Impact of Mental Illness on Parenting Capacity in A Child Custody Matter

• Date: 01 January 2016
• Author: Jeremy Clyman,Robin M. Deutsch
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12201
• Published date: 01 January 2016

IMPACT OF MENTAL ILLNESS ON PARENTING CAPACITY IN A

CHILD CUSTODY MATTER

Robin M. Deutsch and Jeremy Clyman

Recently, courts have seen an increase in cases where a parent has an alleged or documented mental illness. Understanding

whether there is a mental illness and what the symptoms are and determining the meaning of this information for parenting

and child functioning present a host of challenges for judges, custody evaluators, and attorneys. We offer an example of a cus-

tody evaluator’s inquiry and present a functional-contextual model for considering the significant parental capacities and vul-

nerabilities that impact child functioning, in order to better make decisions about parent access and treatment.

Practitioner Keypoints:

Understand how to effectively integrate mental health information into matters of custody

Identify parenting and co-parenting tasks and behaviors that may be affected by mental illness

Identify parenting capacities that are linked to child outcomes

Review a step-by-step decision-making process to effectively examine allegations of mental illness during a custody

evaluation or dispute

Keywords: Custody Evaluation; Mental Illness; Parenting; Parenting Capacity; Separation and Divorce; and Substance

Abuse.

INTRODUCTION

Divorcing parents often present a custody evaluator with allegations of unstable behavior by the

other parent. These allegations may include a parent reporting that their therapist or a mental health

expert witness has diagnosed their spouse as “borderline,” (a disgruntled parent reporting that the

other parent “gets really panicked ... all the time ... I think the children are in danger”). Allegations

also include a parent reporting that s/he read on the Internet about psychopaths and “clearly he has

an antisocial personality disorder.” Some parents come in with a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual:

Mental Disorders (DSM; American Psychiatric Association, 1952, 2013) diagnosis description

printed from the Internet. In other cases, parents come to a custody evaluation with a diagnosis from

a psychiatric evaluation, psychiatric hospitalization, or psychological testing. How should such men-

tal health diagnostic information be considered in a custody evaluation context? This article will dis-

cuss a model for assessing the impact of mental illness on parenting.

While parenting and parental mental health are clearly linked, they are also linked to the develop-

mental stage of the child, the sociocultural context, the timing of onset and episodes, and child fac-

tors such as temperament (Anthony & Cohler, 1987; Oyserman et al., 2000; Rutter & Quinton, 1984;

Scherer, Melloh, Buyck, Anderson & Foster, 1996). Some children are resilient and do well, while

others are more at risk. Children of mentally ill parents have more behavior problems, increased sub-

stance abuse, anxiety, attention deficits, lower levels of social competence, and poorer cognitive per-

ceptions and attributions than children of parents without a psychiatric diagnosis (Beardslee,

Versage, & Gladstone, 1998; Benjet, Azar, & Ruesten-Hogan, 2003; Rutter & Quinton, 1984;

Scherer et al., 1996). Children with personality-disordered parents are more likely to have emotional,

behavioral, and conduct disturbances than those children without a psychiatrically diagnosed parent.

These children are also more likely to suffer from disruptive behaviors when mothers were diagnosed

Correspondence: clymanj@gmail.com

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 54 No. 1, January 2016 29–38

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C2016 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts