Since the days of William James and Rollo May, humanistic psychology has given much that is good to the practice of psychology, enriching the understanding of the psyche, and deepening its approach to humans by displaying and accepting the condition in which they find themselves. However, as much as it has developed experiential therapies, one of the areas in which existential fears abound is in divorce. The courage of practitioners to work with marital distress somehow wanes in the situation where couples are breaking up, or, said another way, transferring from one state of relationship to another, from being married to being “relatives.” Like couple therapy, support toward an amicable divorce would be contra-indicated for some situations—but, nevertheless, many could be helped in a very difficult moment. By developing a practice to support the emotional waves during the divorce process and bringing couples temporarily to a sense of safety to make a good agreement, even society at large might benefit. The fallout from divorces, such as isolation, depression, and anger developed in the absence of a sense of belonging has in its history gunmen, suicides, and drug addiction, as well as the lesser issues such as a good sense of self.
At this moment, divorce is more commonly in the hands of the law courts which cannot manage the existential nature of the crisis and can, therefore, fling people into a worse crisis. Using law courts makes sense in the parts of the work that are for the state, but not for the ongoing relationships, either between people or within their inner sense of developing guilt or self-blame. Humanistic psychology knows the pain of crisis and particularly of a crisis of existence. In divorce, all the most essential supports for survival are in question, and yet people are required to bring their best thinking and most equanimous negotiating toward making decisions. Moreover, they will often hire an attorney who is ethically commanded to attend to one person and advocate for him or her against the other, increasing the fear and threat that the individuals will feel.
Divorce is one of the most traumatic and disruptive life events because the relationship has provided many of the existential necessities for human flourishing (Amato, 2010; Holmes & Rahe, 1967). Divorce occurs frequently and instances are rising. Humanistic psychology, especially phenomenological and existential approaches—already well-developed since Rollo May, Abraham Maslow, and others—can address these fears and emotional dysregulations. It is understandable that these will arise, which then produces a diminished ability to think clearly about the great matters that are at stake in the divorce process. To get support in directly addressing the expected shame that comes with a feeling of failure, and the fear of losing the most basic human safeties, opens the divorce deliberations more safely to the most significant issues that affect future flourishing. It would allow, for example, a couple to decide what is best for their vulnerable children, rather than vying for equal time right away. Perhaps transitioning slowly to equal time would make more sense for the young developing minds. Also, to support each other to become financially self-sufficient over a period might be best if both could manage the inconvenience, knowing that everyone would be better off in the long run. These are often terrifying decisions and people become positional if the safe space for thinking more deeply and considering options is absent.
The professionals involved in facilitating the divorce have a responsibility to the couple, but also to the society at large. They are being paid to be attentive to the couple’s ability to make the decisions necessary for a divorce document that is legally binding and enforceable, and which also suits the family as a parameter for living in a new way.
With high emotional arousal, cognitive abilities are often compromised, and yet for a divorcing couple, those abilities are greatly needed when creating the agreement that will significantly influence their future. The huge gap between the nature of such a document dedicated to psychological and emotional support for those involved in divorce and the evolving and changing lives that it is meant to guide make it vitally important to create a clear understanding between the partners who are divorcing. It needs to capture the intent of their words on paper and in their ongoing understanding of each other. If they make agreements in anger or feel coerced to finalize agreements that they are not prepared to make, they will find great difficulty in letting the words of the document continue to guide them or, on the other hand, come to mutual agreement about how to adjust what it says to the reality of their situation in each moment.
There has been ample research (see Walmsley, 2019) to uncover the effects of divorce on the future functioning of children (Amato, 2010; Hetherington, 2006; Wallerstein, 2005; Wolfinger, 2000) and adults (Finzi-Dottan & Cohen, 2014; Weaver & Schofield, 2014; Willén, 2015). The problematic outcomes of divorce affect not only the divorcing couple (Amato 2010; Weaver & Schofield, 2014), but also the children in the home (Faber & Wittenborn, 2010), as well as the children who are either grown or have left the home since before the divorce of their parents (Greenwood, 2004). Although the process aims at producing a good agreement that will be effective for years into the future, the effective interventions that promise positive results have been less than forthcoming (Amato, 2010).
