The effects of religiosity on preferences and expectations for marital therapy among married Christians

Highly religious couples constitute a substantial portion of marital therap y clients in the U.S. Married Christian individuals (N = 211) completed a s urvey of demographics and religiosity (religious values and Christian belie fs). They rated preferences and expectations for one of four marital therap y situations: Christian therapist using Christian practices (e.g., prayer o r reference to Scripture), Christian therapist using psychological practice s only, non-Christian therapist willing to use Christian practices, and non -Christian therapist using psychological practices only. High religious val ues and high Christian beliefs predicted ratings of marital therapy situati ons, where high was defined as one standard deviation above the mean of sta ndardized norm groups. Low to moderate religious values or Christian belief s did not predict ratings of marital therapy. It was concluded that highly religious couples present a special situation where the marketing, assessme nt, and practice of marital therapy might differ from therapy with other ty pes of couples.