Why we put a premium on couple communication …

Have you ever felt the effects of miscommunication, poor communication, ineffective communication, or a lack of communication in your life?

Most of us have, and we can all say the impact can be huge!

For example, Steve Farrar shares in his book, “Family Survival in the American Jungle,” the following story …

“J. Edgar Hoover ran the FBI, no question about it. As a result, almost all of his subordinates were on the lookout for ways to impress their powerful boss. A young FBI man was put in charge of the FBI’s supply department. In an effort to cut some costs and impress his boss, he reduced the size of the office memo paper. One of the new memo sheets soon ended up on Hoover’s desk. Hoover took one look at it, determined he didn’t like the size of the margins on the paper, and quickly scribbled on the memo, ‘Watch the borders!’ The memo was passed on through the office. For the next six weeks, it was extremely difficult to enter the United States by road from either Mexico or Canada. The FBI was watching the borders! Why was the FBI watching the borders? They thought they had received a warning from their chief. But they hadn’t. They had transformed an innocuous comment into a solemn warning.”

A lot can go wrong when our communication is ineffective or lacking, especially — of all places — between couples in marriages. Of all the things that directly impact the quality of a marriage, the effectiveness of the communication between a husband and wife is central to building a collaborative and satisfying relationship.

For that reason, Scott Free Clinic has made couple communication a premium focus among the services we offer. Because we believe building great communication skills can powerfully impact the quality of relationship and level of satisfaction couples experience in their marriages, several years ago we rolled out the very best training couples can get! It’s a internationally-recognized, award-winning training program simply called “Couple Communication I,” and I have been a certified instructor for this training program for more than 25 years. More than 700,000 couples have already participated in this training, which is the most formally researched marriage communication program available anywhere with 70 formal university-based studies conducted, all concluding positive results from participating in the program. In fact, 97 percent of those who have participated in the program have reported using their newly learned skills has improved their relationship. This couple communication skill-building training equips couples to build collaborative marriage skills (you can find more information about this training program on our website here and on the Couple Communication website here).

Scott Free Clinic’s initial roll-out of the program featured offering 10 Couple Communication I workshops in four cities in three states, all with resoundingly positive results among participants. We have offered the workshop a few more times since then, but a challenge we’re facing now is a lack of operating funds to continue offering the workshop.

To help us be able to offer this essential training to couples, would you consider either making a donation to Scott Free Clinic, or becoming a regular Care Partner donating monthly, quarterly, bi-annually, or annually (or whenever works for you!)?

By providing couples with the best possible skill-building program offered for couple communication, we will see marriages impacted from being strengthened and becoming more collaborative and satisfying to being transformed! You can directly help make this change possible by donating to support this kind of help. All donations are tax deductible and you can donate on our website here. Thank you for your support!

Dr. James Scott, Jr.
Founder & President,
Scott Free Clinic