I agree with you. It certainly isn’t necessary, and as I mentioned in my first post, my ex-wife and I got something out of our first marriage counseling experience even though we both disliked the counselor. It’s definitely possible to have a useful experience in those circumstances. However, I think that you’ll find people are generally more receptive to advice/guidance/direction coming from someone they like. I believe that to be true in all facets of our lives, not just in therapy.
If your worst enemy comes up to you and mentions that you might trip because your shoe is untied, you’re going to be suspicious of his or her motivation for telling you that before you even look down at your shoe to see if it’s true. If your best friend provides you the same admonition, you wouldn’t hesitate before bending down to re-tie.
I’m not suggesting that one should take every single thing a therapist says as gospel. All advice should be treated with some scrutiny – even good advice might not be applicable in your specific situation for one reason or another. But being receptive to counseling is definitely the first and biggest step to being able to benefit from it. If you don’t like the counselor, you’re not going to be nearly as receptive.
My husband and I went to a marriage counselor once, but only once. Neither of us liked her. By the time it was over, we were united in our distaste for the whole thing. That was in 2001 and we’re still married.
IMHO, “liking” a counselor is different from liking other people; it’s shorthand for respecting them and thinking you can work with them. Unlike with a medical doctor, all the work is going on in your head, and if you don’t “like” (or understand) what you hear, you’ll be more resistant to it.
My husband and I have been going to counseling for less than a year, and find it very helpful. We didn’t start going because we were worried about our marriage breaking up, but because there were issues making us unhappy that we couldn’t seem to fix on our own. He was initially more eager to go than I was, but I was more than willing, agreed we should, and have become happy that we go, and don’t go just to satisfy him or due diligence or whatever.
It seems to be a safe, designated place to talk through things past the point where we would by ourselves. We’ve each found out things about what the other thinks that we really didn’t understand before, and it has made an appreciable difference. I think it matters that we are both fairly good communicators but hate fighting and tend to back off when arguments threaten to get uncivil.
The counselor is very good at redirecting our attention to the points that matter and away from tangents. She makes suggestions for what I guess you’d call practice thinking, as homework; sort of experimenting with breaking bad habits of thought. I don’t know if that constitutes CBT or not.
I would agree that simple “talk therapy” – where you expect to get better by just talking about problems, not discussing what to do about them – is of dubious value. I’d expect it to be valuable only to people who have serious mental blocks to even acknowledging problems, and even then only if they go on to take action.
Yea, I believe if you wait too long, the relationship is going to grow more into a hate and dislike for the other person so when you do finally go to counseling, you really don’t care to fix anything because your already done. If it’s brought up, I would say jump on it asap if you see the problem at hand not being resolved very soon.