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The parental gatekeeping, forensic evaluation model for child custody evaluators and other family court practitioners is presented. Gatekeeping refers to the ability of each parent to support the other parent-child relationships. The gatekeeping concept represents a common best interest statutory factor. Patterns or subtypes of gatekeeping are defined: facilitative, restrictive, and protective. A justification analysis is required when a parent is not supportive and/or restrictive on the other parent’s access to the child. The restrictive parent needs to identify the reasons for being restrictive/protective and show the nature of the harm. Relevant research is reviewed on joint parental involvement and gatekeeping. The gatekeeping model is applied to the context of relocation disputes. Relocation is framed as restrictive gatekeeping and the child custody relocation analysis is presented as a justification analysis in terms of the facts, context, reasons for moving, advantages/disadvantages, and legal factors that need to be assessed and considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a pilot project in the Montreal area, ten high-conflict families received free parenting coordination services. This explorative study aimed to document, through psychometric measures and semistructured interviews, how the parenting coordination process impacted children involved. Although not statistically significant, results suggest a diminution in the intensity of the conflict between parents over the course of parenting coordination, as perceived by the children. Qualitative data indicates variation in children’s opinions regarding their experience. Approximately half of the sample shared examples of improvements in their lives, mostly to do with diminution of parental conflict and better communication between parents. However, some shared frustrations with the intervention and their belief that parenting coordination was not helpful. Not feeling heard by the parenting coordinator (PC) as well as a perceived lack of neutrality were linked with negative discourse on parenting coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This is the first part of a two-part article, which calls for the removal of terms such as rights and custody, including joint and shared custody, and visitation from the legal discourse in relation to children and their parents. This part demonstrates how the current discourse, based on the competing rights of the parents, leads inevitably to competitiveness and litigation, which are highly damaging to the child. The proposed paradigm of parental responsibilities requires establishing the needs of the specific child when there are parental disharmony and separation, while emphasizing the joint responsibilities of both parents to ensure that those needs are adequately met. This part also addresses the question: who has parental responsibilities, when a child is born as a result of Assisted Reproductive Technology, and also the quasi-parental role of the court. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This comment reviews attorney and mental health duties to the court and their profession and discusses ways to have an impact on how information, known to be considered without scientific basis, “junk science” is put forth to courts and what can possibly be done to stop that. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

“Parental alienation syndrome” (PAS) is unscientific and is an affront to children, women who hold the custody of children of separated couples, science, human rights, and the justice system itself. Justice, to be just, should be based on scientifically proven theories and evidence. This article describes investigations carried out to show that two of the principles that underpin PAS are false: That children lie when pressed (alienated in the terminology of PAS), and that the principle that should guide judges’ actions for the good of the child should be that for the child to always be in contact with both parents. The results of these investigations show that these two principles are false and advocates the use of truly scientific proceedings for judges to grant custody in case of dispute between parents, as well as for determining the visitation for the noncustodial parent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Michael Johnson's differentiation of “types” of domestic violence has had a significant impact on courts and providers, in part because of its claim to an empirical basis. Unfortunately, the label “situational couple violence” has already been used by judges and evaluators to minimize abuse claims in custody cases. Johnson's repeated assertion that SCV is the most common form of domestic violence reinforces the marginalizing of domestic violence. But what do his data actually show? Here Professor Meier takes a close look at the research Johnson relies on and finds that it fails to prove his thesis. Rather, the data suggest that Johnson has it exactly backward: Control-based abuse is probably far more common than “situational” domestic violence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Contemporary theory asserts that children become triangulated into their parents' conflicts due to alienation, estrangement, and enmeshment. These dynamics account for some children's alliance with one parent and rejection of the other. The present article suggests that the child's innate need to adapt and the caregivers' corresponding needs for confirmation together create an additional dynamic that must be considered as part of any family system evaluation. The “chameleon child” engages in necessary and natural short-term adaptive behaviors at unknown developmental costs. An observational protocol is described with which evaluators can begin to distinguish among