Latest / Divorce Coaches Academy / The Rise of the Divorce Influencer: Visibility Without Accountability
Transcript
- Tracy Callahan: Thank you for listening to the Divorce Coaches Academy podcast. For more insights and training, visit divorcecoachesacademy.com. Welcome back to the Divorce Coaches Academy podcast. I'm Tracy. And today I want to speak directly about ethics in the field of divorce coaching. And more specifically, how ethics are being challenged in a rapidly evolving landscape. Because alongside the growth of divorce coaching as a profession, we are also seeing the rise of something else. What I'm going to call Welcome to Divorce Coaches Academy podcast, where we explore the role of divorce coaching in conflict resolution, decision making, and navigating divorce with clarity and intention. the divorce influencer. Individuals who have gone through their own divorce built a following by sharing that experience and are now operating formally or informally as guides for others navigating divorce. And I want to be very clear at the outset. This is not a dismissal of lived experience. I've said it before, lived experience matters. It reduces isolation. It helps people feel seen and one of the most destabilizing transitions of their lives. It gives language to something that can feel completely disorienting. But what we are seeing now is something different. We are seeing the transformation of lived experience into authority without a corresponding structure of accountability. And that is where the ethical question begins. Because divorce is not just a personal story. It is not just content. It is a conflict process, a legal process, a financial restructuring, a long-term relational reorganization, especially when children are involved. And when individuals begin to guide others inside that process, the standard cannot simply be relatability. It has to be responsibility. So today, I want to examine this shift, not to criticize individuals, but to elevate the conversation around what ethical practice in divorce coaching actually requires. So to understand why this is happening, we kind of have to look at the system, not the individuals. Social media platforms are designed to amplify content that is emotionally resonant, highly personal, and easily consumable. Divorce sits squarely at the center of all of that. It is one of the most psychologically disruptive life events a person can go through. Research on stress and life events has consistently ranked divorce among the highest stressors just below the death of a spouse. At the same time, individuals navigating divorce experience significant cognitive and emotional strain. Behavioral science research shows, we know this, that high emotional distress reduces cognitive bandwidth, making decision making more reactive and more susceptible to external influence. So now consider this intersection. You have individuals in a state of emotional overwhelm, uncertainty, identity disruption, engaging with content that is emotionally validating, personally resonant, immediately accessible, and from that, audiences form, audiences. And from those audiences, trust develops. But here is the critical distinction. The algorithm rewards emotional resonance. It does not evaluate competency, scope, or ethical responsibility. So what gets amplified is not necessarily what is most qualified. It is what is most engaging. Traditionally, authority and divorce related work has been grounded in structure. We know this, attorneys operate within these legal frameworks. mediators, and other dispute resolution specialists work in ADR models. Therapists operate within regulated mental health systems. Each role carries training, ethical guidelines, scope boundaries, accountability mechanisms. But we are seeing now is a shift from institutional authority to social authority. Authority is being conferred through audience size, engagement, relatability, consistency of presence. And the mechanism looks like this. I went through this. I share it publicly. People relate. People trust me. That trust becomes authority. And again, trust matters. But trust in this context is being built on shared experience, not demonstrated competency. And those are fundamentally different because while lived experience does provide empathy, connection, relatability, it does not inherently provide structured decision-making frameworks, conflict navigation strategies, ethical boundary management. Going through a divorce gives you a story. It does not automatically give you the ability to guide someone else through theirs. So here's where the ethical tension becomes real. When individuals with large audiences begin to influence the decisions of others, whether explicitly or subtly, they are operating in a position of power. And with that power comes responsibility. But in the influencer model, responsibility is often undefined. There's no governing body, no standardized trainee, no enforced ethical framework. So what begins to happen is subtle but significant. Advice becomes framed as support. Opinion becomes framed as guidance. Personal experience becomes framed as broadly applicable strategy. And the audience, yep, our audience, often overwhelmed and searching for clarity, begins to rely on that input. Not as content, but as direction. We know research and decision-making shows that under stress, individuals rely more heavily on trust-based shortcuts rather than structured analysis. And one of the most powerful shortcuts is this. This person understands me. So I trust what they are saying. That is where relatability becomes a proxy for expertise. And that is where risk enters the system. Because when people are making life altering decisions based on what you say? Yeah, you hold influence whether you claim it or not. So let's look at how this plays out. An individual shares their divorce story. It resonates and audience forms, trust builds, and then that audience becomes structured, paid memberships, subscription-based communities, private access groups. Now again, community is not the issue. The question is, what is happening inside those spaces? Is it shared experience and peer support? Or is it guidance that begins to influence decisions around legal strategy, co-parenting, or finances? Because if it's the