ABSTRACT
For professionals wishing to implement a conciliatory approach to divorce, there is a need to channel couples and individuals towards the most appropriate professional services as early as possible in the divorce process. In 1992, Tavistock Marital Studies Institute's (TMSI) Consultation Service set up an exploratory project to look in detail at clients who present with a divorce-related difficulty and who were not necessarily seeking therapy. In this consultative work, we intended to use what has been called a client-centred model of consultation. This approach can be contrasted with what can be called a consultant-centred model, which relies on the expertise of the consultant to offer, advise, or impose a solution on the consultee. A brief description of these two models suggests that they might represent two extreme poles along a notional spectrum of knowledge and expertise. This chapter concentrates on those couples who have an unresolved difficulty about separation which, in part, is expressed through ongoing child-care disputes.
