Divorced Fathers and Their Families: Legal, Economic, and Emotional Dilemmas - Hardcover

Kaslow, Florence W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1461455340 ISBN 13: 9781461455349

Publisher: Springer, 2012

Synopsis

This book focuses on the experience of father's lives after a divorce, and how mental health professionals can help them create a healthy transition. Through the use of case examples critical issues are highlighted and discussed with supportive empirical findings and clinical insights.  Traditionally, the marital legal sessions as well as the ultimate marriage settlement focus on the issues confronted by the ex-wife and mother and on the custody and visitation plan for the children.   This is actually supported by law in some places.  This can remove the father from important qualitative issues such as what it is like to have children in two households, relationships with two sets of grandparents, where holidays will be spent, fair rotations of responsibility and how continuing parental discord can be resolved. The issues examined in this volume are relevant to a range of professionals who deal with divorcing couples from psychologists and family therapists to legal advisors and judges.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Divorced Fathers and Their Families
Legal, Economic, and Emotional Dilemmas
Florence Kaslow

Praise for Divorced Fathers and Their Families:
“Dr. Kaslow tells the story of forgotten fathers who suffer not only from the distance divorce imposes from their children, but from society’s lack of sympathy for their suffering.  A wife and mother as well as a distinguished professional, she forcefully brings these long-ignored issues out of the shadows. A must read for all professionals working in the field of divorce as well as for grown children of divorce and their parents.”
Carolyn Susman, health columnist, Palm Beach Daily News, Palm Beach, Florida

"This unique book by noted psychologist Florence Kaslow provides a cornucopia of information, ranging from historical factors in child custody decisions, to stages of the divorce process and tips on parenting coordination. Thirteen detailed case stories of divorcing dads obtained through questionnaire-based personal interviews provide a fascinating range of personal experiences that Dr. Kaslow analyzes to reveal common divorce problems. Other experts on divorce then describe how more positive outcomes might have occurred utilizing different services/interventions provided by well trained systemically-oriented professionals. This wide-ranging book is a valuable resource for therapists, mediators, lawyers, child custody evaluators, child advocates, and family court judges."
David Schnarch, Ph.D.
Director, Crucible Institute of Evergreen Colorado
International bestselling author of Passionate Marriage, Intimacy & Desire, and Constructing the Sexual Crucible. 

Divorced Fathers and Their Families presents a needed corrective to this knowledge gap without trivializing the problems and needs of divorced mothers and children or downplaying the realities of divorce. In much of the book, divorced men's narratives reveal their roles in their children's lives, the emotional turmoil when those roles are disrupted, and their frustrations when the legal system assumes the worst about them. Other chapters provide systemic and personality perspectives on divorce and custody issues, a guide to emerging trends in divorce services, and strategies for making divorce less toxic for all. 

• The evolution of divorce and custody decisions over the last century.
• Representative case stories from divorced fathers, in their own words.
• Overview of current divorce services and professionals: child advocates, mediation, family evaluation, and more.
• "What-if" scenarios suggesting how the case examples might have turned out with alternate interventions.
• Real-world advice for humanizing the divorce process--even years after the fact.
• Useful appendices, including a divorced fathers questionnaire, a model of stages in the divorce process, and guidelines for a divorce ceremony.

At a time when half of marriages are breaking up, Divorced Fathers and Their Families offers family therapists and clinical psychologists insights into relationships they may have overlooked--and clients they may be underestimating.

About the Author

Florence W. Kaslow, Ph.D., is an internationally known and respected teacher, clinical and family psychologist, supervisor, consultant, coach, therapist, guest lecturer, and workshop leader. A Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College (1969), she is in practice as a psychologist, family business consultant, and coach in Palm Beach County [Gardens], Florida. She is President of Kaslow Associates, a coaching and consulting firm, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Psychology at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. She was a lecturer, Department of Psychiatry of Harvard University Medical School in 1992, 1997, and 2005, an Adjunct Professor of Medical Psychology in Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center from 1982 to 2004. From 2007-2010 she was a Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Mercer University Medical School, Macon, Georgia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1461455340
• ISBN 13: 9781461455349
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272