 List Price: $14.95 Add to Cart | Your Best Divorce Now!Tips and ToolsAuthored by Kevin Karlson JD PhDWhether you are thinking about divorce, in the middle of a divorce, or recovering from a divorce, this book can help you. Written by an expert on both the emotional and the legal challenges before, during, and after divorce, Your Best Divorce Now! offers tips for every phase of the process and tools for making the best of this very stressful time. Dr. Kevin Karlson JD PhD was trained as a psychologist and as a lawyer, and he has been a litigation consultant specializing in divorce and custody cases for more than 25 years, as well as a therapist, divorce recovery facilitator, marriage and family therapist, and child custody expert. Your Best Divorce Now! brings his expertise and experience to bear in a format that addresses the most common issues in short, easy to understand tips, and also provides tools that you can use before, during and after divorce. Before divorce, there are tools for deciding whether divorce is for you, and tips about how to make the decision that's best for you. During the divorce process, Your Best Divorce Now! provides tips and tools for making decisions, dealing with stress, communicating with your children and your ex, as well as understanding the "legalese" that is part of every divorce. You will find tips for dealing with lawyers, depositions, testifying in court, and child custody evaluations. After the divorce is finally over, Your Best Divorce Now! provides more tips and tools for starting life over as a single person or a single parent.
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Showing posts with label child custody evaluation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label child custody evaluation. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Your Best Divorce Now! Tips and Tools Before During and After Released today
Monday, March 12, 2012
Narcissism Research Update: new fMRI research can distinguish narcissism from normal
Narcissism is over-represented among people involved in divorces, and in my experience with hundreds of litigated divorce cases, narcissists are involved in a high percentage of litigated divorces. New research has further refined both the public persona and the unique brain characteristics of narcissistic people (NPD).
First, the public persona. Researchers compared narcissists identified by their personality test scores and compared their Facebook pages with more normal people. The results were just what one would expect. Narcissistic people had a greater number of "friends' than those who were not, a confirmation of the NPD tendency to have more but shallower relationships. Their profile photos tended to be more stylized and "glamour shot"-like than less narcissistic people. Finally, their posts tended to be more self-promoting. For more information look here: http://www.science20.com/news_articles/narcissists_can_be_identified_their_facebook_accounts_psychologists-32720
This research is consistent with some other research which compared annual company reports and other company PR of narcissistic CEOs with those of companies run by normal people. As expected, the text of reports of narcissistic CEOs had more references to "I" and fewer to "we", had larger photos of the CEO on covers and press releases, and were generally more self-promoting than company promoting. There are a notable gap in salary between the CEO and the second in command in these companies as well, unlike companies without narcissistic CEOs.
Both of these findings provide tools for divorce attorneys to do some free discovery on clients or spouses in these public records and get a "heads up" about the personality functioning of these people without a mental health professional evaluation or records (most narcissists NEVER see a shrink, so records are rare).
Now for the look inside the brain of a narcissist. Research investigating the function of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPC) in maintaining self-perception compared normal and narcissistic people on their ability to identify faces after a brief shock. The shock had scrambled the MPC for a fraction of a second and the participants were shown pictures of themselves, friends, and known strangers during the interval when their MPCs were scrambled. Normal people could identify friends and strangers but NOT themselves, confirming the function of the MPC in self recognition. However, even when the MPC was "off-line", narcissists could still identify their own photos. The researchers concluded that narcissists have larger portions of their brains devoted to "ME" (wonderful, glorious, fabulous me, I might add) than do normal people. This research may be another step toward developing an reliable imaging (fMRI) diagnostic tool for identifying NPD. It may also identify the neural underpinnings of this very destructive personality disorder.
For more information about this research and other fMRI research on narcissism, look here: http://www.science20.com/brain_trust_diy_science_today039s_top_minds/definitive_fmri_test_narcissism-87875
NPD is an aggravating factor in a large percentage of very malignant divorces, so better diagnosis, especially of the non-psychological test variety, will be increasingly helpful in future child custody evaluations.
