Not All Divorce Coaches Are Equal
Marvin L. Chapman, MFT, CFC
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Clinical Forensic Counselor
No matter how amicable a couple may be, going through a divorce is a very complex and deeply emotional experience. Not only are the parties facing the emotional issues surrounding the decision to divorce, they are also confronted with the adversarial family court process. The legal assumption in the adversarial court process is that only when the parties take strong polarized positions can the judge discover the truth and declare a winner. In a divorce, when the emotional issues are joined with the adversarial court issues, the must win attitude of the adversarial process only serves to perpetuate and exacerbate the parental conflict. As such, it becomes clear why going through a divorce is said to be the second most stressful event in a person’s life, second only to the death of an immediate family member. Because of this extreme stress, some individuals enter into short-term divorce therapy.
Divorce Therapy
Divorce therapy is a specialized area of therapy that generally involves assisting the client in dealing with emotional issues that are overwhelming their normal coping skills and therefore interfering with their interpersonal relationships with family members, co-workers, friends, and others. Divorce therapy is the use of the therapists’ education, training, and experience to assist the client in discovering and attaining new and more functional coping skills, communication skills, attitudes and/or behaviors. A divorce therapist will assist their client in developing tools to cope with the divorce issues that are unique to the client, helping the client through the emotional divorce process.
Divorce therapy is conducted by a licensed mental health professional subject to the laws governing therapy business practices. In addition to complying with the licensing requirements and following the laws governing their business practices, a licensed therapist is also subject to a code of ethics within their profession. A code of ethics informs both the therapist and their potential client about the responsibilities of therapy. Codes of ethics also allow for accountability. Through the enforcement of a code of ethics, clients are protected from unethical practices. A therapist can lose their right to practice if they fail to follow licensing requirements, violate the law covering their practice, or breach their code of ethics. As such, a licensed therapist has a strong motivation for operating legally and within the scope of their practice while maintaining acceptable ethical standards.
Divorce Coaching
One of the exploding areas of growth in the past ten to fifteen years has been what is called coaching - from personal and life coaching to executive and corporate coaching. In the coaching model, the client is viewed as going through an acute situation that can be resolved through or assisted by the coaching skills of the coach. Many individuals cannot conceive themselves ever entering into traditional therapy. However, many of these same individuals will have no problem in hiring a coach. This fact may have to do with the attitude that “therapy” is a sign of personal weakness, whereas hiring a personal coach can be a sign of strength.
One of the major differences between therapy and coaching is the client. In the therapy model, the client (a) has a problem, (b) that requires a diagnosis, (c) that promotes a treatment plan, and (d) that ends with an intervention or cure. Unlike this therapy model, in the coaching model the client is not perceived as having any particular problem - the client is not diagnosed, a treatment plan is not developed, and there is no intervention or cure.
Another major difference between therapy and coaching are the differences between the requirements to be a therapist and the lack of requirements to be a coach. To be a therapist you must have a license, complying with continuing educational requirements, and abide by a set of ethical standards. To hold your self out as a coach requires no license, no educational minimums, and there are no consequences for violating any ethical standard. Although the web site for both the International Association of Coaching (IAC) [certifiedcoach.org] and the International Coach Federation (ICF) [coachfederation.org] have loosely defined ethical codes, there are no consequences for breaching those ethics. According to these web sites, a coach simply relies on their own life experiences as their scope of practice. Therefore, there are no legal or ethical issues to violate in the coaching model. Because of this shortfall, there appears to be no consumer protection from unscrupulous individuals holding themselves out to be coaches.
Arguably the fastest growing area of this coaching phenomenon is divorce coaching. Simplified, divorce coaching is basically assisting the client in dealing with emotional issues that are (a) interfering with the client’s ability to appropriately deal with their spouse, thereby (b) interfering with their ability to proactively assist and become an active partner with their attorney, that (c) is interfering with the client’s ability to make good legal decisions for themselves and their children.
There are no set qualifications for those holding themselves out to be divorce coaches. A coach is not licensed; therefore, their business practices are not governed or sanctioned by an official or legal entity. Their code of ethics is really just a very loose set of optional guidelines. Without any licensing requirements, and not bound by any specific code of ethics, unlicensed divorce coaches simply rely on their own divorce experiences (or those of others) in their attempt to provide some type of assistance to those willing to pay the price. Therefore, a person holding him or her self out as a divorce coach has no license to lose, and no reason to uphold any particular ethical standard. Until the divorce coach field is licensed and regulated, deciding whether or not to hire a divorce coach will continue to be a “buyer beware” proposition for the consumer.
Collaborative Divorce Coaching
Collaborative divorce is an out-of-court process that assists husbands and wives in dissolving their marriage in a compassionate, practical, and informed way - proceeding at their own pace and not based upon a court calendar. Collaborative divorce is the fastest growing area of law in recent years. And, it is continuing to gain in popularity among the courts, judges, attorneys, and most importantly, individuals who are considering divorce. Collaborative divorce is a process involving family law attorneys, mental health professionals, and financial specialists all working together cooperatively to bring about a solution that is fair, just, and equitable for all family members. It is a process that supports the entire family and provides for a smooth transition into a new restructured family.
In the traditional adversarial divorce process, many parents use the process as a therapeutic tool thinking it will heal or sooth their pain, to justify their actions, or to seek vindication for the perceived “wrongs” of the other parent. In the collaborative process, the coaches are there to assist the parties when they hit these emotional roadblocks. Instead of paying their attorneys to conduct research, discovery, and trial preparation to “battle” each other, the parties spend their money on resolving their issues constructively and fairly. The professional collaborative team is not only committed to keeping the parties out of court, they are also there to help the parties transition their marriage into two households in a peaceful, intelligent, and restorative manner.
Unlike the divorce coach model, the coach in the collaborative divorce coach model is required to be a licensed mental health professional. As such, they are governed by the licensing requirements, continuing education mandates, and compliance with their codes of ethics. However, because they are also called divorce coaches, licensed professional therapist can easily be confused with unlicensed, uneducated, and unregulated divorce coaches.
Therefore, if you are going through a divorce and determine that you need a divorce coach, ensure you retain a licensed therapist as your divorce coach to protect yourself from fraud and unscrupulous business practices.