FAMILY LAW AND THE NEUROSCIENCE OF ATTACHMENT,PART I

In this far‐reaching interview, Allan Schore, renowned scientist, clinical psychologist, and clinical neuropsychologist, considers the place of neuroscience in facilitating developmental knowledge and better decision making in family law matters. He details current science on the neurology of attachment formation, the function of early caregiving relationships, gender, neuroscience perspectives on conflict and family violence, and implications for parenting arrangements. At the meta level, Schore describes the responsibilities of the family law system in promoting the development of the child. On the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA, Schore is on the editorial staff of 35 journals in various academic and clinical fields. His integration of neuroscience with attachment theory is documented in three seminal volumes, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self , and Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, as well as numerous articles and chapters. He has justifiably earned the nickname of “America's Bowlby.”     

FAMILY LAW AND THE NEUROSCIENCE OF ATTACHMENT,PART II

Daniel Siegel is renowned for his ability to translate neuroscience for professions working outside the arena of science. Here, Siegel discusses advances in interpersonal neurobiology, specifically considering applications for family law. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry and co‐director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA and director of the Mindsight Institute. He is the author of numerous articles, chapters, and books, including the internationally acclaimed professional texts, The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience and The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well‐Being.     

ATTACHMENT PERSPECTIVES ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND FAMILY LAW

Lieberman and Zeanah are specialist clinicians, researchers, and prolific publishers in the areas of infant mental health, attachment development in high‐risk environments, and treatment of infant–parent relationship trauma. In this article, Lieberman and Zeanah discuss the impacts of domestic violence on the attachment security and development of infants and children and address a number of implications for the family law context. Conundrums for parenting visitation and living arrangements are considered, together with the need for multidisciplinary, early response and the pivotal role of family courts in directing this response.     

DIVORCE AND ATTACHMENT RELATIONSHIPS: THE LONGITUDINAL JOURNEY

What are the longitudinal consequences of disrupted attachment relationships, and what bearing might that have on our thinking about divorce custody matters? In this paper, Alan Sroufe, William Harris Professor of Child Development, University of Minnesota, addresses these issues. Sroufe is a lead researcher on the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Childhood, now a 30‐year research program that sets out to explore the development of children growing up in climates of chronic socioeconomic risk. This study is widely attributed with providing an “organizational perspective” on early attachment and an ecological map of the child's growing ability to cope with chronic environmental and familial strain across lifetime. In this interview, Sroufe offers candid views from his longitudinal research, emphasizing the influence of attachment security in the progression of relationship competence across the life span, and considers implications for complex custody matters.     

JOHN BOWLBY'S LEGACY AND MEANINGS FOR THE FAMILY LAW FIELD: IN CONVERSATION WITH SIR RICHARD BOWLBY

John Bowlby (1907–1990), a British psychologist, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is widely known as the father of attachment theory. He was also the father of Richard Bowlby. Since his father's death, Sir Richard Bowlby has made it his life's work to carry on his father's legacy, seeking ways to help the general public benefit from a better understanding of attachment relationships and his father's work in particular. Although an Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Psychology, University College, London, and patron of many organizations that address challenging attachment issues, Richard Bowlby emphasizes that his strengths are in being “a well‐informed layman, having some pretty good inside information, and some wonderful stories to tell.” Here, he covers a wide range of topics and controversies core to family law, offering contemporary and historical insights, perspectives from his father, and an interesting tale or two.     

DIVORCE IN THE NURSERY: ON INFANTS AND OVERNIGHT CARE

Infants, parental separation, custody, and overnight care: a vexed combination of issues and needs that has long perplexed the family law field. Carol George and Judith Solomon have conducted the only published observational study of infant attachment in light of postseparation overnight care arrangements. Here they revisit that study and bring more than three decades of experience to bear on questions concerning very young children implicated in family law disputes. Currently a professor of psychology at Mills College, California, George is an author and coauthor of several notable attachment measures and has over 50 research publications in the area of attachment. Judith Solomon is both a clinical psychologist and a researcher in the attachment field, specializing in the study of early attachment relationships and representations, most recently in the Department of Pediatrics, Bridgeport Hospital. George and Solomon are associate editors of the journal, Attachment and Human Development, reviewers on multiple developmental journals, and both consult and teach internationally.     

