The whole family a divorce touchesDIVORCE THERAPY IN FLORIDA
Everyone tells you divorce is hard. Nobody tells you what to actually do about it.
You've read the articles. You've gotten the advice from people who mean well. Give it time. Focus on yourself. Everything happens for a reason. None of it tells you what to do at 9 p.m. on a Wednesday when the house is wrong and you can't tell if what you're feeling is grief, relief, or just exhaustion.
Divorce therapy is the part that's actually about you. Not the settlement, not the schedule, not managing everyone else's reaction. You.
Divorce therapy across Florida with Sayra Besner, LCSW. Virtual statewide, Miami based, Boca Raton office opening soon.
The sequenceHow divorce therapy works, in order
The order matters more than people expect. Most of what stalls after a divorce stalls because someone skipped ahead.
Where you actually are
Not where you think you should be by now. Honest inventory, including the parts you dismiss.
01
What you inherited
The patterns you learned before you had a vote. Some of it you're running right now without noticing.
02
What you choose
Values you pick on purpose. This is where decisions start getting easier, because you have something to measure them against.
03
Boundaries and behavior
Values that don't survive a normal Tuesday aren't values yet.
04
What comes next
Dating, moving, career, whatever your version is. Do this part first and you tend to rebuild the same life with different people in it.
05
Where to go from hereDivorce therapy for every person the divorce touches
Divorce Therapy for Women
For the woman who held it together for everyone and now has a quiet house and no idea who she is in it.
Teens, 14 and Up
The kid who says it's fine and has quietly decided managing your feelings is their job now.
Life During & After Divorce
Two households, one calendar, and a version of normal nobody explained.
What it isWhat divorce therapy actually involves
Divorce therapy is not couples counseling and it's not legal support. It's individual work with one person: you, or your teenager, or you and your co-parent on the specific problem of how to parent together now.
Most of what people expect it to be is talking about the marriage. Some of that happens. But the marriage is usually not the interesting part.
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What you're actually feeling
Usually four things at once, and not the tidy stages anyone described to you.
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Who you are outside the role
Wife, husband, the responsible one, the one who kept everyone calm. Those were real jobs. They ended.
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The patterns underneath
How you handle conflict, what you tolerate, why the same argument keeps showing up with different people.
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Boundaries and co-parenting
Not scripts to recite. Boundaries that hold up on the phone at 10 p.m. when something has gone sideways.
* What you want next
A question most people have not been asked in years.
Before you bookWhat the first few sessions look like
The first session is mostly you talking and me asking questions. What happened, what's happening now, what you want to be different. I'll ask about your family growing up, not because everything is your mother's fault, but because it's the fastest way to understand the patterns you're working with.
By session two or three we usually have a working sense of what we're actually doing, and it's often not what you came in thinking it would be.
I'm direct. I don't sit in long silences waiting for you to fill them, and I'll tell you when I think you're avoiding something. If that's not the kind of therapist you want, the consult is a good place to find that out.
Rates, and how to actually begin
Getting startedI'm private pay and out of network, and I can provide a superbill. Starting is one step: pick a consult time and we talk for fifteen minutes.
SESSIONS
Individual session $250
Package of 5 $875
Package of 10 $1600
Packages hold a guaranteed weekly time slot. Full details on Rates & FAQ.
STRAIGHT ANSWERSQuestions people ask before they book divorce therapy sessions
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No. Couples counseling works with the relationship, usually with both people in the room. Divorce therapy works with one person on what the divorce did to them and what they're building next. Sometimes people come to me after couples work has ended, and sometimes while the marriage is technically still happening but the decision is already made. Both are fine starting points.
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During, if you can manage it. The instinct is to wait until things settle, but during is when the decisions get made, and decisions made in survival mode tend to be the ones people spend the next two years unwinding. That said, plenty of people don't have the bandwidth mid-divorce, and starting later is not starting too late.
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It depends on what you're carrying and how long you carried it. Some people do focused work for a few months around a specific problem. Others stay longer because the divorce surfaced something older than the marriage. I'd rather tell you honestly at week six what I think we're working with than sell you a number at week one.
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Yes. I work virtually with clients anywhere in Florida, which means Miami, Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Naples, and everywhere in between. You need a private space and a reliable connection. Most people find it easier than driving somewhere and sitting in a waiting room, especially when they're already short on time.
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Sometimes, and not always. A teen who is talking to you, sleeping, and still doing the things they normally do may not need it. A teen who has gone quiet, or gotten suddenly very good, or is managing your emotions instead of having their own, often does. I work with teens 14 and up, and I'll usually talk to the parent first to figure out whether therapy is the right call at all.
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Not as individual clients, no. That gets complicated fast and it isn't fair to either person. I do work with co-parents together on the specific problem of parenting from two houses, which is a different kind of session with a different goal.
The next stepYou don't have to be sure you need this. That's what the call is for.
Fifteen minutes, no cost. Tell me what's going on and I'll tell you straight whether I think therapy would help, whether now is the right time, and whether I'm the right person for it.
If the answer to any of those is no, I'll say so. I'd rather send you somewhere better than take a client I'm not the right fit for.
Not ready to talk to anyone yet? Start with the Sayra C Method, $107 →