“Should I attend therapy or wait until the custody battle is over?”

Posted in Clients,Divorce,Uncategorized on November 13, 2016

Someone just asked me whether she should attend therapy during a divorce and custody litigation or wait until the litigation was done. That is, she wanted to know whether a divorce court deciding custody issues would be biased against a parent who is [diagnosed and] in therapy. Here’s what I answered:

The best answer to your question is to recognize that judges try to do the “right” thing in these trying situations. Generally in most cases, it’s hard to distinguish who’s more right between the parents and where the children will be better off, i.e., where “the best interests of the child(ren) lie.”

So the best way to play the prediction game is to be knowledgeable about all of the relevant legal and psycho-social factors, and then apply your common sense. Would it be better for the children to live with Parent-A who has diagnoses X [that would affect parenting in such-and-such a manner] and is being treated for it [and has Y prognosis], than Parent-B [who appears to have the following parenting shortcomings but denies it and refuses to improve]?