Ethical and professional considerations in divorce and child custody cases.

The provision of psychological (e.g., psychotherapy, coparenting, mediation, collaborative divorce, child custody evaluation) services for families of divorce are growing specialties for many clinical and forensic psychologists. However, practice in domestic relations psychology, such as divorce and custody assessment and testimony, is a high-risk venture for incurring ethics complaints and law suits. The lead article and the three commentaries that follow enumerate the various roles practitioners might play, clarify how each role requires specific skill sets that may be outside one’s particular competence and necessitate additional training, describe how countertransferential issues arise, urge meticulous record keeping, discuss some of the subtleties of confidentiality and the releasing of information, describe how transparency in clarifying expectations leads to a lowering of contentiousness, and provide tips for divorce and forensic practice. The special challenges associated with psychologists being tempted to move beyond their role on a case and those of particularly high-risk situations (e.g., complaints of child abuse or domestic violence) are also discussed. Suggestions are offered to help psychologists better serve the public while taking steps to better inoculate themselves from complaints. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Deeper into divorce: Using actor-partner analyses to explore systemic differences in coparenting conflict following custody dispute resolution.

Divorce is an inherently interpersonal experience, yet too often adults' reactions to marital dissolution are investigated as intrapersonal experiences that unfold outside of the relational context in which they exist. This article examines systemic patterns of interpersonal influence between divorced parents who were randomly assigned to either mediate or litigate a child custody dispute in the mid-1980s. Reports of coparenting conflict and nonacceptance of the divorce were assessed 5 weeks after the dispute settlement, 13 months after the settlement, and then again 12 years later. One hundred nine (N = 109) parents provided data over this 12-year period. Fathers reported the highest initial levels of conflict when their ex-partners were more accepting of the divorce. Mediation parents reported decreases in coparenting conflict in the year after dispute settlement, whereas litigation parents reported increases in conflict. Litigation parents evidenced the greatest long-term increases and decreases in coparenting conflict. Mediation is a potent force for reducing postdivorce conflict, and this article highlights the usefulness of adopting a systemic lens for understanding the long-term correlates of marital dissolution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tearing the child apart: The contribution of narcissism, envy, and perverse modes of thought to child custody wars.

This article takes a psychoanalytic approach to questions usually considered to be matters of the family court system. The psychological effects of high-conflict divorce on children are well known, but what motivates their parents is less understood. Pathological narcissism, pathological envy, disavowal, and a perverse attitude toward reality can produce unending conflicts over visitation and custody. Fighting over seemingly insignificant matters can manage aggression and ward off psychic collapse. These families are frequently referred to coparenting counseling or psychoeducational groups; however, the author proposes that psychoanalytically oriented treatment can best address these parents' unconscious wishes to damage or destroy their own children and the perverse character structure that enables parents to negate their roles in tearing their children apart. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Guidelines for child custody evaluations in family law proceedings.

Family law proceedings encompass a broad range of issues, including custody, maintenance, support, valuation, visitation, relocation, and termination of parental rights. The following guidelines address what are commonly termed child custody evaluations, involving disputes over decision making, caretaking, and access in the wake of marital or other relationship dissolution. The goal of these guidelines is to promote proficiency in the conduct of these particular evaluations. This narrowed focus means that evaluations occurring in other contexts (e.g., child protection matters) are not covered by these guidelines. In addition, the guidelines acknowledge a clear distinction between the forensic evaluations described in this document and the advice and support that psychologists provide to families, children, and adults in the normal course of psychotherapy and counseling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment of sexual abuse allegations in child custody cases.

Family courts frequently rely on the expertise of mental health professionals to assess allegations of sexual abuse within the context of child custody evaluations. Such evaluations are complex and require knowledge of techniques used in sexual abuse and sexual offender evaluations, as well as knowledge of child custody practices. Preliminary findings from a national survey of 84 psychologists indicated that respondents tend to adhere to the child custody guidelines of the American Psychological Association. However, few practitioners followed formal models, protocols, or guidelines when evaluating alleged victims or alleged perpetrators of sexual abuse in conjunction with child custody disputes. Implications for professional practice are discussed, along with a proposed comprehensive model for assessing sexual abuse allegations in child custody cases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychologists' current practices and procedures in child custody evaluations: Five years after American Psychological Association guidelines.

What is the current state of professional practice among child custody evaluators, and how congruent is current practice with the 1994 American Psychological Association (APA) "Guidelines for Child Custody Evaluations in Divorce Proceedings" (APA Guidelines; APA, 1994)? A national survey of 198 psychologists revealed a high degree of training and experience among respondents and an increased understanding of procedural issues. Evaluators reported using multiple sources of data collection, critical decision-making skills, and knowledge of ethical, legal, and risk management issues. Overall, child custody evaluations appear to have become more sophisticated and comprehensive during the past 15 years, with current practices and procedures adhering to APA Guidelines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A review of the practice and science of child custody and access assessment in the United States and Canada.

