What is discernment counselling?

A process for couples who want different things

Discernment counselling, spelled discernment counseling in the United States, was developed by the family therapist Bill Doherty and colleagues at the University of Minnesota. It is designed for a situation that ordinary couples therapy handles poorly: one partner is leaning out of the relationship and is unsure whether to try therapy at all, while the other is leaning in and wants to save it.

Doherty and his colleagues call these "mixed-agenda" couples. Most models of couples therapy assume that both people arrive wanting to improve the relationship. When one of them does not, therapy tends to stall. The partner who is leaning out may attend half-heartedly, the partner who is leaning in may push harder, and the process can end before either has really decided anything.

Discernment counselling starts from where each person actually is. It does not ask the partner who is leaning out to commit to repair, and it does not ask the partner who is leaning in to accept that the relationship is over.

Where it came from

The approach was inspired by an unpublished method developed by the family therapist Betty Carter, who worked separately with each partner towards different goals. Doherty adapted and expanded it in his own practice.

In 2008, he began working with a family court judge and a group of divorce lawyers who had noticed that many of their clients were not as certain about divorce as the legal process assumed. Research from that project found that ambivalence about divorce, and interest in reconciliation, were common even among couples who had already filed. The lawyers wanted a service for these couples, and the group named it discernment counselling. Doherty then developed it into a full protocol, refined through the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project.

What it aims to achieve

The goal of discernment counselling is clarity and confidence about a direction for the relationship, based on a deeper understanding of what has happened and of each person's part in it.

Its founders chose the word "counselling" instead of "therapy" on purpose. It signals that improving the relationship is not the focus, and it makes the process less daunting for a partner who is reluctant to begin couples therapy.

How it is structured

Discernment counselling is short: between one and five sessions. The first session is two hours, because it includes background, and later sessions are an hour and a half. At the end of each session, both partners decide separately whether to come back. This gives the partner who is leaning out a real say in whether the process continues.

Although the couple attends together, most of the work happens in separate conversations between the counsellor and each partner. Each person then shares a short summary of what they have learned with the other, in a carefully structured way. The counsellor does not try to improve the relationship while both partners are in the room.

Three paths, not two

Instead of a choice between staying and leaving, discernment counselling frames the decision as three paths:

1. Stay as things are for now, without starting couples therapy.
2. Move towards separation or divorce.
3. Commit to six months of couples therapy, with divorce off the table during that time, and then decide again with fuller information.

The third path is what makes discernment counselling different from a straightforward stay-or-go decision. It offers a defined, time-limited attempt at repair without asking anyone to promise a lifetime.

What happens in the individual conversations

With the partner who is leaning out, the conversation focuses on the decision itself: the three paths, why past attempts to solve the problems may not have worked, and what they have contributed to the difficulties.

With the partner who is leaning in, the focus is on hearing what their partner is saying about the relationship, responding constructively under pressure, and using the crisis as a prompt to look at their own part and what they could change.

With both, the counsellor helps each person see the pattern they create together. Doherty's team summarises one of the central ideas this way: you cannot divorce yourself. Understanding your own contribution is useful whether the relationship continues or not.

What the research shows

The research on discernment counselling is still early. Its developers described 100 consecutive couples seen in the Minnesota project. After discernment counselling, 47% chose to try reconciliation through couples therapy, 41% chose separation or divorce, and 12% chose to stay as they were. The authors are clear that without a comparison group, no conclusions can be drawn about whether discernment counselling prevents unnecessary divorces or leads to better ones.

Common questions

References

1. Doherty, W. J., Harris, S. M., & Wilde, J. L. (2016). Discernment counseling for ‘mixed-agenda’ couples. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 42(2), 246-255. doi:10.1111/jmft.12132
2. Doherty Relationship Institute. Discernment Counseling. discernmentcounseling.com