Emotional Freedom: Phases in Recovery from Divorce

Emotional recovery from divorce happens in phases not stages.

After helping hundreds of people bounce back from the challenges of divorce, I have learned that recovery happens in phases, not stages. While most people talk about the various components of emotional recovery using different terms or labels, there appears to be a general consensus about these 5 emotional components: denial, anger, bargaining, depression/sadness, and acceptance. Some people, mostly Christian writers, emphasize forgiveness as a critical component to recovery and freedom, and I agree with them, so I have included included it here. More on that later.

These are phases of recovery from divorce, not stages. No one moves through this process one component after another in a rigid order. Rather, the primary emotional focus changes over time and like most things in life, it's more like waves than stairs.  Successful recovery requires riding, not fighting, the waves until the storm passes.

I was trained as a psychologist, so of course, I have developed a self-assessment, a rating scale for each of the 6 components of recovery. Here's an example of someone in the early phases where the highest wave peak is feeling angry:

In my divorce recovery seminars, I encourage people to rate themselves at least weekly on each of the 6 phases of recovery during their journaling time. This provides a nice visual thermometer for how they're doing on the road to recovery. As recovery progresses, the bars on the left get shorter, and the bars on the right get taller.

A note about forgiveness: it's a choice. A difficult one, but still a choice. The research is quite clear about this: people who forgive their "ex" are able to move on; those who don't remain stuck in bitterness or depression that affects their entire lives from then on. The Bible makes it clear that forgiveness is not optional for Christians, it's required. Where there is no forgiveness, there is no recovery, and God knows that.

A few relevant factoids about recovery:

• Most legal divorces take around 15 months to complete, at least in Texas. 
• The divorce recovery process takes most people 18 months to 2 years, from the time they start. 
• That usually means that the person who initiates the divorce has a head start of at least a few months over the spouse who gets the bad news. 
• 90% of men, and 60% of women don't really recover and grow emotionally, they just go back to the old way of living and relationships, because they never forgive their "ex".

Decide to recovery completely; forgive your "ex". Do it for you, not them.

10 Barriers to Settlement in Mediation or Litigation of Family Law cases

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.
  - Ludwig Erhard

[Erhard is a cynic, and I think he's wrong. You get what you expect.   KK]

Recently, I had the privilege of talking with two warriors on the front lines of family conflict: a marriage and family pastor at Gateway Church in Frisco, and Kevin Fuller, Board Certified Family Law attorney, talented mediator, and highly regarded advocate for collaborative divorce in Dallas. Both expressed the recognition of the same problem: growing numbers of people, who reluctantly divorce, don't want to engage in high-conflict traditional litigation, nor try the new-fangled collaborative divorce, even with its promise of "no going to court". Both of these men recognized the need for mediation before lawyers get involved, and Fuller has begun to offer "parties only" mediation to some of his inquiring clients. We all agreed that there is a need for a way to resolve, not exacerbate, family disputes and find workable solutions the issues inherent in dissolving a marriage without fracturing the family. 

Our discussions inevitably turned to the frustrations of trying to walk our clients through the process of divorce, property division, financial support for spouses and children, and conservatorship and visitation plans while the wounds of divorce are still bleeding. These conversations prompted me to consider the barriers to reaching agreements in these very trying circumstances. 

Here's my "Top 10 List of Barriers to Reaching Agreement":

1, Lack of a shared vision for the future. Most people have not considered, and find it hard to consider, what their lives will look like after smoke clears and to develop a reasonable plan to make it happen. Couple with children need to have a shared vision for the future of their children and their mutual part in that future, so that they can work TOGETHER to make it happen. Without that shared vision, self protection and "me-first" drive the problem solving process into a ditch.

2. Anger and the desire to retaliate. The most prominent anchor to the past is anger and retaliation. As one recently collaboratively divorced client put it "You have to give up the hope for a better past". While anger and hurt and the desire for revenge is understandable, when it persists, at high levels, it becomes a barrier to solving problems and reaching agreements.

3. John Gottman's divorce research identified "personal attacks on the character" of the spouse as one factor predicting inevitable divorce. Once the decision to divorce as been made and the legal process started, those same personal attacks can de-rail progress toward resolution. Legal process doesn't mitigate those attacks, generally the increased stress raises the frequency and intensity of those attacks.

4. Another anchor in the past which interferes with problem solving in the present and a plan for the future is un-forgiveness. No person gets to the decision that divorce is the best option without hurting their spouse in some way, and no spouse can reasonably claim that they have no responsibility for the relationship failing. Multitudes of sages have written that holding a grudge poisons the person who hangs on to the offense, and it frequently interferes with logical decision making in divorce negotiations.

5. Fear and anxiety can seriously impair logical thinking and rational planning. Some people who are mildly anxious before divorce begins become panic stricken during the process. Fearful spouses develop new fears during this period. The catastrophic thinking that may accompany these fears and anxieties can so restrict the perceptions of people that they literally see the world through a straw, as their brain literally narrows its focus to try to protect them against information overload. When you can only see one option, and it looks like doomsday, compromise is impossible.

6. Empathy failures and contempt. Contempt is another one of Gottman's factors that predict divorce. The inability to put oneself in the other person's shoes, difficult for many in the best of times, frequently disappears during the pain of divorce. If contempt (the opposite of empathy) was present before and contributed to the breakup, the eye rolling and mocking is only exaggerated during divorce. It's hard to give in and work with someone whom you don't respect and don't value at all. New research suggest that narcissists, who are prone to contempt of their partners during divorce, have the ability to turn empathy off and on; just reminding them to turn it on is sometimes enough too get a change of attitude and behavior that can lead to resolution.

7. Lack of expressed gratitude for the other spouse's contributions to the marriage relationship. 70-80 per cent of divorces occur in low conflict couples, and the spouse report that they just "drifted apart" and the marriage "died". This decreasing intimacy also reflects another of Gottman's findings; in failing marriages the ratio of positive to negative interactions falls to a ratio of 1 to 1. (In healthy relationships, the ratio is 20 to 1). In order to rebuild a "devitalized" relationship enough to work together to end it, both parties need to be able to express genuine appreciation for the real, positive contributions of their soon to be former spouse.

8. Failure to take any personal responsibility for the current difficulties that are interfering with reaching a resolution. Once again, since productive problem solving requires a focus on the present and the future, when any these emotional barriers to agreement that I have enumerated arise (and nearly all of them do at some point), further progress is stymied unless BOTH parties can acknowledge their own (not their partner's) challenges and struggles. 

9. Hopelessness and depression can make a good resolution appear to be impossible. Feelings of despair, sadness, and even symptoms of depression do occur with regularity during the process of divorcing. For most people, either because of effective treatment or just emotional resilience, these symptoms are not debilitating. However, for a significant minority of divorcing women AND men, depression and the hopeless outlook that goes with it, can interfere with rational thinking and problem solving. Fortunately, current treatments are more than 85% effective in alleviating depression.

10. Kevin Fuller helped me with this last category of barriers to successful agreement, and I have labeled it "cognitive impairments". This category of extremely challenging behaviors includes untreated substance abuse and it's accompanying cognitive disabilities, untreated serious and persistent mental illness (bipolar disorder, schizophrenia) and the thinking difficulties that are inherent to those illnesses, and untreated personality disorders like anti-social personality disorder (the "just plain mean and disagreeable" folks) and the borderline personality sufferers who are stuck in rigid "black and white" thinking patterns. 

