Too often, divorce is approached as a legal or logistical battle, without adequately accounting for the emotional weight that sits behind every meeting, every phone call, and every decision. The focus in the family court system tends to be on resolution – who gets what, who lives where, how finances are split. But by focussing on resolution alone, legal professionals side-line a key and important psychological client need – repair.
From my work as a family psychotherapist supporting families, children, and individuals through the complex terrain of divorce and separation, I have seen first-hand that what walks into the room is never just a case file or legal issue. What walks into the room is the whole person: their story, their losses, and often, their trauma. If we fail to recognise this, we risk doing more harm than good – especially to children, whose sense of identity and safety can be profoundly destabilised by family breakdown.
This is why family law and the families that move through its system would benefit from paradigm shift – one where there is acknowledgement of the invisible wounds of those sitting opposite us, and one that prioritises long-term wellbeing over short-term wins. For legal professionals to become agents of healing, not just resolution.
Trauma walks in before the words do
The relationship between a client and their family lawyer is forged in moments of immense vulnerability and fear, making it one of the trickiest relationships to manage. It demands safety and trust and yet, the legal system often operates with binary, black-and-white logic that does not always make space for the complexity of emotional experience.
When families in breakdown seek the counsel of lawyers, they are often navigating not just the trauma of a recent separation, but the compounded distress of previous betrayals, attachment wounds, or prolonged emotional disconnection. These histories don’t disappear the moment they walk into the office. On the contrary – they walk in first.
Lawyers often see clients who appear defensive, withdrawn, disproportionately reactive, or fixated on details that seem peripheral. What we’re seeing here is a version of the individual who is bringing their whole self – one based on previous experiences and usually one that is trying to function while in a state of huge emotional and psychological overwhelm. For someone whose relational safety has already been compromised, it can be incredibly difficult for them to trust a stranger with the most fragile aspects of their life.
So, when we pose the question: why does trauma-informed practice matter? This is the reason. No matter how well-intentioned the legal advice, if we ignore what’s happening for the person behind the case, and they are unable to emotionally process or trust what they are being told, progress could be painfully slow – or worse, harmful.
Managing the tension between time, money, and emotion
Of course, legal practice operates under constraints: time, billable hours, financial pressure. And so, the challenge is this: how do we respond to the client as a whole person – while remaining efficient and focused? How do family lawyers acknowledge pain without becoming emotionally overwhelmed or drawn into territory outside their professional training?
One answer is to collaborate. Trauma specialists can work alongside legal teams to provide a bridge between emotional understanding and space, and practical clarity. But even without external specialists, legal professionals can develop a trauma-informed lens. I believe it is our duty as professionals working with people to ensure we are adequately informed and equipped with the skills needed to help, whilst working in our scope of practice.
In a profession driven by efficiency and time boundaries, what we’re asking representatives to do is to step outside of the professional box they’re in – to acknowledge and hold space for the wounded parts of the client, as well as having intrigue for what’s happening beneath the surface. How we present information and the language we use in a trauma-informed approach is incredibly important. In practice, this might involve simple, grounded compassion and acknowledgement: “I can see and hear how much this is hurting right now. We’ll move through the necessary steps together.”
When we are clear-cut and factual with individuals who are wounded, we may send it into hiding, which can lead the trust in the relationship to break down – which we want to avoid at all costs.
The hidden impact of separation
People experiencing family breakdown can show signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), even when there has not been physical violence or threat to life. It is, therefore, critical to consider that your client may be experiencing symptoms of trauma, including (but certainly not limited to): confusion or difficulty concentrating; hypervigilance with a drive to control or know everything (often mistaken for over-suspicion or hostility), a somatic experience of an event (referring to the physical sensations and bodily responses that arise as a result of a traumatic or significant experience) and shame, where the client may have negative narratives running through their head, for example, “I’m stupid for not seeing that”, “I feel like the only person in the world this has happened to”.
When a client walks into the room experiencing acute trauma, it’s likely they will be ‘off-centre’ and unable to explain and/or process information. This can leave the legal professional without the full picture for some time – otherwise known as “‘trickle truth”.
Legal teams are often keen to shut down big emotions, believing them to be obstructive, when in fact they are expressions of deep emotional distress. Being trauma-informed allows us to meet those responses not with dismissal, but with understanding. This may involve gently managing expectations around memory recall (often impaired in trauma), or building in extra support when collecting complex information like financial records.
It may also mean giving permission for the process to move a little slower at the start, in order to move more effectively overall. One of the most powerful interventions in trauma-informed practice is a slower beginning. Not professional slowness, but intentional pacing to build trust and safety. In practice, that might mean creating a space that reduces intimidation or emotional overwhelm, checking in not just on the facts of the case, but the emotional bandwidth of the client, and providing specialist support for complex tasks, like gathering documents or relating sensitive information.
None of this means stepping outside of your scope. As a family lawyer, you are not there to diagnose or treat. But you are in a position of enormous relational power, where the words you use, the tone you have, and the approach you take can either help calm an emotional storm or worsen it.
Legal professional as agents of healing
Trauma-informed family law is not just a trend – it is a necessary evolution. When lawyers, mediators, and advocates integrate these principles into their work, they help clients to feel safer, heard, and better able to engage productively in the process.
This matters not just for the individuals involved, but for the children, too. Because unresolved trauma has an intergenerational impact. But when legal professionals become part of the healing process – not just the resolution process – they contribute to long-term outcomes that benefit the whole family system.
Family law professionals are already able to hold complexity, juggle pressures, and advocate with integrity. Adding a trauma-informed lens is not a departure from that – it’s a deepening of it. Indeed, moving toward a system that not only settles cases, but fully supports the people behind them – doesn’t just benefit all parties, but helps to prevent the cycle of trauma that so often plagues families in conflict.
Fiona Yassin is a family psychotherapist and founder and clinical director of The Wave Clinic
