Everett L. Worthington Jr. - Hope-Focused Marriage Counseling: A Guide to Brief Therapy

Hope-Focused

Marriage

Counseling

A GUIDE TO BRIEF THERAPY

Expanded Paperback Edition

I am grateful to many people in bringing this book to print. Most dramatically I owe a debt to clients who have stubbornly refused to get better when I persisted in working my program and not listening to their program. Clients force us to listen.

Over the years I have been blessed with extremely talented graduate students who have contributed ideas to the theory and practice we have shaped together through our interactions and joint publications. Many of these are now functioning as postdoctoral faculty members or practitioners, and many I have acknowledged in other books. Most recently I have worked closely with the following, who have moved to the postdoctoral level. Jennifer Ripley, Steve Sandage, Taro Kurusu, Kristin Perrone, Wanda Collins and Jeanne Face have contributed to my current theorizing. Jack Berry came to Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) as a postdoctoral research fellow to work with me on studies related to hope-focused marriage enrichment and FREE (Forgiveness and Reconciliation through Experiencing Empathy). Jack has been a competent theoretician and methodologist, a stimulus to my thinking and a friend.

Doctoral students en route to their Ph.D. have also contributed to my research and theoretical understanding. These include Terry Hight, Dawn Jones, Michelle Schmitt, Dee Drinkard and Nat Wade. In addition, eight other advanced VCU graduate students as well as counselors from Mike Flynns Resource Guidance Services, Kent Radwanis Commonwealth Catholic Charities and Mark Yarhouses coordinating efforts at Regent University have participated in our study of marital enrichment and have been generous with feedback on the approach within an enrichment setting. To a person, the graduate students and counselors with whom I have worked have functioned as collegial collaborators. We truly have worked together, learning from each other. I am pleased to count these collaborators as friends. Many former graduate students have remained close friends, some of them many years after they left VCU to further their professional careers.

Professional colleagues have also provided opportunities that have moved my research and thinking. In 1992 David Benner challenged me to write a version of my approach to help pastors counsel their parishioners. I was blessed to coauthor that book with my own pastor, Doug McMurry. That collaboration was extremely fruitful. Gary Collins and Tim Clinton, president and executive vice president (respectively) of the American Association of Christian Counselors, invited me to speak at many AACC regional conferences. Those conferences, workshops and other invitations to speak that followed from those workshops helped me clarify the model as I put ideas into words and reviewed the feedback from those who heard the talks.

Danny Ng in Singapore, Pam Guneratnam in Malaysia and Mervin van der Spuy in South Africa invited me to speak to professional counselors, lay counselors, university faculty and students, and media in their respective countries, which has challenged me to think more internationally and crossculturally. For example, in Malaysia, after I had spoken to a gathering of psychiatrists who were largely Muslim, a psychiatric resident in traditional Muslim garb rose to his feet when given the opportunity to ask questions. This guy was huge. When he jumped to his feet, I envisioned him leaping across the table, grabbing me by the throat and choking the truth out of me. His question: I have a problem with my intrusive mother-in-law. Can you help me? Many people share human concerns throughout the nations.

In South Africa I spoke at Durban-Westville University to practical theology pastoral graduate students. In spite of a bomb threat that caused the evacuation of campus just as I arrived (no connection, I hope), eleven graduate students and faculty met for my seminar. They challenged me to think about how my ideas applied to rural, poor, black Africans, whose marriages were under enormous strain. I have been forced to confront some of the cultural limits of face-to-face conjoint couples counseling, while being able to affirm the timeless biblical principles of promoting love, faith, work and hope in couples.

Other colleagues continue contributing to ways of helping marriages. David Larson and Michael McCullough, colleagues and friends, both at the National Institute for Healthcare Research, where I serve as a research fellow, have supported me and created numerous opportunities to investigate marriage and forgiveness within a Christian context. Les Parrott and Gary Oliver have been encouraging collaborators. Carl Rilee has been a faithful friend, supporter and colleague, as have Dale Berry and Don Danser.

I continue to be grateful to VCU and its Department of Psychology, led by Steve Robbins, who have supported my research and writing throughout my twenty-plus years there. My colleagues on the faculty, especially Steve Danish, have challenged and supported me throughout the weeks and years.

I am particularly grateful to Sir John Templeton, Jack Templeton, Charles Harper and others at the John Templeton Foundation for having confidence to fund some of my research on forgiveness and reconciliation and on hope-focused marital enrichment with early married couples. Their encouragement, intellectual stimulation and financial beneficence have been a blessing. The financial support for my research by the General Clinical Research Center at Virginia Commonwealth University (grant NIH5 M01 RR00065) has also been greatly appreciated.