Before meeting them, I was very nervous about working with a couple. I have very limited experience working with adults (all of my experience comes from school), even fewer experience working with men, and no experience working with a couple. Yes we practiced in class, but it is very different working with your peers and them making up problems and issues to work with than it is working with a legitimate couple with legitimate problems. Thankfully, Chandler and Monica were very willing to work and enjoyed the activities we worked on together.
Counseling Chandler and Monica was very different than working with my classmates. For me, I liked it much better. Yes it was much more serious and in ways much more difficult; in other ways, it was much easier because I was actually working with a real couple, and when we talked about their communication and their problems it wasn't a fake couple trying to grasp at straws for things to talk about. It was a real couple with real problems, and we were able to go deeper and find different resolutions to their issues. I found it very difficult in class when working with the fake couples that it was often hard to work on issues when there was not depth to their relationship or the issues. However, I am very grateful for the work in class because I was able to get in the practice I needed in order to be prepared for working with Chandler and Monica.
Overall, this experience was very positive. I was actually really surprised at how much I enjoyed working with a premarital couple. I am not sure if it is something I would like to do solely; however, it is something I would like to do part-time in the future. This experience will for sure help me in the future when I am working with premarital couples, and I plan on using many of the techniques I have used with my pseudo clients and have learned in class.
