IntroductionFei Yue Family Service Center (FYFSC) is committed to realizing life transformation through the provision of quality social services by being an excellent facility in conducting people towards a truly fulfilling life within an integrated community network. In line with their vision, they identified marriage group work counseling as an emerging need in Singapore. The conceptualization of the Marriage Dance (MD) program stems from an assessed need to work with couples facing marital problems, which is prevalent in FYFSC's work. Such a treatment group would allow couples to receive help “at a different level of functioning.” PlanningMarriage Dance is a treatment group designed for couples to work on their marital problems. One rationale for using therapeutic group work as an intervention is to help members understand that they are not the only ones dealing with such problems, something that individual case work alone cannot achieve. Furthermore, the process of mutual help occurs during group work when members draw on their own experiences and deep needs to support their colleagues. It is through this process of “giving” that these members “receive” and learn from their past experiences (Kurland & Salmon, 1993). Because such group members typically have intense personal or emotional problems, skilled professional leadership is needed. It is because of the intense nature of the group work that Marriage Dance is co-directed. In fact, according to Gurman, co-conducted marital therapies work better than those conducted by a single therapist (Gurman, 1973). The MD was previously held for 6 weeks but was reformatted as a staycation (three days-two nights) due to low attendance. Each MD session is a closed group of 5-6 pairs…half of the paper…but the problem addressed by another pair outside of the context of group work. Additionally, with some couples having a history of family violence in the group, the safety of the group may be compromised if one member becomes aggressive. Conclusion Despite many insights from the group leader, we recognize the limitations of our analysis vis-à-vis MD due to the subjective nature of our research from the group leader. We were not able to analyze the dynamic interactions between members other than the short excerpts provided by the group leader. Furthermore, our group attempts to use the Garland, Jones, and Kolodny model to analyze the stages MD members undergo during the teamwork process. . Although the steps are presented in a linear fashion, we recognize that the actual teamwork process may not strictly follow the individual steps in a sequential manner.
tags