Honoring Our Past

The history of marriage, couples, and family counseling has taken many turns over the years. I am reminded of the work of others that we stand upon, including Bowen's systems model, focusing on the patterns and ways the family system interacts. The Gottman model focuses on communication, trust, respect, and empathy. The psychoanalytic theory set the foundation for focusing on the here and now in the couple's relationship. The Gestalt model gave us the awareness cycle, which helps the counselor develop themes and patterns in the system and centers on contact within the relationship (Paskalieva, 2022).

Taking pieces from each of these models, our field now incorporates current research into our practice, including what we have learned from our history. We utilize assessments and additional techniques, such as trauma-informed therapy for couples and families. Our expanded lens now helps us understand how childhood trauma and other traumatic events can affect our relationships with our partners and our family system (Suomi et al., 2019). Many couple and family counselors are now adding a trauma screening tool to premartial counseling with the goals of assisting couples with identifying their trauma history and beginning to acknowledge and work through those issues as they commit to marriage.

As marriage and family counselors, we have a rich history of theory and practitioners who have paved the way for us today to offer more robust and fulfilling work in our field. It is our foundation that allows couples and family practitioners to offer cutting-edge services. We should applaud the past theorist who developed such rich ground for us to continue to build upon today.