Discernment counseling is a specific type of counseling designed for couples where one partner is considering divorce and the other is not. It aims to help both partners gain clarity and confidence about their decision, whether it’s to pursue couples therapy, separation, or divorce.
Key Definition:
Discernment counseling is a type of brief therapy designed for couples where one partner is considering divorce and the other wants to preserve the relationship. The goal is for each partner to gain clarity and confidence about whether to continue with the relationship as it is, move toward a divorce, or pursue reconciliation with a clear commitment to change. This type of counseling can help couples make a difficult decision with greater clarity and understanding.
Understanding Discernment Counseling
Discernment Counseling is a specialized form of therapy designed for couples who are uncertain about the future of their relationship, particularly when considering divorce. William C. Nichols, former President of both the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and the National Council on Family Relation, explains, “clarifying the nature of the partner’s commitment to their spouse and personal willingness to work on the relationship thus becomes an issue whenever the possibility of marital breakup is raised. Sometimes both partners come into therapy with their minds made up as to what they are going to do about the marriage. Sometimes one has reached a decision regarding the marriage and the other is undecided or ambivalent” (Nichols, 2014).
It’s most effective for couples with “mixed agendas,” where one partner is leaning towards ending the marriage while the other wishes to preserve it. Mixed agenda couples may account for 30% of couples in clinical practice (Doherty & Harris, 2023). The process involves a short-term commitment of 1-5 sessions, where the therapist helps the couple gain clarity and confidence about the direction of their relationship, without trying to solve marital issues directly.
Discernment Counselling Goals
The goals of Discernment Counseling include:
- Understanding each partner’s contribution to the marital issues.
- Exploring the possibility of reconciliation and what that might entail.
- Deciding whether to commit to a six-month period of couples therapy with divorce off the table, separate/divorce, or maintain the status quo.
Therapists structure the counseling sessions to support each partner individually and as a couple, helping them to make informed decisions about their marriage. Months of sessions in couples therapy may not be practical if individuals in the relationship have already made up their mind on what they want. The idea of ending a relationship is daunting, especially for longer relationship with complex joint commitments. Both partner’s may have already resigned to divorce. However, the individual may bury the underlying decision because it is too frightening to acknowledge.
Moreover, couples may have mixed agendas. One individual wished to salvage the bond and the other wishes to flee.
The Difference Between Discernment Counseling and Couples Therapy
Instead of trying to work on the relationship bond, resolving relationship issues, as in couples therapy, discernment counseling is a short-term commitment to assist clients gain clarity and confidence about the direction of their relationship. This may include deciding on divorce or separation.
Discernment Counseling differs from regular couples therapy in several key ways:
- Purpose: The primary goal of Discernment Counseling is not to solve relationship issues but to help couples decide whether to work on their relationship or move towards separation.
- Duration: It is a short-term process, typically involving 1-5 sessions, compared to regular couples therapy which may extend over a longer period.
- Structure: Discernment Counseling often involves more individual time with each partner to understand their perspectives and desires, whereas couples therapy usually focuses on the couple as a unit.
- Outcome: The outcome of Discernment Counseling is a decision on the direction of the relationship, which could be to commit to couples therapy, separate, or maintain the status quo. In contrast, couples therapy aims at improving the relationship and resolving conflicts.
- Suitability: The developers of discernment Counseling specifically designed this method for couples with mixed agendas, where one partner is leaning towards ending the relationship while the other wants to continue.
These distinctions make Discernment Counseling a unique approach tailored for couples at a crossroads, unsure of whether to pursue staying together or parting ways. It’s a focused and structured process that helps partners make a clear and confident decision about the future of their relationship.
When a Decision to Leave Has Already Been Made
We may wonder why if a decision has already been made to leave, why a couple may even bother with therapy. However, this line of thought presuppose that desires, motivations, and goals operate independently. Our cognitive lives are far from obvious. In relationships we get stuck in patterns of behaviors. An individual may have checked out of the relationship for years but still goes through the motions.
Family therapists Craig A. Everett and Sandra S. Volgy wrote that “a spouse who has been dissatisfied with the marriage for many years and either has not verbalized the seriousness of the unhappiness or has not been able to get the spouse’s attention or earlier involvement in therapy.” Often, Everett and Volgy explain, “this spouse has simply disengaged emotionally from the marriage” (Everett & Volgy, 2014).
