Journal of Family Studies

ISSN: 1322-9400 (Print) 1839-3543 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjfs20

A Child-Centered Approach to High-Conflict

and Domestic-Violence Families: Differential
⋆
Assessment and Interventions

Janet R. Johnston

To cite this article: Janet R. Johnston (2006) A Child-Centered Approach to High-Conflict and
⋆
Domestic-Violence Families: Differential Assessment and Interventions , Journal of Family
Studies, 12:1, 15-35

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.5172/jfs.327.12.1.15

Published online: 17 Dec 2014.

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 A Child-Centered Approach to High-Conflict and
Domestic-Violence Families: Differential Assessment and
Interventions*

Janet R. Johnston
Justice Studies Department, San Jose State University, California

This paper discusses the extent of violence in high-conflict litigating

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families, differentiating between abusive relationships and high-

conflict divorce, and describing the numerous ways that parenting
is deficient and compromised. Guidelines for making access plans
that minimise adverse effects on children, restrains further abuse,
and protects parents who have been victimised is followed by a
discussion of the specialised services needed, and the challenges in
coordinating the efforts of family court and community agencies
on behalf of these families.

Key Words: Domestic Violence; High-Conflict Divorce; Parent-Child Access

The family environment of highly conflicted, separated spouses is typified by their

distrust, fear, anger, bitterness, and blame of one another. They are unable to
communicate and cooperate over the care of the children. The shadow of past
domestic violence and the threat of its recurrence are common. Child abuse and
neglect are often alleged.
Why do former lovers reconstruct their image of each other and their
relationship with such enduring bitterness? To what extent are these allegations
well-founded, indications of family violence, and the correlates of chaotic and
dysfunctional family relationships? Or are they merely symptoms of spitefulness,
strategic ploys in the legal disputing? I suggest that this tangle of questions
encompasses the current debates over viewing these situations as being either parental
alienation or parental abuse. Judges, lawyers, therapists, and parents alike engage in
an endless search for facts that will prove, definitively, one way or another, that one

*Keynote address presented at the National Symposium on “Safe Transitions”: Managing Conflict and Responding to
Violence in Post-Separation Families, sponsored by Relationships Australia and Unifam Counselling & Mediation,
November 24th, 2005, Sydney, Australia.
Correspondence: Professor Janet R. Johnston, Justice Studies Department, San Jose State University, One Washington
Square, San Jose, CA 95192-0050. Tel: 1-408-924-2942; Fax 1-408-924-2953; Email: johnston@email.sjsu.edu

Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006, pp. 15-35 15
 Conference Paper - Janet R. Johnston

rather than the other answer is the “correct” one. There is less willingness to
concede that both real abuse and abiding distrust conspire together to compromise
parenting capacities in these families, with the result that these children are at
greatest risk from insidious forms of emotional maltreatment.
I will show that, in a significant proportion of cases, these negative views of
one another and the allegations of abuse have a clear basis in the facts of a spouse’s
violent, neglectful, substance abusing or criminal behaviour. These families have
been dysfunctional long before the couple separated, and the children have been
subjected to ongoing erratic and abusive care by at least one of their parents, many
of whom have personality disorders. Just as commonly, however, I will argue that
these extremely negative views can be exaggerated and emanate from the humiliation
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of rejection inherent in the divorce itself. The couple’s enmeshment also derives
from an inability to separate and realistically grieve the loss of the relationship.
Alternatively, their negative views follow from a traumatic separation experience
that has betrayed trust and shattered the couple’s previous sense of a shared reality.
At times their negative convictions have been wittingly or unwittingly co-
constructed with others in a social world that is now split by new partners, kin, and
professionals in a form of tribal warfare. The adversarial legal system provides
particularly fertile ground for these unrealistic perceptions, fostering blame and
entrenching disputes by reframing facts and sharply focusing on who is right,
competent, and good, and who is wrong, incompetent, and bad.
Legally and morally, family violence is violence and is abusive! There are no
acceptable excuses for abuse and no legal justification for violence (except self-
defense). However, when it comes to protecting and reconstituting family
relationships after separation and divorce, not all violence is the same. There is a
high prevalence and a wide range of domestic violence circumstances seen in
separating families with corresponding different implications for intervention:
• The risk of future violence and abuse, including lethal violence, varies. (Some
types of violence will stop immediately after the separation, others will continue
to haunt and threaten the family for years).
• ·Parents’ capacity to use mediation and counselling varies. (For some these
confidential forums are dangerous because the abuser is not made accountable
while the victim assumes blame and is further subjugated, whereas for others
carefully modified mediation and therapeutic practices can really help).
• The type of treatment needed varies. (For example, psychotropic medication,
substance abuse treatment, or batterer’s interventions may be indicated).
• The prognosis within treatment varies. (Some severely personality disordered
abusers will never change, or progress will be very limited; for others, real change
is possible.)
• Accordingly, child residence and access plans will need to vary.

16 Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006

 Domestive Violence: A Child-Centered Approach

Domestic violence varies in its frequency (ranging from chronic or intermittent

in some families to a one-time single incident reactive to the separation or divorce in
others). The purpose of the violence varies (for some it will be an expression of
impulsive rage, for others a conniving means of instrumental control, for some a
means of punishment, a way of exacting revenge, and for a few it is truly defensive).
The physical and mental state of the perpetrator varies: some violence co-occurs
with drug and alcohol abuse, for many it is the by-product of a personality or character
disorder, and for a small minority it is the consequence of a mental illness. The
social-cultural support for violence varies: chauvinism and male privilege authorise
the use of violence for those with more traditional sex-role views, backed up by
some fundamentalist religious beliefs; “spare the rod and spoil the child” philosophy
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is still widespread, and, unfortunately, physical coercion is widely accepted as a method

of resolving conflicts, and establishing one’s rights and status in many families. In
these communities, the family members actually have established rules on how and
when to hit and beat up on one another – particularly errant wives and children.

