Struggling, Coping, And Thriving: Sense-Making In Stepfamily Couples' Narratives About Coparenting

The term coparenting implies a bioparental dyad that often excludes the stepparent's role in sharing parenting across joint-custody households. Focusing solely on this dyad also precludes gaining an understanding of how stepfamily couples manage together the communication and sharing of parental responsibilities with the parent(s) in the shared children's other home. In a departure from this bioparental dyad-focused approach, this study locates the stepfamily couple at the center of an inquiry into managing coparenting across households. This mixed methods design study included in-depth interviews of 32 stepfamily couples whose narratives about coparenting were analyzed using grounded theory methods. Forty-one percent of stepparents engage in direct coparenting communication, sometimes manifested as the coactive approach identified in this study. Stepfamily couples also involve the stepparent indirectly in coparenting communication, through the conferred and consultative approaches. As well, the couples' narratives about coparenting identify them as either united, where they share the experience, or divided, where coparenting is reserved exclusively for the bioparent to manage. The stepfamily couples' narratives about significant coparenting experiences revealed that they experience and make sense of coparenting as 1) struggling, 2) coping, or 3) thriving. No significant relationship was found between marital satisfaction and experiencing coparenting as strugglers, copers or thrivers. Grounded theory analysis of these narratives also reflects the four dichotomous dimensions of 1) regard-disregard, 2) decency-duplicity, 3) facilitation-interference, and 4) accommodation-inflexibility. Significant incidents located along these dimensions contribute to the stepfamily couples' identification as struggling, coping, or thriving in coparenting. Experiences on the extreme ends of the dichotomous dimensions generate positive and negative turning points for the coparenting interactions and relationships. As well, experiences on the negative end of the dimensional poles can present challenges for the stepfamily couples. Finally, a synthesis of the findings related to the dichotomous dimensions generates a theory of shared parenting values expectancy.

Brief of Amici Curiae Scholars of the Constitutional Rights of Children in Support of Petitioners in Obergefell v. Hodges

Supreme Court precedent establishes that the government may not punish children for matters beyond their control. Same-sex marriage bans and non-recognition laws (“marriage bans”) do precisely this. The states argue that marriage is good for children, yet marriage bans categorically exclude an entire class of children – children of same-sex couples – from the legal, economic and social benefits of marriage. This amicus brief recounts a powerful body of equal protection jurisprudence that prohibits punishing children to reflect moral disapproval of parental conduct or to incentivize adult behavior. We then explain that marriage bans punish children of same-sex couples because they: 1) foreclose their central legal route to family formation; 2) categorically void their existing legal parent-child relationships incident to out-of-state marriages; 3) deny them economic rights and benefits; and 4) inflict psychological and stigmatic harm. States cannot justify marriage bans as good for children and then exclude children of same-sex couples based on moral disapproval of their same-sex parents’ relationships or to incentivize opposite-sex couples to “procreate” within the bounds of marriage. To do so, severs the connection between legal burdens and individual responsibility and creates a permanent class or caste distinction.

Parent-Child Interaction and Children's Self-Concept

This study is designed to investigate the relationships between marital communication, the quality of parents' ability to assist their children in joint problem-solving, and children's independent mastery attempts and perceived competence at problem-solving, and behavioral indicators of self-esteem. Couples' skill at regulating their own and their children's negative affect within the marital and parent-child family subsystems is hypothesized to predict the quality of their assistance, or scaffolding behavior, to their children during joint problem-solving. Further, the quality of parental scaffolding behavior is expected to predict children's independent mastery attempts, levels of perceived competence at problemsolving, and behavioral indicators of self-esteem. Families for the study will be those with children between 3 1/2 to six years of age recruited from subjects participating in a longitudinal study of communication in marriage being conducted at the Denver Center for Marital and Family Studies. Families will participate in three interaction tasks designed to tap parental scaffolding behavior during problemsolving with their children. Children will be administered self-report measures to tap their perceived competence at such problem-solving as those in the interaction tasks and parents will complete a questionnaire tapping the behavioral indicators of their child's self-esteem. Family interaction data will be coded with the use of a microanalytic coding system developed by this study, the Parent-Child Interaction Coding System. Marital communication data at three time points, premaritally, during the transition to parenthood , and concurrently, will be obtained from couples' interactions from the longitudinal study. The clinical significance of this study includes implications for training couples how to effectively regulate negative affect and offer their children sensitive assistance during joint problem-solving.

Comparison of Couples' Normal Life Cycle Development and Intimacy Distance Regulation

When conceptualizing healthy couple relationships, it is tempting to use a simple framework as a panacea. Unfortunately, this desire for simplicity can lead to a narrow and naive perspective. Individuals interact and are influenced by a variety of factors (i.e., various social systems, multiple context memberships, complex interconnecting exchanges, etc.); consequently, it is necessary to guard against an overly narrow interpretation when examining healthy couple interactions. It is the purpose of this paper to develop one aspect of a complex perspective for healthy couple relationships by comparing couple life cycle development with couple intimacy-distance regulation.

