Hello Everyone,
I’m thrilled to share some exciting news – I am now officially certified as a Discernment Counselor.
This certification represents a significant milestone in my professional journey, and I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities it will allow me to help individuals and couples navigate the complex terrain of relationship challenges.
What Does Discernment Counseling Involve?
If you or your spouse are considering divorce but are not entirely sure that’s the best path, you are undoubtedly in a tough spot. However, there is a way we can help: we offer discernment counseling.
This form of counseling can provide much-needed relief, allowing you a chance to slow down, take a breath, and look at your options for your marriage with a clear head.
Discernment counseling is a new way of helping couples, especially when one person is “leaning out” of the relationship—and not sure that regular marriage counseling would help–and the other is “leaning in”—that is, interested in rebuilding the marriage.
Dr. Tony Fiore, a seasoned and certified professional in the field, will guide you through the process of discernment counseling. This involves a series of sessions where you will explore your feelings, thoughts, and options regarding your marriage.
Dr. Fiore will help you decide whether to try to restore your marriage to health, move toward divorce, or take a time out and decide later. The goal is for you to gain clarity and confidence about a direction based on a deeper understanding of what is happening in your relationship, each person’s contributions to the problems and the possibilities for the future.
The goal is NOT to solve your marital problems but to help you understand the issues you face within your relationship and discover whether a resolution is possible.
You will each be treated with utmost compassion and respect, regardless of your current feelings about your marriage. There are no villains and no heroes. You will come in as a couple, but the most important work occurs in the one-to-one conversations with Dr. Fiore. Why? Because you are starting in different places, and we understand that.
Dr. Fiore respects your reasons for divorce while trying to open up the possibility of restoring the marriage to health. He emphasizes the importance of each of you seeing your contributions to the problems and the possible solutions. This will be a valuable learning experience for future relationships, even if this one ends.
Number of Sessions: Patients attend a maximum of five counseling sessions. The first session is usually two hours; subsequent sessions are 1.5 or 2 hours. Discernment Counseling is not suited for situations when one spouse has already made a final decision to divorce, when one spouse is coercing the other to participate, or when there is a danger of domestic violence. Your privacy is our priority, and all session discussions are confidential.
Help for the Leaning In Partner
Discernment Counseling was developed as a unique process to provide relief to partners who find traditional change-oriented marriage or couples therapy unhelpful when they are ambivalent about working on the marriage.
If you are the “leaning in” partner, you are more motivated to work on the relationship than your partner is. But if nothing you try seems to work, your efforts may be making things worse.
In discernment counseling, we suggest other things you can do that may work better. We recommend an excellent book for Leaning-In partners written by Michelle Weiner-Davis called “The Divorce Remedy,” readily available in your local bookstore or on Amazon.com.
If you are making mistakes that are driving your partner away, we encourage you to commit to trying to change those things. Taking leadership (for a while) to make the marriage better for both of you is an important attitude to have to turn things around. Regardless of the ultimate path chosen by you and your partner, in discernment counseling, we help you learn more about yourself, how you communicate, how your partner is reacting to you, and the role of a committed relationship in your life.
Help for the Leaning Out Partner
Did you know that 40% of couples with minor children who divorce, later regret it?
If you find yourself in a situation where you’re unsure about your marriage but feel more inclined to end it than your partner, you’re what we call a “leaning-out” partner in our discernment counseling system. We aim to provide you with the clarity and confidence you need to decide whether to work on the marriage, thereby relieving you of the burden of fixing it immediately.
Helping you Decide Which Path to Take
Discernment Counseling was developed as a unique process to provide relief to partners who find traditional change-oriented marriage or couples therapy unhelpful when they are ambivalent about working on the marriage.
Discerning counseling aims to help couples achieve greater clarity and confidence in their decision-making. The immediate decision is not whether to stay together or divorce but whether to continue moving towards divorce or commit to a six-month effort to restore the marriage, with divorce off the table for that period.
You attend sessions individually as we take the time to explore and understand your reasons for considering the end of your marriage or relationship. We then guide you in assessing how ‘fixable’ these reasons are. Some issues are easier to repair than others, some are worth fighting for more than others, and some may heal more quickly with your active participation and support. Your feelings are valid; we’re here to help you navigate them
Gaining a deeper understanding of these issues will help you decide which path would be better for you at this point in your life. For more information or to schedule your first appointment with your partner, call 714-745-1393 or email me here
