ABSTRACT
One legacy of divorce is discontinuity in the parent-child relationship. The many changes of the separation and divorce, and their extended aftermath, are reflected in unexpected and far-reaching changes in the child’s relationship with both parents, and not only illuminate the evolution of the postdivorce family, but also throw light on the parent-child relationship as it occurs within the intact family. In the same way that the clinical setting enables us to learn about normal and psychopathological behaviors by magnifying both psychological stress points and responses, similarly family disruption, by showing us where the lines of cleavage develop within these relationships, enables us to examine their nature more closely and to learn from these cleavage planes about family relationships under normal or less stressful conditions where the component parts, being more firmly in place, conceal the nature of their inner workings.
