Indeed, everything that remains unacknowledged regarding the relation's characteristics will inevitably be transferred and projected on to the parenting dimension, with the consequent and unavoidable involvement of the children. Only by working through the end of the couple bond, therefore, can the parenting dimension be relaunched Gennari et al. The work on James' and Mary's relation was made difficult by the fact that the partners' experience of mourning and loss has particular characteristics: in fact, it is a bereavement where the object is alive and often very present in the real lives of the partners Losso, This amplifies conflictual feelings and affections activated by the separation event.
On the one hand, the partners are called upon to assume specific responsibilities. This entails feeling part of the history and events that led to the end of the relation that resulted from their own principal modalities of living, acting, and investing in the relation. The goal is to abandon a vision fixated on one's own pain and the lived experience of having suffered an injustice in order to reach a position of shared fragility and responsibility.
On the other hand, one must be able to acknowledge the good received from the other and the relation Cigoli and Scabini, In this way, in one's relational experience it becomes possible to acknowledge not only the other partner's debts toward oneself but also the credits as a way of offsetting losses and suffering. Thus, the separation relation can find closure with the perception of co-responsibility, and not only of failure. This is primarily an ethical matter that has to do with the feeling of injustice invoked by both partners at the beginning of the child custody evaluation and makes it possible to put into perspective the experience of being wronged and one's demands for reparation from the other partner.
If this does not happen, an unnecessarily persecutory, fragmentary, damaging, and disintegrative approach will prevail, and the conditions for an attack on the family's relations overall, and not only on the martial bond, will take shape. James' and Mary's story exemplifies this aspect: the escalation of violence is the outcome of the non-comprehension of the relation's failure; it is the cipher of the impossibility of accepting that the other has not been able to satisfy one's needs and requests since the beginning of the relation.
In fact, themes of loss and quite significant narcissistic wounds emerge preventing the separation Losso, In the clinical work with James and Mary present together, the aim is to share the affective dependency that characterized both spouses, although in different ways. Moreover, the possibility of putting into perspective the idealized representation that each one has constructed of the other's role is explored: with James, this involves putting into perspective his expectations of Mary as wife and mother so that he can revisit and possibly recuperate the relationship with his own mother, but also so that he can adopt a position of greater acceptance of Mary's characteristics and modalities.
With Mary it is important to put into perspective the salvific omnipotence constantly required of James as husband and father. An additional aspect that allows the couple to work in terms of reflection and personal development is each partner's desire to be able to protect and care for the children. It is precisely for the good of the children that the parents are able to move beyond their marital strife and become involved and motivated in the work of discussion and change with respect to themselves.
The child is often of such immense value that it becomes possible to discuss even very solid and rigid relational positions and modalities: the child enables the parents to tune into an object other than their own pain; the child's struggles and needs are more legitimate than those of the other spouse and sometimes even than one's own.
In fact, the child is the possibility of an opening onto a different future, one that is more positive, and this often motivates the parents to make efforts and pursue goals that are unthinkable if they are focused only on themselves.
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In short, the child can be an important engine for personal change. But children, as Lemaire emphasizes, constitute a living testimony of the other parent's presence and make it impossible to erase all traces of the relation, as the partners wish they could do. In this regard, discussion with James addresses his operative competence in the relation with his children, his capacity for containment and control, but also the absence of a more affective and supportive parental component.
This explains the children's fear of him and their jealousy toward his companion, whom they see as receiving all their father's attention and affection. Moreover, James's difficulties tolerating and, as a result, valorizing at least partially his children's mother are discussed. This aspect also becomes crucial for interrupting the relational dynamic that characterizes the oldest child who, in order to protect his mother, has rigidified into a position of rejection and defiance toward his father.
Work with Mary focuses for a long time on how her unstable emotivity involves her children who participate excessively and directly in her malaise and fragility. Her dysfunctional involvement in the conflicts of her husband's family is also problematic since it foments the conflict with her children's father.
As a parent, she needs to focus on relational and child-rearing modalities with her children that are less confusing and more evenhanded. Thus, space is made for the children to find in their mother an autonomous and solid parental figure, able to guide and protect them, interrupting Mary's current dynamic in which she is experienced and perceived by her children as a peer in need of protection.
It is precisely in the presence of both parents that it becomes possible, in a setting of cooperative work, to delineate the children's needs, needs that in the first place point to the importance of the joint exercise of parental functions Emery, Indeed, some studies have emphasized that the negative effects of divorce as well as of violent behavior between partners on children's adjustment could be mediated by stable and cooperative co-parenting, which reduced the perceived parental distress Molgora et al.
The aim of the present contribution was to present a clinical model of intervention with divorced couples experiencing IPV in the context of the child custody evaluation. Professionals often use traditional work modalities with no adjustment made for the presence of violence Saunders, We believe, instead, that in these situations it is important to design a specific intervention that makes it possible, first of all, to evaluate what type of violence is present in the couple Kelly and Johnson, and then to work not only in order to eliminate the violent behavior, but also to transform family relations in a more radical way.
Indeed, bonds cannot be dissolved and erased, but only transformed Cigoli and Scabini, and so, even if the partners are no longer a married couple, they will be a parental couple forever.
The goal of this intervention is to make each parent an active protagonist able to collaborate, support, trust, and legitimize each other in their parental role. This process of acknowledgment and legitimization of the other is possible only by working to strengthen capacities for mentalization and reflective functioning Aschieri et al. This increase the possibility that the partners will acknowledge their own part of the responsibility for the conflict and the violence, and thus initiate actions aimed at a constructive management of the conflict itself, finding the resources needed to care for the children.
