Nordic Research on Custody disputes
Parents Mental Disorders and Parental Alienation in Custody Disputes. A Medical Legal and Legal Sociological Study.
The aim of the thesis is to find out solutions for a better management of custody disputes. Several studies show that children in especially high-conflict custody cases suffer in various ways and also permanently of the high conflict. The main recommendation to improve the system is a law-based psychiatric evaluation of parents when the dispute is at risk of escalation.
The thesis consists of four articles and the summary. The articles are written about the problems present in high-conflict custody disputes; the parents mental disorders and their proneness to alienate their children from the other parent.
To study the circumstances in the litigating families and the proceedings an empirical research was performed by getting information about court cases, in which the other parent has tried to get an enforcement of a court order concerning his/her access to the child.
Court decisions were supplemented with other kinds of decisions concerning the same children and their parents, especially custody decisions, and information about the family relations, occupational status, compulsory care and other social services, mental health, debts, criminality, and deaths.
The original number of the cases are 114, but they were reduced to 103 as non-custody cases were left away. The total time of the disputes are counted from the beginning of the first proceeding to the end of the last one. 103 cases are divided in three subgroups: 1) Short disputes (41) with a duration under two years, 2) Middle lenght disputes (36) from two years to five years five months, and 3) Long disputes (26) from five years five months to twelve years.
Results:
1) 40 percent of all litigants suffer from a psychiatric disorder or substance abuse. The average prevalence of mental disorders in populations is considered to be 20 per cent, and the litigants exceed it twofold. The number of men and women with disorders is the same, but women have about two times more severe and mood disorders than men and men two times more substance abuse than women.
2) In the long disputes litigants have nearly as much disorders as the litigants in the short and middle lenght disputes counted together. The litigants in the short and middle lenght disputes have nearly same amount of disorders.
3) Of all 103 families 69 (67 per cent) are clients of child protection; in the long cases all exception one family. After the dispute has continued four years, practically all families are clients of child protection. About 20 per cent of the children are taken in compulsory care.
4) Litigants have also much umemployment, unability to work, economic and housing problems,and the number of litigants with these problems grows as the disputes get longer. 5) Proportion of litigants with alienating behaviour or some other attitude problem harming children ranges in different kinds of disputes from 74 to 88 per cent in women, and from 43 per cent to 88 per cent in men.
Link:
https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/154549?fbclid=IwAR1BIQyq2LCgg4cL3qdrfYNvb6ay13rxIR0xIpdcBfeXN...
The aim of the thesis is to find out solutions for a better management of custody disputes. Several studies show that children in especially high-conflict custody cases suffer in various ways and also permanently of the high conflict. The main recommendation to improve the system is a law-based psychiatric evaluation of parents when the dispute is at risk of escalation.
The thesis consists of four articles and the summary. The articles are written about the problems present in high-conflict custody disputes; the parents mental disorders and their proneness to alienate their children from the other parent.
To study the circumstances in the litigating families and the proceedings an empirical research was performed by getting information about court cases, in which the other parent has tried to get an enforcement of a court order concerning his/her access to the child.
Court decisions were supplemented with other kinds of decisions concerning the same children and their parents, especially custody decisions, and information about the family relations, occupational status, compulsory care and other social services, mental health, debts, criminality, and deaths.
The original number of the cases are 114, but they were reduced to 103 as non-custody cases were left away. The total time of the disputes are counted from the beginning of the first proceeding to the end of the last one. 103 cases are divided in three subgroups: 1) Short disputes (41) with a duration under two years, 2) Middle lenght disputes (36) from two years to five years five months, and 3) Long disputes (26) from five years five months to twelve years.
Results:
1) 40 percent of all litigants suffer from a psychiatric disorder or substance abuse. The average prevalence of mental disorders in populations is considered to be 20 per cent, and the litigants exceed it twofold. The number of men and women with disorders is the same, but women have about two times more severe and mood disorders than men and men two times more substance abuse than women.
2) In the long disputes litigants have nearly as much disorders as the litigants in the short and middle lenght disputes counted together. The litigants in the short and middle lenght disputes have nearly same amount of disorders.
3) Of all 103 families 69 (67 per cent) are clients of child protection; in the long cases all exception one family. After the dispute has continued four years, practically all families are clients of child protection. About 20 per cent of the children are taken in compulsory care.
4) Litigants have also much umemployment, unability to work, economic and housing problems,and the number of litigants with these problems grows as the disputes get longer. 5) Proportion of litigants with alienating behaviour or some other attitude problem harming children ranges in different kinds of disputes from 74 to 88 per cent in women, and from 43 per cent to 88 per cent in men.
Link:
https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/154549?fbclid=IwAR1BIQyq2LCgg4cL3qdrfYNvb6ay13rxIR0xIpdcBfeXN...