Marriage Counseling?

[Adam Isaac]

Probably very basic, but I've never been married.

Psychologists run the show obviously, but what happens once you sit down? I don't mean to pry into anyone previous experiences, but to be honest, I have very little experience with psychologists. What kind of questions lead into the wife-husband interactions about their problems? Intro stuff I can figure out, but what do they ask?

What's the problem?
What would you like to change about your spouse?

This is for an early 30's couple without children. Spousal only.

Appreciate it.

[cynicide]

It's not as complicated as you probably think. I mean, basically you talk about your problems. Sometimes there's an incident that brings a couple to the therapist, sometimes it's due to a gradual decline in the relationship's health. You go over your background, your history, and try and figure out what's wrong and how to talk about it. Obviously the method can vary somewhat depending on the couple or the therapist. But it's I think it's usually a pretty intuitive process. Hope this helps.

[Adam Isaac]

Originally Posted by cynicide

It's not as complicated as you probably think. I mean, basically you talk about your problems. Sometimes there's an incident that brings a couple to the therapist, sometimes it's due to a gradual decline in the relationship's health. You go over your background, your history, and try and figure out what's wrong and how to talk about it. Obviously the method can vary somewhat depending on the couple or the therapist. But it's I think it's usually a pretty intuitive process. Hope this helps.

Cool. I can handle it, I just didn't know if there was protocol of argumentative questions or what.

It helps. Appreciate ya.

[Writer1]

I think every therapist has a different approach. This gives you tremendous latitude to make your therapist ANY type of character you want...funny/serious/studious/sleepy/incompetant,etc.

Why not just call up a therapist, tell him you're writing a screenplay and you'd like to take him out to lunch to talk.

I once called up a consulate and took a diplomat out golfing just so I could ask him questions about embassy operations...people LOVE to talk.

[scripter1]

You must first settle out who your characters are.

What is the counselor? Are they a church counseler or a worldly counselor?
Are they really in the job to help people or just for the money?
What is thier method?

Who are the people being counseled? Are they church members? What do they believe about marriage? What are the personality traits of the husband and wife? Is one an aggressor? Is one too needy? Too immature? A control freak?

Etc, etc.

Some typical questions.
What do you like about each other?
Why did you get married?
What bothers you the most about your spouse?
What do you expect the other person to do?
When he/she says (X) how do you feel?
When you say (x, y, or z) what do you WANT the other person to say back?
Give me an example of ________ behavior.
(abusive, manipulative, immature.....)

Here are the two that I hate the most!
What do you think you should change about YOURSELF?
Imagine you really ARE the problem. What should you do different?

On a first visit the counselor will usually ask "Ok, so why are we here?"
One partner will say some version of "Because I'm unhappy and want things to get better" OR "To fix THEM!"
and the other partner will say "Because they made me come."

It takes a while to break through the walls each partner may have up.
Eventually the counseler, whether they want to, like to, ought to, or NOT will form an opinion and begin to act based on that opinion.
Once that happens questions and statements will become quite pointed and SOMEBODY is going to get upset.

(In order for your film to really be interesting stuff needs to explode. Find Bill Martell's article titled When People Blow Up.)

Something fun to do will be to read several self help books from various counselers. ALL of them list examples of counseling sessions and comments.

[Jake Schuster]

Check out Dr. Melfi in "The Sopranos". In my experience, that is as close to how a real therapist works. Really, the first question a therapist asks, whether to a couple or an individual is, "So what's going on?"

A therapist only likes to nudge things along and let the client run off at the mouth.

[Baby_Neill]

Questions might also be influenced by the "counselor's" credentials. Is this person a psychologist, a psychatrist, or a priest? Or even the dreaded quack that just hung up a shingle and called themselves a marriage "counselor."

Two couples I know went to one guy who was a doctor only in China, not the US. His license said MD, but stated the China limitation. They were both very pleased with him, so I guess he must be okay... I don't know, though.

Questions can vary. The counselor might even have "workshops" or interactive exercises (ones that deal with trust issues, or role playing).

[sc111]

I went to marriage counseling with my now ex-husband. Clearly it didn't work for us.

Add to this -- he was also a licensed marriage & family counselor (oh, the irony), so I was in the room with two counselors. Such fun.

And my ex kept attempting to take over the session a-la, "Well, as I tell my clients." Actually -- it wasn't fun. It was exhausting.

Jake's right -- they usually open by asking what's going on to clarify the issues.

But for the life of me I can't recall where we went from there except for a general downhill direction all the way to a divorce lawyer.

I think I've blocked out the details of the experience.

EDITED TO ADD:

Wait - I just had a flashback. She had us fill out a questionaire asking each to define the issues, then she compared the two to see how we differed. (My ex didn't like doing it -- because he didn't use the technique in his practice.)

Maybe that helps?

[Adam Isaac]

I found my niche.

Thanks guys.