Who is seeking couple counselling in Australia?

Despite over 50 years of relationship counselling services being offered in Australia there has been little research that has investigated who is seeking couple counselling and the issues couples seek to have addressed. Participants consisted of 27 couples (n = 54) and 16 individuals, where only one partner from the couple responded to the questionnaire. Participants attended 1 of the 9 Victorian branches of a national Australian relationship counselling service. Participants individually completed a pre-counselling questionnaire that aimed to explore the factors that might influence which member of a couple seeks counselling including, “who initiates counselling?” and “how satisfied are individuals with their current relationship?” Both men and women reported that the most important reason for them attending counselling was to improve the relationship, to learn how to communicate more effectively with his/her partner and to learn how to resolve conflict. Results showed that there were significant gender differences in who initiated couple counselling, with women initiating counselling more frequently than men. There were also significant gender differences in the level of satisfaction reported with the current relationship and women were significantly more likely to report lower levels of satisfaction with their current relationship than were men. The clinical importance of these findings was explored. This study is part of a longitudinal research project that is exploring outcomes for clients attending relationship counselling in a community setting