The good news is that NONE of these barriers to successful resolution are insurmountable, and there are strategies and tools for removing them or working around them to reach a mutually satisfactory settlement agreement. The bad news is: it takes time, skills, and patience. More about that in the next post.

And no, Mr. Erhard, you don't have to manipulate people into believing that they "got the biggest piece of the cake". In fact, real agreements are the opposite of that cynical view of settlement--a fully informed, mutually agreed upon plan for the present and the future that both parties embrace, because they made it happen themselves. As my contracts prof used to say "a true meeting of the minds".

It's summer vacation/extended summer visitation time again; sexual abuse allegations revisited

In Texas, many divorced parents have mixed feelings about summer vacation. Most standard custody orders give the parent who doesn't have "primary possession" of the child(ren) 42 days of visitation during the summer. This means that the parent with primary possession gets an extended break from parenting responsibilities and the other parent gets a chance to spend some quality time with the kids when they aren't in school. Theoretically, it's a win-win.

Unfortunately, for a small group of parents, summer vacation means extended visitation for the children in an environment that is not only not stable, but sometimes is actually harmful to the kids. When the former spouse who is not the parent with primary possession, there is usually a good reason, especially if the arrangement was the result of litigation rather than friendly agreement. When the dad has primary possession (still a rare occurrence), and mom is the one with visitation, the risks of extended summer visitation to the kids is greater than normal.

This small group of moms who don't have primary possession of their children usually (not always) have found themselves in this position because they have one or more of these challenges that they haven't been able to overcome: histories and current unstable or abusive relationships, untreated depression, anxiety, or substance abuse, and/or severe personality disorders like borderline personality disorder or antisocial/narcissistic personality disorder. These issues represent a risk because they are nearly always accompanied by very low empathy for the kids and a pathological level of self-absorption and denial that can be dangerous.

The typical pattern for this group of unstable moms is a repetition of a life-long pattern: impulsive commitment to a relationship with a man who is both charming and abusive. If that man also has children from a previous relationship, the potential for a chaotic home environment is multiplied since HE is unlikely to be primary possessory parent, and HIS kids are also likely to be with him for extended periods of time in the summer. Most of these families are middle class at best, meaning that both parents probably work full-time, leaving the kids to supervise themselves for long periods of time. This lack of constant adult supervision during the day is a recipe for major chaos, and dramatically increases the risks for bullying by step-siblings, and even abuse, physical or sexual.

So what is a concerned parent to do?

1. Maintain contact with your kids--a daily phone call to say good night is good for them and for you.
2. When they get home, listen to the stories they tell, but don't interrogate your kids.
3. Watch for changes in their behavior: increased aggressiveness, anxiety, sadness or withdrawal, or regression to more dependent or infantile behavior that can be symptoms of stress.
4. When your kids spontaneously report episodes of abuse, take action.

• Consult a mental health professional to get some objective analysis of your concerns.
• If it sounds like abuse, report it to CPS.
• If there are bruises or other injuries, get them treated; take photos.
• Call a family law specialist and get some advice about what your options are for protecting your kids.

Most kids enjoy having extended summer visitation with the non-custodial parent and everybody benefits from the change in routine. But if you're a parent in the high risk category I described, don't be afraid, but do be alert.

For more information and tips about divorce:

Dr. Karlson's latest book "When ALL Else Fails: Minimizing the Damage Before, During, and After Divorce is available on Amazon and Kindle. Here's the link:
http://tinyurl.com/qzlndut

Positive Mental Health: What is it? The Glass is Half Full

I recently applied to be considered for the position of President of the Meadows Foundation Mental Health Institute in Dallas. As a part my due diligence in the application process, I had a very illuminating conversation with Dr. Lynda Foster of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, a highly regarded agency which advocates for better mental health care and provides funds for research, policy development, and treatment programs in Texas. Despite the name of the Foundation, it occurred to me afterward, our entire discussion was about "mental illness" not "mental health".

This  revelation follows on the heels of an invited speech I recently gave to Contact Dallas at the urging of Amy Stewart where I talked about "Characteristics of Healthy Leaders", a speech I repeated to the North Dallas Bar in June.  The "top 10 list" (my apologies to David Letterman) of things that healthy leaders do actually applies to everyone, not just leaders, so I decided to include it here as well.

So here it is, my list of top 10 characteristics of mentally healthy people:

1. Healthy people can identify and articulate their own feelings.

• Daniel Goleman (the Emotional Intelligence guy) and a host of others now recognize that this one of the most important abilities of a successful person. 
• fMRI research has revealed that once a feeling is labeled with a word, the chaos in the brain ceases and order is restored; centers of the brain which generate logical, focused, problem solving can begin to operate.

2. Healthy people make time to be alone.

• They make room in their schedules for quiet time every day.
• They consciously contemplate the Divine (pray or meditate)
• They take a sabbatical (not a vacation) regularly

3. Healthy people have a personal vision, mission, and purpose for their lives.

• Vision creates hope that lasts through crises
• Purpose is a reason for being beyond roles and making money.
• Together, these create meaning.
• Dr. Martin Seligman talks about 5 factors critical to flourishing (PERMA):
• Positive emotion
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning
• Accomplishment

4. Healthy people serve others.

• Service (outside of work) provides big picture perspective.
• Research in 131 countries found that people experience a sense of well being from giving that exceeds that from receiving.

5. Healthy people have friends who care about them.

• Relationships are a protection against depression, anxiety, aging, and illness.
• Being able to ACCEPT help from a close friend is a strong measure of mental health.

6.  Healthy people make music a part of their lives.

• Research proves that music stimulates the brain in ways that nothing else can.
• "Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything" Plato (I am listening to music as I write this)

7. Healthy people learn continuously.

• Neuroscience research has demonstrated that new learning creates new growth of neurons in the brain; the "trees" in your brain add new branches when you learn something new.
• Healthy people consciously add new skills to their "bucket list" and then learn how to do them throughout life.

8. Healthy people stay active.

• Walk, run, dance, golf, whatever... healthy people do something active every day.
• Their is no "mind-body" dichotomy; physical activity is critical to mental health.

9. Healthy people have fun.

• Benefits of laughter are well documented by neuroscience research: it increases dopamine (the feel-good neurotransmitter), decreases cortisol (the stress neurotransmitter), and improves overall health.

10. Healthy people are positive and grateful; grateful people are healthy.

• Gratitude is a choice; healthy people have learned it.
• Gratitude inoculates against depression and anxiety
• Gratitude is contagious

A quick exercise from Dr. Seligman to increase your mental health:

1. Every day, write down 3 good things that happened to you, and 

2. What made them good.

This simple exercise has proven to increase feelings of well-being 3 months after doing it for only a week! Healthy people make gratitude a part of their everyday life. Try it!

Be sure to check out my latest book, now available on Amazon and Kindle. When ALL Else Fails: Minimizing the Damage, Before, During, and After Divorce is filled with tips and tools when you are trying to decide what to do and how to do it.