Differentiating Abusive Relationships from High Conflict Divorce

In sum, domestic violence is a multidimensional phenomenon and derives from
multiple causes about which victims’ advocates, ideologues, and scholars argue.After
about a decade of arguments back and forth about whether domestic violence can
be classified into various types – producing typologies of domestic violence, there is
more or less agreement between opposing camps that we should, at the very least,
be differentiating abusive relationships (also called intimate terrorism) from high-
conflict divorce relationships that may also involve violence (Dalton, 1999; Dalton,
Carbon, & Olesen, 2003; Jaffe, Crooks & Bala, 2005; Johnson, 1995; Johnson &
Ferraro, 2000; Johnston & Campbell, 1993; Johnston, 1999;Ver Steegh, 2005).
An abusive relationship is a pattern of control, domination, and humiliation
through the use of physical violence and threat of being hurt. It includes emotional
abuse: inducing fear for oneself and loved ones, attacks upon self-esteem and dignity,
signifying the degradation of the person. It may include sexual coercion and rape.
Control is often maintained by the abuser insisting on unilateral financial and other
decision-making, sole child-rearing authority, and socially isolating or restricting
the victim’s contacts with the outside world. After separation the abuser uses legal
disputes over the children to harass and punish.
High-conflict divorce is identified by ongoing disagreement over parenting,
mutual distrust, and blaming. Exchanges are marked by high hostility, verbal abuse,
and on occasion physically violent struggles.The distinctive feature is the refusal to
submit to one another’s rules, requests, or demands. In this respect, power is more
balanced: neither is particularly afraid or they tend to be similarly fearful of one
another. Intractable legal disputes are initiated by both parties.

Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006 17

 Conference Paper - Janet R. Johnston
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Figure 1. Parents’ allegations in custody-disputing families, showing percentage allegations of

child neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse, domestic violence, and other criminal
activity for abducting, litigating, and mediating families.

Parents’ Allegations in Custody-Disputing Families

Multiple, serious allegations of child neglect, sexual and physical abuse, domestic
violence, parental abuse of drugs and alcohol, and other criminal activity are typically
raised in litigating postseparation families. Figure 1 shows the percentage of parental
allegations in samples of abducting (n=50) and litigating (n=57) compared with a
Californian sample of mediating families (N=1,318). (See Depner, Cannata, & Simon,
1992; Johnston, Girdner, & Sagatun-Edwards, 1999).
The interesting question is to what extent can these allegations be substantiated?
What reliable evidence can be gleaned from the mutual finger-pointing and counter-
allegations of a “he-said-she-said” variety? Austin (2000) provided a number of
criteria one can use in assessing the credibility of domestic violence allegations.
• Objective verification (through police and medical reports, self admissions, or
eye witness accounts that provide specific information about the incident in its
context and the injuries sustained).
• The pattern of abuse complaints (including their frequency, severity, and timing
of the disclosures).

18 Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006

 Domestive Violence: A Child-Centered Approach

• Corroboration by neutral or credible third parties (like neighbors, teachers, the

abuser’s relatives, sitters, and expert witnesses).
• The absence of disconfirming reports from credible others (e.g., older siblings
and nonrelatives sharing the family home).
• The psychological status of the alleged abuser (i.e., diagnosis of a severe sociopathic
or mental illness like bipolar disorder, major depression, panic disorder,
schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance-abuse problems).
• The psychological status of the alleged victim (presence of reality-testing problems,
psychotic, paranoid or histrionic personality).
A particularly thorny assessment issue is dealing with allegations of mutual
violence, trying to figure out if there was a principal aggressor and whether the
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other party was essentially responding in defense (Neilson, 2004).Verbal accounts

are suspect because the victim tends to assume more blame. However, it is helpful
to obtain a detailed account of the event from each party separately to examine the
clarity, specificity, and plausibility of the incident (generally the perpetrator will
deny, minimise, obfuscate, and rationalise the abuse). It is also particularly useful to
examine the vocabulary of motives that are being used to explain why it happened
(typically the victim will use language that suggests the motivation was to please,
placate, self-protect, and avoid the confrontation, whereas the perpetrator’s apparent
motivation was to control or punish). The plausibility of their respective stories
needs to be considered in the context of the size and physical strength of each of
the parties and the existence of defensive wounds rather than aggressive wounds. In
these cases, it is also useful to inquire about the history of prior abuse and the
existence of prior protective orders against one party that might give a clue as to
who has been determined to be the aggressor in the past. However, beware of
differentiating the abuser from the victim based on who presents as the victim;
who is more charming, charismatic, and likeable; who appears more organised,
reasonable, and sensible; and who feels more entitled and morally outraged.
Sociopaths, narcissists, and chauvinists (who use violence for interpersonal control)
can make a very smooth presentation, whereas the victim can appear emotionally
distraught and disorganised.
So what does the research data tell us about the extent to which allegations
are substantiated? Here published data are limited. In one study of domestic violence
in custody-disputing families, Shaffer and Bala (2003) researched family law cases
in Canada in which written decisions were produced. Over a 3-year period, they
identified 42 recorded cases of spousal abuse alleged against men, 31 (74%) of
which were substantiated. Only two cases of spousal abuse against women were
identified, one of which was substantiated. In a second study by Johnston, Lee,
Olsen, and Walters (2005) of 120 custody disputing families in the San Francisco

Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006 19

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20

Conference Paper - Janet R. Johnston

Table 1 - Rates of Substantiation of Abuse in Child Custody Cases

Authors Sample Type of Abuse Against Against Either

Father Mother Parent

Shaffer & Bala (2003) N= 42; Canadian family law** Domestic violence 74% 1/2 —

Johnston et al. (2005) N=120 SF Bay Area custody+ Domestic violence 74% 50% —

Thoennes & Tjaden (1990) N=165; 11 US family courts Sexual 49% 42% —

Bala & Schuman (1999) N=4,770; Ontario, CPS* Physical & sexual 27% 10% —

N=196; Canadian family law** Physical & sexual — — 23%

Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006

Brown (2003) N=150; Australian CPS* Neglect, physical, sexual — — 22%

N=100; Australia project*** Neglect, physical, sexual — — 52%

Johnston et al. (2005) N=120; SF Bay Area custody+ Neglect, physical, sexual 26% 46% —
*CPS = child protection service investigations; **written decisions after trial; *** special pilot project referrals; + custody evaluations and counselling cases.
 Domestive Violence: A Child-Centered Approach

Bay Area, allegations of domestic violence were made predominantly against fathers
(about 2/3) and indeed were substantiated in 74% of the cases, whereas allegations
against a smaller proportion of mothers (almost 1/3) were substantiated in 50% of
the cases.
Studies of substantiated abuse have more often involved child sexual or physical
abuse that was subsequently investigated by child protective services and custody
evaluators.Thoennes and Tjaden (1990) researched 165 cases of custody and visitation
dispute with an allegation of sexual abuse in a 2-year period. This represented just
2% of custody and access files in this multi-jurisdictional study, the final data having
been collected from 11 cities spread across the US. They found that 49% of the
allegations made by mothers against fathers were perceived to be likely, and 42% of
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allegations made by fathers against mothers were judged as likely.

By contrast, the 1993 Ontario incidence study revealed that 9% of 42,000
physical and sexual abuse allegations involved separated parents (Bala & Schuman,
1999). Custodial mothers made two thirds of the allegations and noncustodial fathers
about one third. Child-protection workers substantiated 27% of allegations against
fathers and only 10% against mothers. In another Canadian study of 196 residence
and contact disputes that went to trial between 1990-98, Bala and Schuman found
that only 23% of alleged sexual and physical abuse were substantiated by a judicial
written decision on the basis of the “balance of probabilities” (the civil standard).
Two Australian studies by Brown (2003) expanded the research inquiry to
include substantiation of neglect as well as physical, sexual, and emotional abuse of
the child. Interestingly, in her first study of a random sample of 150 residence and
contact disputes from two jurisdictions where allegations of child abuse had been
made, 22% were substantiated. In Brown’s second study, involving 100 families
with more serious allegations referred to the Magellan Project (designed to manage
these cases across different court systems), 52% were substantiated. Finally, in a
study of 120 San Francisco Bay Area cases undergoing child custody evaluation,
Johnston et al (2005), found that although more child abuse and neglect allegations
were made by mothers against fathers than vice versa, 46% of the allegations were
substantiated against mothers and just 26% were substantiated against fathers. As
shown in Figure 2, the overall findings of this study were that on average about one
half of the concerns about domestic violence, substance abuse, child neglect and
abuse raised in high-conflict families litigating custody are likely to have some basis
in fact, indicating serious problems that need to be addressed and not dismissed as
merely indicators of a highly conflicted divorce. Moreover, in about one fourth of
these cases, abuse allegations were substantiated for both the mother and the father
within the same family. If these data are correct estimates of incidence, there are
sobering implications of these findings for social policy, court intervention, mediation,
and counselling services.

Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006 21

 Conference Paper - Janet R. Johnston
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Figure 2. Rates of substantiation of allegations of child abuse, adult abuse, and all abuse made by
mothers and fathers (N=120) in a Californian study (Johnston et al., 2005).

Parenting Problems in High Conflict and

Violent Separating Families
Domestic Violence Abusers are at Higher Risk for Child Abuse
Physical abuse and coercive control of their children are common tactics of
perpetrators in abusive relationships, as are erratic swings from permissive to rigid,
authoritarian parenting. Research reveals that in families where there is spousal
violence or child maltreatment present, in 30% to 60% of the cases both forms of
abuse coexist (Appel & Holden, 1998; Edleson, 1999). Children can be adversely
affected by witnessing a parent abuse a sibling, regardless of whether they themselves
are targeted for abuse. Furthermore, cascading violence and abuse directed from
older to younger siblings has been observed (Wiehe, 1997). Boundary violations
between adult abusers and children are more likely, with a greater incidence of
child sexual abuse being reported in domestically abusive families (Bancroft &
Silverman, 2002). More common is emotional abuse (cruel put downs, rejection,
or child favoritism), moral corruption of the child (encouraging criminal behaviour)
and playing mind-games (distorting children’s realities by telling false stories). Abusers
can also seek to isolate their children from normal social and sporting activities in
the same way they have isolated the victim parent. Abduction of a child, or threat of

