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, including books to read, but we do not think there is any way to "prepare" for this kind of experience; and recommending books to read might convey the impression that we are going to engage in intellectual discussion, which is not the case.

We ourselves do not "prepare" for the retreats and do not ask the couples to do so either. It is an adventure in sharing into which we all move together, ready to take it as it comes.[E]

This does not mean, however, that our sessions are totally "unstructured." A timetable is worked out by the group, not imposed upon it. Obviously it has to be planned in relation to the place and the circumstances of our meeting.

INTRODUCTION TO THE FRIENDS' EXPERIENCE

In the living room of "Waysmeet," the house at Pendle Hill in which we held our first training retreat, there was just room for ten couples to sit in a wide circle.

"What we are going to do here," we explained, "is to experience together a marriage enrichment retreat. We hope this experience will be meaningful to you all personally, quite apart from the fact that you will be learning how to conduct a retreat yourselves after you return home. We know of no better way to train you than to let you go through first what others will later go through under your leadership.

"However, we shall be working together at two levels. At any point we can break off and examine together, objectively, what has been happening to us subjectively. You can ask us as your leaders any questions you wish, about what we are doing, or why we are doing it.

"Our goal is very simple and very clear. As married couples we are here to engage together in communication-in-depth about relationship-in-depth. Everything we do will be done with the intention of sharing with each other the directions in which we want our marriages to grow. How far we travel will be decided not by us as leaders, but by you as a group. No one will be put under pressure to do anything he does not wish to do, or to say anything he does not wish to say.

"Our function as leaders is to be 'participant facilitators.' We are in every sense members of the group, and will fully share all the group's experiences. We do not wish to be treated as experts or authorities. The only way in which we shall exercise our role as leaders is to help the group to achieve its goal, or to tell it if we think it is not taking the best direction toward that goal. We make no claim to be infallible. If at any point you don't agree with us, it is your duty to say so. If in any situation we don't know what to do next we shall say so frankly and ask you to help us.

"Now we are ready to begin. The first thing we must do is to get to know each other as couples. The sooner we get well acquainted, the faster we can move toward our goal."

Most of the first evening is devoted to the process of getting to know each other. Our favorite method is to ask the couples to volunteer in turn to be freely questioned by the group. We usually volunteer first, and make it clear that we are prepared to answer the most personal questions. We indicate at this point that we would like to be called by our first names, and we hope the others will agree to do the same. The questions then begin, and when there are no more, we ask another couple to volunteer. We prefer not to go round the circle in order, or take names alphabetically. Everything is done voluntarily as far as possible, to encourage spontaneity.

Time goes quickly as the questions come thick and fast, and it is usually necessary to limit the questioning, or to ask for brief answers. It should be emphasized that the participants are free at any time to ask each other personal questions; this understanding creates a climate of openness which emphasizes the goal of communication-in-depth.

THE GROUP IN ACTION

Assembled again on Saturday morning, we begin by preparing our "rolling agenda," as one of the trainee couples called it, in order to keep a record of what the group members want to talk about. The aspects of marriage they want to include for discussion before the weekend is over gives us clues to the issues that are important to them. The list with which one of our trainee couples started their retreat was:

We ask the group members if they have any "concerns" explaining that if members of the group feel unhappy, or anxious, or angry, about anything that has happened, they have a duty to share their feelings with us all otherwise the fellowship will be broken. Situations have occurred in which someone had a concern that another member of the group also had and neither was expressing.

As a group cannot function effectively without openness to each other on the part of its members, neither can a marriage grow without the same kind of openness between its partners. This is what every married couple should be doing every day—raising issues that need to be discussed, and being honest about disturbed or negative feelings.

There is a sequence of events that is typical of most retreats. Nearly always, we begin with general discussion of some aspect of married life. At this stage we are testing each other, so we take refuge in generalizations. A common theme is the difficulties of raising children. We can all commiserate with each other about the problems of the generation gap for it is "safer" to talk about parenthood than about marriage. If the talk does focus on marriage, such topics as working wives or overworked husbands or the sharing of household tasks can be discussed without risk.

The group will move at its own pace from the superficial testing stage to the deeper sharing. The leaders can facilitate this process, but it isn't helpful if they try to hurry it. "Personalizing" the discussion by using such questions as "Mary, did you raise that subject because it's an issue between you and Tom?" or "I