Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 20, 1994 TAG: 9403180210
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It would be a place where they could get a sympathetic hearing and sound advice from people whose own relationships had foundered. The goal would be to repair the rifts and save the couples the pain of splitting up.
Harrison and her friends booked a room in the Lewis-Gale Medical Foundation building at 7:30 on Friday nights. They sent a small announcement to this newspaper, which printed it. And they asked the Psychology and Counseling Department at Lewis-Gale Clinic to send out fliers to therapists and counselors across the Roanoke Valley. It did.
The group met for the first time in early December. It has met regularly since then, but one ingredient has been lacking: People. Hardly anyone, Harrison says, has come.
She is puzzled.
Suddenly Single never had these problems. Even now, in its fourth year, it draws from 10 to 45 people to its weekly meetings. Harrison estimates that 600 to 700 people have passed through it, either for brief periods or longer ones. She expected similar results from Coupling Again. Her faith has been shaken.
``I'm going to give it a couple more months,'' she says, ``and if we don't have more participation than we've had in the past, we'll assume the community doesn't need it - except I know it does, because lawyers are getting rich off divorces.''
The purpose of Coupling Again is to let troubled people know they're not the only ones who have problems. While the founders lack professional degrees, they have hard-earned experience in emotional suffering, and a desire, Harrison says, to spare others that pain. The group pays its rent through donations, enabling its participants to avoid the $65 to $100 per hour that private marriage counseling costs.
``It was founded on what I thought would be good, having gone through it myself, what I thought would work, because there are so many people who cannot afford counseling.''
Men, in particular, need a place to go and speak about their pain. She learned this from Suddenly Single sessions, where she saw ``guys who could play fullback for the Dallas Cowboys crying like a baby because they didn't know what had happened to them.''
Many people in Suddenly Single believe that a group like Coupling Again could have enabled them to save their marriages, she says.
She is frustrated by what she perceives as the reluctance of people in a ``small town'' - which the Roanoke Valley is, in many ways, notably its grapevine - to reveal their problems, even in a confidential setting.
``It may have been a mistake to try to do a couples thing,'' she says. ``In a small town, people seem to be afraid of the community knowing they're having problems.''
``I think that's probably true,'' says Richard Eisler, a psychology professor at Virginia Tech. ``I know people who will go as far as Richmond to seek marital counseling'' rather than run into someone they know in an area waiting room.
Steve Strosnider, a licensed professional counselor at Lewis-Gale, sees another possibility. Just as couples resist prenuptial agreements because of the dangers they imply, so their acceptance of the support group might seem ``almost like an acknowledgment that something could be bad. A lot of people avoid things like this because they don't want to deal with potential unpleasantness.''
Strosnider recalled the time he envisioned premarital counseling as a marketing niche for Lewis-Gale's psychology department. Two years in a row, he ran an ad in this newspaper's annual wedding guide.
``Guess how many calls we got?'' he asks. ``One - and they didn't come. I think that might be a problem.''
He, too, thinks Coupling Again has the potential to help mend marital disputes, and he agrees that men, in particular, need a place to open up.
``I'm not a man basher,'' he says, ``but many men are flat out against something like that. Only 35 percent of my patients are men, and I don't think they have only 35 percent of the problems. I think that has something to do with the way men are raised: Be stoic. Take care of your own. Men don't like being vulnerable.''
Americans rate having a happy family as one of their major goals in life, says John Pendarvis, executive director of Family Service of Roanoke Valley. His agency counseled 808 families last year. A support group like Coupling Again may ``give us the knowledge that someone else has similar problems and we are not the only ones in the world. That in itself is really reassuring and helpful.''
Some support groups develop, over time, into social clubs, Strosnider says. He has referred many patients to Suddenly Single, and most have praised its services.
Harrison, who manages a housecleaning service during the day, takes pride in her no-nonsense supervision of Suddenly Single, and does not hesitate to rebuke people who do not seem serious about listening and learning. She does the same with Coupling Again.
``Suddenly Single has an excellent reputation in the community because I refuse to go social,'' she says. ``We've had people who have come in one time and they've been offended because everybody is very blunt in that room. No one holds back. Or they think it's going to be a social group and they'll find someone to hit on, and after one meeting, they know that it's not.''
The quality of a support group can vary according to who belongs to it at a given time, Strosnider says. Membership is fluid, with people coming and going as they choose.
``The advice is to go in with an open mind and see if it's for them.''
Doris Harrison is waiting.
by CNB