The Marriage Savers
	Does couples therapy really work? The divorce rate says no, but a new breed of therapists offers hope
	By Richard Corliss and Sonja Steptoek

Posted Monday, March 29, 2004; 21:00 HKT
Writer Ambrose Bierce long ago defined love as "a temporary insanity, curable by marriage." It's truer to say the first blush of love is a vacation from reality; marriage is the job you return to. You might like your job, even love it. But you have to work to keep it. Today there's no shortage of professionals ready and willing to pitch in with the task—especially in the U.S., where the couples-counseling business has exploded over the past 40 years. America is clearly the place to start if you want a cutting-edge answer to the question, "Can this marriage be saved?" In 1966 there were only about 1,800 experts practicing in the field, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2001 the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy listed 47,111 marriage and family therapists in the U.S. and estimated that they treat 863,700 couples a year.

Yet how many were helped? The growth of the marriage-industrial complex has not done much to slow the American divorce epidemic. In 1965 the divorce rate was 2.5 per 1,000 people; it reached a high in 1979 and 1981, of 5.3 per 1,000. Today the figure hovers at about 4.0, pretty much where it has been for five years. In some quarters, the suspicion has lingered that the therapist's job is to validate a patient's complaints and act as a minister in reverse, putting couples asunder. "The idea of therapist neutrality often came down to support for breaking up," says William Doherty, director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota. And therapists weren't appreciated for it. In a 1995 Consumer Reports poll, couples seeking therapy gave marriage counselors low grades for competence.

Lately, however, a new breed of therapist and "marriage educator" is shaking up the profession. These counselors reject the passive, old-style therapies that emphasize personal growth over shared commitment and instead take a more aggressive, hands-around-the-neck approach to saving marriages. "They feel therapists have been too quick in calling an end to relationships and having people move on," says University of Chicago sociology professor Linda Waite. The new breed also advocates premarital skill training and early intervention in problems—learning the ropes before tying the knot. "It's like a vaccination," says Waite, "instead of having to do surgery when something goes wrong."

The new, pro-marriage generation "is young, far more conservative and more religious" than traditional therapists, says Doherty, author of Take Back Your Marriage. "This generation has seen the fruits of the divorce revolution. And they don't think they have to be value-neutral about it." They also tend to be pragmatists. Many of them favor short-term, low-cost interventions based on methods with a record of proven success.

These qualities have drawn the support of American religious leaders and conservative politicians—including First Husband George W. Bush, who'd like to make marriage education for young couples part of welfare reform. "This is a social movement," says Doherty, "that involves government, church, professional and laypeople." How do these therapies and lessons in connection work? A look at some methods of the movement:

GOING TO PREP SCHOOL
PREP, short for Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program, aims to be the industry leader in research-based couples education. Its tenets, which emphasize structured communication, are ingredients in a variety of programs for teens, pre-marrieds and long-marrieds. The program's reach extends beyond the U.S. There are instructors trained in PREP methods in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and Japan. "It is very usable in an Asian setting," says Rita Yuen-wa Leung, a marriage counselor who works through a Christian church in Taipei. "Because of the influence of globalization, couples in Asian cities are more like American couples nowadays."

Rod Grimm Lewis and his wife, Victoria, paid $400 to attend a two-day PREP seminar in Los Angeles in a final attempt to save their 28-year marriage. "I think this will help," says Victoria, the more eager of the two. "I think of it as chemotherapy." Rod figures he's being a good sport. "I came because she asked me to," he says. "I'm about 5% of the problem, and she's 95%." Marc Sadoff, the workshop leader, says, "It's good to hear that you can acknowledge you're 5%. So many people can't see any role in the problem."

Positive communication, like Sadoff's comment, is the backbone of PREP, developed in the 1980s by psychologists Howard Markman and Scott Stanley, co-directors of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver. In developing it, Markham spent years taping couples having arguments and devising ways to break the bad habits. The method, which relies partly on videos of other couples using the technique, is continually tweaked in light of new research, says Stanley. "The idea was to build a program for couples that was based on sound research," he says, "rather than armchair clinical speculation."

Sadoff, a clinical social worker trained in PREP, explains the method to the Lewises and a younger couple sharing the session. They are to agree to set aside a time each week to talk over their problems. These discussions must follow certain rules, which can be posted on the refrigerator door. "The word I is allowed," Sadoff says. "You is not." The partners take turns talking, without interruption. The speaker makes brief statements, which the listener must paraphrase to show he understands what was said. There are also time-outs, which allow one partner to leave the room for an emotional break. That's a scary notion for Victoria, who says that since childhood she has never felt she could leave a heated discussion without repercussions. "Where would I go?"

Rod and Victoria give it a try. While Victoria is speaking, Rod interjects to ask a question. That's not allowed, he's told. Later he doesn't correctly paraphrase what she said. Rod tries again. When he gets it right, Victoria smiles and says, "Yes! That's good." For a moment they have connected. But Rod is struggling to remember his role, and Victoria still feels unnatural: "Does anyone really talk like this?'' Sadoff assures her she will get better with practice. He explains that, although artificial, the technique provides a safe way for couples to talk about thorny issues. "We're after progress, not perfection," he says.

Six months after the first session—and despite follow-up therapy with Sadoff—problems linger. "We tried, but the techniques just don't take care of the deeper issues," says Rod, who is thinking of ending the marriage. "The future of our relationship doesn't look good."

But many evaluators award PREP high marks. While two studies did not find it more effective than other methods, two others, involving a total of 210 couples, found that those who take PREP, either before marriage or after, have lower rates of breakup and divorce than couples who took a different training class or did nothing. Also, seven studies involving about 500 couples concluded that PREP participants had less negative communication for up to five years after the course. Men are particularly partial to the method.

Such results have made PREP popular around the world and in a wide range of settings, including U.S. military bases and churches. Oklahoma has embraced it as part of a $10 million government initiative to reduce divorce. That's how Shelitha and John Coleman Jr. came to PREP in November, in a Christianized version offered free at their church, G.A.P. [God's Apostolic Prophetic] Restoration Tabernacle in Oklahoma City. The Colemans' marriage of nearly two years was doing fine, but John's parents didn't seem to think so and were interfering. "They wanted me to have the same kind of marriage they had, where I'm the man and I run the whole show," explains John, 28. He and Shelitha, 29, needed a way to declare their independence without sounding rebellious.

PREP techniques helped them do that while improving their own communication. John's parents, says Shelitha, "were having trouble letting go. Our talk revealed some things about how they feel about seeing their children grow up and live on their own. Now all four of us are using PREP methods." The religious aspect of the program was important to the couple. "We make the word of God part of the foundation of our marriage," says John. "In terms of communicating, it shows up in principles about being honest with your partner about everything. When a difficult problem comes up, you shouldn't hide."

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