these dynamics. Case illustrations are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A review is made of research connecting personality disorder in parents to child maltreatment and/or child mental health problems. Research studies indicate that certain personality disorders, notably Antisocial Personality Disorder and Borderline and Narcissistic personality disorders in parents show relationships to both parental behavior and ensuing childhood problems. However, parental personality disorders can also affect children's behavior through genetic transmission, hence while parental personality disorders are risk flags in custody assessments, parental behavior toward the child remains an essential target of assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges issued a revised and improved edition of Navigating Custody & Visitation Evaluations in Cases with Domestic Violence: A Judge's Guide, which now focuses on safety for victims and their children. This new edition explains the dynamics of domestic violence, that parental alienation syndrome and parental alienation have been discredited, and why psychological tests are largely useless and unreliable in domestic violence cases. The guide, however, is still too optimistic about the success of batterer programs. The guide is sometimes misleading and gender biased as it uses gender neutral language and because what men and women do differs and usually affects them differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-separation and post-divorce child custody guidelines have evolved from one-size-fits-all, gender-biased and adult-centered norms toward today's resource-intensive, child-centered best-interests standard. For all of its broad appeal, the best-interest standard remains ill-defined. The present paper discusses attachment theory as an empirically rich, developmentally-informed and systemically-oriented model with great promise to some day inform child custody litigation but which remains, as yet, impractical and without adequate validation for this application. Four hurdles are identified which family law professionals must yet overcome before this wealth of data can begin to become part of best-psychological-interests custody evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parenting coordinator (PC) programs have gained popularity in domestic relations courts across the country. These programs were designed to be an efficient, less costly, less formal and a less time-consuming way to resolve post-divorce parenting conflicts than scheduling court hearings to resolve day-to-day disputes regarding co-parenting and inter-parental conflict. Regrettably little empirical research has investigated any aspect of the programs and services. To begin understanding the services that are being delivered to families and the professionals that are delivering the services, an exploratory study was conducted of a new PC program. Explored were the PCs' general understanding of the goals of the PC program and what the PCs saw as their role in assisting families. Because this program was implemented by people from several professions, the variability between professions in the interventions provided was also explored. Finally, the legal basis for the program was examined to understand if the PCs' views of the program matched that of the legal basis for the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In reply to T. Tippins (2007, this issue), we take issue with his claim that recognition of the biasing impact of custody evaluators' countertransference opens the door to “evidentially legitimate” fishing expeditions through evaluators' private lives on cross-examination. We clarify the distinction between self-examination for counter-transference bias as a heuristic for improving the sensitivity and objectivity of expert testimony and its use as substantive evidence. We argue that countertransference bias is a highly personal, emotionally charged kind of bias, unlike the cognitive biases more frequently discussed in the child custody literature. We conclude that recognition of the insidious emotional influences that threaten our objectivity in working with families in high conflict divorce is an important ethical responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It's been more than a quarter century since the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) phenomenon was first observed yet it remains a highly debated concept in the legal and mental health professions. In the years since its inception, judges have relied on PAS to make both short and long-term decisions in custody and visitation cases. Those who support PAS claim that there is scientific evidence to prove its existence, while those who oppose it suggest that it is pseudoscience and should not be relied upon in court to make binding decisions in custody and visitation cases. The critics believe that other factors must be considered in these cases and that PAS is too simple an explanation for complex behaviors seen in parents and children during custody and visitation proceedings. This paper presents both sides of the argument and suggests that the PAS debate lingers on and remains unsettled. It presents the position that there is scientific evidence to support a clinical claim that PAS is observed in some cases, and it presents the argument that not enough rigorous experimentation has been done to prove once and for all that PAS is a diagnosable phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We performed several re-analyses of data presented in Braver, Ellman, and Fabricius (2003) to examine whether their findings that parental relocation after divorce was associated with negative long-term outcomes in their grown children could be due to pre-existing levels of parent conflict and domestic violence. Conflict and violence might have