Many psychologists in the United States and Canada provide child custody and access (C&A) assessments as part of their clinical services. There are guidelines based on ethical standards that inform this specialization, which include the recommendation that providers be familiar with the empirical bases of their work. This article provides an overview of guidelines, the assessment process, and the empirical basis for C&A assessment. Although there is limited evidence of traditional standards of direct empirical utility of such assessments, there are relevant research areas that include the impacts of separation and divorce on children, family relationships, and coparenting processes. Each is critical to understanding children's welfare, a parent's capacity to act in the best interests of a child, and the coparenting environment that may follow separation and divorce. Given the importance of minimizing postdivorce conflict within a coparenting environment, the indirect scientific evidence that supports C&A assessment can also be used to pursue more amicable solutions through mediation and parent education. Although research is growing supporting these alternative practices as well as C&A assessment itself, much more is needed. Psychologists who offer these services will find this article to be a useful overview of current practice and science, and for those contemplating involvement in these services, the article highlights issues to be considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Conducting child custody evaluations: A comprehensive guide.

Reviews the book, Conducting child custody evaluations: A comprehensive guide by Philip Michael Stahl (see record 1994-98484-000). In this book, the author details how the courts benefit from custody evaluations, how the family benefits, when evaluations could actually be harmful, and offers some particularly unique and useful suggestions on evaluator biases. He brings up the interesting issue of who is the real client/consumer. He understands that the client really cannot be the child independent of his/her family, even though we all mourn the cliche, "best interests of the child," as if this phrase were some operationally clear "guideline." A main author bias is "the best parenting is achieved with two parents" (p. 25). There is at least some research evidence (and clinical experience) that would dispute this in more cases than the author might care to acknowledge. A second bias is that children must perceive that their parents can develop a post-divorce relationship free of hostility in which each parent is a champion for the other. Stahl displays a keen understanding of the dynamics of the post-divorce world. In his heart, he seems more a therapist than an "objective evaluator" and harbors a strong bias to help people move productively through the crises that are everywhere in evidence in post-divorce situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integrative family therapy for disputes involving child custody and visitation.

This article describes integrative multilevel family therapy for disputes involving child custody and visitation, a multiple-level systems-based treatment specifically targeted at those engaged in intractable conflicts over child custody and visitation. Parents and children engaged in these conflicts are at risk for a variety of difficulties. Key aspects of the approach include the articulation of clear therapy contracts, the utilization of multiple therapy session formats, the maintenance of a systemic perspective, intervention on multiple system levels, the tailoring of intervention strategy based in an assessment of the locus of difficulty in each case, planning for intervention over time, and working at the interface of the legal system in order to impact on these problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental divorce and adolescent delinquency: Ruling out the impact of common genes.

Although the well-documented association between parental divorce and adolescent delinquency is generally assumed to be environmental (i.e., causal) in origin, genetic mediation is also possible. Namely, the behavior problems often found in children of divorce could derive from similar pathology in the parents, pathology that is both heritable and increases the risk that the parent will experience divorce. To test these alternative hypotheses, the authors made use of a novel design that incorporated timing of divorce in a sample of 610 adoptive and biological families. They reasoned that if genes common to parent and child mediate this association, nonadopted youth should manifest increased delinquency in the presence of parental divorce even if the divorce preceded their birth (i.e., was from a prior parental relationship). However, should the association be environmental in origin, the authors reasoned that adolescents should manifest increased delinquency only in response to divorce exposure, and this association should not vary by adoption status. Results firmly supported the latter, suggesting that it is the experience of parental divorce, and not common genes, that drives the association between divorce and adolescent delinquency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Postdivorce living arrangements, parent conflict, and long-term physical health correlates for children of divorce.

The authors tested a biopsychosocial model in which young adults' long-term relationships with fathers and ongoing distress surrounding their parents' divorces mediated the relationship between disrupted parenting (i.e., exposure to parent conflict before the divorce and up to 5 years after, and amount of time with father postdivorce) and indicators of their physical health. University students whose parents divorced before they were 16 (n = 266) participated. Findings supported the model. The more time children lived with their fathers after divorce, the better their current relationships were with their fathers, independent of parent conflict. The more parent conflict they experienced, the worse their relationships were with their fathers and the more distress they currently felt about their parents' divorce, independent of time with father. Poor father-child relationships and more distress in turn predicted poorer health status. There was no interaction between exposure to parent conflict and time with father; thus, more time with father was beneficial in both high- and low-conflict families, and more exposure to parent conflict was detrimental at both high and low levels of time with father. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of child parent relationship therapy on child behavior and parent-child relationships: An examination of parental divorce.

