Marriage Friendly Therapists - Why marriage friendly counseling?

Marriage Counseling - Hazardous to your Marriage or...?

William J. Doherty, Ph.D., is one of the leading marriage therapists in the U.S. He decided to co-found the Registry with Kathleen Wenger after writing why marriage therapy can be hazardous to your health and many years of hearing from couples with bad experiences with therapists who had poor skills or who gave up on the marriage too soon.

Why www.MarriageFriendlyTherapists.com?

In 1995 Bill Doherty wrote Soul Searching: Why Psychotherapy Must Promote Moral Responsibility in which he “came out” as a therapist who had abandoned neutrality about moral issues such as commitment and justice in human relationships. He wrote that therapists often unintentionally undermine marital commitment in particular by taking an individualistic approach to commitment: how it is working for you now, and what will make you happiest in the future? A few years later he gave a public talk on the subject titled “How Therapy Can Be Hazardous to Your Marital Health.” After it was distributed widely through the Web, that talk launched an unending stream of email stories from couples around the country about their bad experiences in marriage therapy, with many of these couples asking Bill to recommend a therapist who was trained in marital therapy and had a pro-commitment value orientation. Other than referring them to general directories of marriage and family therapists (which say nothing about whether the therapists work much with couples or about their value orientation), Bill felt stumped about providing these couples with resources. He dreamed of creating a registry of therapist who were specialists in marriage therapy and who held values about marriage that most couples expected of a marriage therapist. But Bill knew he did not have the time and expertise to do this project alone. Then he met Kathleen Wenger.

Kathleen’s journey towards the Registry began at a conference when she heard Bill speak about the problems of marital therapy in the land. She realized that something was missing in her training as a therapist, and she went on to read several of Bill’s books and pass them along to friends and family. A close family member realized after reading Take Back Your Marriage: Sticking Together in a World That Pulls Us Apart that this was exactly what his marriage needed. He called Bill in Minnesota to see if he could recommend a good like-minded therapist in California to help his failing marriage. Again, there was nowhere for Bill to send her relative with confidence. Kathleen realized that, although she is a trainer of therapists, she had the same problem when making referrals. Therapists generally don’t talk about their values, and she had no idea how even well-trained therapists approach situations such as when one spouse wants to save the marriage and the other is ambivalent about staying.

Bill and Kathleen first got together when Bill was a visiting faculty member at Pepperdine University in the summer of 2004. They found that they both had a passion for helping couples find the resources they need to succeed in their marriage, and Kathleen had the energy and commitment to partner in launching the project that Bill had dreamed out. They came up with the name “marriage friendly therapists” and they launched the Registry in June 2005. Their vision is that every couple sees a competent therapist to support them on their journey. Now Bill and Kathleen know where to refer couples around the country who want this kind of help.

About Bill Doherty

He is Professor of Family Social Science and Director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Minnesota. Bill is a licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed psychologist with 30 years of clinical experience. In 1992, he received the Significant Contribution to the Field of Marriage and Family Therapy Award from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. He serves on the editorial boards of most of the major family therapy journals in the United States, including Family Process, The Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, and The Journal of Feminist Family Therapy. He has authored eight books, including Soul Searching: Why Psychotherapy Must Promote Moral Responsibility and Take Back Your Marriage: Sticking Together in a World That Pulls Us Apart , edited five others, and has over 140 academic and professional articles and chapters. Bill is Past-President of the National Council on Family Relations, the oldest interdisciplinary family studies organization in North America, and the first recipient of the Margaret E. Arcus Outstanding Family Life Educator Award.

Kathleen S. Wenger, MA

Kathleen Wenger Kathleen S. Wenger, MA is Manager of Clinical Training and Professional Development and on the Adjunct Faculty in the Psychology Program at Pepperdine University's Graduate School of Education and Psychology. She oversees over 400 future marriage and family therapists and aides them, along with Pepperdine's alumni, in career placement. She also coordinates educational events for students and alumni.

Kathleen received her M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University in 1992 and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. For the past 12 years she has chaired the Community Counseling Consortium in Southern California, a setting where professionals from agencies and universities come together to discuss relevant issues within the psychology world. She is actively involved with the Board of Behavioral Sciences, the regulatory agency for therapists in Southern California.

Distinguished Advisors

We have assembled the most accomplished group of advisors in the field of marriage therapy: Sue Johnson, Ph.D., Michele Weiner Davis, MS.W., Andrew Christensen, Ph.D., Jon Carlson, Ph.D., Lori Gordon, Ph.D., Gayla Margolin, Ph.D., Scott Stanley. Ph.D., and Howard Markman, Ph.D. We look forward to working with them, and with therapists on the Registry, to improve the access of couples to good therapy.