Marriage Enrichment

Marriage enrichment is defined as an educational and preventive approach to enhancing or improving the functioning of marital relationships. Marriage enrichment programs teach skills needed to build more satisfying interpersonal relationships, to prevent interpersonal problems, and to resolve problems that couples may experience. These programs have historically served as a means to help fairly well-functioning couples to enhance their communication and interpersonal skills, to explore each other’s feelings and thoughts, and to develop empathy and intimacy within the relationship. This entry offers a historical overview of marriage enrichment programs and discusses theoretical frameworks of the programs, the role of facilitators in the programs, the characteristics of the programs’ participants, research findings on the effectiveness of the programs, and different types of marriage enrichment programs and ...