Sometimes, sadly, the fire of love is out. The embers are cold and there is no relighting the passion. While the individual may stay in the relationship physically, emotionally they are gone. Often, individuals may endure this state for years until an external event sparks motivation to leave (another lover, midlife crisis, career change, etc…). Discernment counseling can help unearth those just keeping up the status quo, and mentally and emotionally already divorced.
See After the Love Has Gone for more on this topic
Founding of Discernment Counseling
Discernment Counseling was developed by Dr. William Doherty, PhD, a professor of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota. In 2008, he collaborated with a group of divorce lawyers and a family court judge on a project to better understand the dynamics of couples in the process of divorce.
Doherty states that discernment therapy was “inspired by the work of family therapist Bett Carter who developed (but never published) an original way to work with missed-agenda couples. Using individual conversations, she helped each partner work on divergent goals: for the leaning out partner, the goal of making a good decision about staying married or divorcing; and for the leaning in partner, the goal of maximizing the likelihood that the marriage will be preserved and strengthened” (Doherty, Harris, & Wilde, 2016).
Doherty and Harris explain that “when one spouse wants to repair the marriage while the other is on the edge of divorce and ambivalent about couples therapy…they fall through the cracks of our models, which assume that both partners come with at least a basic motivation to stay together for the time being to improve the relationship” (Doherty & Harris, 2023).
How Discernment Counseling Works
The counseling process involves individual conversations with each partner, as well as joint sessions.
Communication Before Sessions Begin
Prior to the first session a therapist talks with each partner to determine their goals for the therapy. Doherty and Harris explain, “for those leaning-out partners who indicate they know they want a divorce and would like to use the session to “break the news to their partner, or for those who say that they do not know how to tell their partner, you can inform them that is not consistent with the goals of discernment therapy” (Doherty & Harris, 2023).
Under these circumstance, the leaning-out partner should attend individual therapy, to assist with open and assertive communication. Discernment counseling is not a platform for communicating what you already know but are afraid to say, dragging a therapist along as a cohort to break the news to an unsuspecting partner.
The counselor listens to both partners’ perspectives without taking sides or placing blame. This allows each person to feel heard and understood, which can be pivotal in the decision-making process.
First Session Protocol
The first session begins with the couple and counselor in the room together. The counselor asks a series of questions to both partners to gain a perspective of the relationship. The counselor than meets with each member of the couple separately. The session ends with both members back in the same room together. The counselor presents a summary of the sessions work, invites impressions from each member of the relationship, and then checks to see if both spouses agree for a second session of discernment counseling.
Middle Sessions Protocol
Middle Sessions follow the same structure of the first session. “Time with the couple together at the beginning, an individual conversation followed by a summary, another individual conversation followed by a summary, and then a wrap-up. The key difference is that the couple time in the beginning is much briefer” (Doherty & Harris, 2023). These are the work sessions, aiming to achieve understanding and clarity.
The Middle Sessions have 3 goals:
- Learning where each partner is in his or her discernment process. This entails following any changes in the “leaning-in” or “leaning-out” agendas of each partner. The counselor helps clarify these underlying motives of each partner.
- Reminding the partners of the goals of discernment counseling: Understanding and Clarity. Discernment counseling is not a platform for airing differences and entertaining complaints.
- Avoiding an open invitation to talk about relationship problems.
The middle sessions primarily focus on the individual time with each spouse.
The Leaning-Out Partner
The goal of the middle sessions with the leaning-out spouse is to make progress in two areas:
- toward a clear decision on which path to take
- and toward a greater understanding of the marital dynamics and his or her role in creating and maintaining them.
Ultimately, the goal is to determine whether the next phase of the relationship is couples counseling, divorce, or continue in uncertainty. The therapist should explore the next phase possibilities with the client.
The Leaning-In Partner
The middle sessions involves increasing the intensity of work begun in the first session. A key focus with the leaning-in partners is examining their role in taking leadership in preserving the marriage and personality responsibility for self-change. However, “the priority continues to be helping them not continue doing harm by pursuing, criticizing, or triangulating” (Doherty & Harris, 2023).
The middle sessions assist the leaning-in partner create and follow an agenda of personal change. The work may contribute to salvaging the relationship or provide a healthy foundation for other future relationships.
Transition Sessions
Discernment counseling will end in one of three different paths. The partners will willingly seek reconciliation through couples therapy, they will decide on divorce, or they will remain ambivalent, maintaining mixed-agendas about the future of the relationship. All three paths require transition. The counselor assists the couple with the transition without acting as a cheerleader for one course over the other.
If the couple choose to remain in status quo, the counselor should keep the possibility open for future sessions of discernment counseling if situations change, and the couple wants to revisit their status and relationship goals.
