Family
Law
Clients
can be coached to manage divorce anxiety
May
10, 2006
 |
| Gregg
Herman
|
Many,
if not most, of the clients seen by a family law attorney, exhibit a high degree
of anxiety. Sometimes, it manifests itself in anger; sometimes in depression;
and sometimes in a different manner altogether. This anxiety interferes with the
attorney’s ability to concentrate on the legal aspects of the case.
Frequently,
the attorney will refer the client to a mental health therapist. Certainly, when
the mental health aspects are severe, therapy is necessary. Often, however, all
the client needs — and sometimes all the client can handle — is a guide
through the emotional aspects of the marital crisis. Recent experiences have raised
the possibility that referring the client for therapy might not be the best means
of helping the client through the mental health aspects of the divorce.
This
is the next in a series of articles examining the relationship between family
law attorneys and mental health professionals.
One
of the innovations of the increasingly popular collaborative divorce model is
its use of mental health coaches. Prior to collaborative divorce, mental health
professionals were used for one of two purposes: providing therapy or evaluations.
The
role of a “coach” is neither. As explained by Dr. Sanford Portnoy in
a recent article, therapy typically “seeks symptom amelioration or cure.”
Sanford M. Portnoy, “Divorce Coaches: A New Resource for Matrimonial Lawyers,”
19 Am. J. Fam. L. 4 (Winter, 2006). However, the role of a coach is far more limited.
As explained by Dr. Portnoy, it is intended to “help individuals manage situations...
[T]he emphasis is on helping the client manage in specific, delineated ways. It
is skills training rather than healing.” The search for underlying causes
and, hopefully, resolution, waits for later.
Why
does this approach have merit? As an analogy, while news stories try to explain
events as they occur, novels examine more global issues. Interestingly, the great
war novels are never written during the war, but years later. For example, the
great Civil War novel, “The Red Badge of Courage” was written in 1895,
some 30 years after the end of the war. Similarly, the great World War I novel,
“All Quiet on the Western Front”, was written in 1929, 11 years after
the end of that war. And, “From Here to Eternity” was written in 1951,
six years after the end of World War II. We may still have not seen a great novel
arising from the Vietnam War.
Therapy
is, to a large extent, trying to get the client to write a novel of their life,
by searching for the greater issues that affect their lives. When the legal bullets
are flying overhead might not be the best time to engage in this search. The best
that the client can do is to keep his head down and wait for the shooting to stop.
Coaching
is assistance for keeping the head down and avoiding increasing problems. As many
collaborative lawyers can attest, using coaches can be a godsend for lawyers seeking
to deal with legal issues and avoid the emotional ones from subsuming them at
great cost to everyone.
Can
coaching be applied in a non-collaborative approach?
Perhaps
not as well as in a collaborative case, where a teamwork approach can assure that
each professional is working in tandem with each other professional in an organized
fashion.
Still,
there is no reason why it cannot work in a traditional divorce. As Dr. Portnoy
explains, even without the frequent direct contact in a collaborative setting,
the benefits of coaching can still be attained. These benefits include separating
the client’s psychological and emotional needs from the legal needs, teaching
the client how to communicate more effectively with the lawyer, and preparing
the client emotionally for court hearings and other stressful events associated
with the legal system.
As
Dr. Portnoy explained, the role must be clearly explained to the client. Further,
clients, especially those involved in custody and placement disputes, should be
made aware that it is unclear whether confidentiality and the traditional patient-therapist
privilege apply in the coaching context.
However,
it should be an easy sell. For the client, it maximizes the efficiency of their
financial resources. For attorneys, it allows us to act in the field for which
we were trained.
The
value is obvious for both.
Gregg
Herman is a shareholder with Loeb & Herman S.C. in Milwaukee. Herman, is available
via e-mail to gherman@loebherman.com.
