Divorce counselling, in the language you think in
Divorce counselling with a psychologist who works with separation, whether you are still deciding, in the middle of it, or rebuilding afterwards. Come on your own or together. Online, in Malayalam or English, with the option to pay after a single session.
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What our clients say
I had tried several therapy sessions in the past without seeing any noticeable changes in my thought patterns. Then, I decided to give Ello Mind a try. My therapist, Teresa, is very friendly, and I was able to connect with her perspective right away. She has already helped me make a positive change during one of the lowest points in my life.
Dhanya James
11 months ago
Taking therapy at Ello Mind is one of the good decisions I have taken so far, and it has helped me a lot.
Krishnapriya G
4 months ago
Experienced team of clinical psychologists who provide excellent services. I’d highly recommend anyone who’d wish to seek help in need, be it something in your personal or professional life. Sessions are flexible, they provide online and offline services, information shared is kept extremely confidential.
Irene James
10 months ago
Ello Mind is a really good centre for mental health and wellness. From the very first session, they created a safe and supportive space where I felt comfortable opening up. I highly recommend Ello Mind and Ms Teresa to anyone looking for compassionate, professional, and effective therapy.
Sree Gouri Soman
a year ago
I had a great experience with Ellomind. I worked with Teresa and she is a wonderful therapist. Helped me get my thoughts sorted and gave some effective exercises that helped me on my mental wellness journey. I am giving this feedback a few months after my sessions ended and still feel great. The effects of the therapy are long lasting.
Aswathi T P
2 years ago
Teresa was able to correctly identify that I had issues with confidence and assertiveness using the right questions and exercises. She then taught me CBT frameworks and techniques that helped me improve my self-image. Teresa is very open to receiving feedback and integrating it into subsequent sessions.
Sidharth Praveen
2 years ago
I’ve been taking sessions at Ello Mind since 2023, and Teresa has helped me overcome many things. She doesn’t just give advice — she helps you understand yourself better. She listens patiently and really tries to understand what you’re going through. I genuinely appreciate her work and highly recommend Ello Mind.
Mohammed Althaf
a month ago
10/10 experience. Really good place, I felt super comfortable opening up here. Ellomind gave me a safe space to talk and feel understood. The therapists are kind and supportive, I always leave feeling lighter. Honestly the best decision I made for myself this year.
Gayatri Nair
5 months ago
Starting couple therapy with Teresa has been one of the best decisions for us. Therapy helped me calm down, reflect on my own patterns, and recognize how both of us were struggling and growing together. It truly brought more clarity, understanding, and peace into our relationship.
Kavya Das
3 months ago
What is divorce counselling?
Divorce counselling is a structured conversation with a trained psychologist who helps you make sense of a separation, whether you are still deciding or already moving through it. It is also called separation counselling or divorce therapy. A divorce counsellor does not take sides and does not decide for you. The job is to help you think clearly while emotions, family expectations and practical worries are all pulling at once.
Most people come alone, especially at first. Some couples also attend joint sessions to agree on how to separate and how to parent afterwards. Either way, sessions are 50 minutes over a private video call. What you say stays private, with two exceptions your psychologist explains at the start: a serious risk to someone's safety, or a legal requirement such as a court order.
How divorce counselling helps at each stage
You can start wherever you are. There is no wrong point to begin.
Deciding whether to separate
Many people arrive still undecided. Your psychologist helps you look at what has been tried, what has changed, what you are afraid of on each side, and what you would need to see to stay. The aim is a decision you can stand behind later, whichever way it goes.
Separating well
Once the decision is made, the hard part is often the conversations: telling your partner, telling the children, telling both families. Sessions help you plan those talks, keep them short and steady, and set boundaries that hold while emotions are raw.
Co-parenting and children
Research on divorced families links ongoing conflict between parents to more emotional and behavioural difficulties for children, so keeping that conflict away from them matters. Counselling helps you agree on what the children are told, keep handovers calm, and talk to your former partner about school, money and routines without reopening the marriage each time.
