Latest / Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour / Your Lawyer Isn’t Your Therapist, And Your Child Isn’t Your Messenger

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Your Lawyer Isn’t Your Therapist, And Your Child Isn’t Your Messenger · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee from the Children's Consultancy, and we have another podcast series that you're very welcome to listen to and to share with those who you feel may benefit.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: On that note, I see that some people have subscribed to the various platforms that my podcasts can be found on, so they're automatically notified.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't want to do that, then you're very welcome just to simply follow me on Facebook where you will see the automatic updates that come from the podcast and other material which is related to parental guidance and the resources that I am offering.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in this episode, I am looking at why some separations become high conflict.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in ordinary situations, separations are painful, but they gradually settle.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: But in the high conflict ones, they don't.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, conflict intensifies and it hardens and it becomes enduring, sometimes for years.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: So today we explore why some separations become high conflict, even when, particularly when children are involved, resolution seems to be the obvious goal.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, conflict is rarely about the surface issues.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: High conflict separations rarely about contact schedules, finances and legal process.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: These are often the vehicles and not the causes through which the conflict is expressed.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And beneath the surface lie emotional injury, fear of loss, attachment rupture, and identity threat.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when separation feels like abandonment, injustice or erasure, conflict becomes emotionally charged, not rationally solvable.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Some individuals experience what might be regarded as the psychology of threat or the psychologically related responses to threat.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when individuals feel this way, the nervous system shifts into defense mode.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: So in this state, positions become rigid, listening reduces, compromise feels dangerous, and the other becomes the adversary.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Over many years I've seen a shift in legal attitudes where more and more family law practitioners try to work on the basis of a collaborative resolution.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this is commendable.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And their work is refreshing because what they're trying to do is shift the focus from adversarial to a position where reasonable discourse, reasonable relating can take place, and indeed where the children become the focus of attention rather than being used as vehicles.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: But in some high conflict situations and separations, it becomes part of the identity of the individuals.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the individual may feel defined by injustice, that they're driven to be heard or vindicated, and they're unable to disengage without feeling defeated.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So at this point, conflict is no longer situational, it's a psychological stance.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when adults locked in this position, the children will often experience emotional tension, loyalty, conflict, unpredictability, and some sense of emotional burden.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And on the emotional burden front, I have seen so many children and young people who feel responsible or guilty for one or other of the parents.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is far too much for any individual to carry.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Never mind children.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think about the child's heart and they have one parent on one side and the other parent on the other side, if those two parents reasonable, relational, caring towards each other, the child internalizes that and the heart remains whole.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: When the two parents are in opposition, the heart is fractured and splintered.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now that inside a child is an unbelievable kind of pain.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Children are not in any way advanced enough to be able to objectively make sense of what's going on.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that conflict remains inside them, and as a consequence, it will find some form of expression.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose, in a sense, the message here is you may be locked into doing something with the other person, but can you see what this is doing to the children?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't a kind of look at you and what you're doing.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's hang on, take a look and see what you are locked in is being experienced by others.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, it reflects what I do in the consulting room, where I, when I'm working with parents in this kind of situation, is to bring them back to how the child is experiencing and internalizing this and where and how we need to pay attention.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Episode two will follow shortly.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.