Collaborative Practice and the Public Perception

As you saw from my Friday post, last week I attended a training to improve my speaking skills so I can go out to groups and talk to them about collaborative practice.  What we did was work into our presentations what the public thinks are the most important advantages of the collaborative practice.  What is that, you ask?  Less pain and more support through the process.  In a lot of ways, the two advantages go hand in hand.  When you feel supported, when you know you're not alone, you feel less pain.  Less pain also means none of what the public perceives as "divorce as usual":  no Kramer vs. Kramer, no War of the Roses, no Mrs. Doubtfire (although I really like the last movie because it shows a family evolve from having one good parent, to having two).  It means more of getting on with the business of living and putting your life back together, and less of pulling it apart.  Professionals like to think of Collaborative Practice as more constructive, providing our clients with tools to improve their lives and relationships moving forward.  If we were really honest with ourselves, however, we would say that at its root we love Collaborative Practice because our clients suffer less, and in that regard, we are in harmony with our clients' goal:  Collaborative Practice = Less Pain.