UPCOMING & RECENT EVENTS
Below is a list of upcoming and recent publications, presentations, and TV appearances by Dr. Warshak, and coverage of Dr. Warshak's work in newspapers and magazines.
2012
January 2012
Should the best-interest-of-the-child standard be replaced by a presumption that divides a child's time between homes equally or according to the proportion of care provided by each parent in the past? This and other questions are examined in an article just published in the University of Baltimore Law Review: Parenting by the Clock: The Best-Interest-of-the-Child Standard, Judicial Discretion, and the American Law Institute's "Approximation Rule."
This 81-page article, documented with 414 footnotes, answers questions such as:
- What do scientific studies report about the relationship between children's welfare and the amount of involvement of both parents?
- Does more time with Dad take away from the quality of the mother-child relationship?
- Are the benefits of greater father involvement found in families with high inter-parental conflict?
- Are courts biased in favor of mothers or in favor of fathers?
- Should custody decisions favor the parent who supports the child's relationship with the other parent, or do "friendly parent" provisions discourage parents from protecting children from abuse?
- Is there an epidemic of judges who award custody of children to violent fathers?
- Do judges rely too heavily on the recommendations of child custody evaluators?
As one of approximately seven articles published annually by this law review, Dr. Warshak expects this article to influence legislation and case law regarding child custody.
2011
September 2011
The American Journal of Family Therapy publishes an article co-authored by Aaron J. Hands and Richard A. Warshak on Parental Alienation Among College Students. The results of this survey of college students support the ideas that parental alienating behaviors, and the phenomenon of a child becoming alienated from a parent after divorce, are departures from the norm and worthy of attention and concern. The findings also suggest that evaluators, therapists, and counselors should exercise caution about postponing interventions for alienated children. Given the incidence of reported alienated parent-child relationships among this sample of college students, it may not be realistic to expect that such damaged relationships will likely heal with the passage of time.
September 2011
This month's issue of the State Bar of Texas Section Report: Family Law includes Dr. Warshak's article: The Approximation Rule Survey: The American Law Institute's Proposed Reform Misses the Target. This article is the fourth is a series analyzing the ALI's proposed reform replacing the best interests standard with a presumption that in contested physical custody cases the court should allocate to each parent a proportion of the child's time that approximates the proportion of time each spent performing caretaking functions in the past. This article presents the first empirical research study about the proposal.
ALI assumes that the approximation rule provides a determinate custody criterion that will improve the tenor of settlement negotiations, increase the likelihood of pre-trial settlements, and reduce judicial discretion by restricting the scope of fact-finding to one factor: the proportion of time each parent took care of the children prior to the separation. The attorneys and child custody evaluators who responded to this survey disagree. Asked to rate the likely impact of the approximation rule on their last custody case that proceeded to a full trial, most respondents report that it would not have reduced strategic and manipulative bargaining and that the litigants would have disputed their relative past caretaking contributions and would have raised one or more exceptions to the rule, thus triggering a wider best-interests judicial inquiry.
This article, along with its three predecessors, and a fifth major article to appear in December 2011, will be added to our catalog at the end of 2011.
September 14, 2011
Dr. Warshak speaks on Preventing and Overcoming Parental Alienation at the Dallas Forensic Group. The meeting, for legal and mental health professionals, students, and interns, is held at the SMU Law School and begins at 7:00 pm.
August 16, 2011
Dr. Warshak's 8th article for the Huffington Post is published today. Title: Divorce Court: Mopping Up the Mess.
June 17, 2011
Dr. Warshak presents "Plutoed Parents: Preventing and Overcoming Parental Alienation" at the University of Texas School of Law 2011 Family Law on the Front Lines Conference. The conference is held in Austin, Texas at the AT&T Education and Conference Center. For more information, click here.
April 15, 2011
Dr. Warshak is the keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Massachusetts chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. The conference title is: Parental Alienation: Not Just Another Custody Case, and is held at Regis College, in Weston, MA. Learn more >.
March 20, 2011
Dr. Warshak speaks at the Moorestown, NJ Library as part of their Beyond Parenting 101 series. Topic: When Children and Teen Reject Parents: What's Normal, What's Not. This event is open to the public and begins at 2 p.m. To register phone 856-234-033. The library is located at 111 West Second Street.
March 4, 2011
Dr. Warshak is a guest speaker at a training workshop for parenting coordinators and parenting facilitators who work with high-conflict families. The program is sponsored by Children In The Middle and the National Association of Social Workers (Texoma branch).
February 25, 2011
Dr. Warshak will conduct an all-day continuing education workshop in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, at the request of The Psychologists' Association of Alberta (PAA). Topic: "Welcome Back, Pluto: The Psychology of Families with Alienated and Estranged Children and the Principles, Procedures, and Ethical Considerations of Effective Help." PAA's mission is to advance the science-based profession of psychology and to promote the well-being and potential of all Albertans. For more information, click here.
