Best Relationship Advice Ever: Express Appreciations
Two hundred examples of what real couples appreciate about each other and their relationships along with tips for times when you can’t find anything right to say.
Virginia Satir’s Most Memorable Words of Wisdom
This week, Fatherhood Channel is celebrating Virginia Satir’s 97th birthday with some of our favorite Virginia Satir quotes. PAIRS Foundation, where Virginia Satir served as founding chairperson, is offering 14 free posters featuring many of Virginia Satir’s most notable quotes.
Studies Offer Insights into Value, Principles of Evidence-Based Relationship Skills Training
Virginia Satir, known as the “Mother of Family Therapy,” and Dr. Marty Sullivan, a pioneer of Duke University’s Integrative Medicine program, were among the earliest innovators in their fields to integrate relationship skills training into modern approaches to promoting health and wellness. Findings from a five-year federally funded study provide significant evidence validating the models they embraced.
Relationship Skills Classes Gaining Traction
More and more couples are participating in marriage education and relationship skills training. Two recent studies provide strong scientific evidence that brief educational programs deliver lasting improvements in marital satisfaction, resilience, and can prevent divorce.
I Am Me: Rachel Rubel, Highland Park, Florida
Rachel Rubel, a Licensed Clinical Psychiatric Social Worker in Highland Park, Florida, said using the Daily Temperature Reading regularly created the foundation for her happy marriage.
I Am ME: Pam Weber, St. Louis, Missouri
Pam Weber, MSW, helps St. Louis couples respond to relationship challenges from a place of compassion and love instead of fear and defensiveness.
Marriage education helping children of baby boomers create new models for love, intimacy
For generations, marriage education came from our parents. We watched how they interacted with each other, how they navigated the challenges and chapters of their lives, and what marriage meant to them. Recent studies show that the children and grandchildren of the baby boomer generation have become increasingly cautious about their own decisions regarding marriage and family, striving to create models for their lives that may be vastly different than the examples they saw from their parents.
Marriage therapy or marriage education?
For couples experiencing continued marital distress, two recent studies show the potential for significant, lasting improvement through marriage education and marriage therapy. Considering the emotional, health, social, and economic benefits of sustaining healthy marriages, the studies offer strong incentive for couples to pursue marriage education or marriage therapy before actively considering divorce.
Questions to ask a potential marriage therapist
Going to a marriage therapist may be one of the worst decisions a couple can make for their relationship. For many, it’s the beginning of an expensive, time-consuming journey that often contributes to divorce. Through incompetence, neutrality, pathologizing, and undermining relationships, therapists can actually harm marriages and lead couples rapidly down the road to divorce. Consider asking these important questions before deciding if marriage therapy is right for you. As an alternative to marriage therapy, many couples have found marriage education far more effective.
Research Report: PAIRS Relationship Skills Training Helps Men Succeed as Husbands and Fathers
Research demonstrates that PAIRS relationship skills training, a behavioral/cognitive educational approach developed, evaluated, and refined over a quarter century, has the potential to reverse the trend of marital and family breakdown and significantly contribute to strengthening families and improving outcomes for children.
