Introduction to Challenges in Child Therapy During Parental Separation
Child therapists work with children and adolescents coping with a myriad of life stressors, but one of the most challenging experiences is working with a child coping with parental separation and divorce. Often child therapists refuse to add such a client to their caseload or end up referring them to a therapist who specializes in divorce cases, due to the complexities involved in providing treatment to the child and their family. This article will discuss the complications, challenges, considerations, and recommendations for therapists who work with children and adolescents coping with parental separation, with the hope that it will increase clinicians’ willingness to provide such services and provide more options for treatment.
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When a child is referred for therapy related to parental separation or divorce, the child therapist in most situations can often expect a multitude of issues that warrant additional and intentional treatment planning.
Engaging Parents and Handling Complexities
It is often a challenging task to engage clients’ parents in parent training and encourage compliance with recommendations provided by the therapist. This becomes more complicated if the parents are separated or divorced, and do not share an amicable co-parenting relationship. Couples divorce due to issues ranging from mild conflict to abusive behaviors, but more than often it is also due to not having shared ideals and values. Such parents then often struggle to co-parent post-separation or divorce, as it becomes difficult for them to put the child’s needs first, and ahead of their own feelings towards the other parent. Consequently, many divorced parents struggle to agree even on small decisions like which elementary school the child will attend, to bigger life decisions such as the child’s engagement in religious practices.
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It is not uncommon for divorced parents to struggle with basic conversations; at times, they may avoid even being in the same room as their ex-partner. In these cases, separate sessions with each parent may be needed. This extra time not only increases the child therapist’s workload but requires them to spend additional time on planning how to handle the intricacies of the case. This is often the biggest deterrent for child therapists when it comes to saying yes to working with a child coping with their parent’s divorce.
Therapist’s Role and Emotional Challenges
Working with children in any capacity is satisfying and meaningful, but it is also complex and emotionally exhausting. Taking on a case involving a separation or divorce requires additional emotional investment. Hence many child therapists avoid taking on such cases to prevent further burnout, which is a real consequence in the mental health field. In addition, working with children and adolescents coping with separation and divorce requires the therapist to be experienced, skilled, and trained in this area. Children dealing with the aftermath of divorce clearly struggle in several aspects of their lives, and an inexperienced therapist might struggle to provide adequate treatment and support. It is easy to get caught up in the conflict between parents, side with one parent or another, or feel frustrated with parents’ noncompliance with recommendations.
Strategies for Effective Therapy
For child therapists who are willing and ready to work with children in families of divorce, struggling with a divorce settlement, it can be helpful to be mindful of the following considerations:
- The therapist needs to have awareness of their own views and beliefs about marriage and divorce. Divorce is a topic that is no longer considered taboo in most communities, but is still a sensitive issue in certain religions and cultures. In addition, therapists may have their own experiences of going through divorce, either as an adult or a child. The therapist needs to not only be culturally sensitive, but also cognizant of not imposing their own values and religious beliefs on the client. An inability to separate one’s ideals and values during the therapy session could cause the therapist to make their client feel uncomfortable and lose their client’s trust, ultimately leading the family to question the therapist’s recommendations or discontinue services.
- Another consideration that the child therapist needs to factor in is consistency. Children and adolescents coping with divorce more than often require long-term treatment due to the complexities and changes in their lives that act as stressors. Such children and teenagers take longer than usual to feel comfortable in the therapeutic relationship with their therapist. Time and again it has been observed that children often struggle with trust and emotional safety after their parents’ separation or divorce. Trusting another adult following a life-altering event requires additional time and support. A child therapist taking on such a case would need to ensure that they can provide long-term services to the client. Unforeseen circumstances could occur in anyone’s life, but the child therapist needs to ensure that they are doing everything in their capacity to prevent the termination of services with the client. If the therapeutic relationship must end, care must be taken to appropriately prepare the child for termination and process related feelings, find an appropriate referral, and facilitate transfer sessions with the new therapist to ease the transition.
- Divorce is not a single event, but a long, drawn-out process that emotionally drains every individual involved in the process. Most often the tensions and conflicts have existed long before the actual divorce proceedings, and continue to exist after the settlement as well. The children involved in such proceedings on most occasions do not have an understanding of the events and lack information, as their parents want to shield and protect them. This causes the children to feel confused and have mixed feelings regarding the experiences and events that unfold. The child therapist must be cautious of these factors starting from the assessment phase through the completion of treatment.
- Creating a safe space in the therapy room for the child is the most significant task for the child therapist. The child would require at least one place where conflicts and tensions do not exist, and they can be their authentic selves. The child therapist should strive to make the therapy room that place for the child. The therapist can use the therapeutic relationship with the child to succeed in reaching the treatment goals. In order to ensure emotional well-being, the therapist needs to discuss confidentiality with the child and each of the parents. Many divorce cases would require the therapist to engage in communication with attorneys and this can often be an anxiety-provoking experience. The therapist can consult their supervisor or colleagues and ensure that they avoid making recommendations to protect the therapeutic relationship.
- Much like the child client, the child therapist can often feel caught between the separated parents due to ongoing conflicts that unfold during treatment. This can be more prominent in high-conflict divorce cases where each parent might want the therapist to be their ally, and eventually support them in their legal arguments. It is crucial for the therapist to not take any sides and appear as a neutral party to each parent. At times, the child therapist might end up feeling like they are walking on a tightrope where they are required to support the parent but also be able to confront them on issues that need to be addressed. Understanding each parent’s personality, needs, strengths, and support system is an important step in providing quality therapy services and supporting the parent. The divorced parents might have contrasting ideas on parenting and the therapist might feel like they are acting as a mediator to the parents. These situations can become tricky and to avoid that slippery slope, the child therapist would be required to have firm boundaries with both parents. It may be necessary to refer parents to a co-parenting therapist, mediator, or therapist to assist with needs getting met.
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Importance of Self-Care for Therapists
Therapists working with any population are encouraged to engage in self-care due to the high rates of burnout in the helping professions. However, child therapists working with children and families with a divorce background need to take additional care due to the heartbreak involved in such cases. The child therapist needs to address their own unresolved issues related to divorce before taking on cases with divorce backgrounds. If the child therapist has experienced similar issues to that of their child client or either of the parents, countertransference could take place. Even if the therapist has resolved such past issues, they need to continue to be mindful of their words and actions in the therapy room with divorced clients to avoid impairments in the therapy process. To address countertransference, the therapist needs to engage in self-reflection, work with a supervisor, or consult with colleagues and have their therapist.
Watching children make sense of their families changing, to getting used to living in two homes and not being able to spend time with their parents when they desire, can become emotionally overwhelming. In addition, the court system itself can traumatize families, increase adversarial communication, and leave the therapist (and child) feeling out of control. Child therapist needs to have their own social support to navigate the many challenges that follow when one is working with children and adolescents coping with divorce. These children are among those who need additional help and support but often are the ones who end up on waitlists for long due to child therapists avoiding such complicated cases and their hesitance to get involved with court proceedings.
References
Rich, Edna, Letitia Butler-Kruger, and Nicolette Roman. 2023. “Exploring Strategies to Support Adolescent Mental Health after Parental Divorce: A Scoping Review” Youth 3, no. 1: 428-436. https://doi.org/10.3390/youth3010029
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