22 Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006

 Domestive Violence: A Child-Centered Approach

abduction, as a means of terrorising or controlling the ex-spouse, is often a very real

concern (Grief & Hegar, 1992; Johnston & Girdner, 2001). Alcohol and drug use
by the abuser increases the likelihood of all these forms of child abuse and neglect
and renders these family environments all the more chaotic (Bornstein, 2002).
After separation and divorce, domestic violence abusers wreck havoc in families
by undermining the victim parent’s authority with the children, trying to alienate
the child from the other parent’s affection, and using child access as a weapon to
hurt, punish, and harass the victim parent. At the same time they are fighting for
their parental rights in court, domestic violence abusers can subject their children
to erratic role reversal and periodic abandonment.They are likely to view the child
as a material possession, which they can use as a vehicle or conduit to the ex-
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spouse. In such situations, the child is little more than a means of punishment, a
trophy, or a bargaining chip. Children who are consistently treated as an inanimate
object, with only a kind of functional or symbolic value (vis-à-vis the dispute with
the other parent), are at risk of developing a surreal sense of not existing—feeling
and acting as though they are non-persons.
For weeks after his wife left the abusive marriage, Mr. L kept Lisa home from
school to keep him company, to comfort him. Later, when the mother recovered
custody of the child, this man lavished bribes and promises of exciting outings on
the little girl, but then failed to turn up for the scheduled visits. When his wife
refused to talk with him, he would tearfully tell the distraught child good-bye, that
he would never see her again—and then he would return the next day to renew his
pleadings. Whenever his wife left the child in the care of the grandmother, he
would take the little girl away with him, claiming she had been deserted; then he
would drop her off with sundry acquaintances for her care. The child was constantly
asked to plead the father’s case with the mother: “Ask her,‘Where do you belong?’
Tell her I love her and want her back!” When first seen in counselling, Lisa was a
dazed, flaccid child. She lacked spontaneity, seemed vacant, joyless, and withdrawn.
She made no demands and waited uncomplainingly for someone to attend to her
needs, as if she had entirely given up any sense of herself as a viable person.

Parenting Difficulties for Domestic Violence Victims

Sadly, victims of domestic abuse are also at higher risk for parenting difficulties.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder symptoms, depression, anxiety, and learned helplessness
are likely consequences of their victimisation, quite apart from any preexisting
problems (Herman, 1997). They may have come to depend on drugs and alcohol
to numb their pain. Preoccupation with the demands of their abuser renders them
physically and emotionally exhausted, inconsistently available, and unable to protect
their children from the abuser for fear (Lieberman & Van Horn, 1998). Or they

Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006 23

 Conference Paper - Janet R. Johnston

have been brainwashed by the abuser into accepting the child’s abusive treatment.
Poor self-esteem, lack of confidence in their parenting, and inability to control
their children, especially their older sons, makes them an obvious target of blame
by the abusive spouse and raises the suspicions of mediators, lawyers, and judges as
to their fitness to parent.
For all of these reasons, diminished parenting capacities are expectable as a
result of living in abusive relationships and victims need time to re-establish their
competence as parents and time to learn how to nurture and appropriately protect
themselves and their children. This means that a victim who flees from the family
home without the children should not be viewed as an abandoning, neglectful, or
irresponsible parent and her behaviour should not prejudice the residential or access
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decision. Furthermore, their reticence in agreeing to liberal access and

communicating with the ex-partner should not be seen as unwillingness to cooperate.
These may be the only ways they can leave safely and stay safe (Jaffe, Lemon &
Poisson, 2003).

Parenting Distortions due to Humiliation in Separating Families

Now we turn to consider the origin of unsubstantiated allegations of abuse in
separating families (as elaborated more fully in Johnston & Roseby, 1997).A central
problem in both high-conflict and violent divorce and protracted residential and
access disputes involves the narcissistic vulnerability of the divorcing parties. Many
parents who are psychologically fragile in this way have experienced early and
unresolved emotional deprivation, and have chronic difficulty maintaining a positive
and stable sense of self. When the separation occurs, old feelings of shame, grief,
failure, and “badness” are evoked and become part of the emotional response to the
loss of the present relationship. These feelings produce intolerable anxiety, which is
defensively managed by the processes of splitting and projection; the unwanted,
unbearable “bad” feelings and aspects of self are projected onto the former partner
so that the self can be experienced as invulnerable and “good”.
Unfortunately, ongoing postdivorce conflict and litigation erode whatever
potential these divorcing spouses do have for effective co-parenting and parenting.
Parents who are moderately humiliated (narcissistically wounded) by the divorce,
and those who have experienced traumatic separations, tend to develop more or
less fixed beliefs (confirmed by their social world) that the other parent is “bad,
dangerous, and irresponsible,” and that they, by contrast, are the “good, safe, and
responsible” caretaker. It is not surprising, then, that both parents are likely to
selectively perceive and distort the child’s concerns regarding the other parent.
Indeed, it is common for the couple’s expressed disappointments with each other
to be mirrored in their concerns for how the other parent will treat the child.
An illustration:

