Helping Couples on the Brink of Divorce: Discernment Counseling for Troubled Relationships

This second edition offers a session-by-session guide to discernment counseling, a specialized five-session intervention to help couples leaning different ways about divorce or separation find the best path forward for their troubled relationships.
 
The authors have added new case examples that reflect different kinds of couples, as well as an additional chapter demonstrating the entire discernment counseling protocol in action. Updated scholarship and insights for learning to become a discernment counselor have also been included.
 
Unlike traditional couples therapy, the goal of discernment counseling isn’t to help the couple heal their relationship but rather to gain clarity and confidence about a direction for their relationship in terms of three potential paths: maintaining the status quo, getting divorced/separated, or entering couples therapy.
 
Typically, one partner or spouse is invested in saving the relationship (leaning in) while the other is not (leaning out), so this book explores how to navigate these differing agendas and offers clinicians tools for interacting with both partners. It walks through the process of working with the couple together and with each partner individually, helping them to recognize their contributions to the relationship’s problems and clarify what they would work on if they embark on couples therapy.
 
Common challenges in discernment counseling are also explored, such as when neither partner is leaning in, when one partner is having an affair, and when there is lack of love or passion.

William J. Doherty, PhD, is a professor emeritus in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Social Science and cofounder of the Doherty Relationship Institute. Dr. Doherty has authored 16 books for professionals and the lay public. He has served as president of the National Council on Family Relations and received the Lifetime Career Award from the American Family Therapy Academy. He also cofounded Braver Angels, a nonprofit working on bridge building in a divided country.

Steven M. Harris, PhD, LMFT, is a professor in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Social Science. He has been practicing as a marriage and family therapist for over 30 years. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy and serves as the director of the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project. He was awarded the Legacy Award by the National Council on Family Relations-Family Therapy Section in 2024. Dr. Harris is the author of over 90 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and is the coauthor of Should I Try to Work It Out?