OK, so here's respectful question for you all. In the following article, Dr. Harley talks about how to find a good marriage counselor and even says the following: "Sometimes you need the support and motivation that only a professional marriage counselor can provide."
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi7100_counselor.html

Despite this, the people who give advice on this forum almost always advise against marriage counseling and call it a waste of time. Clearly not all counselors are good, and a good forum topic was written about the crazy things some counselors say. However, as Dr. Harley's article says, not all counselor are bad either and sometimes finding a counselor is necessary. So my question is, why aren't posters pointed to this article and advised to find a good counselor, rather than being told that all counseling is a waste of time?

Markos read that article and showed it to me back before we were part of MB. I didn't want to do Phone Coaching, so he talked me into trying to find a local counselor using that article.

We called around and found one that said he agreed with MB. Well, ends up he sorta did, but he didn't REALLY believe romantic love was all that necessary. He mixed in a whole lot of his own stuff. As soon as we stopped going to him, our marriage got worse than ever.

He's not the only counselor we went to that was familiar with MB, but didn't really buy it or teach it, and mixed in their own stuff.

My experience is that those counselors that say they promote MB really don't. It's best to send people to the folks that KNOW what they're doing: Dr. Harley and his coaching service. Why play with fire and risk being worse off?

But there is something that is simply irreplaceable about being able to talk to people face to face.

So my question is, why aren't posters pointed to this article and advised to find a good counselor, rather than being told that all counseling is a waste of time?

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This is a fair point. However my WW also didn't have any interest in phone counseling.

I do think that that is a major weakness of seeking all your counseling from the Harley's.

But there is something that is simply irreplaceable about being able to talk to people face to face. This goes not only for marriage counseling but for meetings and other human interactions as well. I find I have a harder time listening to people and paying close attention when I talk to them on the phone as compared to talking to them in person.

So my question is, why aren't posters pointed to this article and advised to find a good counselor, rather than being told that all counseling is a waste of time?

Have you seen this and listened to the clips or read the articles in here?
Beware of Bad Counselors

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I have. There is no doubt that there are lots of bad counselors. I've never disputed that. That doesn't prove that all counselors are bad, and Dr. Harley wouldn't have written that article about how to find a good marriage counselor if that was so.

No, I don't believe any counseling is magic and even the best counselors can't save many marriages.

Indeed many great people who have come to this forum haven't succeeded in saving their marriages, though certainly many have.

Indeed in my own case Dr. Harley advised me to divorce because my situation was so dire.

Effective Marriage Counseling:

Does Marriage Builders Work?

When I found that the model I've developed had helped over 90% of those I was counseling, I gave up my career as a college professor and started counseling full-time. At the time, I didn't assume that it would save all of the marriages it seemed to help, because I felt there were factors beyond a couple's control. But after 35 years of experience with this model, I'm not convinced that it works with 100% of couples who follow it. I've yet to witness one couple out of the tens of thousands I've seen, that did not experience a healthy and happy marriage by following this model. Personally, I feel it's the only answer to the question, how can a couple have a great marriage for life?

But it's very difficult to prove that one model of marital satisfaction is superior to another. The ultimate test is to randomly assign couples to various models and to measure their marital satisfaction after the provisions of each model have been implemented.

The training of therapists is a huge problem: How can we be sure that the therapist assigned to each model was properly trained? And there's also the problem of representation and random assignment: Does the group of volunteer couples represent the population at large? And is the assignment to treatment groups really random? There's also the ethical problem of assigning couples to a control group where they receive no effective treatment. When they divorce, does the researcher bear any responsibility? Finally, if someone who has a stake in the outcome does the research, it usually shows that their approach is best. Shouldn't studies of alternative models of marital satisfaction be conducted by those neutral to the outcome?

My own personal experience led me to the model I've been using for the past 35 years. But that's not proof of it's superiority over other models. What I need is objective studies conducted by those who have no bias that compare this model to others. That's hard to find even among those who have published hundreds of articles on martial therapy.

