High-Conflict Separations and Differentiated Professional Responses – From Confrontational Interaction to Post-Separation Violence and Stalking

ABSTRACT

This study explores high-conflict divorces and separations by critically analyzing their central features. It draws on qualitative materials produced through professionals’ work with high-conflict cases. A content-oriented analysis of the materials revealed three types of high-conflict separations differentiated by the following features: 1) confrontational interaction, 2) exacerbation of complicated psychosocial problems, and 3) post-separation violence and/or stalking. Based on these findings, we consider professional responses and interventions in helping families. The aim of the paper is to augment our understanding of high-conflict separations and differentiated professional responses to them in order to help parents and children who are undergoing a high-conflict divorce or separation.

KEYWORDS:

• High-conflict divorce/separation
• parental conflict
• children
• post -separation violence
• professional responses

In recent decades, studies have increased our understanding of high-conflict divorces and separations, their various degrees, and how they can be addressed by professionals. The research shows the complex nature of the phenomenon and the types of conflicts found in divorces (e.g., Archer-Kuhn, 2018; Birnbaum & Bala, 2010; Johnston, 2006; Johnston et al., 2009; Saini et al., 2012). For example, the study by Birnbaum and Bala (2010) on social science literature and Canadian case law brings forth three different high-conflict scenarios through which conflicts can be approached: co-parenting and access exchange conflict, domestic violence, and alienation. As pointed out by Polak and Saini (2019), a high-conflict separation is a multifaceted integration of several systems surrounding the family, including, for example, the laws and services available, the former couple, and the children; thus, it cannot be captured in one definition. The present study further deepens our understanding of the phenomenon by analyzing the characteristics of high-conflict separations.

In this study, we understand a high-conflict divorce or separation as a situation in which parents remain angry and distrustful of each other; engage in frequent arguments, litigation and re-litigation; and denigrate each other as parents (e.g., Bergman & Rejmer, 2017; Birnbaum & Bala, 2010; Johnston et al., 2009; Levite & Cohen, 2012). Parents’ value dissonance in child-raising issues is often the main cause of a conflicted separation. They may disagree on matters involving parental or co-operation capabilities (Bergman & Rejmer, 2017), and they may be concerned about the child’s safety and well-being in the care of the other parent or the child’s resistance to being in contact with the other parent (Cashmore & Parkinson, 2011; Francia et al., 2019). Studies have also shown other issues related to parental conflicts, such as parents’ substance abuse and mental health problems (Bergman & Rejmer, 2017), the role of new partners, and disputes over money (Cashmore & Parkinson, 2011). In addition, parents’ conflicts involving ethnicity, religion, and cultural norms, such as perceptions on gender, may further inflame a dispute (Bergman & Rejmer, 2017; Birnbaum & Bala, 2010; Johnston et al., 2009; Polak & Saini, 2019).

High-conflict separations may also include domestic violence, perpetrated primarily by one parent against the other (Archer-Kuhn, 2018; Birnbaum & Bala, 2010; Johnston et al., 2009), and alienation, where one parent intentionally estranges the other from the child (e.g., A. M. Jaffe et al., 2017). Often, violence and an imbalance of power between the parents occur already when the family lives together. In such cases, violence is often gendered by nature, with men/fathers as perpetrators and women/mothers as targets (e.g., Archer-Kuhn, 2018; Crosse & Millar, 2017; DeKeseredy et al., 2017). Children may become involuntarily involved in conflicts and can be used as a means of perpetrating violence against, controlling, and stalking the ex-partner (Nikupeteri & Laitinen, 2015). Thus, children “become triangulated into their parents’ conflicts due to alienation, estrangement, and enmeshment” (Garber, 2014, p. 25). It is important to understand the risk factors and indicators associated with these families within a multilayered context (Polak & Saini, 2019). In the worst-case scenario, professionals’ misinterpretation of the indicators may aggravate parental conflict and, by using interventions that do not consider the possible violence perpetrated by one parent toward the other, may further threaten the abused parent’s and the children’s lives.

Intensive parental conflicts can have both short- and long-term negative effects on children. The degree and type of threats a child experiences in these situations determine the outcomes and adjustment (Sarrazin & Cyr, 2007; Shumaker & Kelsey, 2020). The complexity of the phenomenon is also evidenced by the fact that children’s adjustment to the situation following a parental separation cannot be classified exclusively as “successful” or “dysfunctional,” but it can have characteristics of both. In a study conducted by Van der Wal et al. (2019), children showed, on average, both high levels of trauma and high levels of post-divorce adjustment. A conflict between parents alters the family system and interactions, and children may find it hard to adjust to the new family structure and their altered relationships with both parents (Johnston, 2006; Shanholtz et al., 2021). The negative consequences for children can stem from diminished emotional security and physical safety in the family (Cummings & Davies, 2010; Francia & Millear, 2015; Joyce, 2016), the decreased quality of parenting, and each parent’s inability to consider the children’s needs and to maintain a relationship with them (Kelly & Emery, 2003; Leon, 2003; Polak & Saini, 2019). A conflicted separation may heighten the risk of the children developing mental, school-related, and behavioral problems (Leon, 2003). The physical and mental health effects can be similar to those associated with physical abuse and neglect (Joyce, 2016; Lange et al., 2022).

