Hot Topics In Marriage Counseling Continuing Education

A marriage is constantly changing as a relationship evolves, and some will thrive while others crumble. As a marriage counselor, it is your job to provide assistance to troubled partners, which means counseling continuing education courses can only strengthen your skills. Just as relationships you encounter in your practice can become stagnate, so can your abilities if you aren't pursuing further knowledge in the field. Here are some important areas of interest that any marriage counselor can benefit from some additional training.

Mood Disorders:
Sometimes problems between couples have little to do with the dynamics of the relationship, but rather concern one or both partners emotional distress due to a mood disorder. Depression, bi-polar disorder, or manic-depressive episodes can crush trust, lead to betrayal, and destroy peace within the household. Taking prescribed medications can also create complications as while the mood may be suppressed, other side effects can arise. A good marriage counselor needs to have a great understanding of the different mood disorders in order to better diagnosis issues within a relationship and offer the best advice in order for the couple to heal and evolve. Counseling continuing education courses focusing on cognitive therapy, pharmacology, and various mood disorders can help better equip a professional to identify these issues in clients.

Sex:
Most people in long-term relationships will experience difficulties in the bedroom at one point or another. While many can overcome these are simply slog through a patch of boredom, others find their emotions splintering and the love for their partner disappearing. Sex doesn't have to dissolve a relationship and can actually strengthen it with a well-trained marriage counselor's assistance. Online classes and webinars that deal with such important topics as gender identity, sexuality, and physiology can provide illumination on the core issues that can destroy a relationship. The Internet and the increasingly troubling trend of pornography addiction have led to further difficulties in once loving relationships. Counseling continuing education instruction in sexuality can help therapists explore these new trends within society.

Health:
People are living longer so that means we're all much healthier, right? The reality is that health issues can tear apart even the strongest relationships and test a partner's empathy, will, and self-control. Take obesity, for example, one of the biggest issues in the United States. Many partners may find themselves overeating together and indulging in poor dietary habits that can slowly erode their health and kill their sex drives. Even more difficult is when one partner becomes obese while the other maintains a healthy lifestyle. As a marriage counselor, understanding the implications and underlying issues surrounding health problems can help you be a more effective therapist.

Technology:
What's the harm in a flirty text, or two, or three? It's a very different world where a semi-colon and parenthesis can speak more volumes than the bat of an eyelid across a bar. Couples are now bringing infidelities right into their homes unbeknownst to their partners. People are also having more difficulty expressing themselves in words as our language changes to adapt to new technologies. A counselor must not only understand how these work, but how they can affect relationships.