First, the public persona. Researchers compared narcissists identified by their personality test scores and compared their Facebook pages with more normal people. The results were just what one would expect. Narcissistic people had a greater number of "friends' than those who were not, a confirmation of the NPD tendency to have more but shallower relationships. Their profile photos tended to be more stylized and "glamour shot"-like than less narcissistic people. Finally, their posts tended to be more self-promoting. For more information look here: http://www.science20.com/news_articles/narcissists_can_be_identified_their_facebook_accounts_psychologists-32720
This research is consistent with some other research which compared annual company reports and other company PR of narcissistic CEOs with those of companies run by normal people. As expected, the text of reports of narcissistic CEOs had more references to "I" and fewer to "we", had larger photos of the CEO on covers and press releases, and were generally more self-promoting than company promoting. There are a notable gap in salary between the CEO and the second in command in these companies as well, unlike companies without narcissistic CEOs.
Both of these findings provide tools for divorce attorneys to do some free discovery on clients or spouses in these public records and get a "heads up" about the personality functioning of these people without a mental health professional evaluation or records (most narcissists NEVER see a shrink, so records are rare).
Now for the look inside the brain of a narcissist. Research investigating the function of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPC) in maintaining self-perception compared normal and narcissistic people on their ability to identify faces after a brief shock. The shock had scrambled the MPC for a fraction of a second and the participants were shown pictures of themselves, friends, and known strangers during the interval when their MPCs were scrambled. Normal people could identify friends and strangers but NOT themselves, confirming the function of the MPC in self recognition. However, even when the MPC was "off-line", narcissists could still identify their own photos. The researchers concluded that narcissists have larger portions of their brains devoted to "ME" (wonderful, glorious, fabulous me, I might add) than do normal people. This research may be another step toward developing an reliable imaging (fMRI) diagnostic tool for identifying NPD. It may also identify the neural underpinnings of this very destructive personality disorder.
For more information about this research and other fMRI research on narcissism, look here: http://www.science20.com/brain_trust_diy_science_today039s_top_minds/definitive_fmri_test_narcissism-87875
NPD is an aggravating factor in a large percentage of very malignant divorces, so better diagnosis, especially of the non-psychological test variety, will be increasingly helpful in future child custody evaluations.
Monday, November 07, 2011
Mirror neurons and parental alienation
"Parental alienation" may be simpler to accomplish than you think.
Some recent leading edge research using fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging-a scan of the brain at work) to investigate the patterns of brain activation in observers of sporting events yielded confirmation of a long held belief of neuroscientists: watching an emotionally engaging event is indistinguishable, at the brain level, from actually participating in it. Same neurons fire, same brain regions are activated, same physical sensations are registered. Or, to be more concrete, watching your favorite football team on TV activates your brain just as if you were playing the game yourself. An entire class of brain cells, called mirror neurons, has been discovered, and the their apparent function, documented many times, is to "mirror" in the brain what the senses detect in the world. Great for football fans, potentially hazardous for children living with conflict.
It has long been assumed by many family lawyers that when children exhibit behaviors indicating that they are afraid of, or angry toward, a non-custodial parent, and when those lawyers represent a parent who complains that they are the victim of a campaign of sustained "brainwashing" by the custodial parent, it must be true. How else could the little angel have become such a strangely fearful and angry child? Now we know.
Children are way more interested in the interaction of their parents than the most rabid football fan. Their very existence depends on the outcome of the conflict leading up to and through the divorce. It's safe to say that the children's mirror neurons are activated every time they witness anger, bitterness, verbal insults, and especially violence between their parents. When one parent is suddenly absent for long periods of time (between periods of possession for the non-custodial parent, for example) and the remaining parent continues to behave in the same angry, resentful, bitter, and critical fashion toward the absent parent, the child's mirror neurons are working overtime, reproducing in the little brains the sensations and emotions that they see, hear, and feel in their crumbling, unstable divorce world.
With this crucial understanding of the underlying neural processes at work, it's easier to understand why a conscious, intentional campaign to "alienate" the child from the non-custodial parent is NOT necessary to create a fearful or angry "alienated" child. All that's required is opportunities for the child to observe the parent with possession to repeatedly talk about or act out the alienating scenario. The child's mirror neurons will do the rest.