Here's the link to Amazon:http://tinyurl.com/qzlndut

BEFORE DIVORCE TOOLS: HOW EXPERTS PREDICT WHETHER A COUPLE WILL DIVORCE

Note: This is an excerpt from the book "When ALL Else Fails: Minimizing the Damage, Before, During, and After Divorce" by Kevin Karlson JD PhD available now on Amazon and Kindle.


Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.    Zsa Zsa Gabor

If you are thinking about divorce but are unsure about whether to do it
or not, this may help you decide. Dr. John Gottman, founder of the
Gottman Institute in Seattle, has emerged as a leading expert in the
understanding of marriage dynamics and in predicting divorce. After
more than 25 years of research and therapy with married and divorcing
couples, a number of basic patterns in how married couples interact can
be used to predict divorce (in the absence of change in these patterns).

First, there are two periods in married life when the risk of divorce is
higher:

 After 5-7 years of marriage when conflict is usually highest.

 After 10-12 years of marriage, as a result of lost intimacy.

It should be noted that marital conflict often increases when a baby
arrives, which usually happens during the first few years of marriage
(see bullet one above).

After the first child is born, 40 to 70% of couples
report significant declines in satisfaction with their marriage. So, a
period of marital dissatisfaction is the norm after the first child is born,
and in the absence of malignant interaction patterns, does NOT
necessarily lead to divorce . (Remember, most unhappiness is
temporary.)

The process that leads to loss of intimacy takes longer to result in
divorce, and research has identified the malignant interaction patterns
that DO predict divorce. These are:

 A one to one ratio between positive and negative interactions
(for happy couples the ratio of positive to negative interactions is
20 to 1).

 Mutual criticism (personal attacks on character, NOT
complaints about specific behavior).

 Defensiveness (“no I didn’t”, “yes but…”, “let’s talk about what
YOU did…” or other denials of any personal responsibility).

 Stonewalling (refusing to talk in order to avoid conflict).

 Contempt for the partner (eye rolling, sarcastic humor,
mocking).

Of the last four factors, those Gottman called the “four horsemen” (of
the Apocalypse), contempt is the worst, and most damaging to
marriages.

Here are some other findings from the research on marriage:

 Conventional wisdom says it is not a good idea to “go to bed
angry”. Gottman discovered that “flooding” – a physiological
phenomenon triggered by emotional conflict — leaves people’s
heart rates too high for them to think clearly and concentrate
on the conversation at hand. He found that taking the time to
calm down before finishing an angry conversation is more likely
to help couples stay close and connected. So take a time out,
and if it’s late, agree to start over in the morning.

 From the research on domestic violence, we have learned that
couples therapy with battering couples actually makes things
worse for the woman—not better—another significant
departure from the conventional wisdom. Partners need to get
individual therapy.

The Bottom Line

If your relationship is not overwhelmingly positive in your pattern of
interactions with your partner, but rather is characterized by Gottman’s
“four horsemen” of criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and
especially contempt, your odds of being divorced are more than four
out of five within five years. 

If you want to stay married, you both need to change the way you
interact. When marriages fail, both parties contribute to the failure.
Take responsibility for your contribution and get help. That means
getting professional help for both of you. Do it now.

Divorce Through the Eyes of a Child: Development Begins for 1/2 hour reality TV show

Nearly 1 in 3 children of divorce haven't seen their fathers in the past year. Divorce Through the Eyes of a Child is a pilot for a 1/2 hour reality TV program which will allow these fatherless kids and their moms to tell their stories, using both the words and the drawings of the children, and interviews with their moms.

In order to fund this important project, we have launched a fundraising campaign on Rocket hub. If you have a heart for these kids of divorce with no dads, as I do, then please join us and help us tell their stories. Here's the link:

Updated and Re-Titled: When ALL Else Fails-Minimizing the Damage Before, During, and After Divorce is now available

Happy Monday,

I am pleased to announce that my book "When ALL Else Fails-Minimizing the Damage Before, During, and After Divorce"  is now available on Amazon and Kindle. Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/qzlndut 

I continue to welcome referrals for trial preparation/consultation cases in family law and commercial litigation and post divorce coaching.

Thanks for your continued support.

Newtown Tragedy: Why YOUR Child is Safe Today

Disclaimer:  I have no personal knowledge of the facts in this horrifying case. This analysis is based solely on the many media reports I have reviewed and some or many of these "facts" may turn out  to be incorrect. I do have professional knowledge about violence and professional experience in interviewing a mass murderer as an expert witness in the Dallas "Ianni's" mass murder case in 1984.

After the shocking events at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Ct. last Friday, I know many parents are concerned for the safety of their children this week. The apparent unpredictability and incomprehensible brutality of this tragedy can play on the fears of many parents that their children are not safe at school. The flurry of meetings at schools around the country where parents are demanding increased security at school and Texas officials are talking about letting teachers carry guns in the classroom for protection underline the sense of desperation and concern prevalent today.

Your Children Are As Safe As They Have Always Been--Very Safe

Based on the best available data, the chances of ANY child being killed by a gun (anywhere, not just at school) is about 3 in 100000. The chances of  your child being hit by lightning are about 1 in 700000, and for being killed in a car accident are 1 in 23000, so that means if you want to keep your children safe from the greatest danger they face, drive safely when you take them to school.

Bottom line: Your kids are safe in school today.

Why The Newtown Tragedy is so Rare: A Confluence of Highly Unusual Circumstances

In these highly charged emotional times, it is always tempting to search for an easy answer to the question "why did this happen?", and you will probably hear a few simple theories propounded in the next few days and weeks. Just a reminder, there are NO simple answers; simple answers are always incomplete and sometimes just wrong. These unusual events are always a combination of a unique and complex combination of contributing factors, and no single factor is the answer.

To understand why this case is so unusual, one must understand a few of important facts. First, mass murders are very unusual. In the last 30 years, there have been 62 mass murders in the US out of nearly 500000 murders, so despite the massive media coverage that makes mass murder seem like an every day occurrence, it is very rare, even among murders, which are rare themselves. In the US, only 1 in every 2000 people was a murder victim last year, and the vast majority of those victims were killed by someone they knew, not by a stranger. Since 2000, the rate of mass murders in the US is DECLINING.

In order to consider the likelihood of a particular unusual event, one must multiply the odds of each potentially contributing circumstance to reach a reasonable guess about the real risks. As a litigation consultant working with lawyers every day to help them evaluate these risks in their cases, and as a former forensic psychologist and expert in a famous Dallas mass murder case, I have some insights to share about the Newtown case.

Adam Lanza was a very unusual kid

First, by all reports, Adam was a very bright kid, and many news reports describe him as a "genius". Technically, a genius is someone with an IQ of more than 130, putting them in the the top 1% of all people. Very unusually smart, and given the amount of planning that apparently went into this massacre, Adam was probably this smart.

Second, Adam was reportedly diagnosed with "Asperger's Syndrome (AS)". This is also a very unusual condition and in 1992 was present in about 1 in every 100 kids, though currently the incidence is 1 in 88. Kids with AS have a cluster of unique features, many of which were identified in press reports about Adam: difficulty in making eye contact, unusual dress habits like wearing the same shirt and pants every day with the shirt buttoned up to the neck, shyness, difficulty communicating, obsessions with computers and video games, and difficulties in empathizing with others. There is NO research linking AS to violence: None.

