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Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Discernment Counseling (working with couples who are leaning different ways on divorce)

Common Therapist Mistakes:

  1. Pursue the distance to get them to try therapy
  2. Hold back meaningful help unless they both want therapy
  3. Launching half-hearted couples therapy

Overview of Discernment Counseling with Mixed Agenda Couples

  1. Goal:  greater clarity and confidence in their decision making about divorcing, and better equipped to understand their prospects for reconciliation.
  2. Make a clear distinction between discernment counseling and marital therapy.
  3. Short term:  1-5 sessions.  Preferably weekly, but sometimes biweekly (makes it more intense)
  4. Structure:  after assessment and agreement on doing discernment counseling, sessions consist of three parts:
    1. brief check in with couple
    2. separate conversations with each partner
    3. brief summary/check-out at the end
  5. Frame three paths:
    1. stay married as it has been
    2. move towards divorce
    3. agree on a six-month reconciliation period with all-out effort in therapy (and using other resources) with divorce off the table--and then make a decision about the long term future.
  6. Use different approaches with leaning-in and leaning-out partners (adapted by Doherty from Betty Carter)
    1. Leaning out:  help them make a decision based on a more complex understanding of the marriage and own role in its problems
    2. Leaning in: help them bring best self to the crisis, not making things worse, using it as a wake-up call to work on self.
  7. Outcomes:  launching couples therapy and other help for six months, move towards divorce with better understanding and acceptance, or stay on hold for now.

1 comment:

  1. Christian counseling Renton
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