April 23-24, 2026

Learning Objectives

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Participants will:

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1. Conceptualize our work in family law in terms of ecological validity, that is, the real-life-ness of our observations, evaluations, and recommendations. At issue is whether and to what degree we can ever understand a family’s genuine strengths and weaknesses when observed under profound stress.

 

2. Consider the people whom we serve and our own professional roles in terms of emotional refueling: where and how does a child get refueled once parents go to war? Where and how do you get refueled given the risks and stresses of this work?

 

3. Filter observations of and reports about children’s functioning through the lens of adaptation asking ‘what has this child needed to do in order to obtain acceptance, attention, and affection?

 

4. Approach our work in family law from a systemically-informed and childcentered position, aware that relationships are often far more complex than human beings can ever fully understand.

 

5. Understand anxiety as a natural and necessary experience that can be distorted and dysfunctional for some people in some circumstances.

 

6. View the professional services that we provide and the families with whom we work in terms of structure, that is, if and how limits, boundaries, roles, and routines dimmish anxiety and respect autonomy.

 

7. Become familiar with the many co-occurring relationship dynamics and practical pressures that are commonly associated with resist/refuse dynamics (RRD) including enmeshment, estrangement, the chameleon child, and alienation.

 

8. Use an evaluative rubric (Garber, 2024) to minimize bias and premature closure when seeking to intervene with, evaluate, or adjudicate RRD.

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9. Recognize “reunification” therapies as a collaborative intervention focused on anxiety management and graduated exposure.

 

10. Establish advance orientation opportunities for court-involved families in the interest of diminishing anxiety, improving satisfaction, efficiency, and efficacy of services.

 

11. Exercise cultural humility: Recognize and respect how differences associated with culture, gender, ethnicity, language, and other aspcets of diversity bear on child development and family functioning.

 

12. Understand boundaries as more or less permeable and adaptable means of establishing individual, subsystem, and systemic identities.

 

13. Approach family intervention, evaluation, and adjudication from the perspective of “relationship fit.”

 

14. Recognize and remain vigilant abour professional boundaries including the need to establish and maintain healthy and appropriate sources of emotional fuel to minimize compassion fatigue and burnout.

 

15. Eschew diagnoses in favor of focusing on dynamics when conducting systemic evaluations, interventions, and adjudications.