I wanted to speak a little more about the question about divorce mediation and Compassionate Mediation® and marriage counseling.
Someone wrote in this question to seek clarification about the dual roles: therapist versus divorce mediator.
She’s “confused by the boundaries, having had a discussion with a divorce mediator trainer who says that the ethical responsibility is not to be in a dual role. Yet she’s also read where this is the case. Does this vary from state to state? What are the ethical parameters, please? And could divorce mediators who are doing therapy get reimbursed through insurance? If so, for what part of the work. Her understanding that my training program will not certify you as divorce mediator providers”.
I want to answer all those questions.
Compassionate Mediation does not certify you to be a divorce mediator. It is a skillset that you can use in your practice to help people resolve conflict with more consciousness and compassion.
Therefore you can bill for it as you would for any other skill set that you have.
If you’re a therapist, just because you offer some information about what the legal options might be as you help your clients process the feelings and decisions that need to be made, then what you’re doing is giving them tools to have conversations that they need to have for their future relationship.
You get divorce mediator training either by taking it from a private party, by going to your state Mediation Council, many colleges or universities have 40 hour trainings in divorce mediation. And that’s the specific certification. It’s a good idea to add to your repertoire, if you can have five days to give it, and it’s a great skill set to have.
However, even if you’re not trained as a divorce mediator, the skillset, the tools of Compassionate Mediation will help with all of your clients — with individuals, with couples, with families.
It gives you a framework for helping them learn how to compassionately communicate, create compassionate relationships, explore their options for change, understand their rights and finances, and create the relationships they truly desire and deserve.
You can charge your clients as you would normally bill. You’re not holding yourself out as a divorce mediator if you haven’t had the training.
I’m hoping that someday individuals, couples, families, clergy, attorneys, mediators, therapists, coaches, will all have a skillset in Compassionate Mediation, where people can add passion back to their marriage or compassion to their divorce.…and that together we’ve helped people change the way they resolve conflict and certainly changed the face of divorce one heart at a time.
So let’s get to all those hearts.
Let’s learn Compassionate Mediation.
Charge as you would for your own practice. And if you’re a therapist and you’re reimbursed for your practice, then you have this skill set.
And hopefully people will be looking for you in your state, in the world, and you’ll have what you need to give them this information.
I hope that answers your question and I’ll see you again soon. Bye for now.
(This video was from my LIVE Question and Answer Session from the last Tools for Your Practice Now Course….)
QUESTION FROM live session for Compassionate Mediation Tools for Your Practice Now.
And the first question is, how does Compassionate Mediation differ from traditional Divorce Mediation?
Linda had asked whether Compassionate Mediation® create a dual program, and she said in some states they frowned upon doing mediation and therapy.
I want to speak directly to this.
Up until now, there has been nothing like Compassionate Mediation!
If an individual or a couple wanted to get divorced, they would hire an attorney, they would hire collaborative attorneys, they would go to divorce mediation, and they would get divorced.
If they wanted to go to marriage counseling, they’d find a therapist, or a counselor, or a clergy, and get some counseling.
And I found that after doing 30 years of working with individuals and couples, it’s often not that clear cut. Because people have “parts” that are ambivalent about what they want to do.
Even when they’re in marriage counseling, one or both members of the couple may have thought about leaving. But unless you address it, it just kind of is an exiled feeling that never gets noticed. And with that, the person that’s harbored that thought can’t fully be present, because they’re still considering “what would it be like if I ended this relationship?”
And when people get divorced, there are still times when they’re wondering if it’s the right thing to do. It’s not always a linear process. There’s a lot of regret, or remorse, of what ifs. But by then, it’s usually too late because the lawyers are involved, the process is started, everyone’s been told, and it carries out the trajectory in the direction of marital dissolution.
So when you have marriage counseling and you have divorce mediation, they are two different skill sets. Compassionate Mediation merges them together.
And what that means is, it’s a process for resolving conflict and it uses the therapeutic skills of IFS, Internal Family Systems, the spiritual growth lessons I learned at the Chopra Center. It also includes information about what a separation or divorce would look like.
Because then in the context of Compassionate Mediation, the couple can talk about it all.
They don’t have to pretend they have this part that hasn’t thought of leaving, and they don’t have to pretend in divorce that they don’t have a part that wishes they could stay together.
Compassionate Mediation empowers you to empower your clients to talk about everything. And they truly can even though they’ve thought of divorce.
Your clients will learn how to connect to their best self, let go of the limiting beliefs and judgments they took on with each other, unburden the pain from the past, and relate from their heart.
And then when you teach them the Miracle of Empathy — where they use” I messages” and talk about their exiled feelings, not their judgment.
When they do that, they can create a whole new relationship, and they often do — and you’ve facilitated it.
And I’ve often said, if we could just spare our children from the shrapnel of our animosity, there’d be a lot more happy families.
Compassionate Mediation teaches Compassionate Communication and fosters compassionate relationships with empathy.
I give you the information that you can give your clients as to what all their different options are. I also give you the information to help you explain to them how to understand their rights and finances.
