• An eye contact exercise encourages intimacy in marriage counseling.couple image by cherie from Fotolia.com
  
  Marriage counseling provides couples with the opportunity to strengthen communication in their relationship. The types of couples that come to marriage counseling range from newly married couples who want advice to couples about to divorce who are using marriage counseling as a last ditch effort to save the relationship. Four marriage counseling methods offer a tool for the counselor to gain insight into the couple's relationship dilemmas.
  
  

Restatement

• Restatement requires that each member of the couple restate what the spouse says. For instance, the wife may say that she feels unloved when the husband does not call if he is going to be late. The husband should repeat this sentence just as the wife said it. If he changes something, this shows he does not interpret communication correctly. This technique allows the counselor to help the couple see flawed areas of communication. As the couple repeats what each spouse communicates, they get a better understanding of each other.
  
  

Reframing

• This allows the couple to restructure communication to promote understanding. For instance, the husband may say when the wife does not cook him dinner, he feels like she does not care about him. The wife may say that she does care about the husband; she just wants to feel as though the marriage is a partnership rather than a dictatorship. This allows each spouse to understand the situation in a different light.
  
  

Surfacing Roots

• According to marriage-counseling-guide.com, many behaviors within a marriage arise from a pattern shaped earlier in life. For instance, a husband may show insecurity when his wife talks to other men. As the counselor delves deeper into this issue, she may find that the husband's mother had an affair during his childhood. This causes the husband to show insecurity about his wife staying in the marriage. By making the husband aware of how his insecurity affects the marriage, he can begin to change these patterns.
  
  

Encouraging Intimacy

• The eye test allows the marriage counselor to help the couple with intimacy problems. The couple should stare into each other's eyes for one minute. This allows them to gain intimacy in their relationship with non-verbal communication. The counselor should then discuss with the couple what they were feeling during this exercise. The couple may feel insecure during this process if they have not connected emotionally for a while. This activity may also bring deeper emotions to the surface that the couple should share with the counselor.