The current study used a mixed methodological approach to examine the impact of Child-Parent-Relationship Therapy (CPRT) on divorced parents and their children. Specifically, in the present study, the authors investigated parents' perceptions of the impact of CPRT on the parent, the child, and the parent–child relationship. CPRT was found to be helpful in reducing parenting stress and child behavior problems. Parents also reported that CPRT helped them feel more connected to their children and provided them with new tools for parenting. The results of the current study add to the current literature on divorce, affirming that CPRT may be an effective intervention for children of divorce. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Legal standards, expertise, and experts in the resolution of contested child custody cases.

The authors critically evaluate the roles of forensic practitioners and psychological researchers in determinations of the best-interest-of-the-child standard (BICS) in child custody disputes. The authors examine (a) the existing empirical research on the adjustment of children of divorce, (b) the current forensic practice of mental health practitioners, (c) the standardized forensic assessment instruments available, and (d) the ethical dilemmas faced by mental health practitioners who work in this area. On the basis of their analysis, the authors argue that current evidence does not support most of the "expert testimony" proffered by mental health practitioners to the court. As a consequence, they posit that the BICS does not reflect either the needs of the legal system or the expertise of the psychological profession, and that the least detrimental alternative to the child standard more accurately meets the needs of both fields. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The efficacy of using music in children of divorce groups: Impact on anxiety, depression, and irrational beliefs about divorce.

This study examined the efficacy of a children of divorce group using music as an intervention in comparison to a more traditional psychoeducational children of divorce group. It was predicted that children of divorce groups that utilized music would have a significantly greater impact on the children's levels of anxiety, depression, and irrational beliefs about divorce after the group ended and at a 3-month follow-up assessment. Both interventions significantly decreased cognitive and social anxiety and all irrational beliefs about divorce, except hope of reunification. Depression did not decrease for all participants but when the relationship between depression and irrational beliefs was examined, irrational beliefs were found to be mediators of depression for children of divorce. These results suggest that current interventions for children of divorce do decrease anxiety and irrational beliefs in general, but specifically addressing irrational beliefs may also decrease depressive symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child custody mediation and litigation: Custody, contact, and coparenting 12 years after initial dispute resolution.

Long-term follow-up data were obtained on families who had been randomly assigned to mediate or litigate their child custody disputes. In comparison with families who litigated custody, nonresidential parents who mediated were more involved in multiple areas of their children's lives, maintained more contact with their children, and had a greater influence in coparenting 12 years after the resolution of their custody disputes. The increased involvement of nonresidential parents who mediated did not lead to an associated increase in coparenting conflict. Parents who mediated also made more changes in their children's living arrangements over the years. For the most part, the changes apparently reflect increased cooperation and flexibility. Satisfaction declined for parents (especially fathers) in both groups over time, but fathers remained much more satisfied if they mediated rather than litigated custody. Few differences in satisfaction were found between mothers in the 2 groups. The 12-year follow-up data indicate that, even in contested cases, mediation encourages both parents to remain involved in their children's lives after divorce without increasing coparenting conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Family and legal indicators of child adjustment to divorce among families with young children.

This research used structural equation modeling to examine relations among family dynamics, attorney involvement, and the adjustment of young children (0-6 years) at the time of parental separation. The article presents baseline data (N = 102 nonresidential fathers and N = 110 primary caretaking mothers) from a larger longitudinal study. Results showed that the effects of parental conflict on child outcomes were mediated by paternal involvement, the parent-child relationship, and attorney involvement. A scale assessing parental gatekeeping yielded two significant factors: Spouse's Influence on Parenting and Positive View of Spouse. Paternal involvement was related to children's adaptive behavior, whereas negative changes in parent-child relationships predicted behavior problems. Mothers who experienced greater psychological symptomatology were less likely to utilize an attorney, which in turn predicted greater internalizing problems in their children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sibling outcomes and disparate parenting and stepparenting after divorce: Report from a 10-year longitudinal study.

This is a first longitudinal study of parenting and stepparenting of siblings in divorced and remarried families over the postdivorce decade. Disparate parenting of siblings was evident in one half of the families. This was seriously and lastingly detrimental to the marginalized youngsters. The unexpectedly powerful influence of the stepparent on the parenting of the biological parents is reported along with the psychological role of children in reflecting the relationships and projections of parents and stepparents. The study raises clinical and theoretical questions regarding the roots of instability in parenting following disrupted and new adult partnering. The findings also call attention to the distinctive developmental pathways of children in divorced and remarried families. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relocation of children after divorce and children's best interests: New evidence and legal considerations.

Relocation cases, in which a divorced parent seeks to move away with the child, are among the knottiest problems facing family courts. The recent trend is to permit such moves, largely because of Wallerstein's (1995) controversial amica curiae brief, which a recent court (Baures v. Lewis, 2001) interpreted as supporting the conclusion that "in general, what is good for the custodial parent is good for the child" (p. 222). The current study provides the first direct evidence on relocation by dividing college students into groups on the basis of their divorced parents' move-away status. On most child outcomes, the ones whose parents moved are significantly disadvantaged. This suggests courts should give greater weight to the child's separate interests in deciding such cases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)