Endings are Hard, Don’t Make it Harder
Divorce can be accomplished through Self-Filing, Mediation, Litigation, or Collaborative Practice. Learn more about what’s right for you and your family.
What is Collaborative Practice Divorce
Collaborative Practice is a method of arriving at settlements and resolving disputes that uses a team approach to resolving conflict using a friendly and collaborative process that helps clients craft their own agreements and keeps the clients in control of their future and maintains what is most important: family, finances, and emotional health (as defined by the California Chapter of Collaborative Practice).
Clients work together in a respectful way, keeping in mind the importance of protecting their children and other involved people from conflict. Decisions are made by the participants without the involvement of a judge or other decision authority.
Trust & Estates matters greatly benefit from the Collaborative approach to resolve disputes more peacefully while preserving family relationships. This process helps to enable continuing relationships after the current conflict has been resolved.
Your Collaborative Team
The Collaborative Practice includes non-litigating attorneys, a neutral financial divorce specialist, mental health divorce coaches, and possibly a child specialist. The inclusion of a mental health professional as an integral part of the team helps calibrate, attenuate, and navigate emotional waters that arise in divorce and settlement of trusts and can help develop Co-Parenting plans and relationships.
Attend a free monthly DIvorce Options course that outlines the four types of divorce.
To learn more about whether Collaborative Practice is right for you, contact Dr. Valerie Sher at drval@drvaleriesher.com or 650-332-4656.
What Are Collaborative Divorce Coaches?
Collaborative Divorce Coaches—typically licensed mental health professionals — manage the emotional, communication, and co-parenting aspects of separation, helping parties to reduce conflict, stay goal-focused, and negotiate effectively outside of court. They streamline the process, lower costs by curbing emotional deadlock, and facilitate productive, respectful settlement talks.
What Collaborative Divorce Coaches Do
- Manage Emotions: They help clients cope with the stress, anger, and grief of divorce, preventing emotional outbursts from stalling negotiations.
Improve Communication: Coaches teach skills to help spouses communicate constructively, ensuring both parties feel heard and respected. - Set Goals & Focus: They assist in identifying individual needs and long-term goals, keeping the process “on track” and focused on solutions rather than past conflicts.
- Develop Parenting Plans: They work with parents to create co-parenting structures, helping transition from an intimate relationship to a business-like coparenting dynamic.
- Facilitate Meetings: Coaches often manage the agenda in joint sessions, intervening when discussions become unproductive.
Identify Roadblocks: They help clients recognize behaviors or “hot buttons” that impede progress.
How They Help (Key Benefits)
- Reduced Conflict & Cost: By keeping emotions in check, they minimize arguments, which speeds up the process and reduces legal fees.
- Better Decision Making: Clients make rational, future-focused decisions rather than reactive ones.
- Child-Centered Approach: They ensure the children’s needs remain central, especially when creating parenting plans.
- Structured Support: They provide a neutral, safe space to process feelings without using legal counsel as a therapist.
- Efficient Process: They act as glue for the team, integrating with lawyers and financial experts to ensure smooth workflow.
Navigating Your New Beginning
Physical and mental health are intrinsically related. How we are in our mind is reflected in and affects our body and how we are in our body affects how we are in our mind. When we hold our breath because we feel fearful or anxious, we increasingly begin to feel anxious which can then lead to feelings of panic. Food, exercise, and sleep, among other things, also affect our emotional and mental well being. Emotional holding, trauma, and how our bodies hold our stories can take a toll and create mental dis-ease and chronic patterns often lead to disease.
Activities like exercise, yoga, and mindfulness-based stress reduction or relaxation practices can help to expand the breath, reduce stress, and can create improved thinking and emotional regulation. Movement explorations can increase body awareness, release stuck emotions, and create more fluidity in movement and self expression.
Call for a mind-body consultation at 408-507-4329 and learn how mind-body wellness coaching and body oriented psychotherapy can help you feel more connected to yourself, access your body wisdom, feel better, have more energy, and feel more vibrant and alive.