It is often difficult to find Marriage Counseling or Pre-Marital Counseling services in rural Virginia that are not heavily focused on religious principles or biblical verses. Because of this, many people who live in these areas are left with no options for quality marriage counseling or sex therapy that is based on scientific principles and that has been tested in controlled studies.
There is no reason that a good therapist cannot be personally religious, and I believe that couples’ religious beliefs should be considered and respected in the context of therapy. But when religion is imposed by a therapist on couples who do not believe, it can destroy rapport, which research has shown can greatly impair treatment effectiveness. In addition, I have found that many deeply religious clients are not interested in getting religious advice from a psychologist.
My practice is secular in that I leave religion up to ministers and I focus on what I know how to do. I will not try to impose my values on you, although I must mention that I have a strong bias toward preserving marriages, as this is my job, and I take it seriously. This is important to mention in discussions of marriage counseling and religion, as it tends to be the greatest concern that religious couples express when they find out that I am not religious – many of them believe that secular therapists will not defend a marriage.
I very rarely suggest divorce, and only when everything reasonable has been tried in the context of therapy and one partner is clearly abusing the other, or when after several sessions, one or both partners demonstrate a clear unwillingness to try. This is because the majority of people who get divorced eventually regret doing so. It is also important to note that my reputation is at stake when I fail. So I have a personal stake in preserving your marriage.
