What is marriage counseling or marital therapy?

When one spouse in a couple is abusive, the counselor continues to work with both people. An effective therapist helps the abuser to (a) heal from his or her own childhood abuse or lack of discipline, (b) learn appropriate and effective ways of handling current emotional pain, (c) recognize what verbal abuse is, and (d) learn to distinguish feelings of being victimized from actual victimization. This one is of major importance and to understand this better, please read more about my book The Secret Marriage Killer: Eradicating Verbal and Emotional Abuse. The counselor also helps the former abuser to (e) learn to "read" his or her partner's emotions and meet those emotional needs in the partner. At the same time, the counselor helps the victim to (a) learn to recognize mental and psychological abuse, (b) heal from past abuse, (c) accept her or his (understandable) anger at the abuse and channel that anger productively towards preventing re-victimization in the current relationship, (d) ...  more