Divorce and Loss: Helping Adults and Children Mourn When a Marriage Comes Apart by Ehrlich,J. (2014)

Reviewed by: Claudia Lingertat-Putnam, The College of Saint Rose, Albany, NY, USA

Mental health providers searching for a comprehensive text on how to work with families dealing with divorce will find this book invaluable. The author, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, shares his wisdom from over 25 years of working with divorce as a mediator, custody evaluator, and therapist. Framed through a psychoanalytic lens, Ehrlich discusses both the mourning process and clinical interventions to assist those dealing with the heartbreaking losses accompanying the dissolution of a marriage, particularly with children involved. He weaves together in a very comprehensible fashion psychoanalytic concepts with current research to provide a picture of the complexities of divorce and best practices for the field. Drawing from the thinking of current psychoanalytic writers (e.g., Aragno, 2003) as well as seminal research by Wallerstein, Lewis, and Blakeslee (2000), Ehrlich addresses the various impacts of divorce on children, adolescents, and adults as well as therapeutic interventions to assist them.

In the first section of the book, Ehrlich reviews the multiple losses evident in divorce. He frames the mourning process for divorce through a psychoanalytic lens, introducing the unfamiliar reader to concepts such as the use of defenses to metabolize feelings related to loss and the idea of constructive mourning. Ehrlich summarizes the developmental needs of children, adolescents, and young adults caught up in divorce, including the differences in mourning between children and adults and the process by which parents can become disengaged and disconnected from their children.

Using relevant and compelling case vignettes, Ehrlich helps therapists navigate the nuanced and complex world of divorce. Particularly useful is the conceptualization of the high-conflict divorce with its intrapsychic and interpersonal failings. Ehrlich explains in easy-to-understand language to those not trained in psychoanalytic concepts how projective defenses can impede mourning and how the failure to work through the mourning process in a constructive way can lead to high-conflict divorces. Through a child-centered lens, Ehrlich explores how connections between a parent and child can break down in the process of separation and divorce and uses multiple examples to assist parents and therapists in addressing these issues. While written with the clinician in mind, the section on entanglement with the ex-spouse would be helpful for parents who seek to understand the impact of divorce on their children. Suggested language is a part of every section, modeling for parents and clinicians what to say in any given situation, for example, helping parents to address their children’s experience of living between two worlds (p. 103) or helping parents to respond constructively to challenging situations.

The second part of the book focuses on interventions to assist the spectrum of clients seeking services post separation and divorce. Ehrlich writes from a clinical lens including cautions for therapists such as managing counter transference and bearing difficult feelings. He covers important topics such as how to include parents in their children’s therapy and guidelines for two parent sessions. While Ehrlich highlights best practices, he is clear that the reality of working with clients in the office is often more complicated and offers perspectives on referral resources (e.g., parenting coordinator, mediator, etc.).

The intervention section is sure to resonate with clinicians who find themselves in the midst of parents and children fighting over custody of their children or a spouse struggling to understand the losses associated with divorce. He offers great suggestions for therapists on how to stay neutral, how to help parents talk to their children about divorce, and how to navigate different parenting arrangements that are child-centered. There are chapters on helping parents work together to help children including working with parents in the high-conflict divorce. There are also chapters on individual therapy with children, adolescents, and adults dealing with divorce. Ehrlich gives practical, concrete advice to therapists on how to navigate various dilemmas that arise and offers straightforward examples of language one might use. Particularly useful are his descriptions of pitfalls and roadblocks that therapists might encounter when working with the high-conflict divorce (Chapter 10), including ways to mitigate immersion in the adversarial legal system which is often in direct conflict with the processes required for constructive mourning and disengagement.

Readers should note that the focus of the book is limited to the losses faced in opposite sex couples. Ehrlich notes this in his introduction, acknowledging that the breadth of his clinical work has not focused on divorce in same-sex couples and recognizes that more research needs to be done in this area. This book is written with the clinician in mind and may overwhelm the casual reader who is not familiar with the psychoanalytic framework, although parents trying to understand the effects of divorce on their children may benefit from parts of this book. A key strength of this book is its focus on child-centered interventions and best practices for professionals. This book could easily be used as a text for a counseling or psychology class to expand students’ knowledge in working clinically with divorcing families. It would also be helpful for those with experience in the field given the complexity of the challenges that can arise, particularly with the high-conflict divorce.

Overall, therapists searching for a comprehensive primer on assisting clients with divorce will find this book extremely helpful. Ehrlich gracefully interlaces the intricate issues that arise when marriages end with helpful therapeutic suggestions for both adults and children. Replete with poignant clinical vignettes, Ehrlich weaves current thinking from researchers with practical suggestions for clinicians working with divorcing couples and families to produce a text useful to clinicians in the field.