Counselors on the rise as couples decide whether to stay or part

As more couples and individuals seek professional help with marriage problems - and with counseling even required in some regions before a couple can divorce - marriage counselors have gained stature in China.

Shu Xin, director of the Weiqing Group, a Shanghai-based agency that provides marriage counseling services in more than 40 cities, said the agency gets around 200 cases per day of people seeking advice, compared with 10 cases in 2001, when the agency was first set up.

Entrepreneurs born in the 1980s and 1990s have also joined the market to provide solutions to relationship issues through online platforms or smartphone applications, said Sun Shijin, director of Fudan University's psychological research center.

For example, Sun said, a Shanghai-based counseling center, Mango Psychological Counseling, which opened a year ago, provides both online and offline services at seven locations.

At least 130 such agencies have been set up, and around 20,000 counselors with knowledge and practice in law, psychology and social work are in this field, industry insiders said on Friday, as nearly 100 of them participated in a meeting in Shanghai to share their experiences.

They said most people look for help when their marriages are on the verge of splitting up. Shi Xiuxiong, founder of Good Catch Love Counseling Workshop in Shanghai, said most clients are between 30 and 35 years old, well-educated and highly paid.

China's divorce rate has been on the rise since 2003. Last year, 4.37 million couples broke up, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Extramarital affairs, differences in personality and relations with parents-in-law are the most frequently cited difficulties, the counselors said.

Marriage counselors have been providing services at marriage and divorce registration offices in some regions for years. In Shanghai, it started in 2004.

Shen Jiaguan, director of the marriage administration department of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, said such counselors play a vital role in marriage crisis intervention.

Zhang Fengqin, head of the Yangcheng Family Integrated Service Center in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, said the institution has provided counseling services for couples seeking to break up at the city's divorce registration offices for a year and around 25 percent decided not to divorce after counseling.

"But it doesn't mean staying together is always better than breaking up. We search for the best way for both partners," she said.

The Supreme People's Court issued a policy in July stipulating that with the consent of both parties in a divorce lawsuit, they will be given a three-month cooling-off time to rethink the breakup. During that time, marriage counselors and psychologists may step in.

Insiders said the new measure raised the bar for both the quantity and quality of marriage counselors.

"They need to see clearly how a couple communicates - through words, gestures and eye contact - and then figure out problems and fix them to avoid the regret and harm of divorce," Zhang said.

Lu Yue, chief counselor at Cure Hope, a Beijing-based marriage guidance and counseling center, said he believes demand for marriage counseling will continue to grow, as people begin to see the value of seeking professional help to have a better relationship rather than waiting until they encounter serious problems.

"Most Chinese people learn relationship skills from their parents, who may not be good role models in marriage and whose approach may not work in the new social environment," he said.