ABSTRACT
All family therapists must be familiar with separation, divorce and remarriage, because these are common and often wrenching experiences for families. Divorced parents and many state laws increasingly refer to “parenting time” or a “parenting plan,” a more palatable alternative. The task for divorced parents is a far broader one that includes containing hurt and angry feelings, emotions that can and frequently do lead to conflict around and about children—or to the denigration and undermining of their children’s other parent. A basic and essential problem in divorce is that the family’s boundaries have crumbled and may be in dispute. Unlike the boundary of love, which may disrupt legal proceedings, but is not considered in a “no fault” divorce, the law explicitly addresses several power issues between divorcing spouses. There are a number of potential and active interventions with divorced and remarried families, including legal interventions that can be quite intrusive in terms of making parenting decisions and restricting parenting time.