Life after divorce
Grief after a divorce is real grief, even when leaving was the right call. Sessions help with loneliness, identity, rebuilding confidence, handling questions from relatives, and, when you are ready, thinking about new relationships without carrying the old pattern into them.
Source on parental conflict after divorce: van Dijk R et al. (2020). A meta-analysis on interparental conflict, parenting, and child adjustment in divorced families. Clinical Psychology Review 79:101861
When one of you wants to leave and one wants to stay
Couples often arrive at counselling wanting different things. Research on couples in therapy finds it is common for partners to come with different goals and different levels of commitment, one leaning out and the other hoping to save the marriage. Short-term work for this situation is sometimes called discernment counselling.
The aim is not to repair the marriage yet, and not to end it. It is to help each of you understand how you reached this point and what part each of you has played, so that the decision about what comes next, couples therapy, separation, or more time, is made with a clear head rather than in the middle of a fight. Much of this work happens in time with each partner separately as well as together.
What happens in a first divorce counselling session
The first session is 50 minutes on a private video call, and you do not need to have made any decision before you come. It usually covers five things.
- Where things stand. You describe what has happened, in your own words and order. Has a decision been made, by whom, and how long has this been building? Nothing has to be tidy or rehearsed.
- What is pressing right now. Often it is one urgent thing: a conversation with your partner this week, what to tell the children, or a family meeting you are dreading. Your psychologist helps you sort the urgent from the important.
- Safety and support. Your psychologist asks whether you feel safe at home and who you can lean on. This is routine, not an accusation, and it shapes what comes next.
- Confidentiality and its limits. You hear plainly what stays private and the few situations where it cannot, so there are no surprises later.
- A first plan. You agree what the next few sessions will focus on and whether any joint sessions make sense. You leave with one or two concrete next steps, not a lecture.
For example, someone whose husband moved out last month might spend most of a first session on one question: what to say to their eight-year-old this weekend. They leave with three short sentences to use, and a plan to look at the bigger decisions next time.
Individual or joint sessions?
Individual sessions are the usual starting point. They give you a private space to say things you may never say in front of your partner, to look at your own part in the pattern without blame, and to work out what you want. If that is where you are, our page on one-to-one therapy explains how those sessions work.
Joint sessions suit couples who have both agreed to separate and want help doing it with less damage: planning what to tell the children, agreeing on routines, and learning to talk about practical matters without the old argument starting again. If you are both still hoping to save the marriage, start with couples counselling instead; the two can run one after the other.
When teenage children are struggling with the separation themselves, they can have their own space too. Our therapy for teenagers aged 13 to 19 is separate from your sessions, and you can talk through your side as a parent in parenting counselling.
Is this for you?
If any of this sounds familiar, talking it through can help
You are not sure whether to stay or leave
A neutral space to weigh it honestly, with nobody pushing you toward either answer.
You have decided, and it still hurts
Room to work through grief, anger and guilt so they stop running every decision.
You have to co-parent with the person you are leaving
Practical help to keep conversations about the children calm, short and workable.
Everyone around you has an opinion
Somewhere private to sort out what you actually want, apart from family and social pressure.
Family pressure, grief and starting again
In many Malayali families a divorce is discussed by everyone except the two people in it. Parents, in-laws and relatives may push hard in one direction, and it can be difficult to hear your own view under theirs. Sessions give you a place to separate what you want from what you are expected to want, and to plan how to respond to questions without explaining yourself over and over.
Even a separation you chose can bring loss: of a shared future, of a family routine, of who you were in the marriage. That grief often arrives late, after the paperwork is done. Our article on grief and how it shows up describes the pattern, and a psychologist can help you move through it at your own pace.
What about the legal side?
Questions about the divorce process, custody, maintenance, mediation or property belong with a family lawyer, who can advise on your specific situation. Counselling works alongside that: it helps you stay steady through the process, make decisions you will be comfortable with later, and keep the children out of the conflict. Your psychologist will not tell you what to do legally. We do not share your sessions with your partner, family or lawyers. The only exceptions are a legal requirement such as a court order, or a serious risk to someone's safety, and we would talk to you first where we can.
