Marriage in the Catholic religion was passed through the Sacrament of Marriage. Sacrament is a sign of God’s love to man. Based on the sacramental nature of marriage, husband and wife are bound together in a way that is totally inseparable, because the essential nature of Catholic marriage is monogamous and divorce is not allowed. "In terms of formal religion, the Catholic religion does not allow divorce, but in the application, many couples have separate lives in a non-formal religious way," said Fabiola Hendrati, S.Psi., M.Si in the auditorium of the UGM Faculty of Psychology, Friday (3/2), when taking the doctorate exam in psychology.
Fabiola said communication is one of the factors that affect marital harmony. That open communication with each other will facilitate the process of adjustment on both sides, both husband and wife. "Open communication is the self-disclosure, informing the other person honestly about wishes, feelings, needs, problems and personal attention," said the lecturer at the Merdeka University of Malang, who was accompanied by her promoter, Prof. Dr. Bimo Walgito and co-promoter, Prof. Dr. Th. Dicky Hastjarjo and Dr. Tina Afiatin, M.Sc.
Defending her dissertation Increasing Harmony In Marriage in Catholic Couples in the Early Phase of Marriage Through Implementation of Modified Enneagram Program, Fabiola describes the self-disclosure will become effective when based on the recognition of each individual self. Knowing yourself is not an easy thing; a variety of self-defense mechanisms often conducted by human would impede the process of human self-identification. Moreover, the behavioral patterns exhibited by each person is often copied from the patterns of behavior and interaction with parents in the past.
Therefore, we need a program that helps the individual recognition of each couple. “Jesuits retreat centers abroad has also been using the Enneagram program, combining it with Anthony de Mello’s spiritual message of awareness, which emphasized spirituality is successful in bringing someone into the deepest change. People change and need to be changed," said the lady born in Jakarta, February 24, 1969.
The use of Enneagram program in marriage in the view of Fabiola as a researcher had been done by Eckstein (2002) as marital therapy through the CEQ instrument (Couple’s Enneagram Questionnaire), and also by Audrey Fain in her dissertation to solve marital problems. However, Fabiola as a researcher has not found the use of the Enneagram Program in Indonesia for marital harmony.
Therefore, by using quasi-experimental method and the double pretest design, Fabiola’s study examines the influence of the modified Enneagram Program application for Catholic marriage that has lasted 1-10 years. She tried to compare their marital harmony between pre-treatment with post-treatment.
The mixed-Anova test results and the mean difference indicate a significant increase in marital harmony from pretest 2 to post-test in the experimental group with effective contributions of treatment by 75%. The increase of marital harmony occurred in aspects such as mutual acceptance, mutual support on personal growth between husband and wife. In the meantime, in the control group there was no increase of significant marital harmony from pretest 2 to post-test.
The research results are in line with Jung’s theoretical concept of marital relations that the relationship of husband and wife in a marriage should be viewed as a psychological relationship that could lead to a harmonious marriage. As a psychological relationship, the relationship of husband and wife can be likened to a container or ‘box’ and the ‘filler’, which means it contains the concept of ‘mutual’. "The concept of ‘mutual’ can only be done properly if the husband and wife mutually recognize their own personality and their partner’s. Jung’s concept of the relationship of husband and wife is likened to a container and the filler, which is still directed towards individual self-individuation," said the wife of Hipolitus Kristoforus Kewuel and mother of two children.