Considering Splitting?
Discernment Counseling: For Couples Considering Ending Their Relationship
If you or your spouse are considering divorce or separation but are not completely sure that’s the best path, you are in a tough spot. Discernment Counseling is designed for you. It’s a chance to slow down, take a breath, and look at your options for your marriage or long-term relationship.
Discernment Counseling is a way of helping couples where one person is “leaning out” of the relationship—and not sure that regular couples therapy would help--and the other is “leaning in”—that is, interested in rebuilding the marriage. Discernment Counseling will help you decide whether to try to restore your marriage to health, move toward divorce, or take a time out and decide later.
The goal is for you to gain clarity and confidence about a direction, based on a deeper understanding of your relationship and its possibilities for the future. The goal is not to solve your marital problems but to see if they are solvable. You will each be treated with compassion and respect no matter how you are feeling about your marriage at the moment. No bad guys and good guys.
You will come in as a couple but the most important work occurs in the one-to-one conversations with me. Why? Because you are starting out in different places. I respect your reasons for divorce while trying to open up the possibility of restoring the marriage to health.
I emphasize the importance of each of you seeing your own contributions to the problems and the possible solutions. This will be useful in future relationships even if this one ends.
Number of Sessions: A maximum of five sessions. The first session is usually two hours and the subsequent ones are 1.5 or 2 hours.
Discernment Counseling is not appropriate for these situations:
- When one spouse has already made a final decision to divorce
- When one spouse is coercing the other to participate
- When there is danger of domestic violence.
About Me
I am a clinical psychologist with over 25 years of experience helping people. I:
- have taken all three levels of Gottman Couples therapy training
- am research-driven and the author of college-level psychology textbooks
- have been certified in clinical psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology
- am a Fellow of the American Association of Clinical Psychology.
Thanks for your interest
