ABSTRACT
The role of the psychiatric evaluator in child custody cases continues to be challenging, as both the need for such evaluations remains high, and the decision-making process in determining custody is increasingly more complex. The demand for competent psychiatric evaluators in part has been driven by the rising divorce rate. Levy (1985a) cited an increase of 200 per cent in the divorce rate in the United States from 1960 to 1977. Amato and Keith (1991) stated that 40-50 per cent of children will experience the divorce of their parents. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (1997) provided a more contemporary estimate, consistent with data from the National Center for Health Statistics (1997), that one in two marriages ends in divorce. This affects about one million children each year, and approximately 10 per cent of divorces involve custody litigation. In addition, the American family continues to change. Consider remarriages, co-habitation, single parent and alternative families, and issues such as reproductive technologies and DNA testing for paternity. This has contributed to the growing number and complexity of child custody disputes.
The psychological impact of divorce on both children and parents can be far-reaching and may further contribute to the need for a psychiatric evaluator, who may be able to diminish future ill effects. The sequelae of the divorce process on children are dependent on many factors and are not automatically pathogenic. Most controlled research (e.g., a comparison non-divorced group, or controlling for degree of pre-divorce psychological problems) finds that children from divorced and married families differ little, and underscores the resilience of most children to ‘bounce back’ from the stress of divorce (Emery and Coiro 1995; Hetherington and Stanley-Hagan 1999). However, other