Practitioners in different fields are concerned about the legally, psychologically, and socially complex high-conflict separations and assess their interventions for each family. The child protection workers who participated in the study by Saini et al. (2012) noted that the cases require a substantial amount of resources, time, energy, and emotional fortitude. Workers have to deal with competing allegations of child maltreatment, the manipulation of acrimonious parents, and the pressures imposed on them by family law to take positions regarding custody and access issues. Intense conflicts become even more complicated when one parent harnesses professionals to facilitate coercion and control directed at the other parent (Archer-Kuhn, 2018; Saltmarsh et al., 2022) or when claims of parental alienation and domestic violence appear in the same case (Harman et al., 2018). High-conflict disputes between parents are harmful at the individual level, but they can also be costly for society because of continuous legal proceedings, the involvement of authorities, and a demand for multiple services and professionals (e.g., Cashmore & Parkinson, 2011).

This study addresses high-conflict separations and scrutinizes their central features. The research question is as follows: What are the main types of high-conflict separations encountered by professionals? Based on the findings, professional responses and interventions in helping families are considered with the aim of augmenting our understanding of high-conflict separations and differentiated professional responses to them. Ultimately, the study contributes to helping parents and children who undergo a high-conflict separation.

Methods

Data collection

This study is part of a larger Finnish research project “Children’s Knowing Agency in Private, Multiprofessional and Societal Settings – the Case of Parental Stalking” (2017–2022) that deals with post-separation parental stalking from children’s perspective. The present study was conducted in collaboration with the project “In Safe” [Turvassa] (2019–2022),¹ which focused on work with families that are undergoing high-conflict separations and developed professional practices and working methods that strengthen children’s rights and well-being in such situations. The research data for the present study were produced by seven professionals who worked in the project and by selected local and national experts and the project’s steering committee who provided their expertise for the professionals regarding judicial, therapeutic, and child protection issues, among other things.

The professionals, with backgrounds in social work, psychology, criminology, education, and law, worked with the families by meeting each parent and child separately. Local authorities, such as social and health care professionals and the police, directed their clients to the professionals working on the project if they assessed that the family was undergoing a high-conflict separation and would benefit from their expertise. Altogether 14 mothers, 14 fathers, and 31 children (aged between 8 months and 19 years) were involved in these cases. Most of the parents were Finnish, but there were also other ethnicities and families with mixed ethnic backgrounds involved in the study. The data collection was a cumulative process in which the datasets were built upon one another. The materials consist of four sets of data:

1. Fourteen anonymized family case descriptions written by the project’s professionals and including the following information: the professional who referred the family to the project, the number of years since the parents separated, the number of children in the family and their ages, the family’s main problems and needs for support, the role of social networks (e.g., new partners), previous interventions, risk assessment regarding the family situation (1 =  low risk; 5 =  high risk), and methods of working with the family members.

2. Two reflective project diaries co-written by the project’s professionals and functioning as a self-reflection tool in encountering the families’ complex situations, in making sense of one’s own work, and in identifying the targets of development in working with high-conflict families. The diaries include the professionals’ reflections on their expertise in work encompassing high-conflict separations, their work community, clients, and authorities. The two diaries have a total of 29 pages (Times New Roman, font size 12 pt., line spacing 1).

3. Reflective discussions between the project’s professionals and local and national experts related to family cases that the project’s professionals found extremely challenging. This set consisted of six discussions (35 minutes–1 hour and 45 minutes) that were conducted over Microsoft Teams and recorded because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The transcribed material consists of 92 pages. Additionally, this dataset includes notes taken by the project’s professionals and steering committee on the discussions.

4. Three group interviews with the project’s seven professionals concerning their experiences in working with high-conflict families. Each professional participated in two or three group interviews. The themes of the interviews were based on the previous datasets. The themes were as follows: (1) description of high conflict separations, (2) children’s role and participation, (3) practices and challenges in helping families, and (4) risk assessment in high-conflict separation situations. The second and third interview rounds deepened the themes according to what the professionals had found important. The interviews were conducted over Microsoft Teams and recorded. The duration of the interviews ranged from 1.5 to 2 hours. The transcribed material consisted of 65 pages.

