Hi, I don't think that single marriage counselors do worse than married ones in their profession.

I would say, that it's not a requirement. While a counselor may be currently single, it doesn't mean that they don't have relationship experience. As well, I don't really see the goal of counseling being to "give advice." Rather I think of the role of marriage counselor being more related to helping development insight and new ways of being within a relationship. As well, it is impossible for us to have the same experiences as all of our clients, but some themes (such as loss, betrayal, a need for belonging) are somewhat universal and cut across single/married/partnered/etc... Though it's not to say that being a long-term relationship might be helpful in some way, but it's not an absolute requirement.

So short answer, yes It's definitely okay for a single person to counseling married couples,

I do not think that you have to have personal experiences with all difficulties that a patient would present. So as it would be the case for other conditions, I do not think that you have to be married to do Marriage counseling.

Yes, I think it is completely OK for a single person to counsel married couples. In other word "Marriage" is not an obstacle or a definite requirement for a counselor to be able to give good advice to couples as "Marriage" in itself is not a sufficient characteristic to enable a consultant to give a good advice.

I agree with Claude. You don't have to have suffered depression to counsel people with depression. Couple counselling is discussed in my book "Counsellng Issues".

See my blogs at http://authorgeorgeseber.wordpress.com/

it is not a necessity for the counselor to have experienced depression. I believe that the counselor would have to assess the situation and then implement the necessary strategies in which the counselor bases her decision of what treatment to utilize.

Mardene,

The role of therapist/counselor is to mediate, guide and offer resources for continued healthy lifestyle changes/choices. A therapist should not in fact have too much in common with their client as to possibly increase a biased or judgmental stance. Keep in mind that this possible bias and judgment is most usually not intentional. In fact, a great therapist teaches his/self to literally shut off their own personal experiences while they are counseling. This attribute of a great and qualified counselor takes time. A therapist should NEVER say to a client, 'I understand, I have been there before,' or ' I understand because I am married/divorced/single,' etc. However, if the client brings this up, then it is at the clinicians discretion to disclose personal information, which if done, should always be limited. A great clinician if asked as in your query ... how could you understand, when you have never been married?.... will respond with a statement such as, 'there is no possible way I can totally relate to your situation, as each and every situation is as unique as the individual, but I am qualified to help you through this.' A therapist should never take sides in marriage counseling (as difficult as these instruction is) and should always begin with asking each person the same questions. Many couples seek counseling in order to have a neutral person justify their stance. A counselor should never justify one side or the other unless the clinician is simply saying something like, 'it is reasonable for you to feel that way (should never say, I understand).

Should a couples therapist be married or unmarried? Or why stop there... should this therapist be a man or woman, heterosexual or homosexual, black or white...? Whatever happens, there will be issues in the therapy that touch on or resonate with our own experiences, and those that do not so much; those that we can identify with (and we have to be careful then not to conflate our experiences with those of our clients), and those that we do not have first hand experience of. In my experience, the position of "curious outsider" can be a very useful one for a therapist to adopt. That is, as if to say, "I am not married (... or a woman/ man, or a bully victim, or depressed), so I will be relying on you to fill me in on the insider experience of that process". In fact, sometimes NOT having had the experience the client wants to talk about is a significant advantage, as it allows me to see the client as an expert in his or her lived experience - such as in a marriage - and myself as one who has to reach across to try and understand the subtleties of that experience. It means I can ask more questions, and never quite get to the point where I can claim "Yes, I know exactly what you mean". As Renate says, there is a danger in presenting ourselves as having been there, done that. I think it's better to be always trying-to-understand, or on the road to understanding, rather than to achieve a final understanding. I think Nietzsche said something similar, about being on-the-way-to-achieving as better for living beings than the sense of having achieved. Same goes for therapy and couples therapy - our goal (in my view) is not to FINALLY understand, but to be always on the road towards it. So if I'm single and my clients are married, or if I'm married and my clients are single, that's just one element of difference that gives me something to reach out towards - an opportunity to be on the way to understanding something that differs from my life. I think that facilitates a relationship and an ethos of curious and interested exploration and searching, and I think that can really help the therapeutic process. So, short answer, I don't think you need to be married.

A person should never have to have shared all of the life experiences of their clients in order to be "qualified" to do therapy with them. We are taught to be able to approach a person, any person, and do our best to work with them no matter where they are in life.  If we were to say that only married people can counsel married people, how would the unmarried among us ever learn to work with this population? Certainly a marriage license does not grant automatic expertise into the lives of the married; otherwise, they might not need to come to therapy in the first place!

A person needs to be married to counsel married couples or their problems.

Thanks for all your responses; I was off for a while.   Many persons could have gotten great premarital counseling if they were not so hung up on this "issue".   

I stated once before that I do not feel it is a necessity the one to have been married in order to counsel a couple. That being said, self-disclosure does not always have to be made, unless, it can really help the couple you are counseling.

I think having relationship experience is helpful, and can at times be shared with your clients. However your role as couples therapist is to provide a frame of reference for them as a couples not as a bench mark for you in relationship. hopefully your skill set, and knowledge is broader than theirs.

Finally if a couples asks you are you  married or in relationship, its a bit like asking a cardiologist if he /she has had a heart attack, not  really a prerequisite for treating heart ailment.Similarly you status isn't the focus of their work, rather the new view you bring to their situation.