If there is violence or control, safety comes first
If your partner hurts you, threatens you, controls your money or movements, or you feel afraid of how they will react when you raise separation, your safety comes before any counselling plan. Joint sessions are the wrong setting while that is happening. One-to-one support and a safety plan come first. If you are in immediate danger, call Emergency Services on 112. The Women Helpline is on 181 (24/7), and Tele-MANAS offers mental health support on 1800-89-14416 (24/7). More options, including ways to reach out without speaking aloud, are on our crisis and support helplines page. If you are unsure whether what is happening counts as manipulation, our explainer on gaslighting meaning in Malayalam may help.
Source on controlling behaviour: US Office on Women's Health: Emotional and verbal abuse
Simple, transparent pricing
Option to pay after a single session
Divorce counselling is booked as a regular individual or joint session, with no package to commit to. See session fees and plans for current prices.
Divorce counselling: frequently asked questions
Divorce counselling is talk therapy with a psychologist for people who are considering, going through, or recovering from a separation or divorce. It helps you decide clearly, handle the emotional and family side of separating, co-parent with less conflict, and rebuild afterwards. It is sometimes called separation counselling or divorce therapy.
You can come on your own, and most people do. If you both want to, you can also attend joint sessions together, for example to plan how to tell the children or to agree on co-parenting.
No. A divorce counsellor does not take sides or make the decision for you. The work is to help you think clearly and choose what is right for you and, where there are children, for them.
They overlap but have different goals. Couples therapy usually aims to repair the relationship. Divorce counselling helps you decide, or helps you separate and recover well once the decision is made. Some people start with one and move to the other.
Legal questions, such as the divorce process, custody, maintenance or property, belong with a family lawyer. Your psychologist helps with the emotional side: staying steady through the process, making decisions you will not regret, and keeping children out of the conflict.
Yes. Many people use sessions to plan what the children are told, keep handovers calm and keep conversations with a former partner focused on the children, even while the relationship itself is ending.
Your safety comes first. Joint sessions are the wrong setting while there is abuse, because speaking openly in front of the other person can increase the risk. One-to-one sessions and confidential safety planning are the better route. If you are in immediate danger, call Emergency Services on 112. The Women Helpline is on 181, 24/7.
Yes. We do not share your sessions with your partner, family or lawyers. The only exceptions are a legal requirement such as a court order, or a serious risk to someone's safety, and we would talk to you first where we can.
Yes. This is common, and short-term work for it is sometimes called discernment counselling. The aim is not to fix the marriage or to end it, but to help both of you understand how you got here and decide, with a clear head, whether to try couples therapy, separate, or take more time before deciding.
You talk through where things stand, what feels most urgent, whether you feel safe, and what you want from counselling. Your psychologist explains how confidentiality works and its limits, and you agree a first plan together. You do not need to have made any decision before you come.
Either is fine. Before filing, sessions can help you decide and prepare for difficult conversations. During the process they help you stay steady. After it, they help with grief and rebuilding. Many people find it easier to start before the legal process gets busy.
Sessions help you plan this conversation before you have it. A common approach is for both parents to tell the children together if that is safe, keep the explanation simple and honest for their age, make clear it is not their fault, and tell them what will stay the same. Your psychologist helps you put it into words that suit your family.
Yes. Sessions are available in Malayalam and English, so you can talk in the language you think and feel in. Many people use a mix of both.
It depends on where you are. Someone deciding whether to separate may want a few sessions; someone rebuilding after a long marriage may want regular support for a while. Your psychologist suggests a sensible plan with you, and there is no package to commit to.
Meet your therapist
Separation and divorce counselling at ElloMind is with Priyamvada Shankar (Counselling Psychologist), Teresa James (Consultant Psychologist) or Nithya S (Counselling Psychologist), online, in Malayalam and English. When you book, tell us you are looking for divorce or separation counselling and we will match you with the one best suited to where you are in the process. You can meet all our psychologists or simply book a first session and we will match you.
You do not have to work this out alone
Talking it through with someone neutral is often the clearest first step, whatever you decide.