But I can direct you to three studies that support my enthusiasm. They all deal with my book, His Needs, Her Needs, the popular application of my model, and the effect it has on couples that read it.

The readers of Marriage Partnership Magazine were asked which self-help book on marriage helped their marriages the most. In that survey, His Needs, Her Needs came out on top. I didn't know that the survey was even being conducted, so when I called the editor after the results came in, I was curious to know more. He told me that it not only was the top choice, but it was far ahead of second place (Ron R. Lee. Best Books for a Better Marriage: Reader's Survey . Marriage Partnership Magazine, Spring 1998).

In a national survey that I sponsored, people were asked if any self-help book on marriage solved their marital problems. Out of 57 books that were read, only three were reported to have actually solved marital problems. The three were the Bible, James Dobson's Love for a Lifetime, and His Needs, Her Needs (Lynn Hanacek Gravel. Americans and Marriage: National Survey of US Adults. Barna Research Group, 2001).

Finally, five out of six couples that read His Needs Her Needs were found to experience significant improvement in marital satisfaction (Julie D. Braswell. The Impact of Reading a Self-Help Book on the Topic of Gender Differences on One's Perceived Quality of Marriage. Doctoral Dissertation, 1998, Azusa Pacific University.

Granted, these findings are not conclusive evidence that the model I use is superior to every other model of marital satisfaction. But when you find one that works for every couple that actually follows it, you have to be impressed. And coming as I did from almost zero effectiveness to almost complete success, I can't begin to tell you how convinced I am that it's the solution to a very difficult problem we face in our society.

My program of marriage recovery is exactly the same as most weight loss programs. Whenever it's followed, the marriage recovers. I know of no other program of marital recovery that can make that claim. In fact, if you follow the advice of most marriage recovery programs today, your marriage will not recover. That's why a 1995 Consumer's Report survey found marriage counseling to be the least effective form of psychotherapy. Only 16% found the experience to be helpful.

For those who complete my program of marital recovery, 100% find the experience to be more than helpful -- it solves their marital problems. But just like in dieting, the successful outcome depends entirely on motivation. Only those who are not motivated enough to complete the program fail.

Our program for recovery only works when it's followed. The 15 hours of undivided attention we recommend is an essential part of the program because it provides the opportunity to meet emotional needs that cannot be met any other way. There are lots of excuses for failing to follow that aspect of our program, but in the end, failure to follow it results in a failed recovery.

If we saw that both of you were recovering well, I'd say that you are one of the very rare exceptions to the need to spend 15 hours a week together. But, since you are not recovering well, we can only conclude that your failure to spend enough time together, and make good use of that time meeting each other's emotional needs, is the culprit.

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I have. There is no doubt that there are lots of bad counselors. I've never disputed that. That doesn't prove that all counselors are bad, and Dr. Harley wouldn't have written that article about how to find a good marriage counselor if that was so.

No, I don't believe any counseling is magic and even the best counselors can't save many marriages. Indeed many great people who have come to this forum haven't succeeded in saving their marriages, though certainly many have. When horrific events like infidelity and abuse occur in marriages, sometimes there is nothing you can do. Indeed in my own case Dr. Harley advised me to divorce because my situation was so dire. So now I'm on my own doing plan Pius basically

My program of marriage recovery is exactly the same as most weight loss programs. Whenever it's followed, the marriage recovers. I know of no other program of marital recovery that can make that claim. In fact, if you follow the advice of most marriage recovery programs today, your marriage will not recover. That's why a 1995 Consumer's Report survey found marriage counseling to be the least effective form of psychotherapy. Only 16% found the experience to be helpful.

For those who complete my program of marital recovery, 100% find the experience to be more than helpful -- it solves their marital problems. But just like in dieting, the successful outcome depends entirely on motivation. Only those who are not motivated enough to complete the program fail.