Marriage Guidance Requirements

Press, Volume C, Issue 29673, 17 November 1961, Page 12

Marriage Guidance Requirements

The Christchurch Marriage Guidance Council has invited applications for entry to the first of a series of national courses in counselling to be held next year in Wellington. It will involve one week-end for selection of candidates and four more, spread through the year, for training. Air travel and full accommodation is provided free of charge. “Counselling on marriage is not everybody's cup of tea and it may be helpful for those interested to have some idea of the requirements,” says a statement issued yesterday by the Christchurch council. “Our standards are high because this is demanded by the work and because counsellors take considerable responsibility for the lives and happiness of others. The cost of bringing trainees to Wellington is high so those chosen must show promise of competent service “Marriage counselling is unpaid exacting work, which makes many demands on time, energy, and patience Its only rewards are the satisfaction of a job well done,” says the statement. Qualifications

Although the National Marriage Guidance Council does not require any particular academic qualification for counselling, the courses are of university standard. Candidates are asked to consider whether they are equipped to read, think, and discuss at this level. “Those seeking counsel come from all walks of life and helpers should feel at ease with any and all of them,” says the statement. “In plain terms, this is not so much a matter of formal education (although it helps) as of intelligence.”

A happy marriage is a prerequisite and it is also desirable that counsellors also have children. Single persons practise counselling only if they have special qualifications, the council says. “What your particular religion may be is not. in Itself, important,” the statement says. "What is important is that your beliefs—whether religious, social, economic, racial and the like—should not have made you overbiased or over-prejudiced in your approach to other people. A client is entitled to have and to retain his own beliefs whatever they may be. You counsel “within

his framework of reference' and not your own.” Experience shows that those under 30 are seldom sufficiently mature for this work and that persons over 50 find it difficult to make adjustments. The council says this suggests that candidates need to be reasonably flexible and tolerant persons, able to accept and use criticism constructively so as to breed confidence. After candidates have been interviewed they receive a bare decision—acceptance or rejection without any reasons On satisfactory completion of training they may expect to spend up to two hours a week on counselling and perhaps another two hours considering the cases and perhaps seeking other advice.

“These courses have two aims,” the council says: “(1) To give by lecture, discussion and reading a knowledge of the sociological, psychological, legal, ethical and spiritual aspects of marriage; (2) to develop skill in counselling itself by practice, at first under supervision two months after the course begins.” Applications will close at the beginning of December for the next course which will begin about March.