Family law professionals often shy away from intense emotions accompanying divorcing families. This workshop encourages and empowers professionals to embrace client emotions. We will share tools to help professionals 1) recognize how these emotions show up (you’d be surprised!); 2) how to help clients acknowledge and work with emotions; 3) tools to help professionals navigate client emotions; and 4) tools to recognize when our own emotions are involved. Taught by a psychologist and a lawyer this workshop provides signals, tools, and insight that mental health professionals and lawyers can use to navigate family conflict. With the signals and tools, you will learn, you will help yourself and your clients better understand the emotions that drive conflict. You will learn to recognize them as the keys to reducing family conflict, building a brighter future for children, and helping clients trust that the sun will come out tomorrow.

Learning Objectives:

  • Participants will be able to describe three tools to help clients become more introspective and consider their spouse’s perspective.
  • Participants will be able to describe three signals or aspects of a client’s behavior that demonstrate the client is not in a place to engage logically.
  • Participants will be able to describe three tools or strategies to help clients re-engage in the process when they are not ready to re-engage.
  • Participants will be able to describe three tools to identify when they themselves are activated and how to use the same tools to return to equilibrium in order to engage with clients.