Divorce is hard.  For many people it is traumatic and for some, finally making the decision can feel like relief.  For almost all who experience it, however, divorce is a painful, stressful, paradigm shifting life event.  When children are involved, the stakes and usually the stress level can feel even higher.  I offer counseling services for individuals, couples and families transitioning out of a marriage.      

Individual counseling through divorce
People going through a divorce often experience the physiological and psychological symptoms of depression and anxiety in addition to having to manage the stress, and sometimes guilt and remorse that can arise.  The grief that comes with such an ending can be as acute as the grief experienced around a death.  Working with these difficult experiences in individual therapy offers the divorcing person support and strength as well as the opportunity to learn about themselves in the context of intimate relationships while looking back as well as forward towards a new life. 

The divorcing couple
Sometimes couples in therapy come to the conscious conclusion that divorce is the option that makes the most sense for  them.  Working with a therapist can help a couple separate with empathy and compassion, respecting their needs as individuals as they transform the nature of their relationship.  This work is focused on differentiation and may be briefer and executed with less frequency than typical couples work. 

Co-parent Counseling
When a couple who is actively raising children goes through a divorce, their relationship continues but transforms into that of co-parents.  Co-parent counseling seeks to help the couple with this transition and helps them define what this new relationship will look like while keeping the focus on the business of raising children in the new family system.  Co-parent counseling can be entered into voluntarily or can be court ordered.  I have worked with couples who have come in of their own accord and I have had a working relationship with Family Court Services in San Mateo County  working with high conflict divorce and co-parenting since 1996.