Divorce Therapy

Charles Figley, Phd

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317735557
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Examine a wide variety of divorce therapy approaches with this seminal book. Divorce Therapy is one of the first books to present a comprehensive approach to divorce therapy. Based on a foundation of theory and research about divorce, this landmark volume focuses on the help that psychotherapists can provide during the three stages of divorce--pre-divorce decision making, divorce restructuring, and post-divorce recovery. A distinguished array of researchers and clinicians address discuss mediation, criteria for a constructive divorce, remarriage, custody issues, and much more.

Focus Three: Post-Divorce Recovery and Remarriage

Creating New Realities for the Newly Divorced: A Structural-Strategic Approach for Divorce Therapy with an Individual

Marcia D. Brown

ABSTRACT. Not every divorcing client comes equipped with a family system that is willing to participate in divorce therapy. This paper emphasizes that a divorce therapist can still use a systemic approach with an individual who seeks help even without the luxury of the family's presence in-session. Case vignettes serve to illustrate how a clinician can create new and more productive realities for the newly divorced client during early therapy, mid-therapy, and late therapy. The structural-strategic orientation suggested culminates in a single case study which links theory and technique with actual practice.

The purpose of this paper is to help the therapist construct new realities for the newly divorced or separated individual. It is based on the assumption that the meaning the client attributes to divorce can become either a nodal point for accentuating pain or a motivation to seek alternative self-definitions. The client may focus on the former; the divorce therapist must capitalize on the latter. The theoretical framework presented will be structural-strategic family therapy although the focus will be on utilizing the tenets of this approach to work with an individual.

Key figures in strategic and structural family therapy have much to say concerning the interplay between the client's and the clinician's presentation of reality. Erickson (1962) notes that children try to discover what is strong, secure, and safe and will look for definitive boundaries from those around them. According to Erickson, the task of the therapist is to present "secure realities," setting the parameters to optimize security. Watzlawick (1978) suggests that children and most adults behave as if words "exactly represent reality." He takes the position that "language does not so much reflect reality as create it." This opens up new opportunities to shape the client's world-view by the therapist's very words and the ways those particular words are phrased. Minuchin and Fishman (1981) advise that the art of family therapy is to experience reality as each client experiences it. They say that the therapist should contest the unworkable reality that has been formed by the client's vacillation between the dubious security of the known and the uncertain exploration of adaptive means to meeting changing conditions. Old patterns are undermined to make way for the new via therapeutic challenges which may be direct or indirect. The goal is to reframe the original view of the problem, making it imperative that an inner search occurs for alternative affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses.

This paper will guide the reader through several case vignettes in which new realities are created for persons who have experienced recent separation and/or divorce. It will examine this process in early therapy (where the focus is on reacting to the crisis), in mid-therapy (where the thrust is on acting as well as reacting), and in late therapy (where the emphasis is on personal growth and self-direction). A single case description at the end ties these processes together.

While not all divorces are the same and the processes described here can occur early or late depending on circumstances, the therapist should be able to adapt the concepts and techniques described here. The choice to focus on the individual was deliberate. It will hopefully demonstrate that structural-strategic concepts are not limited by the unit of treatment. It also recognizes the reality that while family and couple work is often desirable in divorce therapy (Sprenkle & Storm, 1983), it is often not feasible. The principles enunciated here, however, can be applied to couple and family sessions.

Creating new realities offers the therapist considerable leeway in building upon the client's language and perspective without leaving her/him stuck in the mire of destructive patterns and obsessions. The strategy is analogous to disrupting the playback of a broken record by ever so slightly adjusting the needle. Since the client's unique reality is adjusted only slightly, there are no sure-fire reality creations which would be effective or even palatable to every newly divorced individual. The therapist has to adapt to the raw materials of each client's experience. It should also be emphasized that reality creation represents only one avenue within a clinician's full repertoire for facilitating growth, not a panacea for all situations. Clients who need to feel like they are being heard, for example, are not likely to be receptive to new realities.

