Client satisfaction with relationship counselling

While relationship counselling has been provided in Australia for over 50 years there has been little research that has investigated outcomes for couples who have received relationship counselling in real life settings. Participants were 316 heterosexual couples who attended counselling together at one of the 78 branches of a national Australian relationship counseling organisation. Participants completed telephone interviews with independent interviewers after their counselling had finished. Results showed that both men and women considered communication to be the most important issue discussed in counselling. Respondents also reported using various communication strategies to solve their relationship problems before seeking counselling, with women talking to a wider range of people than did men. Men who attended counseling with the same goal as their partner reported higher levels of satisfaction with counselling than men who had a different goal than their partner. Couples who were no longer living together when surveyed were significantly more likely to have come to counseling with different goals to their partner than couples who were still together. Results indicated that future research should examine couples’ goals pre and post relationship counselling