Interventions with parents in high-conflict separations

1. Interventions with parents in high-conflict separations Fran Vertue Prue Fanselow-Brown NZCCP Conference 2011 Homespun Wisdom

2. Overview • The Family Court • Referrals from the Family Court • Family Court counselling register processes • Caseflow processes • High conflict cases • Separating and separated parents • Impact of the court system • Why does conflict matter so much? • How parents involve the children • Therapist challenges • Therapist strategies • Foci for intervention • Joan Kelly’s model • Parent’s conflict patterns • Post-separation co-parenting relationships • Achievable communication structures • Competent post-separation parenting

3. Referrals from the Family Court • 2 mechanisms • Self referral under s9 of Family Proceedings Act, 1980 • S9: Requests for counselling • (1) Either party to a marriage, civil union, or de facto relationship may request a Registrar of a Family Court to arrange counselling in respect of the marriage, civil union, or de facto relationship. NB: parties may request counselling at any time before, during, or after proceedings

4. Directed by a judge either: • (a) when an application is first made to the court for a Parenting Order under S10(4) of Family Proceedings Act, 1980 • 10 (4) …a Family Court Judge may, if he thinks it expedient to do so, and without limiting his power to make an interim maintenance order, direct the Registrar to arrange for the matter to be referred to a counsellor… • or (b) during the proceedings under s19(1) and s19(2) of the Family Proceedings Act, 1980 (also s45 of care of Children Act 2004) • s19(1) In all proceedings under this Act between spouses or civil union partner…and in all proceedings under the Care of Children Act, 2004 between spouses, civil union partners, or de facto partners for any order about the role of providing day-to-day care for a child, or about contact with a child, the Court shall— • (a) Consider from time to time the possibility of a reconciliation between the spouses, civil union partners, or de facto partners, or of conciliation between them on any matter in issue; and • (b) Take such further steps as in its opinion may assist in promoting reconciliation or, if reconciliation is not possible, conciliation.

5. s19(2) In all proceedings under this Act between spouses, civil union partners, or de facto partners for the dissolution of their marriage or civil union, where it appears to the Court from the nature of the case, the evidence, or the attitude of either or both of the spouses, civil union partners, or de facto partners, that there is a reasonable possibility of a reconciliation between them, or of conciliation between them on any matter in issue, the Court may— • (a) Adjourn the proceedings to afford the spouses, civil union partners, or de facto partners an opportunity for reconciliation, or for conciliation; and • (b) Nominate a counsellor or, in special circumstances, any other suitable person, to explore the possibility of reconciliation or, if reconciliation does not appear to be possible, to attempt to promote conciliation.

6. or ( c) after a Parenting Order has been made under s65 of the Care of Children Act, 2004 • s65 Request for counselling • (1) A party to a parenting order (or to an agreement of the kind described in section 40(2) may ask a Registrar of a Family Court to arrange counselling in respect of a dispute arising from another party to the order (or to the agreement) contravening or appearing to contravene the order (or the agreement). • (2) If 2 or more guardians of a child are unable to agree on a matter concerning the exercise of their guardianship, any of them may ask a Registrar of a Family Court to arrange counselling in respect of their dispute.

7. Family Court counsellingregister processes • Appoint new counsellors to register as required • Review register 3-yearly for existing counsellors • Panel appointed • Family Court Co-ordinator, two experienced counsellors appointed by the Court, a representative of tangatawhenua, and the Registrar as convenor • New counsellors: Applications called for, applications reviewed and interviews held; appointments made • Existing counsellors: All counsellors submit various documents, which are reviewed by the panel; counsellors may or may not be retained • Collective contract currently $126.50 (incl GST) per session • “Complex cases” earn $151.88 (incl GST) per session • http://justice.govt.nz/courts/family-court/practice-and-procedure/practice-notes/practice-note-family-court-counsellors

8. Caseflow processes • Referral received from FC nominating the number of sessions allocated (usually 6) • See clients for 6 sessions • May apply for 1-3 extra sessions with justification • Not necessarily granted • At end of sessions, submit report and invoice • Report simply tickbox format, but can add comments if appropriate

9. Complaints • Family Court work is possibly the area which generates the most complaints against psychologists • Complaints from 1 November 2009 to 31 October 2010 • 27% (n=11) from FC Reports and associated processes (compared with 15% from agencies such as ACC, Insurance, Ministry of Education, CYF; 15% from reviews of reports of other professionals and even less from other sources) • Common complaints associated with claims about bias, omissions , selective attention, unfairness, incompetence, unprofessional conduct, rudeness, insensitivity to impact of questions, inaccuracies and releasing information against FC rules. • Complaints about FC reports probably more common than complaints about FC counselling common but reduction since introduction of triage by Family Court

