Divorce Therapy in Seattle, WA
Your attorney handles the case. Your friends have opinions. This is the one hour a week that is only about you — and it is deliberately not part of your legal file.
The Four Things That Make This Different
Divorce brings a lot of professionals into your life. Most of them are working on the case. We are not.
We do not write custody evaluations
Not once in twelve years. A therapist who might later be asked to assess you is a therapist you cannot be honest with, and honesty is the entire mechanism.
We are not part of your case
We do not attend mediation, write letters for your attorney, or take sides in the parenting plan. If either lawyer asks us to, the answer is no — in writing, and you will get a copy.
We see one of you, not both
Individual clients are individual. Co-parenting therapy is a separate service with a separate clinician, and we will never quietly move you from one to the other.
We are not trying to save the marriage
Or to end it. If you arrive undecided you will not be steered — plenty of people here reconcile, and we do the work either way rather than having a preferred outcome.
Twelve Years of the Same Twenty Months
Divorce follows a shape. Most people are functionally underwater for something like eighteen months to two years, and almost everyone assumes their version is uniquely bad and uniquely slow.
It is not, and knowing that early makes a real difference. Month four feeling worse than month two is the normal pattern, not evidence of failure. Grieving a marriage you actively wanted to leave is not a contradiction. Being furious at somebody you also miss is not confusion — it is the standard emotional weather of the first year.
What we do is straightforward: one hour a week that is not about logistics, not about the case, and not about protecting somebody else's feelings about your divorce. Your attorney handles the legal problem. Your friends, well-meaningly, will keep steering you toward whichever conclusion they have already reached.
We hold the ground where you are allowed to not know yet.
- ✓Divorce and separation is the entire caseload — twelve years of it
- ✓One hour that is not logistics, not the case, and not managing others
- ✓You are allowed to be undecided for as long as it takes
- ✓Nothing here is written for, sent to, or shaped by your legal file
Four Steps, No Commitment at Any of Them
The first call is with a therapist, not an intake coordinator.
A free 20-minute call
Tell us roughly where you are — considering it, mid-process, or two years out and still stuck. We will say honestly whether we are the right practice or whether somebody else fits better.
A first session, unhurried
Seventy-five minutes rather than fifty. We cover what has happened, where the case is, and — importantly — exactly what we will and will not do if your lawyer or the court comes asking.
A plan you set the pace on
Weekly through the acute stretch, tapering as things steady. Some people need eight sessions, some need two years. Neither is the wrong amount.
An ending, then the door stays open
Most people finish and come back briefly at a milestone — a final order, a new partner, a child's wedding. That is a normal way to use this, not a relapse.
How We Help
Six kinds of work across the whole arc — from the first conversation nobody wanted to have, to the year you finally stop thinking about it daily.
Not sure which one this is? Most people arrive naming one and turn out to need another. Working that out is our job on the call, not yours in advance.
The Divorce Is Not What Hurts Them — the Conflict Is
This is the finding parents most need and least often hear, so we will state it plainly. Across decades of research the strongest predictor of how children do after a separation is not whether their parents divorced. It is how much ongoing conflict they are exposed to afterwards.
A calm two-household arrangement generally does better for a child than a hostile intact one. That is not a licence to divorce; it is a reason to take the conflict seriously as its own problem, separate from the legal one.
The practical version is unglamorous. Do not pass messages through them. Do not ask what happens at the other house. Do not make them the reasonable adult in the room — children who become the translator between two parents pay for it for years.
We see children from six upward, and we also do a great deal of work with parents on exactly these mechanics. Frequently the most useful thing for a child is four sessions with a parent rather than four sessions with the child.
- ✓Exposure to conflict predicts outcomes far more than the divorce itself
- ✓No message-passing, no interrogating them about the other house
- ✓Children from six upward, usually with a parent for session one
- ✓Often the most effective work is with the parent, not the child
The Shape of the First Two Years
Not stages, and not in order. Four things almost everybody describes, usually convinced they are the only one.
The strange competence
Weeks of doing everything correctly — the lawyer, the accounts, the difficult conversations with family — while feeling almost nothing. People are often frightened by how functional they are. It is not coldness; it is the mind rationing.
Month four, which is worse than month two
The adrenaline goes, everyone else has adjusted, and the reality lands properly for the first time. Nearly everybody reads this as going backwards. It is the most predictable point on the whole curve.