February 24, 2011
Dr. Warshak speaks to the Parental Alienation Awareness Organization at the Blackfoot Inn, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. This lecture and discussion session is open to the general public and begins at 7:00 pm.
February 11, 2011
Dr. Warshak is the keynote speaker at the Dallas Bar Association's Family Law Bench-Bar Conference. Topic: "Welcome Back, Pluto: Tips for Preventing and Overcoming Parental Alienation." The conference will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Addison, Texas.
2010
November 8, 2010
The Huffington Post invited Dr. Warshak to participate as a regular commentator in their new section on Divorce. Dr. Warshak's first contribution, Stop Divorce Poison, appeared today when the section was launched.
September 17, 2010
Dr. Warshak speaks to doctoral students in the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. His lecture topic, part of the Didactics Series, is: Consultations with Divorcing Families. The cauldron of emotions that accompanies divorce often interferes with good-enough parenting. In this lecture Dr. Warshak shows how psychologists can assist families during, and after, divorce. He discusses—and illustrates with clinical examples—goals, structure, and strategies of effective interventions with this population.
June 24, 2010
Dr. Warshak was invited to participate in the Families Matter Symposium, co-sponsored by the American Bar Association Family Law Section and the University of Baltimore School of Law Center for Families, Children and the Courts. A select group of leaders in the field were invited to develop recommendations for family law process reform to make the system less destructive to families. The two-day symposium will be held at the University of Baltimore.
June 3, 2010
Dr. Warshak will participate in a plenary panel at the annual conference of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), Denver, Colorado. The topic of the panel is: "Helping Families with Children Who Reject Parents: Consensus, Controversies and Future Directions."
Also at AFCC, Dr. Warshak and his colleagues will present a 1.5 hour workshop on "Family Bridges: Principles, Procedures, and Ethical Considerations In Reconnecting Severely Alienated Children With Their Parents."
AFCC is an interdisciplinary, international association of professionals dedicated to improving the lives of children and families through the resolution of family conflict. Watch this site for information about registering for this conference.
May 17, 2010 (online edition May 18, 2010)
Canada's Law Times published Dr. Warshak's commentary explaining the scientific basis for Family Bridges: A Workshop for Troubled and Alienated Parent-Child Relationships.
February 19, 2010
Dr. Warshak's extended interview airs on PBS channel KNME in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Watch.
February 12, 2010
Dr. Warshak was honored with an invitation to participate in a demonstration for attorneys on trials of cases with allegations of parental alienation. This event is part of the annual Texas Academy of Family Law Specialists Trial Institute, to be held in Santa Fe.
February 9, 2010
The Toronto Star featured an extensive interview with Dr. Warshak regarding his work, the newly released revised edition of Divorce Poison, and Family Bridges.
February 3, 2010
Dr. Warshak will speak at the National Judicial Institute (NJI) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Topic: "Court to Children: You Can’t Always Get What You Say You Want, But You Might Get What You Need."
NJI fosters a high standard of judicial performance in Canada by offering educational programs for all federal, provincial and territorial judges.
January 19, 2010
A revised and updated edition of Divorce Poison will be released on this date. In addition to a new subtitle – How To Protect Your Family From Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing – there is a new "Note to the Reader" and a new "Afterword" in the Revised Edition of Divorce Poison.
January 19, 2010
Dr. Warshak is interviewed by Barbara Dooley on WGAU radio in Athens, Georgia.
January 17, 2010
The Asbury Park Press published Dr. Warshak's Op-ed column on the hazards of relying on children's stated preferences in child custody disputes.
January 14, 2010
Dr. Warshak will conduct an in-service training at Jewish Family Services, Dallas, Texas. Topic: "Therapeutic Management of Alienated Children."
January 2010
Dr. Warshak’s groundbreaking article, "Family Bridges: Using Insights from Social Science to Reconnect Parents and Alienated Children," appears in Family Court Review. Family Court Review is sponsored by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, in cooperation with Hofstra University School of Law, and published by Blackwell Publishing. The article is the first in a refereed journal on the program for severely alienated children that is making headlines. The program is Family Bridges: A Workshop for Troubled and Alienated Parent-Child Relationships™. The article passed a rigorous peer review process and provides the first detailed account and followup study of Family Bridges™. This means that expert reviewers and the editors judged the manuscript to have sufficient merit to warrant publication. Furthermore, the article’s acceptance spearheaded the editor’s decision to devote the entire issue of the journal to the topic of alienation. Known as a Special Issue, the topic of the journal is: "Alienated Children in Divorce and Separation: Emerging Approaches for Families and Courts," guest edited by psychologist Barbara Fidler, Ph.D., and attorney Nicholas Bala.
