If there are no significant differences in student counselor perceptions of marriage, then student counselors can be trained in pre-marital and marital therapies without reference to the counselor demographic. The goals of the treatment remain the same. 3. How can it be applied to marriage and couple counseling?

As the authors suggest, the findings can be applied to help counselors and especially student counselors because the results cannot necessarily be extrapolated to other contexts. The findings show that while age, gender, and marital status might not bias the counselor when treating clients, those factors cannot be ignored. The findins can be applied to a cross-cultural counseling setting. Moreover, the findings suggest that counselors could become more aware of the needs of couples, when couples are experiencing trouble or when individuals come to counselors...

Moreover individual counseling issues can be located within the province of the relationship. In other words, it is important to understand that when individuals come to seek counseling, their personal problems could be impacting the relationship. Therefore, the counselor needs to know when the time is right for individual counseling and when the time is better for couples counseling. The authors assume that the goal of marital counseling is always to maintain the marriage, when in fact, counselors should be well aware of situations in which divorce would be preferable such as in situations where abuse (emotional, physical, or sexual) is present.
Reference

Stephens, O.A. (2012). Student Counsellors' Perceived Causes of Divorce among Couples in Lagos Metropolis. Ife PsychologIA, 20(2), September 2012