Third, Adam reportedly had a very rare condition called congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP), a disorder so rare, the total number of reported cases, ever, is less than 1000. These kids are at considerable risk for injury, and must be monitored closely because they can seriously injure themselves and not feel it. Some research also suggests that these kids have reduced empathy probably because they have no experience with pain. This is a less than 1 in a million occurrence.

Adam was a child of divorce with an absent father. Various reports indicated that Adam hadn't had any contact with his dad for some time. Regardless of the cause of that separation from his dad, children of divorce are vulnerable to becoming depressed and withdrawn. Nearly forty percent of divorced kids haven't seen their dads in a year; abandonment and rejection create both depression and anger.

Adam's mother reportedly told one of her friends within the last couple of weeks that Adam was becoming more withdrawn and that she was afraid she was "losing him".  One in every 4 kids of divorce withdraw from their families following the divorce.

Adam was an isolated and obsessive Call of Duty player. A growing body of research now implicates these violent "first person shooter" games in raising the risk of violent acting out and aggressive behavior in kids like Adam: isolated, poor social skills, low empathy, high stress, family dysfunction. Visitors to the Lanza house recall finding Adam in the basement for hours playing Call of Duty, and there were military posters on the walls, further substantiating his pre-occupation. Not all kids are vulnerable to these risks; I believe Adam was.

Adam was apparently becoming depressed. The risk of depression in teens post-divorce is 2 to 3 times higher than for other kids, making the odds nearly 50% for Adam, and given his reported depressive symptoms much higher than that. He reportedly had a GPA of 3.25 in college, very low for someone as smart as he was. This could be a symptom of his increasing depression as well.

The danger for depressed teens who are also socially isolated like Adam (no reports of a Facebook history nor heavy texting to some friend, any friend) means that they are left to their own negative, angry, and over time, increasingly paranoid and angry thoughts. For smart kids like Adam, this can become an opportunity to create a detailed fantasy of revenge for real and imagined hurts, and begin to plan how to actually do it.

There are probably other factors about Adam and his life that are relevant to his risks of violence, but these are the ones that are apparent to me at this point in the investigation.

Nancy Lanza, the mom

Nancy Lanza was by all accounts a friendly, fun, smart and sociable woman with a "big heart". Her divorce had left her alone but affluent; her monthly support payments were more than $24K per month, putting her comfortably in the top 1% of income in the US, and among divorced women, very rare indeed.

She was reportedly still very angry with her ex, a condition she shared with 1/3 of women who are divorced. Some reports suggested that she did not want her husband to visit Adam, and once he turned 18, visits with dad would have been up to him.

Various reports also described her as "perfectionistic" with high expectations and high standards for her boys. If true, this could be a factor that increased her stress as a parent in dealing with Adam, who undoubtedly had perfectionistic rituals of his own (another trait of many AS kids). The incidence of perfectionism is about 1 in 100.

Nancy was also a divorced mom with a 20 year old son with Asperger's living with her. She reportedly stopped working to be able to home school Adam during high school, after she and the school administration had some disagreements about Adam's treatment at school. One of her friends described her as "high strung" but moderated that description once he found out about Adam's AS.

In my experience, few people in the public school system understand AS, and moms of these kids routinely have to go to bat for them to overcome unintentional mis-treatment and frequent mis-interpretation of these kids' unusual behavior at school. Regardless, this is an unending, high stress parenting job and made more difficult by her single parent status.

She was one of the 34% of women in the US who own a gun, and among a very small number of women who own more than one. The fact that she owned an assault rifle and a high-end high-capacity combat shot gun moves her from the mainstream to a very small minority group of women. My estimate is that of the 80 million households in the US, fewer than 1 in 500,000 are single women with multiple high-powered weapons in the house.

Bottom Line: The Math Behind the Headline

Total Probability for Adam's unique and relevant factors: about 1 in a Trillion

Total Probability for Nancy's unique and relevant factors: about 1 in 10 Billion

Estimated Combined Probability of This Unique Event: 1 in 10 Trillion Billion

Final Word: Your Kids are Still Safe At School

I hope this brief article has been illuminating and reassuring for you as a parent and as an educator. I have outlined the unique set of circumstances, based on my professional training and experience, that MAY have combined to lead to the Sandy Hook tragedy. I hope it's clear that these factors alone, and there are likely some others, are so unusual that the confluence of them is exceedingly rare. There are NOT a bunch of these guys running around looking for schools to attack. Your child is safe.


Kevin Karlson JD PhD is a former adjunct professor of forensic psychology at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, and a former adjunct professor in psychiatric and psychological evidence at SMU Dedman School of Law. He is now a litigation consultant, speaker, and mental health expert specializing in divorce.

Dr. Karlson is the sole contributing author to "Psychiatric and Psychological Evidence"  published by Shepards/McGraw-Hill. Dr. Karlson was an intern at the Federal Correctional Institution -Fort Worth, and was an expert witness in Dallas only mass murder trial, the 'Ianni's" mass murder case in 1984. 

He is available as a speaker to talk about this topic, and can be reached at 972.839.2394 for information about scheduling and honoraria. Email: karlson.kevin@gmail.com

Maximizing Christmas Joy: Tips and Tools for the Holiday Visitation

As the Christmas holiday approaches, most divorced families with kids will share   visitation time with the "ex". Here are a few suggestions to make that potentially awkward or even conflicted time turn out better for both the adults and the kids.

1. Confirm the time, place, and arrangements for the exchange in advance. By email. Get all the details straightened out far in advance, and then let the kids know what they are. Put it on the calendar or refrigerator or wherever you post important stuff.

2. Buy the other parent a Christmas present. A small but thoughtful gift. No snarky gifts with emotional bombshells attached. A nice gift. If you can't forgive your spouse and teach your kids to be kind and thoughtful givers, who will?

3. Be especially considerate about time. Be on time for the exchange. Make sure the kids get advance warning, and count down the time till the exchange so they are not surprised. Don't let the kids use Christmas as an excuse to generate conflict by being late--be on time, be polite, be considerate. Teach your children to do the same by following your example.

4. Let the kids take their new presents to the other parent's house. Kids will be excited about one or more of their new gifts and want to take it with them. Let them. Make sure they get back where they belong, by informing the other parent what they brought (by email if you can't talk politely).

5. Avoid the long good-bye and the "I will miss you so much over the holidays" tearful send-offs at the exchange. Make it fun, upbeat, and short. If you treat this as a normal event, so will your kids, and everyone will have a nicer holiday visit.

6. Use the time without the kids to take care of yourself. Read a book, go to the spa, go to dinner with friends, stay busy. Enjoy the holidays yourself so you will have stories to tell the kids when they get home and tell you theirs.

7. Make NO comments about how much the other parent spent (or didn't) on presents. Focus on teaching your kids to be grateful for whatever they got--it's a great opportunity to teach kids the value of family and relationships and to de-emphasize money and stuff.

