Working with Intractable Post-Separation Contact Difficulty Between Child and Parent

What is it about?

A subgroup of intractable families, in which a child refuses postseparation contact with a parent, perplexes and frustrates professionals who work with them. This article discusses the underlying forces that drive the family’s intractability, as well as guidelines for working with the family. The guidelines include specific court orders developed from the very beginning of the case that elaborate the court’s stance about goals and expectations for the family, along with specialized individual and family therapies that are undertaken within a framework of planned collaboration with the court. The collaborative team of legal and mental health professionals works in an innovative and active way to structure, support, and monitor the family’s progress inresolving the resist/refuse dynamic.

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Why is it important?

The families in which a child resists or refuses post-separation contact with a parent is an increasingly prevalent problem involving complex issues for the mental health clinicians and the legal professionals from whom they seek help.

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