Unexpected divorce and its specificities in clinical care

Abstract This article discusses the grief associated with a specific form of romantic breakup, called here unexpected divorce, and its repercussions on psychotherapeutic care. Being a complex situation composed by the concomitant occurrence of: abrupt request, unilateral decision-making, exacerbated feeling of abandonment and lack of perception of the possibility of ending the relationship. A general analysis is made of the impacts of divorce on physical, mental health and quality of life and the grieving demand for an ambiguous loss. The research was based on a comprehensive literature review, the clinical experience of the authors and a deep case study that allowed the analysis of the specificities of the impacts in unexpected divorce, its high traumatic potential, and the consequences of those specificities on clinical care. Based on the results, therapeutic action is proposed, and the processes involved in recovery are highlighted as: finding meaning, gaining balance, rebuilding identity, normalizing ambivalence, reviewing attachments, and finding new hopes.