8. Show modest interest in the family drama at the other parent's house. Listen, but don't interrogate. As someone recently said, "Every family has at least one crazy person in it. If you can't identify who that is, it's you!". Holidays mean that old family issues are re-played in virtually every family, including yours. Don't get overly involved in those dramas at the other parent's house. Teach your kids that everyone has their stuff, and teach them how to deal with it productively. In other words, model tolerance and understanding.

Have a very Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays).

Tools: Communicating with your spouse during and after the divorce [an excerpt from Your Best Divorce Now!]

TOOLS: COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR SPOUSE DURING AND AFTER THE DIVORCE

“Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way". John Kotter

Once the two of you decide to divorce, there will come a very uncomfortable period when you are still living in the same place, and if you have children, that discomfort could go on for years as you co-parent. Regardless of your unique circumstances, the divorce process, with or without children, requires periods of intensive communication to complete the divorce. A few people figure out how to communicate with their soon to be ex-spouse under the new circumstances and manage it well. Most don’t.

Here are my suggestions for how to do it with the least stress:

1. If you can still communicate face to face, stay on task, and NOT have a “Xerox conversation” (an identical repetition of a argument you two have had 100 times before), then sit down over the kitchen table and have a meeting with an agenda (written, but no more than 3-4 items per meeting) is the way to go.

2. Schedule the meeting at a mutually agreeable time, preferably NOT too late at night when you are both too tired to stay in control and solve problems.

3. Write down the agreement you reach for each item and sign it; give each spouse a copy.

4. If face to face meetings don’t work because the level of hurt and anger are too high, then choose the channel of communication LEAST likely to lead to escalation and MOST likely to lead to solution or agreement.

This is my ranking of channels, from LEAST likely to escalate to MOST likely to escalate into an argument:

• Letter writing (Least likely to escalate)
• Email
• Texting
• Phone calls--scheduled ahead of time with an agenda
• Face to face with a counselor or parenting coordinator/facilitator
• Face to face meetings in a public place--scheduled with an agenda
• Face to face in private with a friend present--scheduled, with agenda
• Skype or Face-Time--scheduled, with agenda
• Spontaneous, unscheduled phone calls
• Face to face alone; no agenda (Most likely to escalate)

5. If you are already in the “can’t talk without arguing phase” of your divorce, then start with “letter writing” and work your way DOWN the list above until you find a channel that works for the two of you.

The challenge with letters, email, and text is that all the emotional content is removed, making communication harder and misunderstanding more likely. The benefit of these more impersonal channels of communication is that these same channels remove the “triggers” which re-ignite old arguments because usually the triggers are facial expressions and tone of voice that are signals of criticism, defensiveness, or contempt.

When children are involved, use email and text to set up or change visitation arrangements and to share information about the kids. Keep your face-to-face interactions at the door during exchanges of visitation:

•  Brief, 
• Informative, 
• Firm, and 
• Friendly (remember the acronym BIFF).

This BIFF strategy also applies to texts and emails you send to the other parent. Protect your kids from seeing more of the conflict and start a new pattern of civil, friendly, cooperation and co-parenting for THEIR benefit. (Special thanks to Bill Eddy for the BIFF strategy.)

Even after the legal divorce is completed, you will still have occasions when you must communicate. Use the channel that works best for both of you.

[A note NOT included in the book]

There is a pattern among couples who are NOT really emotionally untangled that includes multiple emails or phone calls from one spouse (or ex-spouse) to the other about a myriad of issues, usually kids or money. The harassing spouse makes each issue sound like an emergency and demands (or expects) an immediate response, and if that is not forthcoming, adds that failure to respond to list of complaints in the next email or call.


There is a solution:

1. If you know the kids are safe, check voicemail and email from your ex ONE time per day.

2. Go through them all at one time, the same time every day, and if a response is needed to solve a problem THAT DAY, then answer THAT question. Ignore everything else in the messages--do NOT respond.

3. Do the same thing, every day, at the same time, and teach your ex to expect a response at that time of the day, and no other. (Don't bother to try to explain or get agreement on this, just start doing it and keep doing it.)

4. Eventually the calls/emails will taper off because if you don't respond, there is  no emotional payoff for them to continue to harass you. You MUST stick to this strategy forever for it to work. If you slip up and respond immediately to one message, the pattern will return and you will have to start over. So be vigilant, and stick to your guns.

This strategy of managing your communication will not only make your own life easier and less stressful, it will be another step in disengaging from a pattern that hurts both you and your children by maintaining the ongoing conflict at a high level. It takes both parents to truly end this destructive pattern, but one parent can wind it down by following these steps and sticking to it.


EX

Communicating with your Spouse During and After Divorce: An excerpt from my book

“Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn't about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way.  John Kotter

[The following is Chapter 20 of my latest book "Your Best Divorce Now: Tips and Tools Before, During, and After"-KK]

Once the two of you decide to divorce, there will come a very uncomfortable period when you are still living in the same place, and if you have children, that discomfort could go on for years as you co-parent. Regardless of your unique circumstances, the divorce process, with or without children, requires periods of intensive communication to complete the divorce. A few people figure out how to communicate with their soon to be ex-spouse under the new circumstances and manage it well. Most don’t.

Here are my suggestions for how to do it with the least stress:

1. If you can still communicate face to face, stay on task, and NOT have a “Xerox conversation” (an identical repetition of an argument you two have had 100 times before), then sit down over the kitchen table and have a meeting with an agenda (written, but no more than 3-4 items per meeting) is the way to go.

2. Schedule the meeting at a mutually agreeable time, preferably NOT too late at night when you are both too tired to stay in control and solve problems.

3. Write down the agreement you reach for each item and sign it; give each spouse a copy.

4. If face to face meetings don’t work because the level of hurt and anger are too high, then choose the channel of communication LEAST likely to lead to escalation and MOST likely to lead to solution or agreement. This is my ranking of channels, from LEAST likely to escalate to MOST likely to escalate into an argument:

• Letter writing (Least likely to escalate)
• Email
• Texting
• Phone calls--scheduled ahead of time with an agenda
• Face to face with a counselor or parenting coordinator/facilitator
• Face to face meetings in a public place--scheduled with an agenda
• Face to face in private with a friend present--scheduled, with agenda
• Skype or Face-Time--scheduled, with agenda
• Spontaneous, unscheduled phone calls
• Face to face alone; no agenda (Most likely to escalate)

5. If you are already in the “can’t talk without arguing phase” of your divorce, then start with “letter writing” and work your way DOWN the list above until you find a channel that works for the two of you.

The challenge with letters, email, and text is that all the emotional content is removed, making communication harder and misunderstanding more likely. The benefit of these more impersonal channels of communication is that these same channels remove the “triggers” which re-ignite old arguments because usually the triggers are facial expressions and tone of voice that are signals of criticism, defensiveness, or contempt.

When children are involved, use email and text to set up or change visitation arrangements and to share information about the kids. Keep your face-to-face interactions at the door during exchanges of visitation Brief, Informative, Firm, and Friendly (remember the acronym BIFF).

This BIFF strategy also applies to texts and emails you send to the other parent. Protect your kids from seeing more of the conflict and start a new pattern of civil, friendly, cooperation and co-parenting for THEIR benefit. (Special thanks to Bill Eddy for the BIFF strategy.)

Even after the legal divorce is completed, you will still have occasions when you must communicate. Use the channel that works best for both of you.