The professionals requested permission from the participating parents for using the descriptions of their families for research purposes. In addition, consent to recording was obtained from the experts participating in the reflective case discussions. Throughout the research process, we committed ourselves to the ethical guidelines of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (2018), while the project’s professionals adhered to professional ethics in conducting their work. The collaboration of the two projects enhanced our understanding of high-conflict separations, as it is known that domestic violence and families in high conflict share many of the same dynamics and can be interwoven (Johnston et al., 2009; Lange et al., 2022).

Data analysis

The data analysis was content-oriented (Silverman, 2005) and conducted in three steps. First, we read the case descriptions, the transcribed reflective discussions related to them, the reflective diaries, and the interviews several times. We paid attention to the following themes in the cases: the main challenge in parental conflicts, the services offered to the families, the child’s role in a conflict between parents, the act of parenting, the role and behavior of parents, and the nature of possible violence. Paying attention to these themes enabled us to define the central features of each case. Second, we paid attention to the similarities and differences between the features of the conflicts and evaluated their nature. Third, we identified three tentative types of high-conflict separations and sharpened their definitions and contents with the project’s professionals. Finally, we differentiated three main types of high-conflict separations based on the following features: (1) confrontational interaction, (2) exacerbation of complicated psychosocial problems, and (3) post-separation violence and/or stalking. The types capture the essence of high-conflict separations and an increasing level of severity and risk concerning parents or children. We acknowledge the complexity of parental conflicts and emphasize that some features within the types may overlap. Next, we elaborate on the three separation types.

Results

Types of high conflict separations

The three types of high-conflict separations are illustrated in Table 1. It shows the central characteristics connected to the situation, the parents’ actions, the child’s role, and the typical services offered to the families.

Table 1. Characteristics of three types of high-conflict separations.

	Features of the situation	Parents’ actions	The child’s role	Typical services offered
CONFRONTATIONAL INTERACTION	- Prolonged disputes related to the child’s custody, sustenance, and living - Parents’ inability to collaborate and to look at the situation from a child’s perspective - Unprocessed separation/divorce	- Polarized parental thinking and actions - Inability to value the other parent’s post-separation parenthood	- An object of post-separation parental efforts	- Low-threshold services for divorced/separated families
EXACERBATION OF COMPLICATED PSYCHOSOCIAL PROBLEMS	- Pathological conflict related to one parent’s or both parents’ social and health problems - Emergence of traumatized experiences related to intimate relationships, separation, or a parent’s personal history	- One parent’s or both parents’ litigations and re-litigations - Invalidating the other parent’s new partner/family - Separation-instigated violence as a reaction to disputes	- A mediator and an ally between and for the parents	- Specialized social and health services
POST-SEPARATION VIOLENCE AND/OR STALKING	- Fixation with the ex-partner - Desire to seek revenge and control over others - One parent (and the children) are fearful of the other parent - Gendered violence - Can involve a risk to commit homicide or child abduction	- One parent’s coercive and controlling behaviors toward the other parent - Different forms of repeated violence and threats of it - Parental alienation as a form of violence	- A means of perpetrating violence, and a target of violence	- Protective and securitizing services

We will discuss the results by using examples from the anonymized case descriptions and group interviews with the professionals. We have chosen to present extracts from the interviews because they synthesize the case descriptions, reflective discussions, and diaries. When referring to a group interview, we use the abbreviation GI and the number of the interview.

Confrontational interaction

The analysis of the data indicates that high-conflict separations may involve parents’ confrontational interaction, which means that parents are entrapped in a continuing conflict and they have difficulty finding solutions to it. In this study, high-conflict separations of this type included verbal conflicts and hostility between parents who were unable to communicate constructively on a consistent basis (also Birnbaum & Bala, 2010). These situations were mainly characterized by polarized parental thinking and action, an unprocessed separation/divorce, and an inability to look at the situation from the child’s perspective. In high-conflict separations of this type, the parents’ capacity for co-parenting or parallel post-separation parenting was impaired and their disputes were mostly related to custody of the child, the child’s living arrangements, and the child’s sustenance. Thus, the child’s role was to be an object of post-separation parental efforts. According to the case descriptions, the families were offered low-threshold services, such as separation/divorce services, mediation, open child welfare services, school social work, and family counseling in kindergarten or at a child health clinic.

