Abstract
At the end of the questionnaire, respondents were asked, “If you could address the following in a group, what would you tell them, that is, what facts would you want to make them more aware of from the father’s point of view?” The groups were divorce therapists, divorce mediators, child custody evaluators, ex-wives, children of divorce, matrimonial lawyers, and family court judges. (See Appendix 1 for questionnaire.) The men’s sage, often wistful, experientially based, and cognitively processed advice is summarized in this chapter – in relation to each of the groups that they were asked to consider addressing. They took the request very seriously, touched to the core of their painful emotional divorce journey. Not all had experience with each category and so only responded where they considered themselves to be knowledgeable. Recommendations based on my professional observations and also derived from the extant literature are interwoven with their heartfelt advice – which at times almost sound like a plea on behalf of making it easier and better for divorcing families of the future.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
American Bar Association Section on Family Law. (2008). Civility standards. Retrieved from www.abanet.org/family.
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders-IV-TR. Washington, DC: Author.
American Psychological Association. (2010). Guidelines for child custody evaluations in family law proceedings. American Psychologist, 65(9), 863–867.
Antonovsky, A. (1987). Unraveling the mystery of health: How people manager stress and stay alive. San Francisco: Jossey Boss.
Baker, A. L. (2007). Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome: Breaking the Ties That Bind. New York: Norton.
Baker, A. L., & Ben-Ami, N. (2011). To turn a child against a parent is to turn a child against himself: The direct and indirect effect of exposure to parental alienation strategies on self-esteem and well being. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 52(5), 472–489.
Bonach, K. (2007). Forgiveness intervention model: Application to co-parenting post-divorce. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 48(1–2), 105–123.
Byrne, K. (1989). Brainwashing in custody cases: The parent alienation syndrome. Australian Family Lawyer, 4(3), 1–7.
Clawar, S. S., & Rivlin, B. V. (1991). Children held hostage: Dealing with programmed and brainwashed children. Chicago: American Bar Association Section of Family Law.
Egizli, J. (2010). The look of love. Dallas: Brown Books.
Fabricius, W. V., & Luecken, L. J. (2007). Post divorce living arrangements, parent conflict, and long term physical health correlates for children of divorce. Journal of Family Psychology, 21(2), 195–205.
Firestone, G., & Weinstein, J. (2004). In the best interests of children: A proposal to transform the adversarial system. Family Court Review, 42(2), 203–215.
Hill, E. W. (2010). Discovering forgiveness through empathy: Implications for couple and family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 32(2), 169–185.
Kaslow, F. W. (2000). Families experiencing divorce. In W. C. Nichols, M. A. Pace-Nichols, D. S. Bevcar, & A. Y. Napier (Eds.), Handbook of family development and intervention (pp. 341–368). Hoboken: Wiley.
Kaslow, F. W. (2007). Post divorce relatedness between parents: Their divorced sons, and their grandchildren: A pilot study. In C. A. Everett & R. E. Lee (Eds.), When marriages fail: Systemic family therapy interventions and issues (pp. 141–156). New York: Haworth Press.
Kelly, J. B. (2007). Children’s living arrangements following separation and divorce: Insights from empirical and clinical research. Family Process, 46(1), 35–52.
Kruk, E. (2012). Arguments for an equal parental responsibility presumption in contested child custody. American Journal of Family Therapy, 40(1), 33–55.
Maslow, A. H. (1968). Toward a psychology of being. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Millar, P. (2009). The best interests of children: An evidence-based approach. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Nurse, A. R., & Thompson, P. (2009). Collaborative divorce: A family centered process. In J. H. Bray & M. Stanton (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of family psychology (pp. 475–486). NY: Wiley.
Ransley, C., & Spy, T. (2004). Forgiveness and the healing process: A central healing concern. New York: Routledge.
Vassiliou, D. (1998). Parental alienation syndrome: The lost parent’s perspective. Master thesis, McGill University, Department of Educational Psychology, Montreal, QE.
Wallerstein, J., & Blakeslee, S. (1989). Second chances: Men, women and children a decade after divorce. New York: Ticknor & Fields.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kaslow, F.W. (2013). Harken All Professionals Involved in the Tragedy of Divorce! The Urgency of Humanizing the Legal, Judicial, and Psychological Aspects of Divorce. In: Divorced Fathers and Their Families. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5535-6_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5535-6_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5534-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5535-6
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)