Mending Fences

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Description

High conflict divorce can leave children polarized within the transitioning family system, aligned with one parent and resisting or refusing contact with the other parent.

Rather than becoming mired in the bottomless pit of back and forth blame, more and more courts are seeking remedies in the form of reunification therapy. Charged with helping the polarized child to enjoy a healthy relationship with both parents, we know what doesn’t work: individual child therapy cannot remedy a family systems problem. Dyadic interventions with the child and either parent are seldom sufficient. Even family therapies fall short when they are not grounded in well-established, reliable and valid science.

Mending Fences introduces a child-centered, systemically informed, empirically-validated and experientially-proven collaborative reunification protocol. Focusing on the anxiety inhibiting the system’s healthy functioning, well-respected and long-validated cognitive behavioral exposure methods are fused with structural family therapy to reduce the child’s anxieties about separating from one parent and approaching the other, the aligned parent’s fears of separation and loss, and the rejected parent’s fears of rejection.

A common vocabulary across coordinated interventions allows children across the spectrum of ages and abilities to identify and overcome an individually tailored succession of anxiety-inducing events so as to gradually (re-)establish healthy and safe relationships with both parents.

The Mending Fences protocol is practical, proven, and effective. Case illustrations, sample court orders and service agreements are included. The user-friendly discussion is peppered with up-to-date references to the scientific literature and international case law.

Application via video conferencing platforms is discussed.

Book Info

Publication Date: November 16, 2021
Pages: 278
Binding: Paperback
ISBN (print): 978-1950057184
ISBN (e-book): 978-1950057146
Author: Benjamin Garber, PhD
Foreword: Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq.

The Author

Benjamin D. Garber, Ph.D., is a New Hampshire licensed psychologist, a former Guardian ad litem, and a Parenting Coordinator. He consults and testifies in courts around the world in matters concerned with the dynamics of the conflicted family system. He is an internationally renowned speaker and an award-winning freelance journalist, writing in the areas of child and family development for popular press publications appearing around the world and in juried professional publications in both law and psychology. Dr. Garber welcomes you to learn more about his work on behalf of children at www.FamilyLawConsulting.org. 

Dr. Garber is the author of numerous other books including:

• Ten Child-Centered Forensic Family Evaluation Tools

• The Roadmap to the Parenting Plan Worksheet

• Holding Tight/Letting Go

• Developmental Psychology For family Law Professionals

• Keeping Kids out of the Middle

• High Conflict Litigation

Healthy Parenting Series

• The Healthy Parent's ABC's

• Taming the Beast

• Caught in the Middle

I agree with Ben Garber. As a lawyer and as a therapist, I agree with his criticism of most court orders for reunification therapy in high conflict divorce cases and I agree with his structure for more appropriate and effective family therapy in these cases. 

Something needs to change when there is child resistance and refusal to see one parent during and after separation and divorce, and it needs to change now. This problem is growing nationally and internationally. Many children, parents and even grandparents are suffering from the loss of important and necessary relationships, while children are often isolated with a parent with serious problems. This is a continuing tragedy that many family law professionals (lawyers, judges, counselors, mediators, evaluators) can see, but few professionals understand what to do about it. Ben Garber is one of those who knows what to do and we really need to pay attention to his recommendations and get going with implementing them.

The most important principle he emphasizes at the start of this book is that the problem of child resistance and refusal is not just between the child and the “rejected” parent. The problem is one of family dynamics. It’s tempting to put the child in individual child therapy and count on the skilled child therapist to turn the child around. But I have said for years that this fails 99% of the time. For twelve years I was a child and family therapist and I know that this doesn’t work. You have to include the parents. 

Sure, put the child and the rejected parent—just the two of them--into reunification counseling. Isn’t that where the problem is, after all? As a family lawyer for over twenty years (after being a therapist), I know that such counseling also fails 99% of the time. I have seen it ordered in several of my cases, when I begged to have both parents included. You have to have family therapy that includes both parents.  

But not just any family therapy. I was introduced to family therapy and the concept of family systems (how each member influences each other member) when I was in training as a clinical social worker in 1980 with the Child Guidance Clinic. I have continued to think in terms of family systems, even after becoming a lawyer in 1992. Garber is right to explain that during and after a divorce the one family becomes two separate families, but within one larger family system—what he refers to as the superordinate system. This whole system is where the real work needs to be done.

As Garber says, the patient is the whole system. But before describing his model of family therapy, he addresses important pre-therapy issues. Is there a good court order for therapy? Should the therapist take the case? What are the ethical, personal, and competence issues that might make one turn down such a case? These are essential questions that few judges, lawyers, and even therapists think about in detail until things are going badly. These sections will be helpful to everyone involved. 

Garber is right to point out that the very start of a case must be well-structured if it is going to be successful. Boundaries and expectations must be agreed upon, which is usually a problem in resistance and refusal cases. They are all about emotions, with numerous boundary and perception problems. If the therapists involved are not clear about boundaries and expectations, the case will quickly go off the rails. He addresses these by going over the contents of good court orders and good therapy service agreements, item by item. 

He explains impartiality, confidentiality, triangulation, and many other issues that often come up in these cases. He addresses the inevitable allegations of child abuse during the therapy and how to make the call to Child Protective Services in such a case. He spells out client questions about the therapy and how to answer them. Details, details. But you have to have them in order to manage such cases. If it occasionally seems like too many details addressing too many situations, remember that everything in this book is written by a practitioner who has dealt with almost every situation—and these details are the way to manage them. They are the solutions to problems that have arisen, and he wants to help you avoid them.

This book is about Garber’s treatment approach named MMST for Multi-Modal Systemic Therapy. It involves a team approach. Each parent has a therapist, there is a child’s therapist, a family therapist, and a Team Leader (often someone trained as a Parenting Coordinator). It is a very collaborative approach, but, as he says, many professionals are not used to such collaboration. Therefore, he spells out how to work together in great detail, taking a question and answer approach. He will tell you how to work with each resistant parent and also the resistant child. He even suggests when talking with the child to use the terms “we” and “our” as much as possible instead of “you” and “I.” And he discusses the benefits of discussing “fluff” with resistant parents and their children. (Who knew?) Dozens of little tips like this make this book have a much broader use for family professionals. His question and answer approach—with words the practitioner can use—addresses just about every situation that could arise. 

Overall, lots of structure is required to manage these cases and he is spot on in providing that structure so that the whole team does not come apart. This is always the risk with high conflict families of “professional splitting” when all the professionals involved join the two sides against each other. I have experienced this dynamic on the inside and the outside. Professionals need to be extra careful to avoid this in these cases. He will help you avoid that.

Overall, Garber has the wisdom of experience and a well-organized mind. I agree with his work and methods and would recommend his approach. All of his tips, large and small, will benefit the practitioner. It would be wise to keep this handy as a reference guide for anyone working with separated parents and their children.

• Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq., author of Don’t Alienate the Kids, Chief Innovation Officer of the High Conflict Institute, and developer of the New Ways for Families® skills training method.