My book "Your Best Divorce Now: Tips and Tools Before, During, and After" is now available on Amazon and as a Kindle e-book here:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6llezrm

The Case Against Child Custody Evaluations

When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Abraham Maslow

Child custody evaluations should be eliminated. The short- and long-term harms outweigh the meager benefits.

Following a brief voir dire of my qualifications for making this claim, I will explain the reasons I have reluctantly come to this conclusion. What follows below is this:

1. My qualifications for making the case as a former "insider".

2. Why psychological testing is neither reliable nor valid in custody evaluations. The "science" is lacking.

3. Why custody evaluations are merely the personal opinion of the evaluator.

4.  How custody evaluations create a loophole for damaging and counterproductive hearsay evidence that otherwise would not be allowed.

5. And finally, even if they settle a case in the short run, custody evaluations increase the odds of future litigation, and consequently, for the children involved, the risks far outweigh the benefits.
6. Better alternative solutions for family courts.

1. My qualifications for making the case as a former "insider". A brief overview:

• I was trained as a forensic psychologist (PhD from UT Southwestern) and a lawyer (JD from Dedman School of Law, SMU)
• I not only conducted custody evaluations and testified about them, I also co-wrote a custody evaluation system (UCCES published by PAR, Inc. for which I still receive royalties), 
• I taught psychology grad students and law students how to do them (adjunct in Forensic Psychology at UTSMS, and in Psychiatric and Psychological Evidence at Dedman, SMU for 8 years). 
• I wrote the entire section on psychiatry and psychology in  the late Professor Dan Shuman's award-winning book "Psychiatric and Psychological Evidence" published by Shepards/McGraw-Hill in 1986.
• I conducted numerous workshops for lawyers and psychologists about how to conduct custody evaluations, how to testify about them, and how to defend them against the attacks on their validity by lawyers. 
• I was a member of the Committee on Practice and Professional Standards (COPPS) of the American Psychological Association, the professional body responsible for promulgating standards of practice for custody evaluations for psychologists. 
• Once I stopped actually doing evaluations, I had the opportunity to review hundreds of evaluations of other psychologists (and social studies conducted by social workers) as a part of my work as a litigation consultant who specializes in divorce and custody cases. 
• I routinely recommended custody evaluations to the attorneys and to their clients, until recently. 

I say all this to be clear about my background and my biases--I was a respected and committed "insider" in the custody evaluation "industry" and routinely qualified as an "expert" in family courts for many years. 

2. Why psychological testing is neither valid nor reliable in custody evaluations. The "science" is lacking.

Because the "best interest of the child" standard, which is the predominant legal doctrine in most states, is so ill defined and complex, it is NOT possible to devise a standardized psychological test which will measure all the factors that go into making a decision about custody or visitation (conservatorship and possession are the Texas terms of art). 

Standard psychological tests used in clinical settings were designed to diagnose and treat people with psychological problems that actually wanted help and who were willing to admit to having problems. They have limited utility (reliability and validity) in custody cases because no sane parent will admit to problems if they think it might cause them to lose their children, and in fact, many tests taken by parents in custody cases are found to be invalid. 

Specialized "custody tests" fare little better. None has stood up to the rigors of even the lowest levels of test validity, and none has gained universal professional acceptance as a tool for making a recommendation to the court about either custody or visitation. (see this article for a detailed, objective analysis: http://www.cstaffordlaw.com/Emery.pdf) After 60 years of unsuccessful attempts to develop a valid custody instrument, it's time to publicly acknowledge that this problem is just too complex to be measured by a test.

To be fair, psychological testing in a custody evaluation context can sometimes give clues to problems like depression or anxiety in parents that can interfere with the ability to care for children. In most cases, these issues have already been indentified by the other spouse (and probably other witnesses in the case), so the information is neither new nor additive. However, once reported in a custody evaluation, it becomes stigmatizing and fuel for future litigation BECAUSE the psychologist "expert" put it in black and white in a court document. In my view, the risks of harm to families massively outweigh any short-term benefits.

The psychological problems that CAN and DO affect custody are the personality disorders (and the substance abuse that frequently appears as a part of those disorders). The problem is, the tests that could diagnose personality disorders are also designed for clinical use (motivated truth-telling by the patient) and NOT for custody evaluations, so they are usually invalid and consequently unhelpful. DSM-IV personality disorders are normally diagnosed by integrating information from the parent's history, and many psychologists are woefully ill-trained for making these diagnoses. Since they don't "believe" in diagnosis, they don't see the patterns, and they don't make the diagnoses. 

Bottom line, psychological testing has little or nothing to add to questions about custody or visitation. Testing is a hammer; custody and visitation is NOT a nail. An extremely complex puzzle perhaps, but definitely NOT a nail.

3. Why custody evaluations are merely the personal opinion of the evaluator.

If psychological testing is INCAPABLE of making custody or visitation decisions, then how does that recommendation appear in the report? Well, the psychologist takes the information from all the sources that he or she used, and using their own judgment, makes the call. That's it.

When the psychologist is smart, stable, emotionally healthy, balanced, fair, and unbiased, that personal opinion may be a wise judgment and truly in the "best interest" of the children and the family, but it is NOT the result of any psychological testing. It may even be an educated decision, depending on the skill and experience of the expert, but it is only very thinly a "psychological" opinion.

The problem is that the mere use of psychological testing moves the focus of the discussion (and cross examination) to the testing (which is irrelevant to the ultimate issues) and away from the real source of the opinion (and biases), which is the psychologist expert. It is his (or her) personal values, beliefs, personality, history, emotional wounds, and professional knowledge and indoctrination that should be under scrutiny, and it seldom is. Testing confers an air of credibility to personal opinions that is NOT warranted.

And frankly, even if a talented lawyer is successful in challenging and even refuting EVERY argument supporting the custody and visitation recommendations in the report, I personally know of NO CASE where the report was repudiated, stricken from the record, and not entered into evidence. Why? Because no lawyer  I know wants to try to torpedo the "court's own expert" and have that court-appointed expert's report withdrawn.  Never happens.

So, what is essentially the personal (not psychological) opinion of the expert becomes part of the court record of this family. Forever.

4. How custody evaluations create a loophole for damaging and counterproductive hearsay evidence that otherwise would not be allowed.

Here's the Texas Rule of Evidence that's relevant:

RULE 703. BASES OF OPINION TESTIMONY BY EXPERTS

The facts or data in the particular case upon which an expert bases an opinion or inference may be those perceived by, reviewed by, or made known to the expert at or before the hearing. If of a type reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field in forming opinions or inferences upon the subject, the facts or data need not be admissible in evidence.

Unfortunately for families in divorce cases (at least in Texas), this loophole in the Rules of Evidence is big enough to drive a garbage truck through, and psychologists conducting custody evaluations do it routinely. Here is how it happens.

