The short term focus of Discernment Counseling leverages the crisis of a marriage on the brink to bring about self-awareness and couple awareness in a more rapid fashion than either individual therapy or couples therapy. The crucible of decision-making about the survival of the relationship, combined with the intense individual conversations and the five session limit, puts positive pressure on both spouse to do important work in a way that settling into couples therapy does not necessarily bring about. In a crisis, brief can be better than longer.