Therapeutic Family Mediation
Divorce or separation leads to a wide variety of issues and disagreements that must be resolved. These could be related to finances, child custody agreements, or division of property and other assets.
While it is certainly possible to resolve all of these by going through the courts and leaving it up to the lawyers and a judge, this is often a lengthy, expensive and unpleasant process. If your relationship has not reached the point where you can no longer stand to be in the same room as each other, then you may wish to consider an alternative.
Therapeutic Family mediation is focused on solving the inevitable problems and difficulties that arise as a result of separation and divorce. It is not usually intended to focus on the past and the causes of the present situation but to instead enable everyone involved to move forward in the most constructive way possible.
While discussions are likely to divert from the issue at hand to accusations regarding events that led to the current situation, the presence of a mediator will help to reduce these, keeping everyone polite and focused on the task at hand. Therapeutic family Mediation encourages constructive discussion while helping to prevent separating parties from blaming each other.
Many of the issues that arise can be addressed in a very practical manner, and this is often the goal during mediation. Negotiation is essential on everybody’s part, and a satisfactory conclusion is therefore much more likely to be reached. If your looking for a mediation service than Lakes Family mediation is for you! Click here to find out more
The Difference with Therapeutic Family Mediation
While all of the problem-solving described above will take place during therapeutic family mediation , there is also another aspect to it. Sometimes, it is simply not possible to move on constructively and healthily until some of the emotional aspects have been addressed, and this is the additional part of what will take place during your therapeutic family mediation sessions.
Each partner is encouraged to put forward their stories in turn, while the other listens. This should help everyone concerned to gain a better understanding of what happened in the past, and what the best approach is in order to move forward.
Therapeutic family mediation have found that this approach is often able to reduce the feelings of anger and blame that frequently exist when a relationship ends, allowing a much healthier emotional state to be reached.
Why Therapeutic Family Mediation is important
This is particularly important when children are involved, as shared custody arrangements will inevitably require at least some communication between the parents. It is easier on everyone involved when these feelings have been resolved beforehand; the children will otherwise pick up on the tension and lingering resentment.
This may cause long-term damage to the relationships between parent and child, which is important to avoid if at all possible. Therapeutic mediation can allow problems to be seen from a different viewpoint, which has the advantage of finding an appropriate long-term solution even when this did not previously seem to be possible.
If you are interested in exploring the option of therapeutic mediation, it will involve a greater time commitment than the more typical problem-solving mediation, so you should be aware of the need to attend a greater number of sessions before a resolution is reached. Therapeutic family mediation is not suitable for everyone, and for it to be successful, all parties must be prepared to fully participate.