As a standard part of custody evaluations, the expert invites both parties to provide them with documents that "support" the allegations they are making about the other parent, usually with the directions to "if you think it's relevant, make sure I get it to review". These documents, along with reports or interviews of teachers, references, family members, friends, co-workers, are included in the "file" of the expert, and become part of the "facts or data" ..."upon which the expert bases an opinion or inference". Since this practice is standard in custody evaluations, the question about whether the information is of a type that is "reasonably relied upon by experts in the particular field in forming opinions or inferences upon the subject" is seldom raised and NEVER questioned in depth. So, lawyers "load up" their clients with unproven allegations about explosive but unproven "facts" and get them included in the custody evaluator's file, ready to be "discovered" in the course of a deposition or hearing where the expert is testifying. (This is also true of social studies.)

It must be noted that this kind of hearsay is otherwise completely INadmissible in court. A witness making this kind of allegation, in court or in a deposition, would be thoroughly cross examined, and if the allegation is baseless, publicly repudiated. Not in a custody evaluation. It all lands in the records in black and white-whether true or completely baseless.

Why does it matter if otherwise inadmissible and unproven hearsay makes it into a court record? Because parents remember. I have interviewed countless parents many years after their divorce litigation (or re-litigation) is over and nearly all of them can recount instances of unproven fabrications that came up during the process that traumatized them in some way. And most of them are still angry, years later. Angry parents are not only poor co-parents, they are also ripe for more custody litigation.

It is these wounds and traumas that keep these people from healing from their divorce wounds and moving on. It is these wounds and traumas that fuel future custody litigation. Only the loophole in Rule 703 as it applies to custody evaluation experts allows baseless hearsay to go unchallenged straight into the written record. And custody evaluators unintentionally collude with lawyers in letting it happen. Years later, the kids and parents still suffer the consequences.

5. And finally, even if they settle a case in the short run, custody evaluations increase the odds of future litigation, and consequently, for the children involved, the risks of continued litigation far outweigh the benefits of a quick settlement.

There are only 2 studies which I could find that evaluate the long term outcomes of divorces with custody evaluations. Both studies noted an INCREASE in the risk of future custody litigation of 2-3 TIMES that of divorces without those evaluations. Now granted, only very high conflict cases have custody evaluations, so the risk of future litigation was already elevated in these cases. Nonetheless, if the court itself is increasing the odds of future conflict (and especially more litigation in its own courtroom) by ordering an expensive custody evaluation, is that a prudent use of the court's (and the family's) resources? Not to me.

While I am sympathetic to family court judges who have to handle nearly 3000 cases a year in their courtrooms, and who desperately want someone to help them make good decisions in difficult family cases, child custody evaluations are NOT the answer.

6. Better alternative solutions for family courts.

So what are the alternatives to custody evaluations?

1. Parenting co-ordination/facilitation can provide a forum for high conflict parents to work out a solution. This process not only avoids litigation and all its scars, but also avoids the stigma of custody evaluations and the risks of future harm and even more litigation.

2. Courts can order counseling for parents during the pendency of litigation. Parents in conflict need support, conflict management skills, individual counseling, sometimes individual therapy, and to learn how to work together to raise their children as well as to conclude their legal divorce. These services are readily available and less expensive than custody evaluations.

Families in crisis need good solutions to both the emotional and legal issues they must confront to resolve the short-term crisis and to prevent long-term consequences. What they don't need is a custody evaluation.

Final note: I will testify as an expert in opposition to court-ordered custody evaluations. I am now available to speak about and to testify as an expert on this important topic.  

Contact me for a vita and more information.

Kevin Karlson JD PhD  
email: divorcedoc@me.com 
phone: 972.839.2394

http://www.amazon.com/Your-Best-Divorce-Now-Tools/dp/1475073542/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339084894&sr=1-2

Research Update: Growth Not Just Recovery After Divorce is the Norm

Post-traumatic disorder is NOT the most likely outcome of a trauma like divorce; post-traumatic growth is.

There is no question that divorce is traumatic for all its victims. Only the death of a spouse is more stressful, and that trauma seems to recede with time, while the trauma of divorce can linger for a lifetime. Mental health professionals have tended by virtue of their training and values, to be focused more on the disorder after trauma, and less on the growth that more often results.

A recent article (see the link at the end of this post) nicely summarizes the current research on the factors that lead to post traumatic growth rather than post traumatic disorder. Here are some of the major factors identified by research which predict a positive response to trauma:

1. Recognition that growth is more likely than disorder. Knowing that growth is the most likely outcome can help inoculate a person against hopelessness and depression. Developing a positive expectation of not just recovery, but of growth, as a consequence of a trauma like divorce is the first step.
2. Spirituality, specifically forgiveness. While this is probably the most difficult for most divorced/divorcing people to accomplish, failure to forgive is highly associated with ongoing disorder rather than growth. Remember this is a finding of psychological research, NOT a religious opinion.(http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2010-09501-003) Forgiveness is the antidote to poisonous resentment and bitterness that are blocks to healing and growth. Forgiveness is for your benefit not your ex!
3. Social support leads to growth rather than disorder. This is especially evident in divorce recovery groups and is why I recommend divorce recovery groups to every one of my clients and in my book, "Your Best Divorce Now: Tips and Tools... (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008654OHG) Men are especially vulnerable to negative affects from divorce because they tend to try to go it alone, and hence are less likely to grow after divorce. There is nothing as healing as hearing other people's stories and realizing that you are not alone.
4. Disclosure of your feelings and reactions leads to growth. Most divorce recovery programs encourage daily journaling as a tool to recovery, and research supports this as being just as effective as talking to someone for 30 minutes every day.
5. Changing your outlook to viewing the trauma as a challenge to be overcome. This is why reading stories of how other people overcame their own traumas can be helpful. 
6. Grieve, and take decisive action. Normal grief is a process with stages and a conclusion. Passivity and preoccupation with the trauma and its effects are associated with disorder, while positive, decisive action to change what can be changed is associated with growth
7. Avoid substance abuse of any kind, even food. While the abuse of drugs and alcohol are obvious blocks to growth, overeating can also have negative affects on mood and recovery from trauma. 

Read the complete article here. Highly recommended. http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/post-traumatic-growth-what-research-says-about-why-some-grow-while-others-break-in-the-face-of-adversity

Child Custody Evaluations: Solution or Contributing Cause to Ongoing Conflict?

When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.  Abraham Maslow


Family law professionals, especially family court judges, face difficult decisions every day. Among the most challenging are the high conflict custody cases where both parties are angry and intransigent, often trading explosive allegations about the other party's character and parenting flaws. Faced with these kinds of dilemmas, lawyers and judges search for an impartial third party to provide an "objective" perspective to help resolve the dispute and prevent further litigation and damage to the children. Frequently, this means turning to a mental health professional (almost always a psychologist) to conduct a "child custody evaluation" and report back to the court with a recommendation. I know, I have been one of those evaluators as a court appointed expert, and as a divorce litigation consultant, I have, until recently recommended child custody evaluations to my clients. No more.

Some background facts before I explain my rationale for my radical change of position.

• Only 30% of divorces occur in high conflict marriages--70% of all divorces are low conflict.
• Even with those numbers, 98-99% of divorces settle without a trial.
• Parents agree to custody arrangements on their own 90% of the time (Melton,  et al 2007)
• The latest census data finds that 78% of divorced children live primarily with their mother and 12% with their father. (Best available data on base rates for which parent ends up with "primary possession" after a divorce.)

