Resources for Counselors
Supervision and Training
Excessive anger is one of the major reasons why couples seek marital counseling. Most mental health professionals have had little if any training on empirically proven methods for treating such anger and resentment. Rick Fitzgibbons, M.D., the director of the Institute for Marital Healing and of www.maritalhealing.com has been a pioneer with Bob Enright, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, in demonstrating the remarkable clinical effectiveness of the psychotherapeutic uses of forgiveness in the treatment of excessive anger in marriages anger and in major DSM IV disorders.
Rick has worked effectively with several thousands couples over the past 28 years and has offered many marital conferences including a yearly conference at Catholic Family Land (www.familyland.org) in Bloomingdale, Ohio.
The IMH also offers opportunity for ongoing supervision for marital therapy. This training will assist therapists in learning how to employ empirically proven methods for resolving excessive anger described by Rick Fitzgibbons, M.D. in the marital chapter of Helping Clients Forgive: An Empirically Proven Method for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope, American Psychological Association Books, 2000. This highly acclaimed book was the second offering in the APA Books Spring 2001 catalogue.
Therapists will also have training in the use of forgiveness in the treatment of depressive and anxiety disorders, as well as childhood disorders. They will be expected to be knowledgeable of these chapters in Helping Clients Forgive.
Therapists are encouraged to take the APA approved forgiveness course offered by Dr. Bob Enright at www.forgivenessinstitute.org, which is based on their textbook. Also, recommended is a new training video on the use of forgiveness done by Rick and Bob and available through American Psychological Association Psychotherapy Videos (2004). To learn more about this video, please click here.
Excessive Anger
In Michael Posternak's recent study of 1300 outpatients in 2002 at Brown University, approximately one half of the patients reported currently experiencing moderate-to-severe levels of subjective anger, and about one quarter had demonstrated aggressive behavior in the preceding week. This level of anger was found to be comparable to the levels of depressed mood and psychic anxiety reported in his sample. His conclusion was that anger and aggression are prominent in psychiatric outpatients to a degree that may rival that of dperession and anxiety. He stated that it is important that clinicians routinely screen for these anger symptoms. (Anger and aggression in psychiatric outpatients. Posternak MA, Zimmerman M, J Clin Psychiatry. 2002 Aug;63(8):665-72.)
In all the clinical chapters of Helping Clients Forgive research studies are presented which also demonstrate the high prevalence of active and passive-aggressive anger in most DSM IV disorders. You may be helped in your work by the use of subjective and objective anger measures which are found at the beginning and end of the angry spouse chapter. Also, a child and adolescent anger checklist is available in the child chapter. Spouses often rate the angry behaviors of their partner on the anger checklist and parents use the child anger checklist to identify their child's anger. Finally, an excellent Harvard Medical School home study course on aggressive, resistant and delinquent youths is available at www.cme.hms.harvard.edu, course #262910.
The Giving and Fulfilling Marriage Seminars
The Institute of Marital Healing will provide training for mental health professionals leading to certification for offering The Giving and Fulfilling Marriage Seminars. Dr. Fitzgibbons and his associates have given many of these highly effective marital conferences which focus on understanding the vital importance of self-giving in marriages and on identifying and resolving the major conflicts in marital self-giving.
The major conflicts covered are:
- Lack of Self-Knowledge
- Excessive Anger
- Sadness/Loneliness
- Mistrust/Anxiety
- Selfishness
- Confidence Conflicts
- Negative Parental Modeling
- Excessive Sense of Responsibility
- Disordered Self-Giving
- Lack of Charity
- Neglect of Spiritual Life
- Character Weaknesses
Many of these important sources of marital conflict are addressed in sections of our website .
Contact our offices in regard to ongoing supervision for marital therapy and for certification for The Giving and Fulfilling Marriage Seminars.