Responding to Severe Parent–Child Rejection Cases Without a Parentectomy: A Blended Sequential Intervention Model and the Role of the Courts

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12496
• Author: Tom Altobelli,Linda Popielarczyk,Shely Polak
• Date: 01 April 2020
• Published date: 01 April 2020

RESPONDING TO SEVERE PARENT–CHILD REJECTION CASES

WITHOUT A PARENTECTOMY: A BLENDED SEQUENTIAL

INTERVENTION MODEL AND THE ROLE OF THE COURTS

†

Shely Polak, Tom Altobelli, and Linda Popielarczyk

There have been significant developments over the past two decades that have expanded our understanding of the dynamics

of parent–child contact problems post-separation, which have resulted in some changes in judicial processes to respond to

these cases. One significant advancement is a more sophisticated differentiation of the nature and severity of contact prob-

lems, which better assists legal and mental health professionals to provide more suitable legal and clinical interventions.

However, the issue of innovative court processes has received limited attention. The authors describe a subgroup of families

within the “severe”category, for whom an expanded intervention model, referred to as a Blended Sequential Intervention is

proposed. This approach involves a reversal of carewith court mandated therapeutic support for the rejected parent and child,

but also involves the favored parent in the therapeutic plan from the outset, and is intended to avoid a permanent “parent-

ectomy”of the child from either parent. The authors discuss how the courts should respond to these cases, and posit that until

all therapeutic treatments are exhausted, interim orders should be preferred to final determinations, and judges should main-

tain oversight. The authors discuss the critical role of judicial leadership in working with lawyers and mental health profes-

sionals to manage and address the issues in these high conflict cases.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

Authors provide a review of the state of the research literature with respect to differentiation and available treatment

approaches for resist-refuse contact cases.

Authors propose the use of the Blended Sequential Model, an innovative clinical model developed for severe cases

of resist-refuse dynamics.

Authors describe the important role of judicial leadership in resist/refuse contact cases.

Authors argue the need to develop heterodox models of interim judicial decision making in resist-refuses cases.

Keywords: Alienation; Clinical Treatment; Court Processes; Judges; Parent–Child Relations; Reunification Therapy; Sepa-

ration/Divorce.

I. INTRODUCTION

Over the last 20 years, there have been significant clinical and research developments in the field

of parent–child contact problems, also commonly referred to as resist-refuse dynamics (Walters &

Friedlander, 2016), or, the more controversial term, “parental alienation.”Advances include a richer,

more comprehensive and nuanced understanding on the differentiation of contact problems along a

spectrum by type and severity, with consideration to etiology and/or underlying contributing factors,

assessment of the dynamic, and the available clinical and legal treatment approaches.

Clinically, there has been an increase in the number of innovative therapeutic approaches

developed in attempt to ameliorate parent–child contact issues presenting with mild clinical fea-

tures to those cases characterized by a number of factors including severe alienating behavior on

the part of a parent and alienation of the child. Since the publication of the previous Special

Issue of the Family Court Review (2010), devoted to parent–child contact problems, significant

Corresponding: shely.polak@utoronto.ca

†

This paper was written for and published in the context of continuing professional education only. Any and all views

expressed are expressed in an academic nature rather than judicial capacity.

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 58 No. 2, April 2020 507–524

© 2020 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

effort has been made to develop better interventions (Baker & Sauber, 2013; Garber, 2015;

Greenberg, Fidler, & Saini, 2019; Judge et al., 2016; Judge & Deutsch, 2016; Smith, 2016;

Walters & Friedlander, 2016). In practice there is variation between clinicians in the extent to

which all members of the family system are involved in the interventions. The approaches have

been interchangeably referred to by many names including “reintegration therapy”(RT),

“reunification therapy,”“multi-faceted family therapy,”“multi-modal family therapy,”“reconcili-

ation ther apy,”and “therapy for the intractable resist/refuse dynamic”(Polak, 2019). The clinical

interventions employed vary from family-based approaches to dyadic parent–child interventions

in both outpatient (i.e. weekly office visits) and multi-day intensive formats, which require a resi-

dential component (Polak & Moran, 2017).

Given the current climate highlighting the importance of evidence based and/or empirically

supported treatments, the field has also seen more evaluations of treatment and other intervention

(Reay, 2015; Saini, 2019; Saini & Deutsch, 2016; Templer, Matthewson, Haines, & Cox, 2017;

Toren et al., 2013; Warshak, 2019).

These significant clinical and research developments have influenced how courts respond to

resist-refuse contact cases. Specialized family courts are increasingly accepting the need for early

focused intervention in these cases; embracing the benefits of close collaboration with social sci-

ence experts and mental health professionals; adopting a single judge case management approach

where possible; exploring the use of different processes, including less-adversarial court processes,

if possible; and starting to provide judicial education on resist-refuse dynamics. While there is more

work to be done by those responsible for the family courts, it is important to remember that family

courts confront a panoply of challenging issues daily in relation to children, only one of which is

resist-refuse contact, and most family courts lack adequate resources.

For cases where there are parent–child contact problems that fall within the “severe”category,

courts may order a reversal of custody, and direct (or facilitate) that a child and rejected parent

attend a multi-day intensive intervention, along with a suspension of contact with the favored par-

ent. Cases where a reversal in custody is proposed, historically and presently, have been viewed as

controversial, identified by Justice Preston of the Supreme Court of British Columbia as posing a

“stark dilemma”for the courts.

1

Social media and recent literature have portrayed the court-ordered

removal of a child from the favored parent into the custody of the rejected parent and the associated

clinical treatments as unsafe, dangerous, unethical and often traumatic for the children and family

(Mercer, 2019a, 2019b; Schmidt, 2019; Tabachnik, 2017). Reversal of custody, especially if it

involves terminating contact with an alienating parent, is one of many hotly debated issues in this

specificfield of study and practice, with diametrically opposed and polarized views about its appro-

priateness as a legal and clinical remedy in these cases.

While advances have been made, cases of severe rejection of a parent continue to challenge

legal and mental health professionals who struggle with how to manage and improve the strained

parent–child and familial relationships. These families exhibit “high conflict dynamics”charac-

terized by high levels of anger, hostility, distrust, discordant co-parenting, personality disorders

in one or both of the parents, strained parent–child/familial relationships and involvement in pro-

tracted litigation. Recent reports have indicated cases involving parent–child contact problems

are responsible for about 80% of the most intransigent cases appearing before family courts

(Hill, 2016).

This paper reviews the current social science literature on the differentiation of parent–child con-

tact problems and treatment approaches. Particular attention is paid to the subgroup of families that

fall within the “severe”category, with the authors proposing an innovative blended sequential treat-

ment approach. We also address the issue of the most appropriate court processes for these cases,

particularly the challenges at the “interim”stages, and also the need in some of these very high con-

flict cases to delay making a “final”order until various interventions have been tried. We argue that

whenever possible, the objective of the court process should be to promote a healthy relationship

between the child and both parents, and avoid indefinitely excluding one parent from the child’s life,

508 FAMILY COURT REVIEW