Supporting people with the distressing outcomes after divorce is a possibility for cultivating ongoing healthy relationships, mitigating that distress by supporting changes in the process itself. Trauma from a single divorce is most often transferred to the next generation because of attachment issues that are significant to the developing minds of children.
Humanistic psychology can support this tricky dynamic because it focuses on human existence and all the aspects that create the foundation for existing and flourishing—home, family, comfort, purpose, interrelationships, and changes over the lifespan. In the divorce process, the emphasis is on issues that matter to the state—assets, taxes, ownership of physical items, responsibility to children, ownership of health insurance. However, what really matters in terms of well-being is emotional and psychological.
Currently there is nothing requiring professionals to provide a sustainable, humanistic process when couples are divorcing, and yet, this is not so difficult to achieve and institute. It is well known in couples work that people having difficulty being understood by their partners will experience emotional escalation. Divorcing couples might be more challenging because of their present woundedness and lack of trust, but this has not stopped couple therapy from addressing these problems in the work of helping people to improve their committed relationships. The therapist could guide them in the humanistic way to open to their fears and feelings, and then work the therapeutic dance, accompanying them to a feeling of collaboration and trust. This trust would not be the same as when they were married, but good enough to be in the world together, and good enough not to have to unrealistically cut off a relationship that has all the qualities of an attachment. Such a process would help people in divorced families make sense of the shift in their existential worlds and offer them, in a moment in which they are paying attention to these matters, a better way to settle into a new set of self-supporting structures and understandings. By reducing the fear of their soon-to-be exes, for example, people can go forward with the thought of evolving their future relationship according to need. They might be able to make agreements in which they reassess their various needs later. To some at this moment, this might seem like an impossibility when seen from their place of self-protection. However, interrelationships of all kinds are possible for humans, and learning more about how to help people transition to a peaceful place that has no tale of resentment would be quite manageable with humanistic psychology (with minor adjustments), at this point of development.
By attending to the waves of fear and catastrophic thinking, and the fueling of that fear spiral by the other spouse, the humanistic psychotherapist can help the couple over the crisis moment and into a new life. Supporting the couple to craft a sustainable agreement can foster the transformation of their once intimate relationship to a familial one.
References
Amato, P. R. (2010). Research on divorce: Continuing trends and new developments. Journal of Marriage & Family, 72(3), 650-666. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00723.x
Finzi-Dottan, R., & Cohen, O. (2014). Predictors of parental communication and cooperation among divorcing spouses. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 23(1), 39-51. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-012-9684-z
Greenwood, J. L. (2004). Effects of mid- to late-life parental divorce on adult children. Journal of divorce and remarriage, 55(7), 539–556. https://doi.org/10/1080/10502556.2014.950903
Hetherington, E. M. (2006). The influence of conflict, marital problem solving and parenting on children’s adjustment in nondivorce, divorced and remarried families. In A. Clarke- Stewart & J. Dunn (Eds.), Families count: Effect on child and adolescent development (pp. 203-237). Cambridge University Press.
Holmes, T. & Rahe, R. (1967). The social readjustment scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11 (2), 213–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-3999(67)90010-4
Wallerstein, J. S. (2005). Growing up in the divorced family. Clinical Social Work Journal, 33(4), 401-418. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-005-7034-y
Walmsley, D. (2019). The divorce process: Recognizing and accommodating primal panic (Publication No. 13895914) [Doctoral dissertation, Saybrook University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.
Weaver, J. M., & Schofield, T. J. (2015). Mediation and moderation of divorce effects on children’s behavior problems. Journal of Family Psychology, 29(1), 39–48. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000043
Willén, H. (2015). Challenges for divorced parents: Regulating negative emotions in post-divorce relationships. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 36(3), 356-370. https://doi.org/10.1002/anzf.1115
Wolfinger, N. H. (2000). Beyond the intergenerational transmission of divorce: Do people replicate the patterns of marital instability they grew up with? Journal of Family Issues, 21, 1061-1086. https://doi.org/10.1177/019251300021008006opens in new window
About the Author
Dominique Walmsley, PhD, has been practicing psychotherapy since 2006 when she received her master’s in existential-phenomenological psychotherapy from Seattle University. In 2019, she received her doctorate from Saybrook University. She is in private practice, working mostly with couples, in Seattle. Born in South Africa, she is enjoying the riches of psychology’s development in the USA and is pleased to be living in the beautiful Northwest.