Early Therapy

Joining and Identifying the Immediate Problem

The first example illustrates the interviewer's clarification of the immediate problem at the outset of therapy (Haley, 1976b).

Example (1)

Client: I don't know where to begin.

Therapist: I'm interested in what your situation was that prompted you to call for an appointment.

Client: Since my wife left me, I can't seem to concentrate. I'm a Ph.D. student in analytic chemistry and the outline to my dissertation proposal is due in two weeks. Nothing I read seems to register.

Therapist: How long has it been that you've had difficulty concentrating?

Client: Let's see . . . Cindy told me on Friday evening she just didn't want to work on the relationship anymore. I thought she'd be back. It's been over a week now. I guess it's been worse since I got served papers a couple days ago. I had no idea things would move this fast.

The client is not called upon to explain the demise of the marriage or any other unanswerable question at the beginning. The therapist conveys interest in the recent past and assists the client in identifying his current reality, namely, shock and bad timing for his dissertation proposal. The client describes the sequence of events as happening to him and he targets poor concentration as his most pressing problem. The therapist structures questions around the symptom and assesses the client's functioning versus his perceived level of functioning. The fact that the therapist is asking answerable questions set a precedent that therapist and client can communicate and forms a context that associates therapy with success, an important initial building block (Rosen, 1982).

Divorcing clients have probably already gotten the message that they are "wrong" in someone's eyes and may anticipate that the therapist will likewise sit in judgment. This is not the time to point out personality flaws or explore past mistakes even if asked, "What's wrong with me that she would leave me?" A choice point here would be to ask further historical questions but the next example shows how the interview can be kept present-oriented and still gather considerable information that implies movement. By expanding the context (Minuchin & Fishman, 1981) and using the client's language (Watzlawick, 1978) the therapist can broaden her/his natural inclination to speak from a cognitive level to include vocabulary from an affective level. When the above client accepts that the therapist is confirming the reality presented, he is ready for a suggestion at a behavioral level.

Example (2)

Therapist: Not being able to concentrate sounds frustrating, particularly when working on a Ph.D.

Client: It is frustrating. I don't know how she could do this to me. She knows how important the next few weeks are.

Therapist: Did you drive yourself over today?

Client: Yes, I did.

Therapist: So, you are able to concentrate some, but not to the degree to which you would like.

Client: Right.

The therapist has altered the original phrase, "I can't seem to concentrate," to the suggestion, "So, you are able to concentrate some." This is a gentle reframing (Watzlawick, Weakland, & Fisch, 1974) and a vote of confidence that he has resources to help himself. Not everything is happening to him. If the verbal and nonverbal language of the client is receptive, the therapist may proceed. The client has been offered no reason to be guarded in-session, his language has been utilized, and his reality has been understood. When under threat the conscious mind will draw upon the analytic logic and language of the left brain hemisphere (Watzlawick, 1978). Since no threat is perceived, the right brain hemisphere, housing mood and a holistic world-view, is more accessible. Its natural proclivity for attuning itself to homonyms and other plays on words makes the last phrase of the preceding example either an opportunity for some humor at the conscious level or a word puzzle to be solved at the unconscious level. The degree of concentration and the Ph.D. degree are not proceeding at the degree he would like. This is a message to the unconscious mind to rally in favor of the self. Such fortuitous therapeutic responses may abound in sessions where neither therapist nor client are guarded. Spontaneity (Minuchin & Fishman, 1981) on the part of the therapist sometimes ministers to a key issue more efficiently than a deductively derived series of questions.

Had the client reacted against the compliment that he could concentrate some, the therapist would have been cued that the rules of the client's usual system were being violated (Minuchin & Fishman, 1981). This would have to be explored.

Example (3)

Client: I never said I couldn't concentrate at all. I just said I couldn't concentrate when I read.

Therapist: You are quite right. Did I give you the impression I misheard you?

