The Divorce Ambivalence Intake Protocol for Divorce Lawyers and Mediators

We have a free, 3-hour online training that gets you immediately started on a very short (7 minute) addition to your usual intake process. It consists of brief written questions and several follow up questions to ask prospective clients during the first meeting. The questions are designed by fellow divorce professionals and used with every new client. The goal is to ensure both people are ready for a divorce and you can proceed without stalling, emotional outbursts, and all the other ways couples engage you when one is not ready to call it quits or neither of them are completely doubt free. 

This free training helps you recognize the ambivalence in the couple, before they are far into the divorce process.

You can then refer them to one of our trained therapists for Discernment Counseling. If the intake couple does still choose to divorce after Discernment Counseling, they are actually both ready and prepared to make it a smooth process.

Our lawyers and mediators report couples who come out of Discernment Counseling are much easier to work with and the entire divorce process is smoother and more peaceful.

We know your goal is to create the best, most family friendly path forward. Through our network, you will be a key referral for our therapists as well as a referral back TO our therapists, for those couples where there is a clear window to re-look at their marriage through a simple modification to your intake process.

How We Are Uniquely Able to Serve Divorce Professionals AND Therapists Together

Our couples therapists have spent a lot of time and money being trained in Discernment Counseling. It’s designed for the very frequent situation where one person is seriously considering divorce but isn’t sure if that’s the right path, nor are they sure if working on the marriage in traditional counseling is the right path. Meeting that person, and their often very upset spouse, together in a unique format allows for each spouse to explore what has happened to their marriage to get to this point and how each have contributed to the problems. 

The goal is, in 1-5 sessions, deciding one of three paths: Path 1, status quo (about 12% of couples chose not to divorce nor work on their marriage), Path 2, separation/divorce, and Path 3, an all out effort at couples therapy alongside any other treatment that may be indicated (substance abuse help, for example.)

Of the couples who go through Discernment Counseling, a solid percentage of these couples end up divorcing, which is where YOU are needed as a solid referral. Our trained lawyers and mediators report these couples are much friendlier, more calm and ready for the divorce ahead, as compared to one being dragged in to an unwanted, undiscussed divorce.

Couples who do a full solid round of couples therapy sometimes end up choosing to divorce, but again, it’s often a lot less toxic and both partners are on board to the extend you are able to do your job creating a family friendly divorce.

Create Long Term Referrals with Couples Therapists In Your Area With Couples Ready for An Amicable Divorce

There are three things divorce lawyers, mediators, and therapists have in common:

  • most of us do NOT like marketing 
  • many of us find networking across professions a bit like a blind date: it could go well, but it’s generally pretty awkward to “sell” ourselves as a referral
  • we want couples emotionally ready for our service, not stalemating about whether to be in our offices (30% of couples who come to a lawyers office or therapists office are not ready for us. More on that below.)

Our goal is to fix all three of the above, shared commonalities. With ease!

There is trust and respect between The Doherty Relationship Institute and our therapists. 
We specialize in the ideal couple ready for a friendly, collaborative style divorce.
But we need referrals!

Our therapists want our help in vetting lawyers to ensure they are making a solid referral. They also want you to be familiar with Discernment Counseling and to be able to refer those couples we referred to above, the 30%+ who are not fully ready for a divorce, but land in your office because they aren’t sure where else to go. (We have hard data on this number.)

So where do you come in to our world to make these great referral relationships?

Success could be right around the corner if you know the right place to look.  If only there was a place where you could check. Lucky you! We have a list of verified Counselors that could be near your area. Just click on the button below to view our list of Discernment Counselors.