10. Complaints cont… • Nature of the area – Expect it! Almost inevitable when you do enough • High representation of PD, stress, and adversarial nature of process • Some ways to prevent having a complaint made against you • Be fair, impartial • Keep accurate records • Maintain an open mind, respect and professionalism • Be aware of obligations under Privacy Act • Retain records for minimum of 10 years, including psychometric data • Be careful to maintain appropriate and clear roles and boundaries • Practice ONLY within the bounds of your competence • Ensure informed consent from person with power of attorney when assessing persons with incapacity • If a complaint is made against you, prepare your response well and get support (MPS) • Most complaints do not reach the threshold for further investigation • Usually suggestion made to consider what may be learnt from the situation • Maintained in your file with the Board but “good standing” assured

11. High conflict separating or separated couples • Less than 20% of couples who separate continue to engage in conflict after the first year or two following separation (Buchanan & Heiges, 2001). • Separation as a crisis (how do parents experience it?) • Feeling overwhelmed, devastated, paralysed • Intrapersonal factors associated with responses (McIntosh & Deacon-Wood, 2003) • Personality (Johnston & Campbell, 1988, found that 2/3 of the 80 sets of parents met criteria for PD, particularly narcissistic PD) • Past experiences (FOO; other relationships; this relationship) • State of health (physical and mental health • Communication skills (Rudd, 1996; Retzinger & Scheff, 2000) • Coping repertoire

12. High conflict separating or separated couples • Common thoughts of parents in high-conflict separations • The other parent will ‘control’ me if I let them • The other parent is a bad parent and I am a good parent • In order to protect their own fragile sense of themselves as “good” people, some vulnerable parents tend to view the other parent as irrelevant and irresponsible, even dangerous, whereas the self is seen as the essential, responsible and safe caretaker (Johnston, 2005). In severe cases, one partner experiences the other’s rejection, custody demands, or accusations as a devastating attack, and in defense develops paranoid ideas of betrayal, conspiracy, and exploitation by the ex-partner and others (Johnston & Campbell, 1988; Garrity & Baris, 1994). • Maternal anger or hurt towards the former spouse has been shown to predict maternal negative perceptions of contact (Wolchik, Fenaughty, & Braver, 1996), and maternal dissatisfaction with father contact is associated with poorer adjustment in children (King & Heard, 1999). • Common coping styles • Defensiveness (high conflict individuals are defensive and deny personal responsibility for any of the problems; project blame onto the other parent; see themselves as wronged; blame the other parent for keeping the conflict alive) • Reactivity (low inhibition; impulsive; high arousal; react in explosive ways; overreaction; intense emotionality) (Benjamin & irving, 2001) • Aggression (intimidating; threatening; manipulative)

13. Impact of the court system on the conflict • Adversarial system • Natural tendency for friends and family to take sides • Reinforced by the legal system • Parties intimidated by the legal process • A winner and a loser • Focus on fault: someone is right and someone is wrong • Implications of punishment for emotional harm caused • Black and white thinking interacts with rigidity associated with personality and anxiety • Everybody knows what everybody else is doing

14. Why does it matter if adults are in conflict? • Conflict pre-and post-separation contribute to poor outcomes for children • High conflict in intact homes is worse than being separated with low conflict (Amato & Keith, 1991 • Parental angry conflict predicts child angry behaviors (Jenkins (2000) Jenkins and Smith (1991 • Conflict between parents is associated with an increased risk for psychological problems among children in all families (Ahrons & Miller, 1993; Ahrons & Tanner, 2003; Amato & Keith, 1991; Emery, 1982; Johnston & Roseby, 1997; Otto, Buffington-Vollum, & Edens, 2003) • Conflict is least destructive when it • is contained between parents • is relatively infrequent • is less intense emotionally or physically • resolves • is not about the children or childrearing • does not involve the children • This provides one focus for intervention

15. Why does it matter if adults are in conflict? • Undermine parent-child relationships and child self-regulation (Sandler, Miles, Cookston, & Braver, 2008). • High intensity fighting is associated with more insecure attachments and anxiety in infants and toddlers (Kelly, 2000). • Exposure to high levels of unresolved parental conflict increases children’s risk for depression, anxiety, aggression, and social problems (Grych & Fincham, 2001). • Adolescents perceive their parents’ arguing spilling over into their parenting behaviors, resulting in adverse parenting styles (Cummings & Davies, 2002; Harold, Pryor, & Reynolds, 2001; Tritt & Pryor, 2005). • In fact, where interparental conflict is intense, more frequent visits with non-resident fathers is linked to poorer adjustment in children, presumably because of more opportunities for children to be exposed to parental conflict (Amato & Rezac, 1994; Johnston, 1995). • Relatedly, there are benefits of substantial time with both parents even in the presence of parental conflict, provided that the parent-child relationships are positive. However, there are diminishing benefits of shared care in the presence of very high and sustained conflict (Bausermann, 2002; Lee, 2002).