In these cases, parental thinking, emotions, and actions were polarized. Both parents played a role in sustaining the conflict. The parents’ interaction can be described as a cycle of terror, retaliation, and failed reparation attempts that lead to further splitting and projection (Levite & Cohen, 2012). A distinct feature was that the parents refused to submit to each other’s requests and demands (also Johnston, 2006). The communication problems were rooted in pervasive mistrust (also Francia et al., 2019), and conflict was often inflamed when one parent interpreted the other’s words and actions from a negative perspective, as discussed by the professionals:

I would like to add to what [the other interviewee] said about communication that maybe it is exactly that somehow something emerges from the background, showing how the other [person’s] messages and words are interpreted in a negative light. There is no doubt that their history affects [the situation] and in a certain way, it [affects] what the situation has become. The content of a message exchanged by the parents does not necessarily appear to us, for example, in such a negative light as it appears to the other [parent] and how he/she interprets it. (GI 1)

The cases examined here show that various aspects of the external world, such as the legal system, maintain the conflicts by approaching the cases from the perspective of individual culpability and function as a “splitting mechanism” through which judgments are made according to what is “right” and “wrong” (also Johnston et al., 2009; Levite & Cohen, 2012; Polak & Saini, 2019). This external world may drive parents even further toward defending their competing stances, thus failing to resolve their impasse. Parents may also persuade professionals to take their side in the conflicts:

… conflicted separations are characterized by the fact that the parents demonize each other very strongly, and there is a desire to get professionals involved in them. And often professionals may involuntarily get involved in this taking sides thing. And this exactly is the tricky part, and a source of distrust in professionals, when both parents think that “I’m right, and why does no one understand it”. And if a professional should try to present a more neutral perspective or the child’s point of view, it will immediately be interpreted as your taking the other parent’s side. (GI 1)

The fact that parents may not have processed their separation and feelings of being betrayed and left may inflame their conflict. When the parties fail to resolve their relationship as a couple, they remain psychologically “stuck” in a transition between partnership and separation (also Levite & Cohen, 2012). A separation threatens parents’ attachment and their mutual emotional dependence and reciprocal caregiving. Their deep emotions related to the separation, such as a fear of loss and abandonment, may actualize as anger and hostile high-conflict behaviors (also Saini, 2012). Additionally, parents’ perceptions of behavioral expectations concerning mothers/women and fathers/men and their position and rights in a partnership and family may aggravate the conflicts (also Bergman & Rejmer, 2017; Birnbaum & Bala, 2010; Levite & Cohen, 2012). Besides gender-related perceptions, religious and ethnic perceptions may emerge during separation, even though they may previously not have been issues of importance:

I would like to add that maybe divorce accentuates the meaning of religion. It may have been overlooked when you have started a relationship. But in a divorce situation religious questions can get pretty big. Suddenly, the other parent absolutely wants to raise the child as a Muslim or strongly criticizes the religion or other [issues] of the other party. (…) And then there are these client families, if one parent or both come from some patriarchal culture, then they live with a different conception of family where the status of man and woman in society and in the family are different. (GI 3)

In intense conflicts of this type, the parents were not able to consider the consequences of their own behavior for the child’s well-being. They had difficulty focusing on their children’s needs and could not protect the children from their emotional distress, anger, and ongoing disputes with each other (also Johnston et al., 2009). When working with the families, the professionals tried to highlight the children’s perspective and restrain the parents’ inflammable communication by changing the way they talk about child-related issues. In one case (No. 7), the parents started to use a notebook as a means of communication. They wrote notes on their child to each other, and the child brought the notebook to the other parent upon visits.

The data include several examples where the parents’ new partners and families escalated the conflict. Some parents perceived the ex-partner’s new partner or family as a threat to their own relationship with the child, which evoked fear of losing the child. They had difficulty accepting the other parent’s new ways of practicing parenthood with their common children in the blended family. In such a situation, the parent may be concerned about the child’s safety or adequate care (also Francia et al., 2019) because of a lack of knowledge of the child’s life in the new family:

And the everyday life spent [by the child] with the other parent is a completely unknown concept for the other parent. (…) For the child it is self-evident, familiar and safe, but the other parent may feel that it’s somehow unsafe, because she or he has never physically seen what that everyday life is with the other parent. (GI 1)

On the whole, the analysis indicates that a high-conflict separation as parents’ confrontational interaction weakens their parenting skills and possibilities for co-operation in arranging child-related matters and considering the needs of their children (also Bergman & Rejmer, 2017; Scott & Emery, 2014). Continuing confrontation prevents parents from seeing the best interest of their child and evaluating the consequences of their own behavior for the child.

Exacerbation of complicated psychosocial problems

High-conflict separations also manifested themselves as exacerbation of complicated psychosocial problems. This appeared as a pathological conflict related to one or both parents’ social and health problems and as traumatized experiences exacerbated by the separation. Often, these families were dysfunctional long before the parents separated, and the children may have been subjected to erratic or abusive care (also Johnston, 2006). The main features of parents’ actions in high-conflict separations of this type were litigations and re-litigations, invalidating the other parent’s new partner/family, and violence as a reaction to separation-instigated disputes. Litigations and disputes were initiated by one or both parties. These families were typically offered specialized social and health services, such as family therapy, family work, child protection, child and family social work, student welfare services, low-threshold services for victims of violence, and child and adult psychiatry.

