ABSTRACT

The relatively high rate of divorce has produced families posing unique challenges to both children and parents. From a child's perspective there is the requirement to accommodate living in two separate family systems, each with its defining characteristics. The divorced parent is thrust into a parallel parenting role with the ex-spouse, a condition which for most makes parenting even more difficult. When remarriage takes place, new family members are added to this constellation, multiplying the requirements for change and adaptation in the newly constituted binuclear family system. When a divorced family presents for treatment, the therapist is confronted with remarkably different and, I believe, greater challenges than those presented by intact families. As noted, there are more familial relationships to be considered in divorced families and family system components are less well defined (e.g., rules, roles, boundaries, relationships, resources, environment, etc.).