Most divorces begin with a level of moderate to high conflict. Within the first year, most parents settle into cooperative or parallel co-parenting arrangements. Yet, there is a significant percentage of divorces where hostility and disputes about childrearing continue long after the divorce.
Today, most professionals involved in the divorce process believe that the adversarial nature of traditional legal action increases parental conflict and the probability that the family will suffer more emotional and financial damage during the course of obtaining a no-fault divorce.
There is a growing recognition among legal professionals that parents need help in learning how to constructively communicate after a divorce; information about the developmental needs of their children to design parenting plans that serve their best interests; and training on how to manage their children in separate households.
A quiet revolution is taking place as well among consumers. Couples with children are demanding that the legal system provide alternatives to litigation when they divorce, creating a plethora of opportunities for therapists who understand that families experience divorce as a process that requires emotional support to adapt to the loss of family cohesion and to positively adapt to the systemic changes inherent in every divorce.
For couples who are capable of handling their divorce-related issues in a non-adversarial manner, mediation and collaborative divorce are emotionally and financially useful in terminating their relationship and ameliorating the detrimental effects of the process on their children. For those couples struggling with post-divorce parental roles and communication, co-parent counseling can reduce dysfunctional behaviors and stress-producing parental interaction.
But for parents who cannot separate their needs from their children’s and who are unwilling to protect their children from their own emotional distress or ongoing disputes with each other, litigation is frequently the path they choose. In the context of traditional divorce litigation, the courts will need the assistance of guardians ad litem, parent evaluators and parent coordinators to help them develop a parenting plan and to abide by the terms of the court-ordered parenting arrangement. Regardless of whether the couple chooses mediation, collaboration or litigation, they are likely to look to mental health professionals to some extent to assist them in the method they select.
Mediation offers divorcing couples the opportunity to address their concerns and negotiate their financial and parenting interests to reach a consensus agreement with the assistance of an impartial third party. There are a variety of mediation models, and the mediator chooses the method most appropriate to the goals of the couple.
In facilitative mediation, the mediator assists the couple in exploring common interests, generating options and making decisions for themselves, leaving the outcome entirely up to the design of the couple. This is frequently used to resolve parenting style differences, scheduling conflicts and intangible parenting differences.
Transformative mediation attempts to do more than just find a resolution. It is a meditative process in which the mediator’s goal is to empower the individual to communicate openly and to understand the other parent’s perspective. Success is achieved when each parent is capable of communicating their opinion in a way that is heard by the other and is able to show respect for the other parent’s right to have a different opinion. This method is particularly beneficial in overcoming emotional impasses that hinder resolution of problems.
In therapeutic mediation, the mediator uses therapeutic techniques to encourage discussion of the underlying emotional problems to establish a basis to overcome impasse in order to allow candid and effective negotiations. Feelings and how they impact the couple’s behavior are the focus. The mediator encourages each parent to acknowledge how their feelings are impacting their behavior and to address the consequences of their emotive actions.
The strategic mediation model is a systemic approach focused upon reaching a resolution to the presenting difficulty. It is a problem-solving approach that stresses the hidden dimensions of a conflict. The mediator develops a systemic analysis of the case. It is different from therapeutic mediation in that the goal is not to help the couple express their feelings. Rather, the mediator usually suppresses expressions of feelings in order to accomplish the calculated goal of conflict resolution.
In the collaborative divorce, the couple and their attorneys enter into a written contract that mandates cooperative negotiation of the disputes to settlement and prohibits their attorneys from representing them in litigation if they withdraw from the process. Clients promise to act in good faith and to voluntarily disclose all relevant information. The couple works with a team of legal, financial and therapeutic professionals.
Therapists serve as “coaches” to aid the parties in constructive, clear and rational communication and identification of underlying emotional barriers that lead to impasse. In addition, they serve as child specialists, bringing the voice of the children to the negotiation table, educating the parents about the developmental, temperamental and cognitive needs of their children to minimize the detrimental impact of the transition from a nuclear to a bi-nuclear family, and helping the couple to be child focused throughout the negotiation process.
If the couple chooses litigation to resolve their differences, they are more likely to be involved in a high-conflict relationship, where communication is significantly impaired or nonexistent. Court-ordered resolutions are required, and judges and the parties’ attorneys look to trained professionals to provide insight and unbiased perspectives regarding the best interests of the children.
The court often will appoint a parent evaluator to investigate the factual allegations of the parties, report the facts that corroborate or refute the allegations, and make recommendations regarding residential sharing, decision making and treatment. Parent evaluators usually have graduate training in psychological assessments and doctoral degrees in psychology. There are some parent evaluators with post-graduate forensic training who also serve in this capacity.
Parenting coordination requires a mental health provider to assist in the implementation of court-ordered parenting plans. The parent coordinator acts as a go-between, mediator and — at times — arbiter of disagreements to help high-conflict parents implement the parenting plan and develop a functional co-parenting relationship.
Usually, the primary goals of the parent coordinator are to implement the parenting plan, to monitor parenting plan compliance, to resolve conflicts that arise under the plan quickly and efficiently, to resolve conflicts regarding the children and the parenting plan in a timely manner, and to protect and sustain safe, healthy and meaningful parent-child relationships.
Parental conflict reduction therapy, or co-parent counseling, is recommended for couples continuing to experience moderate to high levels of conflict after divorce or who want to improve communication to make it more comfortable for them to participate in child-related activities and decision making. The co-parent counselor may help parents reach decisions together regarding their children, or assist a parent to resolve their anger toward the other parent or their grief relating to the end of their relationship.
I hope more therapists will join this quiet revolution and major shift in the legal paradigm. The families involved in the legal process of divorce need you.
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