|
|
|
|
Couple Counseling Strategy
"Let reason go before every enterprize, and counsel before every action."--Ecclesiasticus 38:33
PROCEDURE
1) Each takes a turn sharing an event that they are both upset about.
2) Each must be quite while the other gives their point of view, their reality regarding the event.
3) The counselor helps each to deal with their own thinking errors after their explanation, defense, offense, rationalization, distortion, case, etc., has been made.
PERQUISITES
1) First train in Empowerment Counseling (EC) or Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).
2) Explain the nature and purpose of the exercise before using it.
3) Get agreement to follow the exercise before using it.
GOALS/BENEFITS
1) To accept each other's reality without argument or resentment.
2) To learn to modify their own reality using the other's reality only if they believe they should--but never attempting to convince or coerce their partner to modify their reality.
3) Learn the value of acceptance, for example, peace.
4) Learn the importance of caring over the importance of being right.
5) End the game of playing court with each other.
6) By recognizing, removing, and replacing their own thinking errors, each member of the couple learns self-control, self-soothing, and emotional responsibility.
7) Help lessen whining, blaming, and damning.
8) Move towards understanding, compassion, negotiation, problem-solving, and coping with the relationship.
"You can be right or you can be happy."--Anonymous
"You can be right or righteous."--Annoymous
QUOTATIONS VARIOUS SOURCES
"A fool is only a fool because he won't see he is a fool."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery."--James Joyce
"Failure doesn't have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person."--Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 206
"When receiving correction, the wise seeks to learn and the fool seeks to justify with excuses."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
"My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction:"--Proverbs 3:11
"Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: and he that hateth reproof shall die."--Proverbs 15:5
"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth."--Hebrews 12:6
"If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?"--Hebrews 12:7
"But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons."--Hebrews 12:8
"The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism."--Norman Vincent Peale
"By honestly acknowledging your past errors, but never damning yourself for them, you can learn to use your past for your own future benefit."--Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 194.
"If we eliminated all errors, we would also eliminate much discovery, art, insight, learning, and creativity that results from facing errors."--Kevin Everett FitzMaurice
QUOTATIONS SCRIPTURE
"A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:"--Proverbs 1:5
"Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety."--Proverbs 11:14
"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise."--Proverbs 12:15
"Deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil: but to the counsellors of peace is joy."--Proverbs 12:20
"Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established."--Proverbs 15:22
"Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end."--Proverbs 19:20
"Every purpose is established by counsel: and with good advice make war."--Proverbs 20:18
"Take counsel, execute judgment; make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday; hide the outcasts; bewray not him that wandereth."--Isaiah 16:3
"Extol not thyself in the counsel of thine own heart; that thy soul be not torn in pieces as a bull [straying alone.]"--Ecclesiasticus 6:2
"As timber girt and bound together in a building cannot be loosed with shaking: so the heart that is stablished by advised counsel shall fear at no time."--Ecclesiasticus 22:16
"Give not over thy mind to heaviness, and afflict not thyself in thine own counsel."--Ecclesiasticus 30:21
"A man of counsel will be considerate; but a strange and proud man is not daunted with fear, even when of himself he hath done without counsel."--Ecclesiasticus 32:18
"And let the counsel of thine own heart stand: for there is no man more faithful unto thee than it."--Ecclesiasticus 37:13
"Let reason go before every enterprize, and counsel before every action."--Ecclesiasticus 38:33
"Gold and silver make the foot stand sure: but counsel is esteemed above them both."--Ecclesiasticus 40:25
Questions to Ask a Prospective Counselor