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When a marriage ends in divorce, the therapist’s role is to help that client cope with the challenging mental, financial, emotional, and physical process of the uncoupling. Not only can therapists act as an intermediary to ensure that the separation is achieved with minimal hostility, they can also equip individuals with the essential skills needed to navigate through all of the choppy waters associated with this life transition.

Divorce affects approximately 43% percent of the population of the United States. One fourth of these divorces are Silver divorces, in which the couple was married for 20 years or more. Divorce effects people legally, financially, socially, and emotionally. It is a complex and ambiguous loss that involves anger, disillusionment, fear and hope. There is minimal social work training in the best practices to help an individual cope with a divorce.

This workshop will give social workers tools from a variety of research-based techniques to help people contemplating or coping with divorce, including stage of change theory and techniques from motivational interviewing.  For clients that choose to divorce, the course will identify CBT techniques for helping reduce anxious and hopeless thoughts and increase coping.  In addition, the course will also draw from Seligman’s work on Learned Optimism and frame divorce in the client’s cultural and socio-economic experience.  Information on a variety of divorce professionals, the collaborative divorce movement and types of legal processes is included.  Lecture, handouts, and role play will be used to convey the information.  

Participants of this course will: 1) gain knowledge of current statistics; 2) discuss cultural beliefs and how socio-economic status affects beliefs about divorce and ability to divorce; 3) understand Stage of Change Theory and Motivational Interviewing techniques  as they apply to individuals contemplating divorce; 5) learn CBT techniques to manage fears, loss and sadness; 6) gain knowledge of Learned Optimism and how it can help people cope with a divorce; and 7) understand how a couple’s culture and socio-economic status shape their beliefs about marriage and their ability to divorce. This workshop is appropriate for all levels of post-master’s degreed practitioners

Ruth Feinblum, MSS, LCSW, has a post-master's Certificate in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy from Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. She worked in the public mental health system for a number of years in residential treatment, family-based mental health, and as an outpatient clinician with children and families. She founded Growth Solution Counseling, located in Center City Philadelphia, in 2008. She specializes in helping individuals and couples manage anxiety, improve communication skills, and thrive after divorce.

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