The Benefits of Discernment Counseling
Discernment counseling can provide a clearer understanding of the relationship dynamics and each individual’s desires and concerns. Even if the couple decides to divorce, the process can help them part ways with greater clarity and mutual understanding. Accordingly, this may potentially foster a healthier post-divorce relationship. This may include complicated tasks such as co-parenting. Many relationships involve a variety of entangled endeavors. A clean split is not practical. In these situations, the relationship is not over it is just transforming into a different kind of relationship.
The short commitment to clarity may also prevent years of failed couples therapy that prolong the agony of a predetermined ending by one of the partners.
Wasting Time on Prolonging False Hopes
Unfortunately, therapy is sometimes used as a stepping stone to divorce. The underlying decision has been made by one of the partners and they attend marriage therapy halfheartedly with no intention to change. The therapy is just a means to the end. “We tried therapy, it didn’t work.” With a facade of nobleness, the individual “leaning-out” drags the partner “leaning-in” through additional months or years of pretend therapy.
Doherty and Harris explain that when the leaning-out “spouse is not invested personally in the therapy; the burden falls on the leaning-in spouse to start making meaningful changes.” The one individual purposely invested in saving the relationships makes efforts and the other lazadaisicually goes along with the therapy, while proactively looking for signs that therapy is not working. They continue, “the leaning-in spouse may soldier on, making real personal changes, but the absence of mutual investment in learning and change leads the leaning-out partner to conclude that not enough relationship change has occurred—and thus divorce is the best option” (Doherty & Harris, 2023).
Under these circumstances, the leaning-out partner sabotages progress, and prolongs the hurt, to prove their predetermined assessment of the relationship. However, all these happenings may not be conscious actions. Our minds have a tremendous ability to cloud reality, coloring it in terms that soften the impact on our ego.
Healthy Co-Parenting after Divorce
If break-up is the path the couple chooses, they can do this in a mature fashion. Accordingly, with caution, they can minimize the emotional burden on the children. Research suggests the impact of divorce on children can be mediated. Angela Emerson, Steven Harris, and Fathiya Ahmed wrote, “when parents exhibit ongoing conflict, that is when divorce and the associated transitions it can introduce, become even more detrimental to the children involved. Therefore, whether co-parents stay married or not may not always be as important as the quality of their coparenting relationship for their child’s continued cognitive, emotional, and physical development” (Emerson, Harris, & Ahmed, 2021).
Whichever path a couple choses, they should do it with wisdom and in a manner that minimally impacts everyone involved.
Is Discernment Counseling Right for You?
If you or your partner are considering divorce but are not fully committed to the idea, you should consider discernment counseling as an option. It provides a structured and supportive environment to explore the underlying issues and potential paths forward. The developers of discernment counseling did not mean for it to be a replacement for traditional couples therapy or marriage counseling. The designers of this therapy specifically tailored it to couples at a crossroads, aiming to facilitate a decision-making process.
Remember, making the decision to engage in discernment counseling is the first step towards gaining clarity and direction. No matter the ultimate outcome for the relationship discernment may provide necessary clarity so couples can make informed decisions. Hopefully, a short commitment to this therapy may help prevent years of fighting, effort, and money. Couples therapy fails when one or both partners want out but are afraid to acknowledge or express their desires.
Last Update: March 24, 2024
References:
Doherty, William J.; Harris, Steven M. (2023). Helping Couples on the Brink of Divorce: Discernment Counseling for Troubled Relationships. American Psychological Association; 1st edition.
Doherty, William J; Harris, Steven M.; Wilde, Jason (2016). Discernment Counseling for “Mixed‐Agenda” Couples. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 42(2), 246-255. DOI: 10.1111/jmft.12132
Emerson, Angela J.; Harris, Steven M.; Ahmed, Fathiya A. (2021). The impact of discernment counseling on individuals who decide to divorce: experiences of post‐divorce communication and coparenting. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 47(1), 36-51. DOI: 10.1111/jmft.12463
Everett, Craig A.; Volgy, Sandra S. (2014). The Assessment and treatment of Polarizing Couples. In When One Wants Out And The Other Doesn’t: Doing Therapy With Polarized Couples, edited by John F. Crosby. Routledge; 1st edition.
Nichols, William C. (2014). Polarized Couples behind the Facade. In When One Wants Out And The Other Doesn’t: Doing Therapy With Polarized Couples, edited by John F. Crosby. Routledge; 1st edition.
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