t that
minimum must be firmly insisted upon. We strongly favor the residential
weekend retreat, although we have met with groups of couples for
separate evening sessions spaced out over four to six weeks. This
approach was found to be less effective, but decidedly better than
nothing for couples who cannot get away from their homes.

We would regard five or six couples as the optimum number, but seldom
have we enjoyed this luxury. Usually we have had to accept our upper
limit of nine couples, in addition to ourselves, making a total group of
twenty. Often more couples apply than we can take, and the organizers
plead with us to accept the maximum number because family crises can
compel couples to drop out at the last moment. Two couples short at a
retreat planned for five couples would leave only three. Therefore our
normal procedure has been to ask for six to eight couples.

Although the selection of the couples has been left to the organizers we
insist that husband and wife both undertake to come together, which
means that if one has to drop out, both do so; we insist that they come
only on condition that they both continuously participate in the entire
retreat, from beginning to end.

No requirements regarding age, race, vocation, education, or
socio-economic status are made. There are advantages in having a
homogeneous group of couples, but there are also advantages in a
heterogenous group. Our groups have included one engaged couple and one
honeymooning couple who came straight from their wedding as well as
couples old enough to be retired. They have included highly qualified
professionals and blue-collar workers, PhD.s. and high school drop-outs.

Couples coming to our retreats should have what they consider to be
reasonably good and stable marriages since our purpose is not to provide
group therapy, but to foster marital growth. The reason for this
requirement is that we do not believe that group marital therapy can be
attempted on a short-term basis, and it is not the purpose in these
retreats. Many couples come to these retreats with a good deal of
apprehension, and some have told us that they would not have come at all
had they not been assured that it was definitely not for "problem
couples." Despite all our efforts, couples with severe marital problems
do get in occasionally under the wire and we found no way of avoiding
this.

We are often asked to provide preparatory material for the participants,
inc