A characteristic of this kind of high-conflict separation was that one or both parents had problems with their mental health or substance abuse, which escalated the conflict. The parents were psychologically fragile and had difficulty maintaining a stable sense of self (also Johnston, 2006). For example, in case No. 10, the father still had feelings toward the mother; consequently, he alleviated his emotional pain with intoxicants. The root of the conflict may also lie in parents’ traumatic experiences in the past, such as strong grief or experiences of abuse in the family of origin, or problems in the present relationship, such as the parents’ financial imbalance (Case No. 3). Moreover, for some parents, the separation occurred so unexpectedly that they reacted to it with uncharacteristic acts of violence, even when there was no history of the use of violence in the relationship (see also, Johnston et al., 2009; P.G. Jaffe et al., 2008). According to the case descriptions, the threat of violence may be related to specific events, as exemplified by case No. 2, in which the presence of police was required to calm the parents down when handing over the child.

This type of conflict includes prolonged disputes over child custody and cycles of litigation, often involving unintended or intended parental alienation and accusations of child maltreatment or abuse. The cycles of litigation can be regarded as a form of emotional abuse against the other parent and the children, and they may force the parents to seek help from professionals, as demonstrated by the following excerpt:

It shows those prolonged disputes over custody and the circle of litigations, and a very protracted conflict between the parents, which then affects the child. There may also be challenges related to the mental health of the parents or the children, or substance abuse, and such a deep mistrust and difficulty acting together in any way to address the child’s issues. And it seems that the parents are looking for help from many places, but they feel like they are not getting any. And, for example, mental violence appears to be quite a big deal, alienation-type behavior. (GI 1)

A distinctive characteristic of this type of conflict was that the parents formed alliances with the children and harnessed them as mediators of their conflict. For example, in case No. 4, the father perceived the mother’s new partner as a threat to the child because of his previous violent behavior and therefore demanded that the child report to him when meeting the new partner. The professionals reflected on the children’s role and how they might start to carry the load between the parents:

One thing I immediately thought about here was a child talking like an adult. So, what I think it shows is that the child has become strongly immersed in the adult disputes, and [the child] plays the role of a messenger who supports the wellbeing of the parents. After all, [the child] is trying to make everyone happy, and she can be a good little girl who doesn’t necessarily show any symptoms externally. A child who has never been able to see the parents even in the same room and carries a backpack from one home to another. (…) [The child] understands that the parents don’t talk to each other, and it is kind of like now I have to be an interpreter and pass on these messages. (GI 1)

Some parents tried to alienate the other parent from the child’s life, which at times also involved hostility toward the child (also Garber, 2014; Johnston, 2006). The data include several examples of parents denigrating the other parent in front of the child, prohibiting the child from mentioning the other parent in their presence, or invalidating the child’s new family relations. This had caused anxiety, a sense of emotional abandonment, ambivalence, and loyalty conflicts in children and made them fear the effect that a positive relationship with one parent will have on the other (also Johnston, 2006; Kelly & Emery, 2003). One professional narrated as follows:

The child’s biological mother was unable to accept the father’s new partner, and she thought all the conflicts began when the new partner entered that family. And when babies were born to the father’s new family, she [the mother] mentioned in every meeting that I [the mother] have told the child that they are not your siblings. (…) And they [the new babies] were really, really important to that child; [the child] talked about them at every meeting. They were much younger than [the child] was, and [the child] participated in their care. The mother talked very strictly to the child, [saying] that you don’t have to do such and such things with them, that you’re not their [sibling], and you don’t have to take care of them. (GI 1)

High-conflict separations involving exacerbation of complicated psychosocial problems are burdened by separation-related parental adjustment problems, such as depression, substance abuse, and violence as a reaction to disputes, and thereby create a risky environment for children (also Cummings & Davies, 2010). They bring to the fore the parents’ personal vulnerability that one may try to process by using the child in mirroring one’s negative views of the other parent, in realizing one’s individual needs, and in nurturing one’s helplessness and abandonment anxiety. The child is caught in the middle of a parental conflict as a passive target of the pressures imposed by the parents and as “a blank slate upon which caregivers write their respective and conflicting agendas” (Garber, 2014, p. 27). A parent may cling to the child and show dependency on the child owing to personal loss and anxiety (Johnston, 2006).

