Discernment Counselling

If you or your partner/spouse are considering separation/divorce but are not completely sure that’s the best path, you are in a tough spot. And Discernment Counselling is designed for you. It’s a chance to slowdown, take a breath, and look at your options.

Discernment Counselling is a new way of helping couples where one person is “leaning out” of the relationship—and not sure that regular couples counselling would help—and the other is "leaning in”—that is, interested in rebuilding the partnership.

This process will help you decide whether to try to restore your partnership to health, move toward divorce, or take a time out and decide later.

The Goal

The goal is for you to gain clarity and confidence about a direction, based on a deeper understanding of your relationship and its possibilities for the future.
The goal is not to solve your relationship problems but to see if they are solvable. You will each be treated with compassion and respect no matter how you are feeling about your relationship at the moment. No bad guys and good guys.

The Process

You come in as a couple but the most important work occurs in the one-to-one conversations with the counsellor. Why? Because you are starting out in different places. The counsellor respects your reasons for separation while trying to open up the possibility of restoring the partnership to health. The counsellor emphasises the importance of each of you seeing your own contributions to the problems and the possible solutions. This will be useful in future relationships even if this one ends.

Number of Sessions: A maximum of 5 counselling sessions. The first session is usually 2 hours and the subsequent are 1.5 hours. Some couples find one session is enough, others go to the maximum of 5.