More on marriage and divorce
In my column two weeks ago, I supported the concept of counseling before marriage. A number of you disagreed, and challenged me to provide more statistics about marriage and divorce.
Here is at least some of that informaiton, provided by Rebecca Starnes, coordinator for Family Programs for the Family Life Council:
What is the divorce rate in Guilford County? Is it growing, holding steady or falling?-
... In general, ... the divorce rate is declining. But it is also worth noting that the marriage rates are also declining. Experts have suggested that fewer people are divorcing because fewer are marrying -- more couples are cohabiting. You might want to note, though, that Guilford County used to have a much higher divorce rate than the rest of N.C. We now have the same rate as the state -- an improvement. Just a note, the Guilford County Community Marriage Covenant was first signed in 1997.
Is there any empirical data that suggest counseling works?
Yes and no. Educational programs that teach couples to effectively manage conflict and communicate are helpful. Programs are most successful when couples receive support before they marry or before there are serious problems. Counseling can be very effective but it can also not work.
First, one study found that couples wait many years from when they first feel there might be problems until they actually seek counseling. During all of those years, problems grow and fester and counseling may be too late. Also, there are counselors who may use techniques that are not helpful -- such as focusing on individual happiness as the number one priority rather than on interpersonal connections (to see a write-up of this position, somewhat controversial, follow this link to an article on the Web site for the Coalition for Marriage, Family, and Couples Education
Can you tell me more about how the classes in Guilford County are structured and what is taught?
The Family Life Council’s Guilford County Marriage Resource Center offers several different programs on marriage. The two most common are "Couple Communication" and "8 Habits of a Successful Marriage." The "Couple Communication" program, groups of four to 10 couples, meets for four weeks and involves numerous activities, some videos, and discussion to teach the basics of effective communication and how to use these communication skills to solve conflicts. The "8 Habits of a Successful Marriage" is our most popular marriage program right now. This program is from the Franklin Covey organization and applies the "7 Habits of Effective People" to marriage. Couples meet in a group setting for three to eight weeks and go over habits that help build and maintain healthy marriages. The habits include things that increase cooperation and connection in the couple, improving conflict resolution, making the partner a priority and so forth.
With both programs, and actually any Family Life Council program, we take great care to create an atmosphere within the group that is effective for adult learning. People can share if they feel like it, silently listen if they prefer (some people enter afraid that we will call on them to discuss their most personal issues) We have activities to make points and increase interest.
Comments (4)
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"Is there any empirical data that suggest counseling works?
Yes and no."
There's something here for everyone. Allen, you take the "yes," and I'll take the "no."
I'm delighted to see that the Franklin Covey self-help industrial complex has effectively cornered the market on marriage training in Guilford County, apparently at a discount rate, since the Covey franchise has added a free Habit (8, up from the normative 7 Habits of most Covey programs, including its central franchise for Effective People). I suppose Guilford County couldn't pony up for the Tony Robbins program, although it may have found funding from that wierd guy with the question-mark suit who promises government dollars for everything. I'm sure the listening exercises, sharing techniques, hot-coal walking, collective falling and catching, puppetry, and role playing that constitute the core technologies of the self-help industry are useful to some humans desiring to become registered Effective People or Effective Spouses. Still, I should prefer that such people achieve Effective status on their own dime.
Posted on March 20, 2007 2:49 PM
You're a mean man, Mr. Grinch.
Posted on March 20, 2007 6:48 PM
Allen:
Studies of the effectiveness of marital interventions are notoriously uneven. The problem is that most of the interventions are marketed, therefore the creators have strong incentives to fudge results and only weak incentives to open their studies up to independent review. Brian's right that there is a lot of snake-oil in this, but there also is some good. He is wrong in saying that there is no empirical data supporting these programs.
A small number of independent, credible studies have been done. A very good peer-reviewed meta-analytic study was done in 1995. A link is here. Some newer and better studies may now be out.
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in Washington is currently funding numerous evaluations of marital and couples programs, mostly aimed at helping low-income parents. I worked at the ACF for a year serving as a research analyst who focused mostly on developing evaluation strategies for these programs. I have to admit that I came to the ACF as a skeptic about these types of programs. Having studied them, it's clear that there's a mix of good, bad and downright awful. The good programs, however, deserve more study.
One especially promising program combines child birth education with about education about couple strains for new parents; it would be a simple and inexpensive add-on to standard Lamaze classes.
Pre-marital education also appears to be useful. Many demoninations with professional clergy already require this.
Posted on March 21, 2007 8:11 AM
I don't mean to reject categorically that decent and useful premarital programs might exist. But I'm certainly skeptical, especially if it's a program the state is paying for. Leaving aside the question of whether the state should pay for any such program, I assume that if the state does pay, it will pay for the touchy-feeliest, politically correctest, mind-numbingly banalest, creepiest program it can find. I say this having endured numerous state-sponsored programs on sexual harassment, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, etc., all of which did nothing but shrink my heart two further sizes too small.
Posted on March 22, 2007 2:10 PM