Divorce Lawyer? Check. Now Get Yourself a Great Therapist
A therapist can help keep you calm, centered, and focused on your ideal future.
I had a client who described her divorce as an "earthquake that rearranged everything.” Leaving a marriage can mean upending your day-to-day life, recreating your identity, and letting go of the vision of the future you may have been building toward for years. These changes can be deeply disorienting and isolating.
For many people, finding the right therapist helps to re-establish a safe, stable center in the midst of this overwhelming experience.
The right therapist can also make it easier for you to transition, moving from “just keeping your head above water (barely)” to beginning to discover, define, and commit to your next chapter.
Tracking your needs as you move through divorce
Each phase of divorce can ask something very different from you. The best therapist will be the one whose way of working meets you where you are and gives you the support you need.
The following phases are common during any major life transition — and especially during divorce.
Phase 1: Stabilization and grounding
Most people describe the emotional swings that they experience during a divorce as extreme and sometimes unpredictable. One day you feel sure that you have made the right decision. The next, you may worry that you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life.
The goal of therapy in this phase is to create enough grounding that you can stay emotionally steady from moment to moment.
For some people, this may involve naming and validating new emotions that show up unexpectedly. For others, a therapist can act as a brainstorming partner, helping you find self-care practices — mindfulness techniques, for example, can be incredibly beneficial at this stage.
It’s also possible that you may not be sure what will help, and the right therapist can help you identify your needs more clearly.
Types of therapy to consider
Body-based approaches, including Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and Somatic Experiencing can help you restore a sense of connection to the full spectrum of your emotions — and the ability to stay regulated while you are experiencing them.
Phase 2: Making meaning
Once some level of stability is established, it’s likely that you’ll start to ask a different set of questions, along the lines of:
- How did this happen? How did I get here?
- Who am I outside of the context of this relationship?
- What do I want for myself moving forward?
Divorce often prompts a process of revisiting who you are — reflecting on what’s important to you and the choices you’ve made up to this point.
Reflecting on the patterns that you have established, some of which may have been with you since childhood, can help you better understand how to move forward.
In this phase, therapy becomes a place to examine your identity, who you are in intimate relationships, and how you can establish new patterns.
Types of therapy to consider
Therapists with experience in Attachment-focused Therapy and Emotionally Focused Therapy can be especially well-equipped to help you understand and shift relationship patterns.
Phase 3: Value-based action
This next phase involves taking the insights and awareness that have emerged, and translating them into action. While you are likely still experiencing grief, fear, or uncertainty at this stage, therapy can build your capacity to move toward what matters.
This starts by identifying on your personal values, which then inform:
- How you respond to your emotions
- Your process for making key decisions
- When and how you take action
A therapist can help you identify these values and create an inner “compass” that you can use to direct your actions.
Types of therapy to consider
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy intentionally focuses on helping people to “evolve” in response to a new situation, including one that is as complicated as divorce.
Getting started with therapy
When most people set out to find a therapist to navigate divorce, they imagine working with one person through the entire process. And in some cases, a single therapist can support you from start to finish. In others, the stabilizing counselor who assists you in the beginning will be different from the counselor who helps you redefine yourself and life outside the marriage.
If one of the above phases resonates deeply with you right now, try searching a directory like Alma’s to find a therapist with experience in the type of therapy recommended for that phase.
As you look through the therapists available to you, consider sending consultation requests to a few different therapists.
When you send that request, take the time to describe what you’re currently experiencing and ask each therapist to explain how they can help you.
✅ Checklist: Finding a Therapist to Support You Through Divorce
We asked Tammy Nelson, PhD, a certified sex and couples therapist, and author of six books, including Open Monogamy: A Guide to Co-Creating Your Ideal Relationship Agreement for a quick list to support your search.
1. When reviewing a therapist’s profile, look for additional experience with:
☐ Couples therapy or relationship transitions
☐ Trauma and integrative counseling
Divorce often comes with past or current trauma that needs to be handled with care. And even if you’re going to therapy alone, therapists with couples therapy training will help you understand the deeper layers, not just the conflict on the surface.
2. In a consultation call, ask yourself:
☐ Are they collaborative vs. explaining how things will go?
☐ Are they curious about the unique nuances of my situation?
☐ Do I feel seen/listened to?
☐ Do I feel calm and at ease?
With the right therapist, all of these boxes will be checked. Less effective therapists tend to be rigid / prescriptive or have set ideas about divorce (i.e. that there’s a victim and a perpetrator).
3. And a few questions to ask the therapist:
☐ What’s your approach to personal growth during divorce?
☐ What are your thoughts on managing difficult emotions like anger or betrayal?
☐ What would progress look like in our work together?
With these questions, you’re looking for alignment — do their answers make sense to you and resonate with you? If so, it’s an early indicator that they may be a good fit for you at this stage.
Check-in again after a few visits
Once you start therapy, plan to attend 3-4 sessions to get a sense of their style, and what you can expect from your work together. From there, you can determine whether you want to continue, or seek another clinician.
Therapy, like any other relationship, is deeply personal and requires a kind of “chemistry.” If you don’t feel that you’re clicking, it’s absolutely appropriate to move on to a different clinician.
When alignment is in place, therapy becomes a space that provides safety and support as you grow through one of the most difficult periods of your life.
Take action:
Find the right therapist for you
With more than 24,000 therapists in the Alma directory, most of whom offer free consultations, we can help you find options. Start searching for a therapist with Alma.
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Apr 22, 2026
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