Quora: Has relationship counseling ever made a difference?
A: Counseling, of any kind, can be beneficial. Having an outsider give you their opinions, sharing their experiences and ideas may help you see issues in a different light.
If partners are unable to communicate directly and solve their problems, this could be the only way to resolve disagreements.
However, the effectiveness of counseling depends on both partners being willing to undergo treatment, jointly and separately, and to let someone else into their relationship.
This can be a very sore point, as one or both partners may be worried that the outsider will blame them or find faults in their thinking and behaviour that they are unwilling to admit to. Especially if they already have a partner doing that, in which case going to counseling will just add insult to injury.
Being willing to work at the relationship is essential for its survival. Sometimes that means being willing to take an honest look at yourself and correcting your own mistakes and behaviour. Sometimes it means getting help.
If one or both parties are willing to do the work, the counseling will be helpful. If not, it is a waste of time.