Post-separation violence and/or stalking

The third type of high-conflict separation appears as post-separation violence and/or stalking. In the present study, post-separation violence and/or stalking involved various forms of abuse, e.g., physical and sexual violence; coercive and controlling behaviors against the other parent and children, such as intimidation, harassment and manipulation; and threats targeted at the other parent and/or the children (e.g., Crosse & Millar, 2017; Spearman et al., 2022; Spitzberg & Cupach, 2014). In high-conflict separations of this type, the main problem was one parent’s fixation with the ex-partner and desire to seek revenge and control over her or him. This behavior was often gendered and rooted in patriarchal traditions of male dominance in an intimate relationship. One parent’s use of violence and/or coercive and controlling behavior targeted at the other parent and/or the children often starts when the family is living together, and it may involve the risk of homicide or child abduction (DeKeseredy et al., 2017; P.G. Jaffe et al., 2008). In post-separation violence and/or stalking, children were often a means for a parent to perpetrate harmful behavior, and they could also become victims themselves. The cases examined in this study show that the families were typically offered protective and safety services, including shelters, psycho-social services for victims of violence, the police, multiagency risk assessment teams, child protection, social emergency services, and support persons from non-governmental organizations such as Victim Support Finland and Abducted Children Finland. Often, efforts were made to secure the abused parent’s and children’s well-being through safety plans and restraining orders.

In a high-conflict separation of this type, repeated acts of violence by one parent formed an ongoing pattern of controlling and dominating the other parent and the children (also P.G. Jaffe et al., 2008; Ver Steegh, 2005). For example, in case No. 9, the mother narrated that she had been raped by the ex-partner several times in child-exchange situations. In another case (No. 6), the mother was afraid of leaving the home because of the other parent’s violent and threatening behavior and therefore used a safety taxi when running errands. The abusive parent may also manipulate professionals and mobilize them against the abused parent (also Archer-Kuhn, 2018; Crosse & Millar, 2017; Saini et al., 2012; Saltmarsh et al., 2022) or harness his or her family or other social groups to realize various agendas. The professionals mentioned the family’s cultural background as a potentially exacerbating issue in conflicts, as the threat of honor-based violence and, in the case of two-culture families, the threat of the child being taken to the other parent’s home country can be real. Paying attention to signs of risk is important in evaluating the situation:

There have clearly been more [manifestations of] diverse and long-lasting violence during the relationship involving coercive control, and it can also involve mentions about suicide or threats to kill someone, or [expressions such as] I will take the kids from you and burn down the house and all of us. So, these are the [cases] where you really have to assess the risk of familicide. (GI 2)

Yes, and [we must ask] what is culture and what is something else. But if we think about those signs of risk, if we know that [a parent’s] roots are in such a place, in a country where the culture of honor dominates, then it must be taken as a sign of risk, how those questions of honor can be harmful to the child, too. (GI 3)

In the cases of post-separation violence and/or stalking, a parent’s litigations or threats were often part of the parent’s strategies of coercion and control and patterns of violence (also Harman et al., 2018). The professionals reported that claims of parental alienation are a particularly problematic issue, because they can in fact be used as a form of alienation to counter claims of domestic violence. According to Harman et al. (2018), parental alienating behaviors do not just contribute to child abuse; they are direct and indirect attacks that an abusive parent makes on the other parent. A parent – often the mother – who is targeted with alienation charges can explain her attitude as being grounded in a genuine fear of the other parent’s abusive conduct and a consequent need to protect the children (e.g., Harman et al., 2018; Nikupeteri, 2017; Scott & Emery, 2014). The professionals reflected on the problematic nature of the claims that one parent alienates the child from the other parent:

Somehow, I think there is also alienation, usually we think that alienation is something that a residential parent does. (…) And then again, our experts by experience, particularly those who have experienced long-term violence during their relationship and family life, say that in fact it is the violent parent that is the alienator. In other words, it is the non-residential parent who acts to lead the whole palette and to exert control over the ex-spouse and the children, and also the authorities. So, this kind of alienation as a continuum of violence is perhaps the most serious [form of alienation], this is how I would think. (GI 2)

A distinct feature in high-conflict separations of this type is that one parent, and often the children, are fearful of the other parent’s abusive behavior (also Johnston, 2006). Therefore, when suspecting that violence is taking place, it is important to evaluate the fear and insecurity experienced by the other parent and the children. The abused parent usually wants the children to have a healthy relationship with both parents without being vindictive or angry toward the ex-partner (Harman et al., 2018; Johnston, 2006; Nikupeteri, 2017). The professionals narrated that one can judge by children’s behavior whether they are alienated from one parent or whether claims of parental alienation are a continuance of violence. A child who has experienced parental post-separation violence and/or stalking can also recall positive memories of the abusive parent instead of perceiving him/her solely from a negative perspective (also Baker et al., 2012; Harman et al., 2018; A. M. Jaffe et al., 2017). In the extract below, a professional reflected on the abused parent’s and children’s different ways of behaving, depending on whether the violence is severe or not:

If you think about those clients who have [experienced] brutal violence and physical violence, they behave and talk differently when dealing with or mentioning the other parent and their meetings. Those who are really worried and fearful, they’re trying to arrange the meetings somehow and they’re willing to do a lot of things. All they want is that the child would be able to stay in touch with the other parent. Then those who have not [experienced] that kind of violence, but rather emotional abuse, and then these alienators, the [situation] is different with them. Their speech is very aggressive and hostile, and you can see the difference even in the children [who are involved]. Those who have been living in a climate of violence and under threat, in a way they are, they are fearful, they are not openly defiant. (GI 2)