This little piece of science also explains why experts who interview children as part of custody evaluations rarely find a "smoking gun" pattern of intentional, pre-meditated parental brainwashing. Children nearly always deny that either parent is actively programming them to dislike a parent. As this research demonstrates, it is not necessary for a parent to "program" the child--all they need to do is act out their disdain, rage, and accusations in the presence of the child. Mirror neurons in the child will do the rest.
One important difference between children of divorce and football fans: children don't have a favorite team--no matter who "wins" in this game, the kids lose, because they are rooting for both "teams". So if those mirror neurons are firing when cheering for one favorite team, imagine how many more are firing when both of your teams are playing each other! It is this over-activation that has led to the standard instruction to divorcing parents to keep their conflict and the communication AWAY from those little eyes and the mirror neurons they are connected to in those little brains. Those little brains are not only overloaded by this lose-lose scenario they are literally a part of, they are permanently altered by the over-stimulation and trauma.
Parental alienation is not just a social problem; it's an insidious disease with permanent consequences for developing brains.
Some recent leading edge research using fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging-a scan of the brain at work) to investigate the patterns of brain activation in observers of sporting events yielded confirmation of a long held belief of neuroscientists: watching an emotionally engaging event is indistinguishable, at the brain level, from actually participating in it. Same neurons fire, same brain regions are activated, same physical sensations are registered. Or, to be more concrete, watching your favorite football team on TV activates your brain just as if you were playing the game yourself. An entire class of brain cells, called mirror neurons, has been discovered, and the their apparent function, documented many times, is to "mirror" in the brain what the senses detect in the world. Great for football fans, potentially hazardous for children living with conflict.
It has long been assumed by many family lawyers that when children exhibit behaviors indicating that they are afraid of, or angry toward, a non-custodial parent, and when those lawyers represent a parent who complains that they are the victim of a campaign of sustained "brainwashing" by the custodial parent, it must be true. How else could the little angel have become such a strangely fearful and angry child? Now we know.
Children are way more interested in the interaction of their parents than the most rabid football fan. Their very existence depends on the outcome of the conflict leading up to and through the divorce. It's safe to say that the children's mirror neurons are activated every time they witness anger, bitterness, verbal insults, and especially violence between their parents. When one parent is suddenly absent for long periods of time (between periods of possession for the non-custodial parent, for example) and the remaining parent continues to behave in the same angry, resentful, bitter, and critical fashion toward the absent parent, the child's mirror neurons are working overtime, reproducing in the little brains the sensations and emotions that they see, hear, and feel in their crumbling, unstable divorce world.
With this crucial understanding of the underlying neural processes at work, it's easier to understand why a conscious, intentional campaign to "alienate" the child from the non-custodial parent is NOT necessary to create a fearful or angry "alienated" child. All that's required is opportunities for the child to observe the parent with possession to repeatedly talk about or act out the alienating scenario. The child's mirror neurons will do the rest.
This little piece of science also explains why experts who interview children as part of custody evaluations rarely find a "smoking gun" pattern of intentional, pre-meditated parental brainwashing. Children nearly always deny that either parent is actively programming them to dislike a parent. As this research demonstrates, it is not necessary for a parent to "program" the child--all they need to do is act out their disdain, rage, and accusations in the presence of the child. Mirror neurons in the child will do the rest.
One important difference between children of divorce and football fans: children don't have a favorite team--no matter who "wins" in this game, the kids lose, because they are rooting for both "teams". So if those mirror neurons are firing when cheering for one favorite team, imagine how many more are firing when both of your teams are playing each other! It is this over-activation that has led to the standard instruction to divorcing parents to keep their conflict and the communication AWAY from those little eyes and the mirror neurons they are connected to in those little brains. Those little brains are not only overloaded by this lose-lose scenario they are literally a part of, they are permanently altered by the over-stimulation and trauma.
Parental alienation is not just a social problem; it's an insidious disease with permanent consequences for developing brains.
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