My Kinda Counseling...

[enchantress299]

http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/single_1.html Singles Therapy: Marriage Education That Starts Before You Even Find a Date The Wall Street Journal Online By Hilary Stout You can spend thousands of dollars these days on matchmaking services to help you find a mate. After that's taken care of, you can spend tens of thousands of dollars on marriage counseling to help keep the relationship working. Now into our self-help obsessed culture comes another offering: workshops and classes aimed at that fraught stretch in between, otherwise known as romance or dating. Essentially, it's courtship tutoring. Couples therapists and others in the marriage-counseling and education field are proffering their expertise to help single people avoid the mistakes that commonly doom relationships. The objective is to teach individuals to recognize the most important characteristics they want in a partner (example: "Well, I guess her religion DOES matter"), then to intelligently screen for someone who qualifies, and, finally, to pace the relationship so as to grow steadily closer rather than letting one aspect (like sex) overshadow another (like communication). The movement has all the trappings of an academic discipline, complete with aptitude tests and models of logic -- such as the Relationship Attachment Model, a measure of five "bonding dynamics" used by one program to determine whether you and your love interest have a healthy balance. Putting aside whether this stuff can be taught, the theory behind it all is that smarter dating can lead to happier and more-stable marriages. The notion is compelling enough that the U.S. Army is testing a curriculum developed by John Van Epp, a marriage and family counselor in Medina, Ohio, called "How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk." The Army hopes to soon offer the course -- renamed "Premarital Interpersonal Choice and Knowledge" for the military -- to all its young servicemen and women. "I think that any organization would say that if their personnel are in stable, strong, healthy relationships, their work production would be stronger," says Ronald Thomas, the project officer for the program. Another leading couples-counseling program, called PREP, is developing a program tailored to low-income single women to help them recognize and maintain healthy relationships with men. And the "Jerk" program has been adopted in high schools, colleges, domestic-violence programs and programs for unmarried mothers around the country. "Singles lack a plan," says Mr. Van Epp. "They go into dating, to love, to relationships and they are winging it."

Ha ha... I should SO be a singles counselor! That'd actually be kinda cool I think. Then I wouldn't have to deal with all of the arguing of married couples. That would come when I see them AFTER they've been married awhile. My question out of this article is... Why in the hell would the US Army need this program?! I mean seriously... It seems like they take over everything... New technology... Video games... Now singles' counseling??? I guess the army guys really need that much help after all. I don't think they should  rename the program: "Premarital Interpersonal Choice and Knowledge," they should rename it: "How to avoid being the jerk that girl marries." Ha ha... Ok, ok, I guess I should give them more credit than that. I'm sure the US Army's plan is perfectly feasible, tactical even! The soldiers will not only be ready for battle, but will also be more ready to sweep the native women off of their feet when they go storm other countries!