Mental Health Professionals in Collaborative Divorce

We have blogged before about Collaborative Divorce. Plain and simple, it is a process where the spouses and their expert St. Petersburg divorce attorneys get together in the beginning of the case and pledge to do everything they can to reach an agreed upon settlement. They seal the pledge by the lawyers promising to withdraw and the spouses promising to find other lawyers if a full agreement cannot be reached. They sometimes share expert financial, child custody and other experts to avoid duplicate costs.

An emerging trend is present in these types of cases. More and more, mental health professionals are brought in from the very beginning (even if there are no children's issues) to assist the couple in working out their differences. The results have been very positive.

The purpose of the psychologist or other mental health professional is to keep the disagreements and emotions from getting in the way of an objective effort to reach a fair resolution of the differences. It is amazing how an expert like that can keep the spouses focused on the agreement and moving on and prevent them from wallowing in the petty (or even significant) disputes that led to the breakup of the marriage.

Bottom line: Talk to your expert Tampa divorce lawyer about collaborative law and the use of mental health professionals to save you time, money and useless bickering.