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

• Author: Inge Bretherton,Stephen Seligman,Judith Crowell,Jennifer McIntosh,Judith Solomon
• Published date: 01 July 2011
• Date: 01 July 2011
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-1617.2011.01391.x

“IF I COULD TELLTHE JUDGE SOMETHING ABOUT

ATTACHMENT. . . .” PERSPECTIVESON ATTACHMENT

THEORY INTHE FAMILY LAW COURTROOM

Inge Bretherton, Stephen Seligman, Judith Solomon, Judith Crowell, and Jennifer McIntosh

This article gathers diverse attachment specialists in a far reaching conversation about the utility of attachment assessment

and theory for complex family law decision making, and reflections on the thorny question, “If I were the judge ...?” Inge

Bretherton, Professor Emerita, Developmental Psychology at Wisconsin University, is one of a few attachment researchers in

the Bowlby/Ainsworth tradition to have completed studies in the divorce field. Seligman, a psychoanalyst and clinical

psychologist, Solomon, a clinical psychologist and researcher, and Crowell, professor of psychiatry and psychology, take on

some large controversies, and offer well over 100 years combined experience of applying attachment knowledge in complex

family matters.

Keywords: attachment theory;divorce;judicial decision making;family court

ATTACHMENT APPLICATIONS IN COURT:WEIGHING THE EVIDENCE

McIntosh: From your experience as clinical researchers and therapists who work extensively with

divorced families, to what extent does attachment theory assist you with evaluation processes? In

making your recommendations, how confidently do you put your weight on these attachmentconcepts,

and how confident do you want a judge to be about that?

Bretherton: The existing attachment research on normative populations is very good, and advanc-

ing all the time in its sophistication. However, it has always been disappointing to me that there are not

many attachment researchers who are interested in this question of attachment in family law matters.

McIntosh: I hope this Edition stimulates some research appetites, as family law remains a very

neglected area of attachment research. What this means in the courtroom is that the validity of

attachment measures and research for custody matters is challenged, and on that basis, adversarial

lawyers can liberally attack one side’s argument about the child’s attachment needs.

Bretherton: The question about whether attachment theory is valid for divorceI find a little strange,

to be honest. The problem is that arguments about validity are often raised disingenuously with the

intent to bias a court’s decision in the desired direction. I did give evidence in the court in divorce

cases a few times, but gave up after I found that lawyers and parents tended to want you to say what

they wanted to hear in order to obtain more time with the child or to score points against the other

parent. They seemed less interested to establish some impartial, basic understanding of the situation

from an attachment perspective. One of the problems is this: expert witnesses are often hired by the

parents or lawyers after they havebeen assessed to make sure they are going to support the arguments

the lawyers/parents want to make. If expert witnesses were,instead, retained by the court as providers

of impartial information, the situation would be entirely different. As it stands, how would the judge

know to what extent the expert witness has been vetted to make sure he or she says “the right thing”

during court proceedings. This does not mean that the expert witness is lying, but this prior vetting

may nevertheless bias what arguments he or she brings up in court. In one case in which I acted in the

expert witness role, I was asked a few very pertinent questions by the judge that may have influenced

Correspondence: ibrether@wisc.edu; stephen.seligman@ucsf.edu; juasolomon@gmail.com; Judith.Crowell@stonybrook.edu;

mcintosh@familytransitions.com.au

FAMILY COURT REVIEW,Vol. 49 No. 3, July 2011 539–548

© 2011 Association of Familyand Conciliation Cour ts