16. Why does it matter if adults are in conflict? • In the face of high conflict, children would do better living primarily in one household with an authoritative mother or father and having more limited contact with the other parent (Emery, Otto, & O’Donohue, 2005). • However, as noted by Kelly (2007) “When parent conflict remains intense following divorce, frequent transitions and contact may be detrimental if the children are exposed to and embroiled in their parents’ conflict. In such cases, because children typically love both parents, reduced contact may not be the most beneficial solution. Instead, one searches for arrangements and interventions that will reduce the conflict and its impact on the children. The presence of buffers that protect children from parental conflict should be assessed and encouraged, transitions arranged that occur in neutral sites such as school and day care, and mediation or parenting coordination interventions implemented” (p. 47). • According to Maccoby and Mnookin (1992) and Hetherington (1999), it is rather unlikely that highly conflicted parents will develop a co-operative co-parenting relationship within the next few years. • Emotional warmth and support in both parent-child relationships can buffer a generally well-functioning child against the potential negative effects of parental conflict (Emery, 1999; Kelly, 2000).

17. How parents involve the children in their conflict • Exaggerate minor incidents (e.g., accusing the other of abuse or endangerment or neglect) • Parents violate parent-child boundary (e.g., disclose adult information, depend on them for comfort, encourage them to take part in the adult battle, become overly-focused on the child’s emotional states, project angry or fearful thoughts and feelings onto the child; promote the child with more power than is age-appropriate) • Children look to adults for guidance about how they should feel at times when they are uncertain. Divorcing parents perceive each other’s behaviors through their own emotional reactions and belief systems, and what they say to their children reflect these differences. Therefore, it is important to limit the details of the divorce issues, and try to keep information as neutral and blame-free as possible when speaking to a child, as there is a real risk of the child adopting one parent’s particular beliefs, or becoming confused and conflicted about which parent to believe. Both of these outcomes increase children’s anxiety and cloud their understanding about their own relationships with their parents (Emery, 2004). When a parent shares his or her negative views of the other parent, the child suddenly enters the world of adult relationships, adult emotions, and adult conflicts, far beyond the child’s capacity to manage, much less understand (Shopper, 2005). • Several researchers have recognized how parents’ own needs bias their perceptions of their children’s reactions to divorce (Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980). The children, in order to receive any semblance of nurturance and avoid their own abandonment, or even psychic destruction, are required to mirror what the rejected parent feels and perceives (Johnston & Roseby, 1997). • Use children to barter with the other parent (e.g., demand time with child in return for child support, withhold contact to control the other parent)

18. Therapist challenges • Hostility of parties towards each other • High arousal levels • Rigid thinking of parties • Inflexible • Staying out of the legal issues • Parties ask for opinions on legal matters • Maintaining impartiality • Own views about family functioning or particular model • Parties work hard to “get you on their side” • Parties get angry when you don’t agree with them, posing it as “you don’t understand” or “you’re biased against me” • Few sessions funded for very complex issues: resolution of the legal case does little to improve or resolve the underlying family dynamics (Firestone & Weinstein, 2004)

19. Therapist challenges • Parents may hold misinformed, irrational, or self-serving beliefs (Kelly, 2003a) about what is in their children’s best interests • Rage, contempt, distortions in thinking, vindictive behaviours, conflict spirals and polarised viewpoints define the pathways to entrenched conflict (Kelly, 2003b) • They need assistance in interrupting their intense conflict, on focusing on their children instead of themselves, and helping them realise their children’s needs are distinctly different from their own emotional needs.

20. General therapist strategies • Setting ground rules in session one • When arousal gets high, take a break • Develop one or two mutually agreed goals • Stay skill-focused • Set an agenda to structure each session • Maintain focus on the children rather than parents’ issues with each other • See each party alone in the middle of the sessions for some time for off-loading and the opportunity to speak plainly without losing face in front of the other party • Make sure that each person speaks to each issue • Notice progress and give praise equally • Make parenting plans detailed and choreographed • Put as much as possible in writing • Emphasise parents’ capacity to make decisions – they did before • Provide a safe place for parents to be - due to confidentiality

21. General therapist strategies • Build rapport first! • Intervention is enquiry based • Enquiry used to gain parents’ attention and reflection, and to increase their empathy and understanding of the child’s experience • Socratic questioning and guided discovery (beware of 3rd degree syndrome!) • Get them to think more about what exactly they are asking or thinking about. • Probing of assumptions makes them think about the presuppositions and unquestioned beliefs on which they are founding their argument. • Show that there are other, equally valid, viewpoints • Probe implications and consequences • Assume that competent parenting is possible • Assume that reduced conflict is achievable

22. Therapist strategies • Help parents listen to each other as parents with common interest in children’s wellbeing - not as adult adversaries • Reframe complaints about the other’s behavior as genuine attempts to support child’s development • Balance your communications with each • Acknowledge and accept differences without putting an end to co-operation • Use specific examples from their lives rather than cliches such as “conflict is bad for children” • “Specific enquiry and specific feedback are the framework of this work” (Kelly, 2003b, p54)

23. Foci for intervention • The child’s development • Impact of parental conflict • Parenting plan that is age-appropriate • Separating the child’s perspective from the adults’ • Reducing conflict • Particularly involving children • Improving communication strategies • Reducing blaming • Maintaining distance • Sticking to the knitting • Finding exceptions • When did it go well • How did you manage to do that without conflict • Self care • Parenting plans • Parallel parenting • Transitions • Educating parents about why children get upset about separation • 2 parents is safer than 1 • I need adults to have “eyes on me” • Missing the absent parent

24. Kelly, 2003b • Kelly identifies 4 interventions • Parent’s conflict patterns • Post-separation co-parenting relationships • Achievable communication structures • Competent post-separation parenting

25. Parents’ conflict patterns • Create conscious and shared awareness of their conflict, its impact on the children, and find ways of becoming less reactive to each other • Explore conflict history • Child’s exposure to conflict pre- and post-separation • What situations cause conflict • Relevant research about the impact of conflict on children’s development • Relevant research about the impact of conflict on parenting • Techniques for disengagement • ROLEPLAY

26. Achievable communication structures • Therapist identifies typical maladaptive modes of communication seen in sessions • E.g., Interrupting, dismissing, Intimidation • Parents reflect on which ones cause problems for them • How would they like the communication to be • What are barriers to useful communication • Explore safe modes of communication • Level of communication • Bare minimum (e.g., emergencies , illnesses) • Moderate (schedule changes, children’s activities, academic performance) • Full (extend moderate to include child’s emotional and social functioning, homework, extramural activities, friedns, coordinating discipline

27. Effective post-separation parenting • Parents commonly criticise each other’s parenting • Don’t get hooked into “he does, she does” discussions • Strong emphasis on psychoeduation about parenting post-separation • Risks for diminished parenting post-separation with empirical evidence: • Parents less emotionally available in first 2 years post-separation • Children can be more demanding and less compliant • Parent-child relationships at risk (more punitive discipline or over-involvement) • Less supervision • Lower demands for appropriate behavior • Effective parenting post-separation • Appropriate expectations • Remain engaged • Authoritative discipline • Monitor their activities • Provide emotional support

28. Post-separation co-parenting relationships • Explore the kind of relationship they want or can tolerate • Conflictive parenting (25%) • Continued emotional entanglement • Hostility, conflict, poor communication, includes child in disputes • Co-operative parenting (25%) • Collaborative focus on children’s needs • co—ordinate household rules and parenting practices • Provide mutual support as required • Parallel parenting (50%) • Low conflict, low communication, high independent action (like business partners) • demands rigid parenting plan • What communication is absolutely necessary

30. 6 Session framework: Sessions 1 and 2 • Each caregiver seen individually • Purpose of Individual session: Build rapport and trust • Agenda for the session • Discuss confidentiality (cannot be required to testify) • Outline the structure of process and the sessions • Areas covered • What I know about the issues • How are the children being impacted by the conflict? • Parents’ hopes/goals about care arrangements • Pathway from FOO to relationship-separation-current situation (looking for relationship patterns) • Possible issues regarding meeting ex-spouse face to face • Safety screen (e.g. DV, suicidality, homicidality) • Parents’ own responsibility for change • Conclude with agreement on 1 or 2 achievable goals

31. Sessions 3-6 • Rules of Engagement (on whiteboard) • Noise level • One person speaks at a time • No abuse – will interrupt or even terminate the session • Can ask for breaks: let me know, agree to return • Additional rules specific to case • Set the scene • Focus on the children • Psycho-education • Agenda (Whiteboard) • Catch-up, Pressing issues (Problem-solving) • Work up brief agenda (reframing caregivers’ goals) • Validate parenting strengths

32. Sessions 3-6 cont… • Strategies • Work on general issues rather than individual complaints, e.g., communication rather than “he/she does this..” • Hear from both (emphasise behavioural observations, not opinions of the other person or interpretations of their behaviors) • Focus on children’s wellbeing and how behaviors affect them • Notice progress and give praise • Ask for “moving 1 degree in the same direction” • Homework for gradual Shaping of behavior and beliefs

33. Final Session • Review progress/achievements • How has the situation improved? • What have you appreciated? • How has this changed your perception of X? • How do you think the children are since…? • How will you deal with future scenarios and maintain gains? • Record agreements if helpful, Discuss brief report (to FC) • Be flexible - go back to individual session if necessary • Couple may only attend together for 2-3 sessions or sometimes not at all