According to the data, post-separation violence and/or stalking should not be equated with high-conflict disputes (also Archer-Kuhn, 2018). Our analysis reveals that in some cases, children may only have functional or symbolic value for the abusive parent (see, Johnston, 2006), which hinders the building of a secure foundation for co-parenting and child care. High-conflict separations of this type highlight the importance of assessing the risk involved in the situation. The safety of the abused parent and children may be threatened if the abused parent is labeled as the one who alienates the children from the other parent or if the children’s meetings with the abusive parent are regulated by a court order (also Harman et al., 2018).

Discussion

The analysis of this study revealed three high-conflict divorce and separation types distinguished by the following features: confrontational interaction, exacerbation of complicated psychosocial problems, and post-separation violence and/or stalking. The results indicate that the types of high conflict can have shared features, such as litigations or parental alienation, but the family contexts in which they manifest and the parents’ personal motives can be totally different. Post-separation violence and/or stalking may share characteristics with confrontational interaction and exacerbation of complicated psychosocial problems, which can mask reality (also Archer-Kuhn, 2018). At their worst, professional interventions that do not recognize one parent’s acts of violence and/or stalking can further endanger the lives of the abused parent and the children. Our results emphasize that each type of high-conflict separation requires different interventions in order to respond to parents’ and children’s varying needs for help and support. Next, we outline the responses and interventions in each separation type by paying attention to professional approaches, parenting possibilities, child–parent relationships, and follow-up procedures (see Table 2).

Table 2. Responses and interventions in high-conflict separations.

	Professional approaches	Parenting possibilities	Child–parent relationships	Follow-up procedures
CONFRONTATIONAL INTERACTION	- Mediating methods - Strengthening child–parent relationships - Trauma-informed approach - Family services and family law procedures	– Possibilities for parallel or co-parenting	- Supporting the child’s contact with both parents	- Evaluating the quality of parenting from the perspective of the child’s wellbeing and comfort
EXACERBATION OF COMPLICATED PSYCHOSOCIAL PROBLEMS	- Preventing and minimizing the harm for the child - Evaluating the need for child protection services - Trauma-informed and/or therapeutic approaches - Family law and/or criminal law procedures	- Possibilities for parallel parenting - Evaluating both parents’ access to the child	- Evaluating the safety of child–parent contacts - Evaluating the need for limiting the meetings with the unsafe/abusive parent	- Evaluating the children’s well-being and the services used; do the parents or the child need some extra support?
POST-SEPARATION VIOLENCE AND/OR STALKING	- Child protection orientation from all professionals - Securitizing the child and the abused parent - Trauma-focused work and therapy - Family and criminal law procedures	- Ensuring safe parallel parenting - Suspending the abusive parent’s right to access the child	- Limiting or suspending meetings/contacts with the abusive parent - Strengthening the relationship with the safe parent	- Continual, systematic multiprofessional risk assessment and monitoring

In intense conflicts involving parents’ confrontational interaction, it is of primary importance to strengthen the adults’ parenting skills and the child’s relationship with both parents after separation. Investment in parenthood and avoidance of conflicts are viewed as protective factors for children in the situation (e.g., Francia & Millear, 2015; Kelly & Emery, 2003; Leon, 2003). Parents and children benefit from professional approaches that involve mediating methods, supportive and preventive work with families, and trauma-informed methods (e.g., Levenson, 2017). These approaches aim to enhance parents’ skills in co-parenting or parallel parenting and to prevent the interference of the other parent (Johnston, 2006). Parents are often involved in legal proceedings related to children’s sustenance, visitation rights, and living arrangements to organize them in the best interests of the child. It is essential to hear the views of the child, because it helps the parents to discard their binary arguments concerning parenting and encourages them to rebuild their relationship for the benefit of the child (Birnbaum & Saini, 2015). As a follow-up, it is important that professionals evaluate the quality of parenting from the perspective of the child’s well-being and satisfaction with the arrangements.

In high-conflict separations characterized by exacerbation of complicated psychosocial problems, professional typically apply the following approaches: preventing and minimizing harm to the child, evaluating the need for child protection services, using trauma-informed and/or therapeutic methods, and implementing family law and/or criminal law procedures. Parallel parenting is possible, and access to the child should be assessed without assuming that contact with both parents is essential or that one parent should be excluded from the child’s life (Johnston, 2006). It is important that professionals evaluate whether the child–parent contacts include a risk for the child caused by, for example, a parent’s substance abuse or separation-instigated violence. The child’s meetings with the unsafe or abusive parent may need to be limited or supervised (e.g., Johnston, 2006; P.G. Jaffe et al., 2008). In the follow-up, it is important to evaluate the child’s well-being and the services used, to find out if the parents or the child need extra support such as therapy, to monitor the possible continuation of the conflict, and to make further interventions if needed.

