Am working on grading some papers for my Advanced Marital Counseling class. I had my students interview a couple to discern strengths, weaknesses, characteristics of the emotional and relational dance, and then write them a letter summarizing what they observed and possible recommendations. While grading papers aren’t particularly fun, reading these letters was very exciting. Here’s what I observed:
1. First, I was proud of my students ability to carefully and respectfully write a brief history of the marriage and be able to rejoice with the good, acknowledge the difficult, and not pathologize but show how even the difficult had many hints of good things (without sounding like sicky sweet Pollyanna)
2. My students were able to describe without judgment the couple’s dance style and even normalize while recommending changes for each person.
3. I wondered if these letters would be the blessing to the couple as they were to me. Would it help them see beauty in ashes, growth in pain, joy in hardships?
4. I have sometimes done this for couples I counsel. I find you can get to points that you can’t get to when you have 3 people in the room. I’m considering do this on a regular basis with my couples.
Musings on Faith and Psychology 