Divorce
From my experience, work with the divorced individual includes many painful emotions, especially fear.
Fear of what will happen now:
1) will I ever find love again
2) will I trust it if I do
3) how do I protect and buffer my children from the effects of the divorce
4) how will I make it financially and
5) fear of the unknown.
Divorce throws the person’s life on its ear and everything from living arrangements, job and career questions, as well as the simple question of how to run a life without a partner to perform some daily functions have to be reworked. Huge feelings of incompetence, failure, rejection, guilt can reek havoc daily on the divorced person, making their emotions highly mercurial. Often making them feel “crazy”.
I work with individuals going through a marital or major partnership dissolution by first identifying the priority decisions. Issues of living situation, child custody schedule and safety and immediate financial needs are all examined. Concrete goals are set forth to help the individual to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Then, I provide a safe environment in which to grieve the loss of the relationship. We examine ‘what went wrong’, question issues of rejection (she or he didn’t want me) and prevent these negative thought patterns from becoming habit forming. We then work on what relationship goals are appropriate for the short, medium and long term.
Having clinical and personal experience as well as research on the optimal methods of separation and divorce with respect to children, I am very involved in helping my clients find the best custody schedule, as well as other recommendations for the well-being of their children. Half of more of what divorced parents worry about most is their children. They often will not work on their own sadness or pain until they feel their children are attended to. I have extensive training and experience in child and adolescent therapy, as well as parenting collateral therapy. I am active in providing referrals to co-parenting specialists and other resources
Having personal experience with all of the questions of divorce, I provide my clients with resources, from local support groups, to recommended reading and legal referrals.