24 Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006

 Domestive Violence: A Child-Centered Approach

In the G family, the parents had endured years of bitter, silent anger prior to
the separation. As the father had increasingly failed in his professional life, the
mother unwillingly assumed the role of provider. This dynamic was a formula for
the man’s shame and the woman’s resentment. When the mother took their children,
a boy and a girl, to another state to find work closer to her family of origin, the
father experienced the loss of his children as another insult. The following year, the
children returned to spend the summer with their father. When it was time for
them to go back to their mother, the father refused to release his son. He explained
his refusal to us in the following way:“I was standing in the backyard with Carl [the
son] when we heard his mother’s footsteps coming up the path, and I saw a look in
my son’s eyes that I knew so well. I guess, looking back, I always knew it was
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there...he looked terrified!...like she would flatten him...castrate him...run over

him like a steamroller, because she’s always hated men. He could never feel safe
being a boy, growing up around her. I ask him...not directly of course, but just, you
know, ‘Is Mom yelling a lot? Is she picking on you more than your sister?’ At first
he used to just shrug, but he’s starting to tell me more and more!”
The insidious consequence of this projection is that Carl experiences his
father’s empathic attunement most fully when he shares in this distorted perception
of his mother. Integrity, reality-testing, and even the child’s emerging sense of
morality are sacrificed, in these accumulating moments, to the child’s hunger for
the parent’s empathy.
Eight-year-old Becky was delivered home late by her noncustodial mother
after a most exciting visit, during which she did not want to stop to eat. She felt
apprehensive about coming home late and guilty for having enjoyed herself hugely.
As she entered the door of her father’s home, the stepmother’s fuming turned to
fury when she found out the child had not been fed her dinner. Anxious to placate
her stepmother and redirect the mounting fear of her anger, Becky cried that she
had “begged” her mother to feed her but her mother “couldn’t be bothered.” What
is more, she complained that she had spent a “horrible” day with her mother.
Immediately, her stepmother quieted down; she soothed and fed the fretting child,
agreeing that the mother had been “outrageously neglectful!”
When parents feel severely humiliated by the divorce (have greater narcissistic
vulnerability), one spouse may experience the other’s rejection, custody demands,
or accusations as a total, devastating attack, and, in defense, may develop paranoid
ideas of betrayal, conspiracy, and exploitation by their ex-mate. In these more
extreme cases, the ex-spouse and his or her allies are perceived as dangerous,
aggressive, and persecutory figures. It is not uncommon for them to harbor distorted
or exaggerated convictions that their child is being emotionally or physically abused
by the other parent or his associates. For example:

Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006 25

 Conference Paper - Janet R. Johnston

As Mr. J began to piece together the rubble from his marriage, he began to
rewrite history and to perceive his partner as having intentionally plotted and
planned to exploit and cast him off: “I gave her everything...backed her up with
every penny, and she took it all until there was nothing left and then spit me out
like a piece of dead weight. She and her boyfriend set me up. Now, he’s living in
my house and abusing my child!”
In cases such as these, where the divorce represents a severe injury to self-
esteem, parents have a more generalised inability to appreciate (or mirror) the
child’s experience of the other parent. These parents expect and need the child to
be an ally, reflecting their own polarised negative views. They will become
emotionally abandoning, rejecting, or even vengeful toward the child who expresses
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his or her own individual needs (individuates). Indeed the child becomes their
enemy, if seen to be defecting to the other parent:
When 5-year-old Sally expressed a wish to call her father on the phone and
tell him how she learned to jump rope that day, her mother withdrew into sullen
anger. It did not take Sally long to get the punishing unspoken message. She
soon complied with these unspoken demands by refusing to talk to her father on
the phone.
Sometimes the mere presence of the child, or the child’s physical resemblance
to the ex-spouse, produces a toxic, phobic reaction in the parent. The mannerisms
or typical expressions of the other parent, when seen in the child, can activate
resentment, even rage toward the child, who at that moment is undifferentiated
from the hated or feared ex-partner:
Mr. S described his daughter as follows: “She’s kinda got a bad attitude, she’s
uppity like her mother. When she comes to my house she’s surly and rude... they
have brainwashed her. She’s like a little mimic of her mother... I have spanked her
for it... I have to make her shape up. Finally, by the end of the weekend, she’s like
my little girl again!”
It is not surprising that children who are subjected to this kind of perverse
conditioning can have serious difficulties discriminating their own feelings from
those of their parents. They can also remain profoundly confused because, in most
cases, the parents are verbally denying what their body language and actions are
clearly expressing: “Of course I want her to see her mother and have a good
relationship with her mother!”, Mr. S declared.
Mrs. M became overwhelmed, controlling, and abandoning of her 4-year-old
son when he came home from visits acting like a miniature version of his violent
father. As soon as he swaggered in the door, she would try to placate him with
treats and television, and then became suffused with helplessness, followed by fury,
when he stubbornly rejected her efforts to connect with him. In her frustration,
she would then make demands of him that she knew her son would not obey, such

26 Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006

 Domestive Violence: A Child-Centered Approach

as to take his shower or to go to bed. When he refused to comply, she would drag
him bodily to his room and leave him to sob and rage, until he would finally come
out and beg her forgiveness. In this way, Mrs. M could regain intimacy with her
son, who would sob ashamedly in her lap.

