Enhancing Closeness and Intimacy
Lastly, a marriage counselor can employ techniques designed to enhance closeness and intimacy.
This may come as news to some people, but marriage counseling isn’t just for diagnosing and solving problems. It can also be supportive and enriching; indeed, your marriage doesn’t have to be on the rocks before you set an appointment.
A marriage counselor can teach ways of getting to know one’s partner better, establishing a friendship, and learning ways to show one’s affection and feelings. A counselor can also give couples exercises on how to provide mutual support. Interventions like these have a preventive function; they can make a marriage resilient and partners capable of tackling challenges on their own.
These three marriage counseling techniques are just a few that your counselor may have up his or her sleeve. There is really not one technique that is best; it really depends on the couple’s situation, the couple’s willingness to change and the counselor’s skill in executing them. The best results really come when you confer with your counselor, so that you can both come up with a counseling plan tailor-fit to your marital needs.
Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch, MA, is an expert in marriage, pre-marriage education, and working with teenagers at risk. He is the executive director of Shalom Task Force and maintains a private practice in Brooklyn. For an appointment or to watch his free video series on marriage and parenting, visit www.JewishMarriageSupport.com call 646-428-4723 or email: [email protected].