When an intense conflict manifests as post-separation violence and/or stalking, it is important that all professionals working with the family adopt a child protection orientation, work toward protecting the children and the abused parent, and ensure their safety through multiprofessional risk assessment and personal safety plans (also Eriksson et al., 2022). Although it is crucial to consider the child’s experiences in all high-conflict divorce and separation cases, for safety reasons it is vital in this type of conflict that the child’s voice is truly heard and understood (also Razbani-Tehrani & Kaptyn, 2022). Professionals have to evaluate and ensure possibilities for safe parallel parenting and, if necessary, to limit or suspend the abusive parent’s right of access to the child (also Johnston, 2006; P.G. Jaffe et al., 2008) and to strengthen the child’s relationship with the safe parent and/or other safe adults. The abused parent and children also often need trauma-focused work and therapy. As a follow-up, it is important to conduct a continuous, systematic multiprofessional risk assessment and to monitor and update the safety plans. It is also essential to keep in mind that both the child and the abused parent need support in coping with the impact of violence on their well-being or parenting capacity and to address the abusive parent’s behavior with the objective of making him/her acknowledge the impact of this behavior on the children and the ex-partner. Furthermore, it is of utmost importance to acknowledge that one parent may manipulate professionals to take sides with him/her against the other parent and thus mobilize them as enablers (Archer-Kuhn, 2018; Crosse & Millar, 2017; Saini et al., 2012; Saltmarsh et al., 2022). In the long run, it is vital to evaluate the possible changes in the abusive parent’s behavior and whether less restrictive options to contact the child can be considered (Johnston, 2006).

Overall, our results highlight that long-term work with both parents and children is required to develop an understanding of high-conflict situations and to be able to evaluate whether claims of parental alienation should be regarded as real or as counterclaims against domestic violence (also Harman et al., 2018; Scott & Emery, 2014). Also, our results underscore the fact that in high-conflict situations, professionals are required to have a broad cultural awareness; knowledge on the dynamics of gendered violence, stalking, and coercive control; and expertise in working with children and their families.

Implications for professionals

According to the findings, professionals are to perform a multifactor analysis to safeguard the child’s best interests (Warshak, 2015) and to evaluate the high-conflict situation within a comprehensive framework, including the history of the family and parenting, social and cultural factors, and the personal motives and patterns behind the conflict (Polak & Saini, 2019). This accentuates the importance of multiprofessional work in which professional interventions are carefully orchestrated (Johnston, 2006). It is important that professionals share their understanding of what the conflict is about so that they can assess the possible risks related to the family situation. When assessing children’s access to their parents, professionals are to weigh the risks and likelihood of violence against the potential benefits. This may advance the reconciliation of conflicting priorities when assessing child–parent contacts (Johnston, 2006).

Limitations of the current study

There are several limitations to this study. The sample size of 14 cases is rather small, although the data actually include nuanced information based on working with a total of 31 children and 28 adults. The content-oriented analysis (Silverman, 2005) contributed to characterizing high-conflict separations and professional responses to them, but categorizations always also simplify the cases, which are in essence complex (Johnston, 2006; Warshak, 2015). One must also acknowledge the complexity of working with families in the context of high-conflict separations, in which identifying the main problem in each case may prove challenging. As our analysis is based on the perspective of professionals, our findings are not representative of parents’ and children’s subjective experiences. Future research should pay particular attention to children’s views to produce a more nuanced understanding of high-conflict separations and the realization of children’s rights in them.

Conclusion

In this study, three types of high-conflict separations were distinguished, and professional interventions appropriate for each type were identified. The results are consistent with earlier studies that have shown that each high-conflict case needs special consideration (e.g., P.G. Jaffe et al., 2008). The results have also confirmed the importance of distinguishing prolonged parental and custody disputes from violence perpetrated by one parent against the other (e.g., Archer-Kuhn, 2018; Johnston, 2006). Based on our results, more professional education is needed on high-conflict separations and the pertinent parent–child dynamics. Also, more education is needed on high conflict-related phenomena, such as violence, stalking and alienating, and on the way they can be mixed (also Harman et al., 2018). This would contribute to finding interventions that focus on children’s best interests and their right to secure family relationships. Our results highlight that perceiving intense conflicts as a hindrance to the realization of children’s rights and as a form of maltreatment of children could produce a more child-centered approach to high-conflict separations (also Johnston, 2006; Joyce, 2016).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland under Grant 308470.

Notes

¹ The project was coordinated by the National Federation of Mother and Child Homes and Shelters and it was run in two municipalities.