Sacred Healing of Marriage: Does Prayer Make A Difference?

Marriage as an institution in contemporary culture is in a state of distress. A significant challenge for the marriage clinician is effecting positive change on the level of satisfaction perceived and experienced in the relationship. Other research has demonstrated the effectiveness of prayer as a medium for cognitive change toward optimism and increased health, both emotional and physical. This study explores the effect of specific spousal prayer in the lives of Catholic and Protestant Christian married couples on their level of marital satisfaction by using a nonrandomized control group pretest-posttest design. Dr. Timothy Heck has a keen interest in matters of faith and spirituality. As a licensed marriage and family therapist with over thirty years experience in the field working with troubled marriages, he has drawn heavily from the strongest empirically-supported-treatments (EST), while also integrating the spiritual practice of prayer for his client couples. In this research study he attempts to build support for the position that regular prayer can make a strong and positive difference in a couple’s relationship. People of faith have always believed in the power of prayer. Now there is a growing body of research that supports that belief. Learn more about those studies and find out if prayer can make a difference in your marriage.