Knowns and Unknowns in Marriage Counseling Research

Soc work & psychol'al res emphasize the individual, but marriage counseling (MC) res must focus on patterns of interaction. Much MC literature to date is not concerned with res but with practice. An important growth phase of MC began with the post WWII concern with mental breakdown. The res done at one MC center is cited as an illustration. The difficulties encountered are described & several facts of general interest discovered during the investigation cited. These are: (1) systematic res can be carried on during & after counseling without 'apparent disturbance' to clients; (2) orientation to & participation by the clinical staff before the project prevents loss of time; (3) an interdisciplinary group can handle all phases of the work; (4) indices showing change in a person give an inadequate picture of the person in interaction; (5) indices measuring improvement in marital adjustment are not applicable to the measure of the effect of premarital counseling on later marital adjustment; (6) impressions of a given individual vary greatly with diff observers; (7) case records may be analyzed by persons of diff professional training with equal reliability; (8) case record analyses may afford a prediction of the client's views of the effects of MC, but not in the individual case; (9) people in marital conflict have clusters of, rather than single, problems; (10) the wife's employment is generally less of a `bone of contention' than is the husband's attitude toward it; (11) people who refuse to accept any or who accept all of the blame for marital difficulties are less likely to be helped than those who admit that each partner bears some responsibility; & (12) res tools tested in counseling may be retained because of their usefulness in the counseling process. The unknowns in MC include such concepts as competence in marriage, & with what it correlates positively; mental health & the family environment which produces it; whether one type of counseling is of greater benefit than another, or even that any type of help brings better results than no help over a period of yrs. Much res fails because it is oriented toward individual psychol. B. C. Healy.