Muslims and marriage counseling | SoundVision.com

Muslims and marriage counseling

Muslims and marriage counseling

Is your marriage in trouble? Have the virtually endless fights and arguments led you to a dead end? Are you seeking a solution?

One option offered to couples trying to save their marriage is to see a marriage counselor.

A marriage counselor advises couples with emotional or other personal difficulties. Counselors help them work out their problems by encouraging them to discuss and think about their problems. They also to try to find solutions that will help the couples deal with their problems.

On the surface, this seems like an arrangement that can work. But there are a number of considerations Muslims must keep in mind before seeking the help of a marriage counselor who does not have an Islamic orientation, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.

Dr. Akthtar Raza is a psychiatrist and medical director of the Piney Ridge Center Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri.

In an interview with Sound Vision, he gave a general account of what happens in marriage counseling in the mainstream social services structure.

First, the marriage counselor talks to the husband and wife together, as well as individually.

Raza notes that the person who usually seeks counseling amongst couples in marital disputes is the wife. In come cases, husbands do not want to come in so the counseling cannot obviously take place.

During a session, if the counselor sees the couple?s marriage as salvageable, and both the husband and the wife want to commit to making it work, the counselor will continue the counseling, moving on to the next step.

If however, the husband or the wife shows indifference and s/he does not care if the marriage lasts, the counselor will drops the case and will make no further attempt at counseling. If the couple both agree, counselling starts.

The stages of marriage counseling

There are three main stages in marriage counseling.

1. In the first five to six weekly sessions, the couple openly express all negative feelings about each other. They can sometimes be very hostile to each other.

Raza notes that this can be shocking for one or both partners, since they never realized the other feltt so negatively.

2. The next stage is extremely difficult. As the couple has openly conveyed negative feelings to each other, they are usually very angry with one another. In a number of cases, they may completely end coming to counseling.

3. If the couple survives the second stage and remain in counseling, the counselor asks each of them if they are still committed to maintaining their marriage.

If they are, the rest of the sessions (about 10 to 15) are focused on that. Muslim couples face problems when seeking marriage counseling in the mainstream

One major problem for Muslims who seek this type of counseling is its immediate emphasis on divorce.

Raza notes though that a counselor who is well-trained will never recommend divorce. S/he will only present it as one of many options.

This approach to a marital conflict poses difficulties for Muslim couples seeking counseling from non-Muslim marriage counselors or even Muslim counselors trained in the mainstream counseling system.

"Over and over again the complaints that I have heard from these couples when they are sent to so-called Muslim agencies is that these people are trained in the mainstream. They see a family or marriage and domestic violence case and their advice is divorce," says Shahina Siddiqui executive director of the Islamic Social Services Association of the United States and Canada (ISSA). She has been a counselor in the Winnipeg, Canada Muslim community for over 15 years.

"Couples have said 'Sr. Shahina, if we wanted divorce, we would go to lawyer, why would we go to a counsellor?,'" she adds. Siddiqui explains that when most Muslim couples seek marriage counseling, it's because they want a resolution to their disagreements, whether they are minor or even if they involve abuse like domestic violence.

The difference in approach when it comes to Islamic marriage counseling for husband wife relationship versus the mainstream one is that the former makes a serious effort to find what is positive in the couple's relationship before dismissing it as a divorce case.

"We will try our best to take whatever silver lining there is in the cloud and work on it and work on it and help our clients work on it, because the majority of them do not want to break the relationship but they are helpless," says Siddiqui.

"They are now in a situation where they cannot see that silver lining, we find it for them. We help them see it and we help them try to keep that marriage together. Not at any cost but if they are both willing and we see that there is good in this marriage, that something can be worked on, we encourage that" she adds.

May Allah guide us down the path of righteous people and help us in our marriages. We must keep making dua for marriage of ours and for its success.

 

Comments

This iarticle makes an excellent point that most conselling presents the divorce option as if it is a possible "happy solution", but that almost never is the case in reality because after the divorce you are sad anyway, moreover most often the couple individually repeats the same mistake with the next person if they remarry or they fix that problem in the next one which if they just did with the existing partner, they could have saved the marriage! What I disagree is the rosy picture on "muslim counsellors": Sr Shahina is a HUGE exception to the rule since most of them are even worse than the non-muslims more often as they put the onus of the psychological/emotional/family support on the woman as if she's some automaton : the man is given some blame only if he's violent or totally jobless. The reality is that if the wife is bearing the responsibilities that a man used to traditionally bear, then those "man's" rights shift to her too like qawwama which is qualified by "maintaining and protecting" the partner. Also they emphasize so much on the "mother's" (husband's mother!) importance, but mindless that it cannot violate the wife's rights or her staus of importance: bear in mind that Allah subhana wa ta'ala created a WIFE for Adam (AS) not a mother!!!!!

Location

Ottawa, Canada

this article does not give any solutions for those with problems.Being a counsellor for the last 15 years the single fact that seems to help couples, is to tell them to shift their paradigm from the spouse to Allah. If individuals start living to please Allah the outlook in their lives change. This ofcourse means they have to know what pleases Allah which will lead themto study quran and sunna atleast in relation to marriage.From then onwards the path is easy, both for the counsellow and theo couple, insha Allah.

Location

Srilanka

ON married. My husband after 12 years wants to divorce me because I cant get pregnancy. And marry a nother, I understand how he can do that to me and he want me to work and help him support his other wife and that's not fair to me.

Location

Birimingham, Alabama

He must be on drugs. Tell him to support himself and her. Just because u can't have kids does not mean that u become the husband or man in the relationship and start earning for both of them. Tell him to get his head out of the clouds and live in reality not fantasyland.

Location

HUMBLE

Bismi llahir rahmanir rahiym.As salaamu alaykum.Insha Allah, our community will turn to those who first base their counsel squarely on The Holy Qur'an and As-Sunnat ur Rasuli and competently use techniques and knowledge of contemporary psychotherapy; particularly the humanistic and transpersonal schools. In many ways counseling, psychotherapy and Islamic resources are not only compatible and conmplimentary, they have Islamic origins as also can be seen in the physical sciences. We can rediscover our roots and claim a viable space in clinical practice. My services as one of two Muslim supervisors in training in Clinical Pastoral Education in the US are available to fellow Imams via: alansare01@yahoo.com Wa salaamu.Br. Taalib-ud-Din al-Ansare

Location

Raytown, Missouri

not enough detail where should one look to when in need of independent counselling from a muslim perspective..

Location

london

Interesting perspective.

Location

Chicago

The article is not deep enough and doesn't offer extensive solutions.

Location

Boston

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