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The Marriage Between Psychology and Divorce
By: Renee A. Cohen, Ph.D.
Divorce is undoubtedly one of the greatest stresses a human being can experience. It is second only to the distress suffered from the loss of a loved one through death. Research shows that while divorce is a single, if traumatic, personal decision for adults, it is a wrenching series of crises for their children; one that differs depending on their age and sex; one that changes as new stages of their development open new worlds to them; one that includes "sleeper effects" that may crop up years after the actual separation.
When divorce strikes, the process of disassembling a family places tremendous demands on the marital partners and they crave some structure as a guide to dealing with the intense emotional reactions and the uncertainties that divorce causes. Divorce sets up circumstances that are so disorganizing that everyone subjected to it feels overwhelmed and wonders how he or she can make it through. Almost everything in their life that has been stable now must be reorganized. And this uncertainty leaves them in a state of chronic anxiety. The periodic attacks of panic they feel result from the unpredictability of their life, and the intensity of these feelings confirm the fact that this may be one of the most traumatic experiences they have ever encountered. But the people who take it hardest are they children. They didn’t pick the marriage, they have no say in the divorce, and, all too often, their parents—with the best of intentions—find it impossible to understand what divorce means to them.
For more than twenty years, I have worked with children and adults who have difficulty coping with certain life situations. Divorce is often the crisis that brought them to me. With the growing awareness and sensitivity to the pain divorce can inflict, it is important that attorneys seek out the professional help of a mental health professional at an early stage of the divorce process. Those of us trained in child development and family crisis can help make the transition smoother for all parties involved.
Parents are so overwhelmed with the changes and their feelings that they are frequently unavailable or unable to deal with their children’s feelings. Intervention by a child therapist would provide a person and place for the child. Someone and somewhere he/she could deal with his/her anger and work through the fear and anxiety of separation, rejection and abandonment, as well as any other issues the child is dealing with. Often, when working with younger children, I use art therapy as well as traditional talk therapy to help the child have another modality to express his/her feelings. Divorce groups offer a place to deal with and share feelings with others who are confronted with the same issues they are.
Just because they’re grown up doesn’t mean that parents don’t need help. Therapy helps to facilitate the parents’ adjustment to the changing situations and to cope with the feelings of anger, loss, and depression. Their role as spouse is ending while their role as parent continues. Parents can benefit from the structure that therapy provides to help them deal with their intense emotional feelings. Therapy addresses those parenting issues that can help the parent deal with and understand their children’s reactions. The better prepared the parents are to deal with the divorce, the better the children will adjust to the situation. There are also divorce groups for parents that offer a support system that enables them to share feelings and ideas which can facilitate adjustment.
The courts are becoming more sensitive to the highly charged child-related issues of divorce. When working on a custody and visitation plan, instead of the more traditional adversarial contest between opposing lawyers who are determined to "win" custody cases for their clients, there is mediation. The goal of mediation is to resolve conflict through a process that promotes cooperation, reduces tensions, and lessens the psychological distress that accompanies divorce. The purpose of the mediated custody/visitation plan is cooperation and negotiation between the parents to determine what is in the best interest of the children.
I’ve worked with several attorneys who have been more than happy to "pass" on the child-related issues, especially when it involved school-related problems. One attorney confided, "The custody part drives me crazy." Attorneys practicing family law, for the most part, have little, if any, training in psychology and child development. Child-related issues can be more effectively and economically resolved using a psychologist who is trained as a mediator. A psychologist can often make the attorney’s work easier and more cost-effective. The role of psychologist as mediator is not the same role as the therapist. The therapist deals with feelings. The mediator deals with solutions. A psychologist trained in mediation can often achieve remarkable results even in emotionally charged situations where the parties have difficulty communicating with each other.
However, even the most skilled attorney and psychologist cannot prevent disaster if one or both parents cannot refrain from using the children as hostages in an emotional war. The child-related issues can escalate into a major focus of litigation and the psychologist is then asked to work in the capacity of a custody evaluator. The laws of most states stipulate that the best interests of the child should be given prime consideration, and many states also mandate that both parents have equal rights to custody of the children. "Equal access" and “best interests” are two basically fair concepts. If interpreted properly, they mean that in deciding custody, the evaluator would determine which parent would be better able to meet the physical and emotional needs of the child. It is a fact of life that not all people are equally good at all things, and parenthood is no exception. A positive approach for determining who is better able to meet the needs of a child should be the focus. In this way, the question of custody could be decided on the basis of the issues in question, without bias against one gender or the other, without defaming the character of one parent or the other, and without creating the stigma that a person is unfit if his or her spouse is considered better at being a parent.
A custody evaluation should be comprehensive, emphasizing the needs of the children. Realizing how traumatic divorce can be for all the parties involved, the evaluator needs to work in an expedient manner in order to minimize any additional stress or time delays. A good custody evaluation also needs to take into consideration the future developmental and emotional needs of the child. Although we know there will be change, it is difficult to predict the future. That’s why issues related to visitation should be fine tuned at least every two years and definitely when the children’s activities and needs begin to change as quickly as his/her shoe size. A mediator can facilitate the changes quickly, cost effectively, and without bringing the children into the litigation arena.
A childless marriage that ends in divorce involves only the two people who made the commitment to each other. When there are children, however, the divorce is qualitatively different. The parents must always keep the concerns of their children paramount. When divorce takes place in a marriage that includes children, it requires intelligence and compassion to help structure an existence for the children that protects their integrity and psychological well-being. The purpose of this paper is to suggest an alternative approach to resolving highly charged child-related issues through the involvement—early on in the divorce process—of a psychologist as mediator. It’s purpose is also to sensitize the attorney to the traumatic human issues that are at the very heart of divorce and to realize that he/she is in a unique position to recommend a psychologist as therapist to help family members deal with the emotional upheaval.
Dr. Cohen is a clinical psychologist in private practice with offices in Santa Monica and Torrance, CA. Trained at Reiss-Davis Child Study Center, Los Angeles, CA, Dr. Cohen specializes in custody evaluations, mediation, and psychotherapy with adults and children of divorce and also conducts divorce groups for adults and children.
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