“IF I COULD TELL THE JUDGE SOMETHING ABOUT ATTACHMENT. . . .” PERSPECTIVES ON ATTACHMENT THEORY IN THE FAMILY LAW COURTROOM

This article gathers diverse attachment specialists in a far reaching conversation about the utility of attachment assessment and theory for complex family law decision making, and reflections on the thorny question, “If I were the judge . . .?” Inge Bretherton, Professor Emerita, Developmental Psychology at Wisconsin University, is one of a few attachment researchers in the Bowlby/Ainsworth tradition to have completed studies in the divorce field. Seligman, a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist, Solomon, a clinical psychologist and researcher, and Crowell, professor of psychiatry and psychology, take on some large controversies, and offer well over 100 years combined experience of applying attachment knowledge in complex family matters.     

CULTURE, DIVORCE, AND FAMILY MEDIATION IN HONG KONG

Over the past three decades, Hong Kong has witnessed unprecedented economic prosperity, a decrease in family solidarity, an increase in social problems, and a dramatic rise in the incidence of divorce. Under colonial rule for 150 years, which ended with the return of sovereignty to China in 1997, the identity of the Hong Kong Chinese is a combination of traditional Chinese and modern Western culture. Despite Western influences, Chinese cultural heritage remains the major source of influence in all aspects of life. This article presents a summary of traditional Chinese culture, characteristics of contemporary Hong Kong society, factors believed to influence the high divorce rate, and the impact of divorce on Hong Kong families. The development, use, acceptability, and effectiveness of mediation in Hong Kong is reviewed, and suggestions for adapting it to Chinese families are proposed. Direction for future development of mediation in Hong Kong focuses on the need for further research to develop a scientifically sound knowledge base that will help to inform culturally competent mediation practice.     

MOTHERING,FATHERING, AND DIVORCE: THE INFLUENCE OF DIVORCE ON REPORTS OF AND DESIRES FOR MATERNAL AND PATERNAL INVOLVEMENT*

The present study investigated the extent to which young adults' reports of—and desires for—maternal and paternal involvement differed between intact and divorced families. An ethnically diverse sample of 1,376 young adults completed measures of reported and desired mothering and fathering across 20 parenting domains. Results indicated that both reports of and desires for father involvement differed sharply by family form (intact versus divorced), whereas few family form differences emerged for reported or desired mother involvement. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for custody and access decisions within the family court system.     

CONCEPTUALIZING VISITATION RESISTANCE AND REFUSAL IN THE CONTEXT OF PARENTAL CONFLICT,SEPARATION, AND DIVORCE

A child's visitation resistance and refusal (VRR) in the context of parental separation, divorce, and post‐divorce litigation must not prematurely be interpreted as evidence of alienation, a conclusion which can be as detrimental to the family system as it is ill founded. The present article proposes a child‐centered, developmentally informed heuristic with which forensic evaluators might begin to more uniformly approach the potential causes of and remedies for VRR. An attachment‐based, step‐wise decision tree is described together with an overview of the remedies presently believed most appropriate to each. Recommendations for empirical study of the multiple convergent dynamics which determine VRR and establishment of corresponding interventions follow.     

A PRACTITIONER'S PERSPECTIVE ON UNIFIED FAMILY COURTS: CASE STUDIES

As a summary of simple examples demonstrating practical advantages of a family court, this article relates a few experiences from the perspective of a family law attorney who practices regularly in the Fulton County Family Division in Atlanta.     

