What Clinicians Need to Know When Working with Families Going Through Divorce

Working with families going through divorce is one of the more complex clinical situations you will encounter, and it is completely understandable if it brings up some anxiety. There are multiple parties involved, potential court entanglement, loyalty conflicts to navigate, and a child sitting in the middle of all of it who desperately needs a safe place. This post is for clinicians who want to serve these families well and feel more confident doing it.

Why do children need support during divorce proceedings, not after?

A lot of practices wait until the divorce is finalized before taking on a family. I get the impulse. Court involvement feels risky. The dynamics are complicated. But here is what I keep coming back to after years of working with these families: the proceedings are often when children need support the most, not least.

Think about what divorce actually means for a child. The people who have always provided their sense of safety and stability are now living in different homes. Everything they have known as their world is shifting at once. The younger the child, the more their entire sense of security is tied to their family structure, which means divorce does not just feel hard, it feels destabilizing. It can feel like their whole world is shattering.

And when a divorce is high conflict, which many of them are, children are often caught in the middle of arguments about custody schedules, parenting plans, and living arrangements. That is precisely when loyalty conflicts show up. When a child starts to feel like they have to choose a side, or like loving one parent means betraying the other, it causes real harm. That harm does not pause while the legal process runs its course.

Children need a place to process this in real time, not retrospectively. Play therapy is an especially powerful fit here because divorce is an abstract concept, particularly for children under ten who are concrete thinkers. Play gives children a way to make sense of something that many adults struggle to fully understand. Our post on how play therapy helps children heal speaks to a lot of the same underlying principles at work here.

Can you see a child in therapy while their family is in court?

Yes. Absolutely yes.

I know this is one of the first questions clinicians ask and I want to be direct: you can and in many cases should see children whose families are in active court proceedings. Court involvement does not mean you cannot provide therapy. It means you need to be thoughtful about how you set up the work from the start.

The anxiety most clinicians feel around this is about getting subpoenaed, being pulled into a custody dispute, or having their clinical notes used as evidence. Those are real concerns and they deserve real preparation, not avoidance of the families who need care.

In our upcoming workshop we walk through the policies and practices we have developed at Bud to Bloom that allow us to work actively with families in custody disputes and court proceedings. We aren’t lawyers so we can’t provide legal advice, but we have consulted with attorneys on sticky situations over the years so we’ve got some insights. We have built frameworks that help protect both the child and the clinician while still serving the family well.

How do you protect confidentiality when parents are in an active legal case?

This is where clear communication and explicit expectations become everything.

When a family comes to us during a divorce, we are very intentional about helping all parties understand our role from the very beginning. We are the child's therapist. We are not a custody evaluator, not a reporter for the court, and not an extension of either parent's legal team. Getting that established early protects the child, protects you clinically, and sets a much more functional tone for your work with the family.

We also have specific practices around what we share with parents and how. A core value at Bud to Bloom is that we do not talk about children in front of children, and that extends into how we handle parent communication during divorce cases. Parents receive information about how their child is doing in broad, theme-based terms, not session-specific details that could be pulled into a legal process. We share what is clinically relevant and appropriate. We are clear about what we will and will not disclose. We share enough to help parents support thier child through this tough transition, because we always want cargivers to be part of our treatment team.

This approach protects the child's sense of safety in the playroom. A child going through a contentious divorce needs to know that their session belongs to them, that what they express there will not be weaponized. When children trust that, they open up. And when they open up, the real therapeutic work can happen.

Ready to go deeper on all of this?

Our play therapy and divorce workshop covers exactly what we have been talking about here, including court involvement, confidentiality frameworks, loyalty conflicts, and how to actually show up for these families clinically. You can join us in person or via live webinar, whichever works best for you!

Register for the in-person workshop here.

Join us via live webinar here.

What does treatment actually look like with children of divorce?

Once you are in the room with a child who is navigating their parents' divorce, the question becomes: what are you looking for and how do you respond to it?