Parenting Distortions due to Loss in Separating Families

Many parents in high-conflict divorces are especially vulnerable to separation and
loss. One or both spouses experience severe separation or abandonment anxiety as
a consequence of the divorce. For some individuals, their vulnerability is the result
of previous traumatic losses – such as the untimely death of another child, a parent,
or a sibling, or the loss of their family of origin by war or migration. They re-
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experience this earlier helplessness and grief along with the losses inherent in the
divorce. Others have never psychologically separated or individuated from their
own primary caregivers because of early pervasive emotional deprivation and
childhood trauma. Hence, for such persons, the marital separation triggers panic,
intense fears of being abandoned, and the inability to survive on their own. The
co-parental relationship in these cases can be plagued with reconciliation fantasies,
a fierce kind of pseudo-independence called “counter-dependency”, or abrupt
shifts oscillating from dependency to refusal to cooperate. In other words, they
seem to be attempting to stave off psychological fragmentation with the maxim “I
fight, therefore I am!”
Parent-child relationships in these cases are usually characterised by the parent’s
clinging dependency to the child as a substitute for the ex-spouse or other lost
object. Here the parent attempts to undo previous losses by holding on to the child
to ward off extreme fears of being cut off, without hope of ever being reconnected
to another:
When her husband left, Mrs. L felt extreme panic. “It is like someone took a
shotgun and blasted a hole right through me, and the wind is whistling right
through!”, she said, with a shiver. For months, this pervasive sense of damage and
hollowness caused her to wake fitfully from her sleep with anxiety attacks. The
comfort of her small daughter’s body snuggling next to her was the only thing that
seemed to calm her. During the day, she found reasons to keep Laura home from
nursery school because she couldn’t bear to be alone in the house. Laura, who felt
upset, did not understand the panic, but clung to her mother and resisted visiting
her father.
The parent is likely to experience a renewed feeling of being abandoned
whenever the child leaves for visitation. This provokes both intense anxiety and
covert hostility toward the child who is not, then, available to take care of the
parent’s needs. Not surprisingly, children like Laura then become ambivalent about
separating. Alternatively, some children, sensing their apparent omnipotence in

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 Conference Paper - Janet R. Johnston

caring for a distressed parent, react as if the parent’s very survival depends on their
constant vigilance and care-taking. One toddler silently wrapped himself around
his mother’s body for hours as though holding her together, as she wept out her
grief and her rage. “I know I shouldn’t do it”, the mother cried “But I have to
depend upon someone!”
Other parents defend against their fears of abandonment by taking a pseudo-
autonomous stance.They rigidly insist on making unilateral decisions on behalf of
their children and refuse to cooperate with the other parent. This can result in
inflexible, authoritarian parenting that is governed by the one parent’s need to be
in control, rather than being firm, empathic, and independent in his or her judgment.
Eventually, such rigidity can evolve into power struggles with the child, especially
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during adolescence, which in turn can precipitate the child’s sudden defection to
the other parent.

Principles of Intervention with High Conflict and Violent

Separating Families
Do Children Need Access to Both Parents?
In the light of multiple factors that appear to be involved in high-conflict and
violent families, the dangers of simplification and misidentification are great and
there is a need for well-trained forensic mental health experts to undertake
assessments and make distinctions. Only then can one begin to address the question
of what kind of relationship the child needs to have with each parents. A wide
range of parenting capacities are possible in any particular domestic violence family,
ranging from frankly abusive, to poor or marginal parenting, to adequate, to good,
or even very good. One needs to ask what each parent can contribute to the child,
not reflexively assume that contact with both parents is essential or that one parent
can be discarded.This is a child-centered and not a parental-rights approach.
Likewise children’s attitudes and expressed wishes regarding access to their
parents can take many confusing forms. Some estranged children can present with
a mix of intense anger towards an abusive parent and fear of retaliation that can
induce phobic reactions to that parent. They may only feel safe enough to reject
such a parent after the separation. In other cases where children have witnessed or
sustained abuse, out of fear they can become controlled by and aligned with the
more powerful perpetrator and in turn, reject an innocent victim parent. Often
youngsters from abusive homes are sorely grieving the loss of parents who do not
visit them: they imagine that they have been abandoned, blame themselves for the
parent’s absence, and worry greatly about the parent’s welfare. All of these possible
motivations for their spoken preferences need to be teased out.
A risk-benefit assessment needs to be made about the advisability of different
contact arrangements (Sturge & Glaser, 2000). Some of the benefits in having the

28 Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006

 Domestive Violence: A Child-Centered Approach

violent parent involved may include: sharing different perspectives of the world;
promoting the critical sense of being valued and loved; providing the child with a
sense of his origins and identity, these being important components of self-esteem;
maintaining continuity of a prior relationship that would be grieved if it were truly
lost; preventing unrealistic idealisation or devaluation; and enhancing the child’s
coping capacities in dealing with difficult situations and relationships.
These potential benefits need to be weighed against the risks of insisting on
contact, including: the child remaining in the centre of the parental conflict, subject
to untenable loyalty binds and the continuing pressure of litigation; exposure to
witnessing further abuse between parents; and being subject to unreliable contact
with a parent who intermittently abandons the child because of preoccupation
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with his or her own interests. Not least is the risk of the child being re-traumatised
by contact with an abusive parent or feeling overwhelmingly helpless and unheard,
when she expresses strong feelings or phobias about access. All of these potential
risks and benefits need to be considered and re-visited whenever recommendations
or decisions are made about timing, frequency, duration, and supervision of the
parent-child contact. One needs to ask: what can the child tolerate and make good
use of, as well as what does an abusive or violent parent have to offer?
What are some guiding principles for undertaking this kind of risk-benefit
analysis and resolving conflicting priorities in child residential and access decisions?
It is suggested that goals can be prioritised as follows:
• Priority 1: Protect children directly from abusive and violent environments.
• Priority 2: Support the safety and well-being of parents who are victims of abuse
(with the assumption that they will then be better able to protect their child).
• Priority 3: Respect the right of adult victims (empower them) to make their
own decisions and direct their own lives.
• Priority 4: Hold perpetrators accountable for their abusive behaviour (i.e., have
them acknowledge the problem and take measures to correct it).
• Priority 5: Allow children access to both parents.
The strategy is to begin with a plan to achieve all five priorities, and resolve
conflicts by abandoning the lower ones. For example, if a father refuses to
acknowledge his substantiated abuse or refuses treatment for it, the child’s access to
him should be supervised in a restricted setting or suspended altogether (Priority 5
is forgone); or a victim mother can be offered an alternative safe haven and then
told she will need to choose between living with her violent boyfriend or her child
(Priority 3 is relinquished). In practice, this strategy implies that the goal of protecting
children is never abandoned.
There are four tasks of intervention in separating families where there is
alleged violence and abuse. All of these require some court authority, either by
consent order (stipulation) or direct order of the court. The first task is to screen