CHILDREN,THE UNCRC,AND FAMILY LAW IN ENGLAND AND WALES

There is no doubt that, overall, there has been a great deal of activity in relation to children's rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) since it was ratified by the UK government in 1991. Of particular significance in the context of family law, however, are the provisions of Article 12, which have in many ways proved to be more problematic than other provisions, not least because, in the context of family law, children's participation rights are necessarily juxtaposed with the long‐standing and hitherto unchallenged rights of parents to make important decisions about family life. The reorganisation in 2001 of the family court welfare services in England and Wales with the creation of the Children and Family Courts Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS), generated a new impetus for the consideration of children's participation rights and, at an organizational level, considerable progress has been made in embracing the provisions of the UNCRC. More problematic, however, is the acceptance of children's participation in making decisions about their futures by adults using and working in the family justice system. At the level of the courts, judicial attitudes are slow to change and in England, as court judgments often demonstrate, these are firmly rooted in a view of children as being incompetent in such issues; at the level of parents using the system, it is arguable that new discourses about the best interests of the child serve as a proxy for continuing discourses about parents’ rights that have become evident, most recently, in the context of an increasingly influential fathers’ rights lobby; and at the level of welfare practitioners, recent research also demonstrates that, although the rhetoric of children's rights is widely accepted, the willingness and ability to make these real in the context of family proceedings is, for a variety of reasons, less in evidence.     

THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS: USING FILM TO TEACH FAMILY LAW

This article discusses the aspects of narrative and character development that make films a useful tool to supplement classroom legal education. Moreover, utilizing film is particularly effective for learning and exploring the dynamics of human relationships at the center of family law cases. When designing a film and family law course instructors should seek to promote creative thinking, cultural competence, student exploration of bias and assumptions and best practices for attorneys based on the examples provided in the film. Films make the learning process more fun, but still provide substantial opportunities to broaden students' concept of the impact of law on family members.     

NO MORE CASEBOOKS: USING SIMULATION‐BASED LEARNING TO EDUCATE FUTURE FAMILY LAW PRACTITIONERS

Teaching family law using the traditional casebook method provides students with marginal knowledge and skills. To practice family law, one needs to know how to interview and counsel clients, negotiate with opposing counsel, file pleadings and supporting documents, draft agreements, and understand tax consequences. Moreover, ethical issues abound in the practice of family law, such as confidentiality, conflict of interest, and fee arrangements. Critics of traditional pedagogies in legal academia have included the MacCrate Report, the Carnegie Report, and Best Practices for Legal Education. The Family Law Education Reform Project has focused its attention on the failure of law schools to keep pace with the ever‐evolving nature and requirements of family law practice. This article offers one answer to those who seek to educate law students in a manner that will better prepare them for the practice of family law. The author, who is the director of Vermont Law School's General Practice Program, describes a family law course she has developed and taught for many years. The course is taught in an integrative fashion, and includes substantive law, practice skills, and ethical and professionalism issues. She offers the course as a response and antidote to the ongoing criticisms of tradition a methods of teaching law.     

CHILD‐FOCUSED AND CHILD‐INCLUSIVE DIVORCE MEDIATION: COMPARATIVE OUTCOMES FROM A PROSPECTIVE STUDY OF POSTSEPARATION ADJUSTMENT

This study compared outcomes over 1 year for two groups of separated parents, who attended two different forms of brief therapeutic mediation for entrenched parenting disputes. The two interventions each targeted psychological resolution of parental conflict, enhanced parental reflective function, and associated reduction of distress for their children. The child‐focused (CF) intervention actively supported parents to consider the needs of their children, but without any direct involvement of the children, while the child‐inclusive (CI) intervention incorporated separate consultation by a specialist with the children in each family, and consideration of their concerns with parents in the mediation forum. Repeated measures at baseline, 3 months, and 1 year postintervention explored changes over time and across treatments in conflict management, subjective distress, and relationship quality for all family members. Enduring reduction in levels of conflict and improved management of disputes, as reported by parents and children, occurred for both treatment groups in the year after mediation. The CI intervention had several impacts not evident in the other treatment group, related to relationship improvements and psychological well‐being. These effects were strongest for fathers and children. Agreements reached by the CI group were significantly more durable, and the parents in this group were half as likely to instigate new litigation over parenting matters in the year after mediation as were the CF parents. The article explores the potential of CI divorce mediation to not only safely include many children in family law matters related to them, but also to promote their developmental recovery from high‐conflict separation, through enhanced emotional availability of their parents.