caused parents to relocate, and might have caused the negative outcomes. Evidence from analyses of covariance, controlling for levels of conflict and violence (as reported by the grown children), confirmed that relocation was associated with negative outcomes over and above the associations of conflict and violence with negative outcomes. These new findings support the original recommendation of Braver et al. that "courts should give greater weight to the child's separate interests in deciding such [relocation] cases" (p. 206). Additionally, there was little indication that moves reduced levels of conflict, but that finding is tentative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological evaluation and testimony play a critical role in child sexual abuse cases, especially in custody and visitation cases. While the evaluation generally cannot determine whether sexual abuse has occurred, it can provide useful information to assist the court in deciding matters of custody and access in the face of the allegations. Judges need to know the standard of practice for the development of expert opinion in order to be able to evaluate testimony offered by custody evaluators. The informed judge can develop useful input by outlining expectations within the order for evaluation and actively regulating the gate for admission of expert testimony. Elements of a model order for custody evaluations addressing allegations of sexual abuse are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

outcome studies, validity studies, and challenges to the psychometric properties of the ASPECT by various authors. This article addresses the validity studies undertaken since the 1992 publication and responds to the various criticisms leveled against the ASPECT. Discussion includes the use of the original ASPECT and the Short Form in its original format and as a structured interview for child custody evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Few ideas have captured the attention and charged the emotions of the public, of mental health and legal professionals as thoroughly as the concept of parental alienation and Gardner's (1987) Parental Alienation Syndrome. For all of this controversy, the alienation concept stands outside developmental theory and without firm empirical support. The present paper explores alienation and its conceptual counterpart, alignment, as the necessary and natural tools of child-caregiver attachment (Ainsworth & Wittig, 1969; Bowlby, 1969) and of family system cohesion. This conceptual foundation offers developmentalists, clinicians, and family law professionals alike a common language and valuable instruments with which to understand those relatively infrequent but highly charged circumstances in which these tools are used as weapons, particularly in the context of contested custody litigation. The need to establish baseline measures, child-centered interventions, and legal remedies anchored in the attachment model is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this article is to provide a brief history of child custody evaluations from the perspective of the author. A description of the many improvements and the growth in the field is explored. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This editorial tries, through the use of an open letter format, to raise some of the problematic issues faced by both practitioners and judges who deal with the issue of child custody. One of the flaws occurs when battered women see the court as their potential savior from victimization, while, in reality, the court, with its inadequate available resources, cannot do so. This editorial raises awareness of the importance of qualified experts and the need for neutrality. It sensitizes the reader to the difficulty that judges have in making difficult decisions on minimal information when custody issues are brought to the court for resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the past three decades, parental alienation syndrome (PAS) has been proposed to explain behaviors by a child who refuses to spend time with a parent and actually denigrates that parent within the context of a child custody dispute. Although some mental health professionals and child custody evaluators, attorneys, and judges have been quick to accept and admit PAS as evidence in these disputes, there has been no consistent empirical or clinical evidence that PAS exists or that the alienator's behavior is the actual cause of the alienated child's behavior towards the target parent. This article attempts to help those working with custody issues understand how the PAS construct fails to meet scientific standards and should not be admissible in courts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the identification of twenty-six standards, this article argues that the child custody evaluation field has defined a set of minimum practice standards that go beyond the aspirational goals of existing “guidelines” and “parameters.” These twenty-six standards constitute a floor, but not a ceiling, for conducting child custody evaluations (CCEs). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Three recent studies have explored the practices of psychologists (Ackerman & Ackerman, 1997), family law judges' expectations (Ackerman & Steffen, 2001), and family law attorneys' expectations (Ackerman&Kelley-Poulos, 2001) in child custody cases. This study compares psychologists' practices with judges' and attorneys' expectations as previously reported in the above studies. Similarities and differences among the groups are analyzed and discussed. Psychologists, judges, and attorneys are more alike than different in their practices, with notable exceptions reported. Implications for interpretation and recommendations in child custody cases are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]