Divorcing families
Divorce is a major transition in the life of a family and can cast a long shadow over the life of a child. Although a marriage may end, the family relationships surrounding it continue, often in altered and complicated forms. How parents navigate that transition can have important consequences for both themselves and their children.
I bring more than 25 years of specialized experience working with divorce and its aftermath. My work in this area began as a senior clinician with the Judy Wallerstein Center for the Family in Transition and has included work as a custody evaluator and special master, professional training and consultation, and extensive clinical work with divorcing and remarried families. I was also an active member of the Judy Wallerstein Center for Research on the Family in Transition for twenty years.
My aim is to help families reduce unnecessary conflict and minimize the burden placed on children while developing family relationships that can function more successfully after divorce.
I provide a range of services to divorcing and post-divorce families, including co-parenting work, help resolving impasses in high-conflict situations, and family therapy with parents and adult children dealing with the continuing effects of an earlier divorce.
Stepfamilies
Building a stepfamily presents challenges that differ in important ways from those faced by a family that begins with the couple.
A new couple relationship is developing at the same time that an entirely new family structure is being created. Children may be coping with divided loyalties, loss, hope for parental reconciliation, or resistance to a stepparent. Parents and stepparents may have very different expectations about authority, closeness and discipline. Stepsiblings must find their own ways of living together, while former spouses and co-parenting relationships remain part of the larger family system.
These competing needs can place considerable strain on even a strong couple. Understanding that many of these difficulties are inherent in the structure of stepfamily life—not simply evidence that something has gone wrong—can itself be helpful.
I bring many years of clinical experience with divorce, remarriage and stepfamily life, as well as a particular professional interest in the experience of stepmothers. I am the author of “On Becoming a Good Enough Stepmother, and I also bring the perspective of having built a stepfamily myself.
I provide couples therapy for partners in remarriages and individual therapy for stepparents struggling with the particular demands of their role.