Does marriage counselling work? Not always, according to the largest ever survey of Irish couples in marriage counselling.
Forty per cent of those who participated in the study believed that their marriages had improved as a result of counselling. But 50 per cent experienced no improvement and 10 per cent stated that their marriages were worse off after counselling.
Unhappy Marriages: Does Counselling Help? by Dr Kieran McKeown for Accord and the Department of Social & Family Affairs, also found that between 20 and 25 per cent of partners were reported to have improved their behaviour as a result of marriage counselling.
"It was always the partner who needed changing," he told his audience at the launch of the report in Dublin yesterday by the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan.
The Accord study found that women are more likely than men to use physical force in an argument.
Thirty per cent of women admitted to having used physical force, slightly more than men at 24 per cent. In the vast majority of relationships where use of force was an issue, both partners used force - not just one. "If I've been hit, it's likely that the use of force was mutual," says Dr McKeown.
One thousand people participated in the survey, filling in questionnaires at the outset of counselling, and six months after counselling had ended. Unfortunately, only 150 clients responded to the final questionnaire. This dwindling of research subjects down to 15 per cent of the original number is bound to have influenced the results in favour of those who were pleased with the counselling experience, said Dr McKeown.
Women were more highly stressed than men going into marriage counselling, were more likely than men to have initiated marriage counselling and felt worse about their marriages.
Eighty-six per cent of women were dissatisfied, compared to 77 per cent of men. Four in 10 women were unhappy enough to score in the divorce range on a test of their satisfaction, while just two in 10 men scored in the divorce range.
The patterns of handling conflict in marriage were predictable: while women wanted to talk things out and be listened to, men tended to be avoidant. Women actually ranked not being listened to as worse than being hit by their partner.
Women were three times more upset about not being listened to than men were. Men were three times more likely than women to feel upset by criticism. This "demand-withdrawal" dynamic where the woman tries to confront the issues which the man seeks to avoid, is typical of the unhappy marriage.
Eighty five per cent of clients were stressed when they began the counselling process. Sixty per cent of women and 55 per cent of men said counselling had relieved their stress.
Only seven to eight sessions of counselling are required to produce a positive result, the research found. Any more than that is a waste of resources, Dr McKeown concluded.