Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

healthy development, and the courts searched for

ways to maximize the positive contributions of each

parent in postdivorce or coparenting arrangements.

High-Conflict Families

The migration from sole to joint or shared custody out-

comes has been a rough journey. It is understood that

among divorcing parents, the vast majority resolve

questions of parenting without the court’s assistance,

and only a small number seek the court’s resolution of

the dispute. Among those who need assistance, some

return again and again, filing further motions for mod-

ifications of earlier rulings or alleging contempt of

court, alleging failure to follow the court’s orders.

These high-conflict parents may also appeal against

rulings of the court, and their disputes take up about

95% of the family court’s time and resources.

Of primary concern with high-conflict families,

however, is not the monopoly of the court’s time but

the great damage done to the children who are sub-

jects of the ongoing child custody litigation and con-

flict. Exposure to preseparation and postseparation

conflict between their parents is the most reliable pre-

dictor that children will develop emotional and

behavioral problems stemming from divorce. The

courts, recognizing this toll on the children, have

sought ways to assist the high-conflict families to

find more constructive and successful paths to resolv-

ing their difficulties.

Currently, there is a trend under way, manifested

by the removal of the language of “custody” and “vis-

itation” in the statutes of several states, to try to move

these matters away from the climate of adversary pro-

ceedings, where the winner takes all and the loser—

the marginalized parent who is allowed to visit with

his or her child—goes away almost empty-handed

(often nevertheless paying the greater portion of child

care costs). Statutes in these states refer to parenting

time and responsibility determinations and strive to

find a solution that best reflects the sharing of parent-

ing, with each parent making a meaningful contribu-

tion to the child’s well-being. The courts may require

or at least solicit parenting plans to be submitted by

each parent, to increase the parents’ involvement in

decision making and to help the parents focus on the

needs of the child and the long-term commitment to

shared parenting. The courts may order mediation or

some other form of dispute resolution to attempt to

provide the family with a nonadversarial method for

resolving the question of how this coparenting will

occur, presently and as the children grow older.

The Role of the Psychologist

Psychologists’ participation in these matters began

with therapists offering opinions to the courts about a

child’s needs or wishes, or an adult client’s presumed

fitness to parent. The other parent in such matters

soon discovered the value of obtaining expert testi-

mony to rebut that of the therapist and would take the

child to another therapist in search of helpful testi-

mony. The emergence of dueling experts soon bur-

dened the court with trying to determine which expert

opinion seemed to have more credibility or to deserve

greater weight. Before long, both psychologists and

judges recognized the value of a court-appointed

expert serving in a neutral role to assess the parents

and children in the matter, in order to investigate the

claims of each parent about the parenting capacity of

the other parent or the child’s needs or wishes.

Between the mid-1970s and late 1980s, it became

increasingly common to see court-appointed custody

evaluators taking the place of testifying therapists in

these matters. It is now well accepted that the therapist

may have limited data on which to base actual recom-

mendations regarding parenting time or responsibility.

Comprehensive Evaluation

of Parental Responsibility

When disputes about parenting time and responsibility

are not resolved by early interventions, such as having

each parent propose a parenting plan, mediating the

areas in dispute, and working to resolve issues through

other forms of intervention, the next step is the court-

ordered child custody or parenting responsibility eval-

uation. Since the more benign matters are resolved

through these lower levels of contention, what remains

for the custody evaluator are the most intransigent mat-

ters. These often involve allegations of sexual abuse of

a child; alienation by one parent of the child’s affec-

tions toward the other parent; allegations of domestic

violence; or requests by one parent to relocate, with the

child, to another city or state or even, in some matters,

a different country. These difficult cases may be

referred by the court for a comprehensive custody

evaluation or evaluation of parental responsibility.

The comprehensive evaluation may take place over

several weeks or even months. The process is preceded

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