Last time I recommended the watching of the program Making Couples Happy, which is screening on Thursday nights at 8.30pm (ABC1 Australia, Feb-March 2013). (A book is also available: Making Couples Happy: How Science Can Help Get Relationships Back On Track, for $21-$24.)
It's an entertaining and well-presented program with a number of important aspects of marriage highlighted. However, I have reservations about this approach to marital counselling. I also know that this form of counselling is popular and seems like common-sense to many.
The big question is: What is the nature of the marriage bond? Is it just a happiness bond of love? If so, is marriage counselling then just about lifting the individual happiness experience of the partners?
These questions are leading ones because they arise out of a particular way of viewing human relationships and human life in general. The answers are not difficult to find because they are found in the title and outworking of the program, Making Couples Happy.
In this program, marriage is essentially a happiness bond of affectionate-love for the benefit of the marriage partners. On this basis, counselling is a process of trying to raise the level of happiness for the individual partners. And the level of happiness can even be assessed by a scientifically validated and reliable inventory measuring features of one's happiness.
Of course, what is never asked is: Is happiness the goal of human life and where can it be found if it is?
And on hearing these phrases I am prompted to ask, 'What is the science that is being spoken about here?'
Without doubt, the 'science' being referred to is 'behavioural science' or the science of behaviour, (another name for psychology for some scientists*).
It's not that I don't believe that 'science', even 'behavioural science' has no part to play in helping those with troubled marriages.
But science, is not the panacea for human problems that Western society thinks it is. In many ways, some may have already experienced science's limitations. For example, how you ever been told that a medication will do such-and-such for you only to find it does not live up to all the hype?
A good reason exists for this disconnect. That medication may have had impeccable scientific credentials and yet not have been effective in your particular case.
And the reason for this? Science can only provide generalisations based on samples and hypotheses that fallible humans have chosen. The findings of the sciences are necessarily limited to the populations represented in the studies under consideration.
That means that a behavioural study or group of studies' findings may not be said to apply directly to any one particular person even if they part of one of the experimental populations.
With regard to the Making Marriages Happy programme, these marriages may improve in quality throughout these sessions and I hope they do. I am for any appropriate programme that can do that.
However, because people are more than their behaviours, marriage can improve or deteriorate for a host the reasons for which the coaches involved have no idea.
Another point is that the approach becomes so focussed on external behaviours that I think it confuses symptoms with causes. One doesn't need a scientific study to demonstrate that the presence of sarcasm and mockery of one's mate in a marriage indicates a marriage in trouble. Just attending to external actions is hardly going to do much for the inner causes** of the problematic behaviour, which may be complex. For example, two of the couples seem isolated from their families of origin or have few friends and therefore lack support with helping with young children.
Sarcasm, mockery and extreme criticism stem from the 'inner life' of the couple and/or from one of the partners' backgrounds that has been incorporated into that partner's inner life. For example, it was revealed that one wife had had an affair early in their marriage and had never apologised for her actions. The husband, although feeling betrayed and angry about the incident, soldiered on in the marriage with a significant breach of trust at its core.
However, serious questions for this series remain as to the 'philosophy' of marriage adopted, the role of science it supports, the reduction of marriage behaviour to their overt, observable 'behaviours', and the place of other marriages and family in supporting the marriages of today.
*Psychology is a notoriously difficult science to define. It is usually defined as the 'scientific study of mental processes and behaviour' in most current textbooks. The problem with this definition is that it doesn't circumscribe psychology's field adequately because 'behaviour' can cover the realm of most other sciences as well.
**Behavioural science (or technology) such as that found in Making Couples Happy does not speak much about (if anything about) inner causes. Rather it treats behaviour as conditioned by external, environmental reinforcers ('rewards').
Marriage: What is it? How is it to be assessed?
A big question is being asked under this heading; it is also connected to the question of what terms will be used when we come to assess a marriage.The big question is: What is the nature of the marriage bond? Is it just a happiness bond of love? If so, is marriage counselling then just about lifting the individual happiness experience of the partners?
These questions are leading ones because they arise out of a particular way of viewing human relationships and human life in general. The answers are not difficult to find because they are found in the title and outworking of the program, Making Couples Happy.
In this program, marriage is essentially a happiness bond of affectionate-love for the benefit of the marriage partners. On this basis, counselling is a process of trying to raise the level of happiness for the individual partners. And the level of happiness can even be assessed by a scientifically validated and reliable inventory measuring features of one's happiness.Of course, what is never asked is: Is happiness the goal of human life and where can it be found if it is?
Is Behavioural Counselling Enough?
The presentation repeats the phrases, 'science has found that . . .' or, 'studies have shown that . . . ' rather like a preacher making sure we know that everything said has the imprimatur of scripture but in this case, science is the ultimate authority.And on hearing these phrases I am prompted to ask, 'What is the science that is being spoken about here?'
Without doubt, the 'science' being referred to is 'behavioural science' or the science of behaviour, (another name for psychology for some scientists*).
It's not that I don't believe that 'science', even 'behavioural science' has no part to play in helping those with troubled marriages.
But science, is not the panacea for human problems that Western society thinks it is. In many ways, some may have already experienced science's limitations. For example, how you ever been told that a medication will do such-and-such for you only to find it does not live up to all the hype?
A good reason exists for this disconnect. That medication may have had impeccable scientific credentials and yet not have been effective in your particular case.
And the reason for this? Science can only provide generalisations based on samples and hypotheses that fallible humans have chosen. The findings of the sciences are necessarily limited to the populations represented in the studies under consideration.
That means that a behavioural study or group of studies' findings may not be said to apply directly to any one particular person even if they part of one of the experimental populations.
With regard to the Making Marriages Happy programme, these marriages may improve in quality throughout these sessions and I hope they do. I am for any appropriate programme that can do that.
However, because people are more than their behaviours, marriage can improve or deteriorate for a host the reasons for which the coaches involved have no idea.
Another point is that the approach becomes so focussed on external behaviours that I think it confuses symptoms with causes. One doesn't need a scientific study to demonstrate that the presence of sarcasm and mockery of one's mate in a marriage indicates a marriage in trouble. Just attending to external actions is hardly going to do much for the inner causes** of the problematic behaviour, which may be complex. For example, two of the couples seem isolated from their families of origin or have few friends and therefore lack support with helping with young children.
Sarcasm, mockery and extreme criticism stem from the 'inner life' of the couple and/or from one of the partners' backgrounds that has been incorporated into that partner's inner life. For example, it was revealed that one wife had had an affair early in their marriage and had never apologised for her actions. The husband, although feeling betrayed and angry about the incident, soldiered on in the marriage with a significant breach of trust at its core.
Conclusion
With the series now finished we now know that all the couples improved their happiness score, some quite significantly and for that we can all 'happy'!However, serious questions for this series remain as to the 'philosophy' of marriage adopted, the role of science it supports, the reduction of marriage behaviour to their overt, observable 'behaviours', and the place of other marriages and family in supporting the marriages of today.
*Psychology is a notoriously difficult science to define. It is usually defined as the 'scientific study of mental processes and behaviour' in most current textbooks. The problem with this definition is that it doesn't circumscribe psychology's field adequately because 'behaviour' can cover the realm of most other sciences as well.
**Behavioural science (or technology) such as that found in Making Couples Happy does not speak much about (if anything about) inner causes. Rather it treats behaviour as conditioned by external, environmental reinforcers ('rewards').
No comments:
Post a Comment