The therapist is signaled that she/he has just touched a nerve. The idea of wrongness is quickly righted. Then the question is answered with a question, a well-known method of getting out of hot water by getting out from under the microscope. The client is then subtly directed to engage in his own inner search (Rosen, 1982) which helps the clinician buy time to develop strategy for the next interchange. The question is a yes/no variety. If the respondent says, "Yes," the therapist can apologize and straighten out the matter. If he says, "No," the therapist is out of a bind and can still straighten out the matter.

Example (4)

Client: No, it wasn't that.

Therapist: Well, I could understand if you thought I was jumping to conclusions about your concentration. The news from your wife sounded like it hit you as a terrible shock. That would be enough to muddle anyone's thinking.

Client: The biggest shock is how quickly she moved her things out. We had been arguing a lot about the last year or so but just two weeks ago we had talked about going into marriage counseling, getting things ironed out, and raising our children together. She said I only talked about things instead of doing them. But she wasn't straight with me.

The above example depicts the clinician's option to return to confirmation of the client's reality under the condition of client resistance. This backpedaling pays off and relaxes the client out of his one-upmanship. Minuchin and Fishman (1981) point out that a therapist does not always have to be correct with interventions; if she/he "goes beyond the threshold of what is acceptable, the system will correct itself."

Hypotheses may be formulated about the client's system based on his behavior with the therapist. The interviewer gets a chance to see what the client is like when he is under stress, something his partner may have found intolerable. In this case the client tends to feel criticized and view circumstances as happening to him. When the therapist mirrors his reality by conveying understanding and by suggesting, "That is enough to muddle anyone's thinking," the client becomes freer to go on with his story. Defensiveness decreases to the point that he mentions his wife's criticism of him though he appears not to be able to stick with this thought and switches to his wife's foibles instead.

Recognizing the Rules Which Maintain the Problem

Conjecture regarding the possible dynamics of the marital system suggests rules by which the client approaches relationships, rules the therapist will have to respect in the development of strategy. Perhaps this student was preoccupied with his studies and paid only lip service to his wife's requests for counseling and her wishes for shared parenting. Perhaps she expected him to read her mind. Perhaps neither of them could tolerate criticism and both were inept at resolving conflict. Without the benefit of the other party's presence, the divorce therapist is choosy about what realities to confirm, bolstering those that are protective of self-esteem and avoiding comment on either the relationship or the absent party. The persistence of attachment (Weiss, 1975) is reason enough to presume that the client will fluctuate back and forth about his marital choice. He is in pain because of his investment in the marriage. An attack on the marriage or a negative remark about his wife may be taken as selfinjury. What the therapist searches for and eventually finds is the client's pattern of relating under stress which is the rule, "Criticism invites closedness." Avoidance of criticism at this point encourages the client to be more open to what the therapist has to say down the road.

The client summarizes the problem as, "She wasn't straight with me." He seems to be trying to sell the idea that he has been victimized. This may give him cause to see a lawyer but it does not give a therapist much with which to work because it places the problem outside himself. The therapist in the next example must get the client's attention back to his own dilemma and his own resources in meeting it. The technique utilized is that of a combination "kick and a stroke" (Minuchin & Fishman, 1981).

Example (5)

Therapist: Your fist gathers strength as you speak of her while the rest of you goes helpless.

Client: I wasn't aware of that.

Therapist: If your fist could do the talking for you, what would it say?

Client: That I better get my act together or in two weeks I'm a dead duck.

The divorce therapist appeals to whatever survival instinct is available and can get away with addressing the client's helplessness and passivity by suggesting that there is unutilized strength that...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• The Journal of Psychotherapy & the Family Series:
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Editor
• Editorial Note
• Introducing This Volume and Divorce Stages as a Framework for Therapy
• Focus One: Divorce Decision-Making and Criteria for a Constructive Divorce
• Focus Two: Restructuring—Therapy for Children, Mediation, and Custody
• Focus Three: Post-Divorce Recovery and Remarriage
• Comprehensive Views of the Field