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 Conference Paper - Janet R. Johnston

for dangerousness and patterns of coercive control that signify an abusive relationship
in order to put in place safety plans.The second task is to undertake a good assessment
with a report to the court as to the nature of the family conflict and violence with
the focus on determining how parenting has been compromised.The purpose is to
recommend residential and access arrangements that can protect or reconstitute
parenting capacities and meet the child’s individual and developmental needs.The
third task is to connect the family with relevant community services – batterer’s
programs, substance abuse monitoring and treatment, counselling, victims’ advocacy,
parenting classes etc. And the fourth task is to provide case management to help
implement the court-ordered access arrangements, pre-empt and manage ongoing
conflict, monitor progress in treatments, and ensure safe, coordinated, consistent
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parenting of the children.

The following checklist is a screening tool for the first task, providing indicators
of a high level of dangerousness and serious psychological abuse characteristic of an
ongoing abusive relationship (Ellis, Stuckless, & Wight, in press).
• Threats or fantasies of homicide and/or suicide (need to be taken seriously and
assessed in terms of whether the person has a specific plan).
• Availability of weapons – like guns and knives (indicating the person has the
means to carry out any threats).
• A history of violence, especially severe, frequent abuse, and repeated calls to the
police by the victim (this being one of the best predictors of the potential for
future violence).
• Drug and alcohol use (indicating diminished capacity to inhibit angry impulses).
• Obsession with and possessiveness about the partner (as indicated by repeated
attempts to contact the victim, stalking, or hostage-taking).
• High degrees of depression and rage (or extreme emotional instability and thought
disorder).
• Disregard and contempt for authority (as evidenced by violations of protective
orders or a criminal arrest record).
• Recent stressors (like loss of job, loss of child custody, and death of significant
other).
Measures to restrain and monitor a seriously dangerous person include criminal
court procedures like arrest, preventive detention, and prosecution, with release
made contingent upon stiff probation and parole conditions (including orders for
treatment). If these are not possible, a range of protective orders can be obtained
from family court on an emergency, temporary, or permanent basis (no contact,
stay-away, and dwelling exclusion orders). Swift, severe, and certain sanctions for
noncompliance with these orders are necessary in both courts, especially for those
abusive personalities who will try to test their limits. Case coordination between
different parts of the justice system is also essential to avoid contradictory court
orders, or the case falling through the cracks.

30 Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006

 Domestive Violence: A Child-Centered Approach

Where screening reveals a high level of dangerousness or an abusive relationship,

individualised safety plans need to be developed for victims and their children – at
home, at school, at work and in the neighborhood. Referrals to safe housing and
advocate services may be needed together with escort services. Temporary child
custody should be awarded to the victim, with supervised or suspended access to
the violent parent. Measures to reduce abduction risk are also needed – for example,
copies of court orders and alerts can be provided to the child’s school or day care,
and restrictions can be placed on release of the child’s medical, school, and birth
records as well as passports (Johnston & Girdner, 2001). Referrals to child-protective
services and family-court services are necessary for further assessment and follow-
up monitoring.
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Longer-term parenting arrangements will require a more child-focused

domestic violence assessment by credentialed evaluators (McGill, Deutsch & Zibbell,
1999). Ordinarily the primary residence of the child should be the nonviolent
home. There are graduated options for the violent parent’s access to the child.
These range from highly restrictive ones in the case of abuse like suspended access,
reunification counselling, and supervised access (with an appropriate level of security);
to relatively open ones like monitored exchange of the child between parents; day-
time visits; followed by overnight and weekend visits (with and then without
extended family members present) for high-conflict divorce. Since most of these
are highly intrusive interventions that threaten civil liberties, any restrictions on a
parent’s access need to include explicit goals with behavioural criteria that need to
be met in order for the parent to graduate to a less restrictive option. Most
importantly, the child’s comfort with the arrangements must be considered.A timely
review of progress and monitoring by the family court or its designated agent are
needed to authorise any changes in access.
Guidelines for access hinge upon the extent to which the violence is recent,
severe, substantiated, and reflective of an ongoing abusive relationship. Where these
elements are present, access needs to be supervised in a safe place with a neutral
supervisor (not a relative) who agrees to the terms of a detailed supervision order.
Access should be suspended for noncompliance with the terms of the supervision
as well as attempts or threats to abduct, seriously hurt, kill, stalk, or use the child to
get information about the victim parent. It can also be suspended where the child
is persistently distressed despite interventions. Highly restricted or suspended access
is also appropriate on a temporary basis, allowing time for a full domestic violence
assessment in unclear cases.
Where there has been a past history of domestic violence but no current
danger, emotional abuse and coercive control, and for those cases where domestic
violence allegations were unfounded but there remains high distrust, fear, and anger
between parents, monitored exchange of the child may suffice. Alternatively the
child can be transferred between homes by a third party or at a neutral public place

