Working with Divorce-Ambivalent Clients

Friday, June 5th, 2026, 1:00 – 3:00pm ET / 11:00am – 1:00pm PT

When an individual client is struggling with chronic ambivalence about whether to stay in a marriage or a long-term committed relationship, the therapist may also struggle with how to be helpful. Research shows that up to 22% of married individuals in any given year have serious divorce ideation. Most won’t divorce in the short run, but use individual therapy to process their ambivalent feelings about staying married.

These therapy sessions are often dominated by the ups and downs of a stuck relationship, making it difficult to work on other therapeutic issues that may be closer to your clinical expertise.

This workshop provides tools and strategies that therapists can use with their individual clients who are unsure about whether to stay in, seek couples therapy, or leave their marriage.

This presentation also provides concrete skills for making referrals, when appropriate, for discernment counseling, a brief model designed specifically for couples when one partner is leaning out of the marriage but unsure about divorce or seeking couples therapy, and the other partner wants to preserve the relationship.

This is an intensely practical workshop that is backed by research on divorce ambivalence. Participants will receive many sample lines of communication to use with clients as well as key strategies to avoid bad-story-of-the-week individual therapy or premature referrals to couples therapy with clients who are not motivated to work on their marriage right now.

Learning objectives.  Participants will be able to:

1. Define divorce ambivalence in clients
2. Identify the main challenges for working with divorce-ambivalent clients in individual therapy
3. Discuss the principle clinical strategies and skills for treating divorce-ambivalent clients
4. Describe skills for referring these clients for couples’ work.

Presenter: Robin S. Rosenberg, Ph.D., ABPP, is a clinical psychologist with psychotherapy and executive coaching practices. She is board certified in clinical psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology, and has been certified in discernment counseling and in clinical hypnosis. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Psychology, and an Assistant Clinical Professor, Volunteer, at the University of California, San Francisco. She has taught psychology classes at Lesley University and Harvard University. She is a past President of the Women's Mental Health Consortium. She is licensed in CA, CT, FL, MA, NY, and UT. 

Advance registration required: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/-Is42tZTTwC8eNgYp9LQHw

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Note: There are no CEs provided for this workshop. This is a live-only workshop; there will not be a recording for later viewing.