Relationship Maintenance in Couples with a Partner Who Has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The body of research on the relationship functioning of adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is relatively small; the aim of the present study is to advance our understanding of this topic. It has been estimated that three to ten percent of children and one to five percent of adults have impairing symptoms of ADHD, which is a total of 4 million children and 4-5 million adults in the U.S. (Wender, 2000). A recent prevalence study found that approximately 4.4% of adults in the U.S. meet the criteria for a diagnosis of ADHD (Kessler et al., 2006). Children with ADHD show innate temperamental characteristics, usually inattentiveness, distractibility, impulsivity, restlessness, demandingness, hyperreactivity, low tolerance for frustration, temperoutbursts, bossiness and stubbornness, and mood lability, along with an innate proclivity for academic underachievement. It has been estimated that one- to two-thirds of children with ADHD have symptoms that continue into adulthood, and for 40-50% of these adults, these symptoms are serious enough to cause impairment in functioning (Everett & Everett, 1999; Wender, 2000). Research suggests that the majority of cases are transmitted genetically, but some may be due to exposure to environmental toxins such as lead. Consumption of excess sugar or allergies to food may exacerbate or mimic ADHD symptoms in some children, but they are not a cause of ADHD (Wender, 2000). One hypothesized cause of the symptoms associated with ADHD is a deficit in the brain's executive functioning (Barkley & Gordon, 2002). Executive functioning can be conceptualized as the ability to inhibit, organize, and plan behaviors. Barkley and Gordon (2002) define it as the abilityto self-direct and regulate behaviors toward future goals, including social behaviors and goals. Other research suggests that executive functioning consists of inhibition, control of interference, verbal and nonverbal working memory, emotional regulation, attention, verbal fluency, visual scanning, and processing speed. Studies have shown impairments in these areas among adults with ADHD (Barkley & Gordon, 2002; Barkley, Murphy & Kwasnik, 1996; Goldstein, 2002).

Therapeutic Personality Assessment with Couples: A Short-Term Therapy Model

This paper focuses on the importance of psychological assessment as a short-term therapeutic tool for use in couples therapy. Personality assessment, when used collaboratively, can be a vital contribution to the therapeutic environment and can help couples can insight into each other's character traits and behavior patterns. This paper addresses the need for a short-term model of couples therapy for couples where one partner is incarcerated. The author proposes using a slightly modified version of Finn's Therapeutic Assessment for couples - Therapeutic Personality Assessment for Couples for a Prison Setting (TPAC-PS). A future research paradigm is suggested to test the validity of the TPAC-PS model.

Asking For Help: Vulnerability within Consultative Assessment A Couples Therapy Example.

In many different ways psychologists are challenged to evaluate their work and be accountable when therapy is not progressing. One time honored approach to addressing the lack of progress is to seek formal psychological assessment to gain a better diagnostic understanding as well as treatment recommendations. The perspective on the purpose of the assessment seems to have changed however. Historically, the presumption was that there was some kind of pathology that the clinician was not seeing, where currently the perspective seems to be shifting more towards a focus on what might not be working in the therapeutic process. This shift in focus has led to new styles of collaborative and consultative assessment such as Therapeutic Assessment. Therapeutic Assessment was developed by Stephen Finn and has shown a great deal of promise helping clients and therapists gain valuable insight and move toward meaningful life changes (1998). Amidst the promise of consultative assessment also lie potential challenges for the referring clinician. This paper will explore the nature of consultative relationships in the field of mental health and the current thoughts about the advantages and challenges of these relationships. Using a case study format, it will discuss and illustrate issues of professional vulnerability that can arise during these relationships and postulate that a similar vulnerability could be present during a consultative assessment. Recommendations are made for maximizing the success of this type of assessment, and ideas for future research are reviewed. Through the lens of a couples Therapeutic Assessment case, this paper will examine what it is about this unique kind of professional relationship that garners such powerful potential and pitfalls.

Gay Couples Who Adopt Children Who Have Been Abused: Ideas and Interventions From a Self Psychological Perspective to Facilitate the Adoption Process

here are currently hundreds of thousands of children in the US foster care system who are all in need of a stable and predictable home with parents on whom they can depend. Recently, there has been an increased interest in adoption from gay couples who want to start a family. Because the majority of children in the foster care system have some sort of abuse or neglect history, a large number of them present with difficulties such as oppositional behavior, mood dysregulation, and other kinds of mental health problems. This paper addresses the unique situation of gay couples who adopt children who have been abused. Kohut's self psychology theory is utilized to help identify strengths and potential problems that could arise from this type of situation. Particular attention is given to the three selfobject needs that are central in self psychology: mirroring, idealization, and twinship. Additionally, ideas for interventions are posed for potential adoptive parents and mental health professionals to use to help the adoption process progress more smoothly and to hopefully lead to long-term, healthy placements.

A Self Psychological Conceptualization for Traditional Gender Role Men and Considerations in Couples Treatment

The study of masculinity and its impact on men’s psychological development and subsequent functioning has become more prevalent in the last few decades. This area of research has begun to introduce psychological interventions specific to men in treatment settings. Masculinity, like any socially constructed phenomena, is a fluid concept with overlapping variables and characteristics that are specific to what is learned from one’s social, cultural, and familial environment. According to Tremblay & L’Heureux (2005):