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 Conference Paper - Janet R. Johnston

(e.g., school, library, or restaurant). Note, however, that police stations (a favoured
rendezvous for high-conflict parents) are generally not a child-friendly, comfortable
place for children to transition from one parent to the other.To pre-empt disputes
that can easily erupt into physical altercations, it is necessary to have an explicit
court order, detailing all times, dates, and places of exchange along with behavioural
protocols for the exchange.
Any resumption of unsupervised access should be contingent upon cessation
of threat of violence, emotional abuse, and coercive control as well as credible
reports of successful progress or completion of treatment for the problem (of violence,
substance abuse, or mental illness). Children also need to be prepared for resuming
unrestricted access, armed with coping skills and safety plans, together with an
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explanation of how come it is now permissible to see dad or mom on their own. It
is especially important for parents who have been violent to acknowledge their
behaviour directly to their child and to take steps to reassure him or her - about
their commitment to nonviolence and the measures they have taken to ensure
future safety. This kind of conversation may need to take place with the help of a
counsellor who is experienced with parent-child reunification.
A number of other provisions can be included in unsupervised access plans to
help build appropriate boundaries between parents in postseparated, high-conflict,
and violent families. Permanent restraining orders (for no contact at all or to stay at
a certain distance) provide a cushion of safety for all family members. Orders
restraining taking the child out of the geographical area without prior consent of
the residential parent or the court mitigate against the threat of abduction; structured
telephone access to the child prevents unreasonable intrusiveness into the residential
home; and a neutral place of exchange of the child between parents ensures more
safety for the victim and is more comfortable for the child. A detailed access order
including vacations, holidays, birthdays, and other special occasions should state
precise dates, times, and place of exchange of the child as well as behavioural
etiquette, and protocols for communicating emergency information.
An array of specialised services is needed for high-conflict, violent, and abusive
families in our communities. Unfortunately, to date, what is available is often
piecemeal and critical gaps exist.To date, batterers’ treatment programs and victims’
support groups are generally fairly widely available. What about services for children?
It is true that the need for supervised access and exchange services is clearly
acknowledged, but these are often inaccessible to families (too costly or
geographically too distant). Just as critical, but often absent, are specialised parenting
education and counselling to remedy the numerous deficits and problems that have
been identified in the parenting capacities of both abusers and victims. Furthermore,
parent-child reunification therapy may be needed as a stepping stone to reconstitute
relationships following abuse, witness to violence, neglect, and abandonment -
incidents that have violated children’s trust in a parent.

32 Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006

 Domestive Violence: A Child-Centered Approach

Rather than expecting communication and cooperative parenting that can

instead lead to enmeshed hostility, sabotage, and further abuse in high-conflict and
violent families, the protocols for “parallel parenting” need to be taught. Parallel
parenting respects and supports each parent’s relationship with the child free from
interference by the other parent. Parallel parenting is coordinated by an over-arching
explicit court order that governs the access schedule and essential health, education,
and welfare decisions, so there is minimal need for communication between parents.
Even so, a parallel parenting plan may not be sufficient for some volatile families;
instead an ongoing co-parenting coordinator may need to follow the family over
time through the child’s growing up years (Boyan & Termini, 2005). Last, but not
least, individual and group treatment for traumatised children should also be available
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(Roseby, Johnston, Gentner & Moore, 2005).

The Challenge
The problem is that the more intransigent conflict-ridden separating families are
likely to be troubled by multiple indicators - of domestic violence, child neglect,
molestation and abuse, parental substance abuse, mental health problems, and child
snatching. The courts’ interventions must be closely orchestrated with each other
and with services provided in the community - for substance-abuse monitoring
and treatment, batterers’ intervention programs and victims’ advocacy, counselling,
and psychiatric treatment.
In collaboration with these community services, the challenge is for family
courts to set explicit behavioural goals and treatment contracts with families who
are court-ordered to interventions. Family Court reports should make specific
recommendations to this end.The needs of families and their prognosis for change
must be triaged and carefully matched with scarce resources that are appropriate to
the need.Treatment contracts should fully inform families about the programs they
are required to attend, including goals, procedures, the limits of confidentiality,
responsibility for payment, expectations for completion, and accountability to the
court. Case-management protocols to coordinate between services, and time lines
must be devised to monitor progress. Therapists should be held accountable for
meeting goals or show why they should remain involved in a case if they do not
meet those goals. As part of a system of checks and balances, family lawyers (solicitors)
need to help draft the case plans in ways that protect their clients’ rights and interests,
ensure full disclosure, and monitor cost-effectiveness of nonvoluntary, court-ordered
interventions.
In sum, without effective coordination and collaboration between the courts
and community agencies, these interventions run the risk of further fragmenting
vulnerable families rather than helping them, or permitting families to fall through
the cracks between different services, or leaving families forever suspended in the
never-never land of an incomplete or intrusive state intervention.

Journal of Family Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, May 2006 33

 Conference Paper - Janet R. Johnston

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