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What Is Christian Marriage Counseling?
Christian marriage counseling is cognitive behavioral-based counseling for married Christian couples.
This counseling incorporates psychotherapy with Christian belief practices.
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Couples can begin the process of resolving conflict, resentment, and miscommunications of the present and past.
They learn how toforgive and healfrom circumstances that are negatively impacting the marriage.
All this is accomplished alongside the incorporation of spirituality and Christian tenets into the counseling sessions.
Other assignments would usually be tailored to enhance communication and help better understand the others perspective.
This could simply be implementing learned communication skills into everyday life.
These interventions are not only practiced by counselors who are pastors or clergy leaders but clinicians as well.
They often incorporate Bible scriptures as a reference to relevant subject matters pertaining to marriage.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive-behavioral therapy(CBT) is often incorporated into Christian marriage counseling.
Religious cognitive-behavioral therapy (RCBT) is integrated with cognitive-behavioralcouples therapy(CBCT).
RCBT enables an individual to explore their faith and relationship with God in a constructive and non-judgmental manner.
Christian marriage counseling offers benefits to all Christian couples.
Researchers found that a person having an individual relationship with God is positively associated with greater religious communication.
Some researchers have suggested the need for a stronger collaboration betweenmarriage and family therapists(MFT) and clergy.
This can produce confusion, increased frustration, and even regression in progress made in counseling.
In this scenario, it would most likely be better to remain consistent with sessions from just one source.
Every couple is different, so deciding what works best is dependent on that couple.
It is also important to consider whether you both would prefer a therapist or pastor as your marriage counselor.
Both have similar goals but could offer different benefits to the sessions.
Christian therapists are trained inpsychotherapy, which involves a more psychological approach to counseling while incorporating Christian belief practices.
double-check you both are willing to try counseling before making any decisions.
Individual Christian counseling is always an option if your partner does not agree to Christian marriage counseling.
Therapy only works when people put in the necessary work to better their lives.
There is a great likelihood that situations from the past will come up in these conversations.
It is important to dig deep and recognize factors that may be negatively impacting the relationship.
It is also possible for disagreements and miscommunication to occur regarding you and your partners relationship with God.
All of these challenging discussions are a part of the process and vital for growth within the relationship.
So, it’ll be important to really put in the work to get through these tough conversations.
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