We know, in fact, that divorce, especially in its more conflictual and violent forms, often risks creating a family scenario in which suffering, reciprocal annihilation, and demands made between the spouses saturate every space, leaving in the background the children's developmental needs and requirements.
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In this scenario, a crucial role is played by the dimension of time. In the clinical work, in fact, the consultant, in addition to considering the present, also focuses on the past historical dimension and the future. In particular, the future does not only have to do with possible family configurations after the divorce but also with the developmental trajectories of the children involved in the separation.
Identifying spaces for change in the parent-child relations and the adoption of future scenarios centered on the children's needs and requirements becomes a primary objective in this intervention model. This is what happened in the story of James and Mary where both, precisely due to the work of assessment described above, were able to move beyond reciprocally vindictive relational modalities centered on their own childhood needs to collaborative and more reflective modalities oriented principally toward responding to their children's needs. Such a problematic situation required that both partners move away from their reciprocal aggressive and violent relation and concentrate together on the need to help and support their children.
From this perspective, it became possible for James to spontaneously undertake a path of personal psychotherapy, and, at the end of the child custody evaluation, both parents agreed to be involved in a joint program of parenting support. This outcome well represents the act of justice that both partners must institute and pursue to give a new reason for hope and redemption to their family relations. Despite the innovative focus of this method, it presents some limitation.
In particular, the work method presented reveals itself to be useful in those specific situations of violence that erupt from the post-separation event and which, therefore, are not prevalent in the couple relationship. The method also showed a certain efficacy in situations of reciprocal violence, even if in different forms and intensities between the partners, as long as these are not extreme situations that put the partners' lives at risk.
This assessment proposal has not been sufficiently tested in cases of extreme forms of violence or in situations in which one partner is clearly dominated and victimized by the other. Therefore, in these situations, the proposed assessment method cannot be considered reliable and effective. The written informed consent form is prepared according to the national law on the processing of personal sensitive data and privacy, pursuant to Article 10 of Law no. This was given to the parents by the clinician at the beginning of the child custody evaluation process, for the collection and processing of data for research and scientific dissemination purposes.
MG contributed to the writing of the manuscript's clinical case paragraphs. GT supervised the entire manuscript. SM contributed to the writing of the manuscript's first five paragraphs. All authors reviewed and approved manuscript for publication. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Front Psychol v. Front Psychol. Published online Aug Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer.
Received Apr 13; Accepted Jul The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author s and the copyright owner s are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. DOCX 12K. PDF K. Keywords: intimate partner violence, separation, divorce, child custody evaluation, relational-intergenerational approach, therapeutic assessment, single case. Violence and divorce Research has focused on risk factors for violence within the couple relationship, and many variables have been analyzed as predictive of violent behaviors e.
Violence and child custody evaluation Child custody evaluation makes it possible to obtain a clinical space within a social-judicial mandate aimed at the parental couple in order to reorganize the family relations after a separation in the best way possible Gennari et al. These are situations in which the violence has the following characteristics: It is a temporary behavior and is specifically connected to the separation event; thus, it has not always characterized the couple relation.
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These are cases in which both partners are, at least in part, both victims and perpetrators; It is a behavior that does not assume the most extreme forms of violence, at least in the partners' intentions, or else the intention of eliminating the other partner never arises. Proposal of a model for work with violent couples in child custody evaluations In what way can a process of parenting assessment be considered a possible preliminary clinical intervention with the couple, in situations with IPV? Within this work model, assessment consists of a multi-dimensional investigation comprised of three different levels: the production of information on an individual level through an evaluation of the parents' representations, thoughts, and feelings; the production of information on an interpersonal level through an investigation of the different relations: that between the partners, of each parent with the children, of the parental couple with the children, and of the entire family system.
The principle focus of CGI is: the meanings of the partners' choices, the aims of the couple relationship, the outcome of the relation in regard to meeting each partner's needs and desires, the impact on the couple of disillusion regarding the unsuccessful relational outcomes, and each partner's coping with the couple's relational failure; discussion and dialogue with the parental couple about findings. Evaluating and treating couple violence through the child custody evaluation: the case of james and mary Each partner signed the written informed consent form given by the clinician at the beginning of the child custody evaluation process for the processing of data for research and scientific dissemination purposes.
The first assessment level: individual characteristics of each partner Literature underscores the importance of intrapersonal variables in the study and understanding of violent behavior. The second assessment level: the nature and characteristics of the couple relation The second level of assessment aims to identify the characteristics and quality of a violent couple relationship, beyond the partners' individual differences.
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The third assessment level: the search for resources for abandoning violent relational modalities and achieving the marital separation The information gathered with the prior assessment levels allows us to capture the specific meanings of the violence in James' and Mary's story. Conclusion The aim of the present contribution was to present a clinical model of intervention with divorced couples experiencing IPV in the context of the child custody evaluation.
Author contributions MG contributed to the writing of the manuscript's clinical case paragraphs. Conflict of interest statement The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Click here for additional data file. References Aschieri F. Factor structure invariance and discriminant validity of the Self-Curiosity Attitude-Interest scale.
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Patterns of intimate partner violence in a large, epidemiological sample of divorcing couples. Child affected by parental relationship distress. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 55 , — Violence 32 , — A systematic review of risk factors for Intimate Partner Violence. Partner Abuse 3 , — The roots of intimate partner violence.