My Approach to Helping
Relationships are big challenges. Who are we when we interact with those around us? Do we let others see us for who we really are? Can we see them? I specialize in working with individuals and couples as they try to manage their relationships: preserving them, ending them or changing them. This includes the effects of divorce and moving from a pre-divorce to a post-divorce family, whether through the court system or Collaborative Divorce, a process designed to help couples take control over the decisions that will impact their lives for many years, without going to court. While going through a divorce you might feel isolated and alone as you face legal issues, emotional turmoil, concerns for your children and financial questions. I will work with you to address your feelings, perhaps of anger, confusion and loss which can impair decision-making at this critical time. Divorce is an emotional event with legal and financial ramifications, not a legal and financial event with emotional consequences. As a family therapist, I will help you be clear about what is most important to you, the entire family, and especially the impact of divorce on your children.
More Info About My Practice
Co-Parenting: Communicating for Results (C4R) is comprised of two 5-week experiential courses for parents who want to develop more effective communication skills and be better able to problem solve with former partners. You will learn how deeply-rooted beliefs may impede your ability to be productive co-parents, gain an understanding of how to reduce the conflict in highly emotional conversations and practice staying focused on child centered objectives when conversations become heated and personal.
We will practice these communication skills in the context of common co-parenting experiences. You will explore common communication patterns between you and your co-parent while learning how to transform them into more positive interactions in the future.
This course will help you:
* keep your children out of the middle of your divorce
* negotiate child-focused agreements
* have effective, planned, co-parenting conversations
* retain the recognition of yourself as a loving, supportive human being in your post-divorce family
In the first five-week segment (Part I), you will learn essential skills for surviving highly emotional conversations that may catch you by surprise. You will learn how to:
* recognize your current, habitual patterns of communication
* challenge and change your stories about the other parent
* deepen your understanding and management of your emotional responses
* manage your ego instead of blaming the other parent
* understand how you use and abuse power and authority in a relationship
* listen as an act of being present
* become curious when you believe you already know the answer
* ask questions to confirm your understanding of what is being communicated before you respond.
In the second five-week segment (Part II), you will learn skills to help you prepare for planned conversations?those conversations you have time to prepare for.
Part I will begin on February 7, 2018 and will be taught in Oakland, California.
Please visit my website for more information and to register for the course.
