious setting. While some pastors, clergy, and religious leaders will offer guidance to the couple, this guidance is more often focused on ecclesiastical/spiritual issues related to the pending marriage rather than developing and exploring well-researched skills and strategies aimed to improve the actual interactions and dynamics. Dr. Allemagne’s published dissertation research found that couples receiving premarital counseling from highly trained family science professionals experienced significantly higher rates of satisfaction with their premarital counseling experience than those that received services from non-trained professionals.
BENEFITS OF PREMARITAL COUNSELING
Couples counseling can help intimate partners address concerns that arise in the course of their relationship, but premarital counseling can help partners identify areas likely to cause conflict later on such as communication, finances, child-rearing methods, career goals, division of labor and work, and interpersonal family dynamics. Identifying and working through these issues in the early stages of the relationship often demonstrates long-term positive effects. A study published in the Journal of Family Psychology showed couples who had participated in some type of premarital counseling program were 31% less likely to divorce.
As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Dr. Allemagne has spent several years in direct clinical practice with couples, incorporative evidence-based research and scholarship into his practice. Dr. Allemagne has presented at several national conference on his work and research with couples and families.