Abstract

GONZALEZ MARTIN, B.. Family mediation: an intervention to solve the couple breakup. Medifam [online]. 2001, vol.11, n.10, pp.56-60. ISSN 1131-5768.

Couple breakup is one the most common causes of emotional stress and, in many cases, it results in psychological suffering and physical signs associated to such disorder.  Since several decades ago, professionals in mainly the legal, psychological and social settings are being confronted in their respective jobs to the phenomenon of divorce. The analysis of their experience have driven to the reflection on the need both to alleviate the emotional costs of divorce and to avoid the damage that difficult and traumatic breakups cause on the minor.  Family mediation appears thus as a new alternative for managing conflicts derived from breakups; it includes a model of structured intervention aimed to help the couples in situations of separation or divorce to come to a lasting and mutually acceptable agreement for the new family reorganization, taking into account the needs of each of the family members and, in particular, the children.  It takes place through several interviews in which both members of the couple and the mediator are present, the latter guiding the negotiation and covering all the issues involved in the breakup. Family mediation allows the couple to play the lead, facilitates agreements and assumes that both parties in a divorce are not adversaries, but progenitors with a common interest: their children.

Keywords : Divorce; Family mediation; Short intervention; Agreements; Children.

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