latter, then we are no longer in informal support. We are in unregulated advisory territory. And without defined scope, or ethical oversight that becomes a risk. A second pattern I see. Once an audience is established, it becomes valuable, not just to the influencer, but to others. So we begin to see paid access to audiences, featured placements, promoted professionals. From a business standpoint, This is pretty predictable, but ethically, it raises a seriously critical question. Who is responsible for protecting the audience when access to them becomes the product? Is there vetting? Is there transparency? Is the audience aware of financial relationships? Because the trust that has been built is not neutral, it's being leveraged. Let me ground this in a recent experience I had because I think it illustrates this dynamic clearly. I was invited to participate on a podcast platform in the divorce coaching space. As part of that process, I was introduced to a feature that offered increased visibility, essentially a paid opportunity to be spotlighted to their audience. Now, from a business perspective, that model is not new. Paid visibility exists across many industries. But here is where the ethical question becomes specific to divorce. This audience was not a general consumer base. It was a community of individuals actively navigating divorce. People in a state of emotional vulnerability, uncertainty, and often urgency. And the structure being presented was not simply here is content, it was here is access to people who trust this platform. So the question I had and the question I think we need to be asking more broadly is this. What responsibility does a platform have when it is monetizing access to a vulnerable audience. Is there vetting of who is being given that visibility? Clarity about what qualifies someone to guide others through divorce? Transparency around the fact that visibility is being purchased, not earned through demonstrated competency? Because when an audience is built on trust, on shared experience, on emotional connection, that trust carries weight. And when access to that audience is sold, that trust is no longer just relational. It becomes transactional. And in a space like divorce, that shift matters because individuals are not just consuming content. They're making decisions. They are choosing who to listen to, who to trust, who to follow. And if visibility can be bought, without clear standards attached to it, then we have effectively created a system where influence can be purchased, not earned. That is not just a marketing question. That's an ethical one. And it goes directly to the heart of what we are talking about today, visibility without accountability. A third pattern is what I would call expertise inflation. The shift from I experienced this to I now guide others through it without a structured bridge of training, methodology, scope. Divorce is not a single experience. It is a complex system involving legal, financial, and relational components. Supporting someone through that requires more than empathy. It requires structure. So why does this matter? Well, this matters because the consequences are real. Poor guidance can escalate conflict, increase legal costs, destabilize co-parenting relationships. What we already know and what organizations like the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers have consistently noted is that escalating conflict in divorce significantly increases both cost, duration, and impact. At the same time, many individuals report feeling overwhelmed and under-informed during divorce. That combination makes them more vulnerable to influence that feels accessible, even if it is not qualified. And at an industry level, this creates confusion. If everything is labeled, I'm air quoting, divorce coaching, then nothing is clearly defined and that erodes trust. Ethical divorce coaching is not about providing answers. It is about supporting clients to think clearly, make informed decisions, engage effectively and productively in conflict. And that my friends requires defined scope, ethical boundaries, specialized training, commitment to client autonomy, Ethics are not theoretical. They are operational. The rise of this divorce influencer is not inherently the problem. The problem is when influence operates without accountability in a space where the consequences are this significant. Divorce is not just a story. It is a process that requires careful, informed navigation. And if you are going to step into a role where others look to you for guidance, whether you call yourself a divorce coach, an influencer, or something else, visibility is not enough. Responsibility has to follow. And this is where I wanna be really, really clear. If there are no consistent local, national, or regulatory guidelines defining what ethical divorce coaching looks like, then we as a profession have a responsibility to self-regulate, to establish standards, to define scope, to commit to ethical codes of conduct. and to ensure that the individuals we are serving, often at their most vulnerable, are protected. At Divorce Coaches Academy, this is not theoretical. We are committed to training coaches within a clearly defined scope of practice, grounding our work in conflict, informed ADR aligned principles, and holding our coaches to a standard of ethical responsibility that prioritizes client autonomy, not dependency. Because divorce coaching is not just about support. It is about how people think, decide, and engage in one of the most consequential transitions of their lives. And that level of influence requires more than intention. It requires training. It requires demonstration of competency. It requires structure. And it requires accountability. Because what people need in divorce is not just someone who understands their pain. They need someone who can help them move through it with clarity, with integrity, and within a framework designed to protect them. Divorce coaches, do better. Be better. I want to thank you all for listening today. Sorry for the rant, just had to say it. Please feel free to reach out if you have any comments or questions on this information and my perspective on the ethical practices of divorce coaching. It's really, really important. Until next time.