Play is where these children will show you what they are carrying. Common themes that come up in the playroom with children of divorce include separation and reunion play, chaos and instability play that reflects what they are witnessing at home, and sometimes a kind of hypervigilance about keeping everyone happy or keeping the peace.

Loyalty conflicts in particular can show up in really poignant ways. A child who is feeling torn between two parents might play out scenarios that mimic this theme. Recognizing these themes when they appear, and knowing how to reflect them in a way that helps the child feel genuinely seen and understood, is one of the most important clinical skills in this work.

That sense of being understood matters enormously for children in these situations. They are often in a world where the adults around them are going through their own internal transitions and may be overwhelmed with their own pain and legal processes. The playroom can be the one place where the child's experience is the only thing that matters. Our post on why play therapy helps children heal through presence speaks to why that kind of consistent, attuned presence is so therapeutic on its own.

In our training we will spend significant time on what these themes look like, how they show up, and how to tailor your therapeutic responses to actually reach a child who is in the middle of one of the hardest things their family may go through.

What is your role as a therapist when custody is being decided?

Worth saying plainly: your role is to support the child and family. Not to evaluate custody (unless of course you in fact a custody evaluator) . Not to advocate for one parent over the other. Not to make recommendations to the court about parenting fitness, as we often don’t have the information necessary to make these calls.

This distinction is clinically and legally important. When it gets blurry, problems follow. Parents in high conflict divorces sometimes come to therapy hoping the therapist will validate their position or provide information that helps their case. Being clear and warm about what you will and will not do, from the very first contact, is one of the most protective things you can do for yourself and for the child.

It also keeps the work clean. When a child knows you are not on anyone's side, they are more able to use the therapy space for what it is actually for, which is processing their own experience, not performing for an audience.

How do you build confidence working with these families?

Honestly? Training and consultation.

Therapists who feel hesitant about working with divorce families often feel that way not because the work is beyond them but because they have never had a clear framework for it. Once you have practical guidance on the legal dynamics, the confidentiality considerations, and the clinical themes to watch for, working with these families starts to feel much more approachable and genuinely rewarding.

These children are often underserved precisely because clinicians avoid taking them on. You have an opportunity to fill a real gap in your community.

Our play therapy and divorce workshop on November 14th is designed to give you exactly that framework. We will cover the concerns we have talked about here and more, including real interventions, practical resources, and guidance on how to navigate the stickier situations that come up in this work. You can join us in St. Louis for the in-person training or attend via live webinar from wherever you are.

Register for the in-person workshop.

Register for the live webinar.

FAQ

Can I see a child in therapy while their family is in an active court case?
Yes. Active court proceedings do not prevent you from providing therapy. They do require you to be thoughtful about how you set up the work, communicate your role clearly, and establish explicit boundaries around confidentiality from the start. Our workshop covers the frameworks we use at Bud to Bloom to do exactly that.

What is a loyalty conflict and why does it matter clinically?
A loyalty conflict happens when a child feels caught between two parents and senses, explicitly or implicitly, that loving one means betraying the other. It is one of the most damaging dynamics for children in high conflict divorces and it shows up in play in recognizable ways. Learning to identify and therapeutically respond to loyalty conflicts is a key skill for anyone working with these families.

What is my role as a therapist when custody is being disputed?
Your role is to support the child and family, not to evaluate custody or advocate for either parent's position. Keeping that role clear from the very first contact protects the child, protects you clinically, and keeps the therapeutic work grounded in what actually helps.

Is the training legal advice?
No. We are therapists, not attorneys. What we can offer is clinical guidance, practical frameworks, and the insight we have gathered over years of consulting with attorneys on challenging cases. We will help you feel more clinically prepared and less anxious, not provide legal counsel.

How is play therapy helpful for children going through divorce?
Divorce is an abstract concept, especially for younger children who are concrete thinkers. Play gives children a developmentally appropriate way to process, express, and make sense of something that even adults struggle to fully understand. The playroom becomes a place where a child's experience is the only thing that matters, which is often exactly what they need most during this time.