Grieving something you chose to leave
This one people apologise for. You can have been certain, be relieved, and still be flattened by the loss of it — the future you had planned, the version of yourself that was married. Wanting out and grieving are not in contradiction.
The day it stops being the main thing
It rarely arrives as a moment. Usually it is noticing, somewhere in the second year, that a whole Tuesday went past without it. That is what we are working toward — not being over it, which nobody really is, but it no longer being the thing the day is organised around.
Seventh Floor, Fifth Avenue
Downtown, a five-minute walk from the courthouse — deliberately, because a lot of our clients come straight from a hearing.
Shared With Permission, Names Changed
Everyone I knew had an opinion about whether I should be angrier or sadder or over it by now. This was the one hour a week where nobody was managing me toward a conclusion. It turned out I mostly needed somewhere to put it that was not a friend who also knew him.
We could not be in a room together without it becoming the same argument, and our daughter was doing the translating. Six months of co-parenting sessions and we are still not friends — but she is out of the middle, which is the only thing either of us actually wanted.
I came in three weeks after being told, completely unable to make a decision about anything. Nobody rushed me toward reconciling or toward filing. The clarity came about four months in and it was mine rather than something I had been argued into.
What It Costs, Before You Have to Ask
You are probably already paying an attorney by the hour, so being coy about our own numbers seems particularly unhelpful.
Individual sessions are $180 for 50 minutes. The first session runs 75 minutes at $250. Co-parenting sessions are $230 for 60 minutes, split between the two of you however you agree — we invoice separately so nobody has to negotiate it in the room. Sessions for children are $160.
We are in network with Premera, Regence and First Choice Health. Worth knowing honestly: divorce itself is not a diagnosable condition, so insurance coverage depends on whether there is a diagnosable adjustment or mood presentation alongside it. Frequently there is, occasionally there is not, and we will tell you which before you rely on it rather than after.
Eight reduced-fee places are held at any time, starting at $70. Divorce is expensive at precisely the moment income often halves. Ask on the call — it is the most ordinary question we get.
- ✓$180 individual · $250 for the 75-minute first session · $160 for children
- ✓$230 co-parenting, invoiced separately so it is not negotiated in the room
- ✓In network with Premera, Regence and First Choice Health
- ✓Eight reduced-fee places from $70 — just ask, no paperwork
Twenty Minutes, With a Therapist Rather Than an Intake Form
Considering it, mid-process, or two years out and still stuck — all three are ordinary reasons to call. If we are not the right practice we will say so and point you to someone in Seattle who is. You can also write to hello@northfoldcounseling.com.
Things People Ask on the First Call
Will anything I say end up in my case?
Not from us. We do not write custody evaluations, do not provide letters or reports for either attorney, and do not attend mediation. If we are asked to, the answer is no and you will receive a copy of that refusal. Records can in rare circumstances be subpoenaed — that is true of any therapist — and we will explain exactly how that works and what our notes do and do not contain in the first session.
Can my ex and I both come to you?
Not to the same clinician. Individual clients stay individual — that is the whole basis of being able to speak freely. Co-parenting therapy is a separate service with a different therapist in the practice, and if you are already an individual client here your co-parenting work would be with a colleague, never with your own therapist.
Is it too early? Nothing is decided yet.
That is one of the best times to come. A structured place to think, before anybody has filed and while both options are still real, is genuinely different from what friends and family can offer — they have all already decided what they think you should do. We will not steer you toward either outcome.
It's been two years. Is it too late?
No, and this is more common than the early callers. Plenty of people get through the legal process on adrenaline and only fall apart once it is over and everyone else has moved on. Arriving at the two-year mark is not being slow; it is quite often the first moment there was room for it.
Do you take insurance?
We are in network with Premera, Regence and First Choice Health. The honest caveat is that divorce is not itself a diagnosable condition, so coverage depends on whether there is a diagnosable adjustment or mood presentation alongside it. Often there is. We will tell you which applies to you before you count on it.
Should my child see someone, or should I?
Frequently you, at least first. Children are extremely responsive to what changes at home, and four sessions with a parent on message-passing, handovers and what gets said within earshot often does more than four sessions with the child. We will give you an honest read on the call rather than defaulting to booking the child in.
Book a Free 20-Minute Call
Tell us roughly where you are — a sentence is plenty. A therapist replies personally, usually within one business day.
- Visit us1420 Fifth Avenue, Suite 720, Seattle, WA 98101
- Call us(206) 555-0147
- Email ushello@northfoldcounseling.com