Let's pause here for a minute. This means that, left to their own devices, most couples either agree to let mom have primary possession, or circumstances eventually evolve to mom having primary possession in 4 out of 5 divorces (they also agree to letting dad have primary possession in some cases). Regardless of the rhetoric about "equal rights" for dads, this is the reality, and since 90% of these arrangements are the result of agreements between the parents, it is hard to argue that the courts are driving primary possession by moms. Ok, but what about those high conflict cases that don't settle custody issues by agreement (including mediation)?

• Since low conflict (and even many high conflict) divorces settle without trial, that means the 1-2% of trial cases comes from the 30% of high conflict divorces, making the odds of trial in a high conflict case about 1 in 30 to 1 in 15, or 3-6%. 
• The best available research suggests that a child custody evaluations lack ANY scientific evidence for their validity or reliability  (Emery, Otto, and Donohue, 2005)
• There is NO psychological test that is a valid measure of "best interest of the children" nor to deciding the issue of either custody or possession.
• Nationally, the average cost of a custody evaluation is just under $4000 (in Dallas and surrounding counties in Texas, that number is at least twice that).
• The only long term studies of child custody evaluations (there are only 2) have found that child custody evaluations INCREASE the chances of later re-litigation by 2-3 times over those cases with no child custody evaluation! 

In my career as a divorce litigation consultant, I have had the opportunity to review hundreds of child custody evaluations. These reports range from 10-40 pages long, take anywhere from 15-40 hours of time to prepare, and cost many thousands of dollars. Most of them recommended "joint custody", and many of them recommended 50/50 possession or visitation. On it's face, recommending a joint custody in a high conflict divorce is absurd! The fact that the litigation has proceeded this far is proof that cooperation is unlikely without some intervention to resolve the underlying conflict between the parents. No child custody evaluation is needed to send parents off to counseling or parent facilitation.

There is NO scientific support or basis, based on psychological testing nor any scientific research, for those recommendations (or any other). None. And not one of those reports (including mine) ever mentioned that fact. We all pretend that we're being objective and scientific but in fact, in the absence of any scientific support for the process, the results are purely personal opinion driven by our own values and beliefs (or biases and prejudices) and dressed up in psychological terminology. Well intentioned opinion but mere personal opinion nonetheless.

Lawyers and judges seek child custody evaluations to help break the impasse in high conflict divorces where the parties cannot agree on child custody issues in hopes of avoiding litigation. Who can blame them? And it is true that in some cases, the child custody evaluation report which supports or fails to support the allegations of one parent or the other sometimes leads to a settlement in the short run. That's sort of a good thing. But remember, the goal of a child custody evaluation is to resolve the custody dispute.

The problem is, the underlying problem of ongoing parental conflict is NOT resolved in a child custody evaluation, and the only available scientific evidence suggests that the child custody evaluation made it worse not better since the EVALUATION process itself apparently increased the odds of re-litigating later by two to three times. If child custody litigation is viewed as an illness, and the prescribed treatment (a child custody evaluation) eliminates the symptoms in the short run but triples the odds of the disease returning in a few years, in any other field of medicine, the treatment would be taken off the market as ineffective and unreasonably dangerous!

As a professionally trained and former forensic psychologist and child custody evaluator,  (and co-author of a child custody evaluation system) it pains me to say this, but the available evidence suggests that child custody evaluations are part of the problem NOT part of the solution for high conflict divorces. The risks outweigh the benefits, and until that changes, the procedure needs to be taken off the market. 

I know both lawyers and judges as well as psychologists will disagree, but I challenge anyone to read this article and present a compelling counter argument...http://www.cstaffordlaw.com/Emery.pdf

Sandusky found guilty: More lessons

The jury found Jerry Sandusky guilty on 45 of 48 criminal counts last week, and Sandusky was remanded to custody to await sentencing. The defense team has already announced it would appeal (not surprising), and Sandusky has continued to insist that he is "innocent" (also not surprising). What follows is a couple of more lessons to be learned from this high profile case.

In contrast to most cases of child abuse perpetrated by fathers who are NOT sexual predators, Sandusky is clearly a sexual predator. Sandusky's continuing denial of his guilt, and in fact, his reportedly adamant insistence that he is innocent in the face of the overwhelming evidence of his guilt that he witnessed during the trial is another hallmark of a sexual predator: lack of remorse and empathy. Very few people truly understand that Sandusky really believes that he is innocent of any crime,  regardless of the testimony of all the witnesses and the jury's verdict. It is this fundamental flaw, the inability to recognize that his actions were wrong and damaging to his victims, that makes the Jerry Sanduskys of the world so dangerous for children.

In contrast to the predators, who are a small but malignant minority of the population of child abusers, I have evaluated and treated many perpetrators of sexual abuse (and their victims). What is striking about so many of these men is that they are emotionally needy and immature, and that at some point, during treatment, they will (usually) acknowledge their own behavior and tearfully admit that they knew it was wrong but felt compelled to commit the abuse. The rationalizations (it was loving or she needed it) for the abuse generally do NOT last long once treatment has uncovered the the underlying motivation (usually unmet needs to be loved, believe it or not). These men know what they did was wrong, and are able to acknowledge that what they did was harmful to the child. A combination of substance abuse, stressors like marital discord and financial difficulties, job loss or physical disability all combine to create the circumstances where normal boundaries disappear and normal self control evaporates. The abuse is an unhealthy and damaging reaction to a series of stressful events. These guys are not charismatic, nor smooth, nor seen by the community at large as "saints". These men are child abusers,certainly, but they are not predators.

It is the lack of empathy (and remorse), the hallmarks of psychopathy, that make these sexual predators so dangerous to children. Regardless of the outward appearance of selfless concern for kids, these men don't do anything out of a sense of altruism. Everything they do is designed to get them what they want, and what sexual predators want is easy access to children that they can groom to be their victims, opportunities to exploit the children without danger of being caught, and enough perceived power and authority to make the threats needed to keep the kids quiet afterwards have some real and lasting effect. When interviewed, these predators are smart enough to know that what they did was illegal, but they don't really believe it was wrong. That's the first lesson: not all abusers are sexual predators, and the two groups are NOT the same.


Lesson number two: the testimony of the wife of a sexual predator about his character has almost no probative value. These men are incapable of genuine intimacy, and NEVER let anyone get close to them, let alone get to truly know them. Spouses hold no special status for a psychopath, and are actually just part of the "window dressing" in their PR campaign to appear to be normal. Spouses of these men frequently "fill in the blanks" and make assumptions about their husband's behaviors and motivations, based on their own naive view of the world, and completely miss or ignore the signals that would indicate something amiss. Many of these women have been victims of abuse or neglect themselves, and have a huge "blind spot" when it comes to signals indicating abuse. It is precisely that blind spot that made them good choices as spouses for the predators, because they recognize that their wives are incapable of "ratting them out". So when these spouses testify that they never saw anything suspicious, it really doesn't mean what it would if a normal wife testified about her husband's character. These wives are unwitting accomplices to their husband's crimes.

The good news is that the Sandusky trial has raised the level of awareness of sexual predators, especially for those who run large organizations that deal with children, and could lead to greater protection for children who could be potential victims. As I said in my last post, we all need to pay attention when vulnerable children have just a little too much private time with any adult who  is not a loving parent.