And then you help them talk about everything and create whatever relationship is going to be in the highest good moving forward.
So Compassionate Mediation® is a hybrid.
I use the term Compassionate Mediation, but perhaps I should have used conscious compassionate conflict resolution.
Certification in Compassionate Mediation®
The certification that I’m offering is actually in Compassionate Mediation Coaching. So you don’t have to worry about the HIPAA laws or whether you’re an attorney, or a coach, or a clergy, or mediator.
Compassionate Mediation is a skillset.
It’s a box of tools that you can use as needed, but it’s also a whole process that I’ve outlined on the FREE Roadmap at www.LindaKroll.com/Roadmap.
The whole process of what we talk about in each session is outlined for you. I give you that tool plus my other tools in the Compassionate Mediation Tools for Your Practice.
And then I’d like to give you my whole process. I’d like to teach you everything that I do so that you can use it in your practice and take it wherever you want in the world.
So I hope that answers your question.
Compassionate Mediation is a new paradigm of conflict resolution.
When Dick Schwartz first founded Internal Family Systems over 30 years ago, I remembered seeing him in a room with a few people, not knowing that 30 years later it was going to be a worldwide phenomenon, started by Dick, many, many years ago.
And I’ve always been at awe of how much work he put in, his dedication, his passion, and how he made all of this come to fruition, along with the other people at the IFS Institute who helped him along the way.
I want to give this to you so that you can share it with your clients.
How are you withstanding the “too much togetherness”, “not enough time alone,” new ways to have to spend time, share time, share space?
If you’re like a lot of my clients, your relationships are strained to the limits and I’d like to help you create a better relationship starting now.
I’m the author of Compassionate Mediation How to Add Passion to Your Marriage or Compassion to Your Divorce.
I have created a video online series that takes you through the process where you can begin to improve your relationship now. Please go to CompassionateMediationProgram.com, find out all about this six hour video series.
I’m a therapist, a mediator, an attorney, and I’m also a Chopra’s certified teacher of meditation, yoga, and perfect health.
I combine all of those skills, and I’m like having a spiritual advisor or an attorney and counselor in your back pocket, offering you information and support.
It’s six hours of what I offer as a therapist, as a mediator, as an attorney.
You will receive written materials, videos, assessments, intention trackers, all different ways for you to use the time that you’re staying inside right now and learn a new way to communicate.
And it starts with Compassionate Communication.
It starts with learning how to connect to your highest and best SELF. It starts with letting go of any limiting beliefs or judgements you have about yourself or your partner. It allows you to unburden all the pain you’ve been carrying from the past and to truly relate from your heart.
When you do that, you then have an opportunity to connect your best self. And as you connect to your best self, you create a whole new relationship.
Welcome to the Compassionate Mediation® Training Facebook group.
I’m so glad that you’re here because I’ve been working for over 30 years to share the process of Compassionate Mediation® with professionals who could use it in their practice and with individuals and couples who could use it to help their relationships.
Compassionate Mediation is a process to talk about every issue that’s conflicting in a relationship and to allow yourself to speak from your highest and best SELF.
And if you’re a therapist, mediator, attorney, coach, counselor, or clergy, I want to give you the tools that I’ve developed that are based on IFS (Internal Family Systems therapy,) based on higher consciousness that I learned at the Chopra Center, based on coming from your highest and best self that SARK talks about, Dr. John Waddell.
And I merged all those together and I put them into a program so that you have the benefit now of all that I have learned over the past 30 years.
As a therapist, mediator, and attorney, I’m not always sure why a client comes to my office.
Sometimes, my clients aren’t sure, because if they’re coming as individuals, they may be unhappy in their relationship, but not sure what to do with it.
If they’re coming as a couple, they may both want marriage counseling. One might have one foot out the door.
They both may have parts that are wondering whether to stay or go, but they haven’t had the courage or the ability to talk about it.
What I do is provide a safe forum in which all parts are welcome, including the parts that aren’t sure if they want to stay or go.
I’ve developed a process called Compassionate Mediation® that will give you the skills to navigate these conversations, because you’ll stay one step ahead of your clients with the information I’ll give you to give them.
And while we’re talking about the content —whether it has to do with their relationship, their sexual relationship, their financial relationship, how they parent, how they deal with chores, how they communicate now or in the past – whatever the issues are — I give you the tools so that you can give them the content, and then you’ll be helping with the process of Compassionate Communication.
You’ll be making sure they stay “in Self” for each piece of the puzzle.
I want to share with you what I’ve learned from Dick Schwartz and all my colleagues at IFS. and the Chopra Center with all my colleagues there.
I also offer all I’ve learned as a mediator and a therapist, and all that I experienced as someone who’s gotten divorced, and helped a lot of people lead happier marriages together, and also successful separations and divorces.
I would like to share my whole process with you so that you can use it now in your practice.
I have many tools to offer you that you can use with new or current clients – in person or online.
Continuing Education Credits are available for therapists and coaches.