Dr. Warshak’s article describes an innovative educational and experiential program, Family Bridges: A Workshop for Troubled and Alienated Parent-Child Relationships™, that draws on social science research to help severely and unreasonably alienated children and adolescents adjust to court orders that place them with a parent they claim to hate or fear. The article examines the benefits and drawbacks of available options for helping alienated children and controversies and ethical issues regarding coercion of children by parents and courts. The program’s goals, principles, structure, procedures, syllabus, limitations, and outcomes are presented. At the workshop’s conclusion, 22 of 23 children, all of whom had failed experiences with counseling prior to enrollment, restored a positive relationship with the rejected parent. At follow-up, 18 of the 22 children maintained their gains; those who relapsed had premature contact with the alienating parent.
Advance copies of the manuscript of what is being called the “Bridges” article have been requested by more than 100 legal and mental health professionals throughout the world. The “Bridges” article is one of three articles written by Dr. Warshak that will be published in the January 2010 issue of Family Court Review. However, with the exception of the Bridges article, all the other articles in this issue, including Dr. Warshak’s two other articles, described below, were invited articles and were not subjected to the rigorous peer review process that the “Bridges” article went through and passed. One of the invited articles is a response to the Bridge’s article written by the eminent authority on divorce, Dr. Joan Kelly.
January 2010
"Helping Alienated Children With Family Bridges: Practice, Research, and the Pursuit of Humbition," an article co-authored by Dr. Warshak and Dr. Mark Otis, appears in Family Court Review. The article briefly summarizes and responds to feedback offered by Dr. Joan Kelly regarding Family Bridges: A Workshop for Troubled and Alienated Parent-Child Relationships.™ The article emphasize principles that promote an educational atmosphere as opposed to a therapeutic one, and the court’s role in contributing to successful interventions with severely alienated children. Among the considerations discussed are: working with favored parents, economic comparisons of Family Bridges™ with counseling approaches, modifying the program for use in prevention and with milder cases of alienation, and issues related to training additional team leaders and conducting outcome research.
January 2010
"Alienating Audiences from Innovation: The Perils of Polemics, Ideology, and Innuendo" is the third article written by Dr. Warshak and appearing in Family Court Review’s Special Issue on "Alienated Children in Divorce and Separation: Emerging Approaches for Families and Courts."
This article discusses the importance of balancing careful scrutiny with openness to new ideas when judging innovative programs like Family Bridges. Judicial responses to children who reject a parent are best governed by a multi-factor individualized approach. A presumption that allows children and one parent to regulate the other parent’s access to the children is unsupported by research. A custody decision based solely on the severity of alienation leaves children vulnerable to intensification of efforts to poison their affections toward a parent. Concern with possible short-term distress for some children who are required to repair a damaged relationship should not blind us to the long-term trauma of doing nothing. Professionals are urged to minimize the infusion of polemics, rigid ideology, and rumors when offering opinions with inadequate information, particularly public statements that risk harming children.
2009
December 18, 2009
Dr. Warshak will appear on ABC 20/20 in an hour-long segment on an international abduction case.
October 29, 2009
Dr. Warshak was quoted in a U. S. News and World Report article posted online (page 2) titled: "Parental Alienation: A Mental Diagnosis?" The article reports on efforts to add and to oppose parental alienation as a diagnosis in the next edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Dr. Warshak discusses the importance of shielding children from harmful communications.
September 20, 2009
Dr. Warshak appeared on Fox & Friends with host Alisyn Camerota and Michael McCarty, the father of a child taken to Italy by his mother after she lost custody in a NY court. Dr. Warshak discussed the psychology of abducted children. He emphasized that a child's expressions of hatred toward a parent could reflect, not the child's genuine feelings, but a script written by others. Dr. Warshak discussed strategies for successfully reuniting abducted children and parents.
September 2009
Rome, Italy's main newspaper, Il Giornale, mentions Dr. Warshak and Family Bridges, a program for reuniting alienated abducted children with the parents from whom they were taken.
February 3, 2009
The Toronto Star discussed Dr. Warshak's work helping alienated children by offering them a face-saving way to reconnect with their parents.
February 2, 2009
Canada's law newspaper, Law Times, interviewed Dr. Warshak for an article on the growing recognition of parental alienation.
February 2, 2009
Dr. Warshak is the featured speaker at the Ontario Bar Association's annual Family Law Institute in Toronto. Time: 9:00am-10:30am. Location: Metro Toronto Convention Centre, South Building, 222 Bremner Blvd. Topic: "Legal and Therapeutic Management of Alienated Children."
January 13, 2009
Due to the continued strong sales of Divorce Poison, HarperCollins is releasing an E-Book edition on this date.
January 2009
Semana, the leading news magazine in Columbia, South America, quoted Dr. Warshak in an article on parents who are kept from contact with their children.
See Past Events in Archives.