Working With Divorce Ambivalent Clients
Early Bird Registration through April 20th!
Monday, May 18th from 12pm to 3pm EDT
(9am to 12pm PST, 10am to 1pm MST, 11am to 2pm CST)
Presented by Dr. Regina Bordieri, LMFT
Certified Discernment Counselor &
Official Presenter with The Doherty Relationship Institute
(the institute that trains and certifies Discernment Counselors)
When an individual client is struggling with chronic ambivalence about whether to stay in a marriage or a long-term committed relationship, the therapist may also struggle with how to be helpful.
Research shows that up to 22% of married individuals in any given year have serious divorce ideation. Most won’t divorce in the short run, but use individual therapy to process their ambivalent feelings about staying married. These therapy sessions are often dominated by the ups and downs of a stuck relationship.
This workshop provides concrete tools and strategies that therapists can use with their individual clients who are unsure about whether to stay in, seek couples therapy, or leave their marriage. It also helps therapists better understand under what circumstances they might make referrals for couple's services, including information about making referrals, when appropriate, for discernment counseling, a brief model designed specifically for couples when one partner has divorce ambivalence and the other wants to preserve the relationship.
This is an intensely practical workshop that is backed by research on divorce ambivalence. Participants will receive many sample lines of communication to use with clients as well as key strategies to avoid bad-story-of-the-week individual therapy or premature referrals to couples therapy with clients who are not motivated to work on their marriage right now.
Learning objectives: Participants will be able to:
1. Define divorce ambivalence in clients
2. Identify the main challenges for working with divorce-ambivalent clients in individual therapy
3. Discuss the principle clinical strategies and skills for treating divorce-ambivalent clients
4. Describe skills for referring these clients for couples’ work