| Premise - your
judicial conduct, orders, and rulings have far-reaching effects on
all members of the litigants' families, including
attorneys and mediators. Despite your training and
experience, you
probably lack some vital information about the causes of common social
disputes and criminal behavior. If so, you risk (a) unintentionally
promoting
significant
in the litigants' families
and society, and (b) missing a vital chance to help them protect their descendents and society from
future trauma, |
Notice your reaction to this premise...
Reflect - which of these seems most true of you now? I am primarily concerned with...
__ applying laws fairly and
humanely to help litigants resolve their
current problems,
and preserve social order, justice, and security; or....
__ (a) doing the above and
trying to (b) help litigants and local society
avoid using
the legal system to resolve their problems, and to (c)
prevent major family
stress and divorce long term.
If
the first of these describes you, have you ever considered using your wisdom
and authority to achieve more than just processing
current cases? If not - why not?
From 29 years'
clinical experience with typical troubled people and their families,
this article is based on some core premises about you and the people in
your courtroom. See how these ideas compare to what you believe now...
-
All
civil problems and criminal behavior stem from
combinations of two to six core stressors and their common effects:
-
psychological
from
childhoods, and...
-
ignorance (lack of knowledge) of
several
These two factors combine to cause...
-
an inability to think, communicate,
and problem-solve effectively,
and...
-
incomplete
(not fully accepting major
and...
-
typical needy men and women making
unwise cohabitation, relationship, and child-conception choices;
and if they seek help, they find...
-
little or no
local or media help.
-
Typical adults and most (all?)
family-law legislators and legal professionals - probably including you - are
largely unaware of these stressors and what to do about them. Therefore...
-
Most domestic, civil, and criminal judicial
rulings (a) focus on resolving symptoms of the litigants' true
problems (above), and (b) unintentionally
increase
their families' long-term stress and odds of psychological or legal
-
Unless litigants, legislators, and laws
focus on reducing these primal stressors, family, social, and
legal-system discord will inexorably increase, weakening our
families and society. And...
-
If you (a) learn about and validate these
stressors and choose to (b) motivate litigants and
professional colleagues to study and reduce
them, then (c) you will significantly help
these people improve their health and relationships, and lower long-term
personal, family, and societal stress.
Premise - Whether you're formally responsible for
preventing litigation ad other social problems or not, you
have the opportunity and moral obligation to steadily promote such
prevention in your professional role, jurisdiction, and community.
Notice your reactions to these premises...
Does This Describe You?
You and I don't know each other. I expect you question why you should
trust or care about my premises here and in this prevention series and
Web site. To help you evaluate me and my premises about you, please scan
my background and return.
I have practiced as a family-systems therapist specializing in (a)
stepfamilies since 1981, and later in (b) recovery from childhood
psychological wounds. From over two decades of professional experience with troubled
persons and families, and
with the Illinois judicial and law-enforcement systems,
I suspect that you lack
information that could greatly improve the short and long-term
impact of your orders and rulings.
To evaluate this
premise, please review these assumptions I make about you. T =
"true;" F="false," and ?="Yes and no, I'm not sure, and/or it depends (on
what?)":
-
You've had no personal
or professional reasons to study psychological
from low childhood
or its
symptoms and common
(T F ?)
-
You've never been
taught to answer...
-
these effective-communication
questions accurately, or to study, use, and teach these communication
basics
and
(T F ?)
-
these "good-grief"
questions,
or why and how to
litigants and co-workers for
significant incomplete grief.
(T F ?);
and...
-
You've had no reason or opportunity
to formally study
and addiction management.
(T F ?)
-
If
you were or are married, (a) you probably have conceived and nurtured one or more kids,
and (b) you may
psychologically or legally. (T F ?)
-
You may or may not care whether
litigants are in or from
families or
because that seems irrelevant to
the case at hand
(T F ?)
-
You probably (a) have never lived in a
stepfamily
as a child or an adult, and (b)
have never needed to learn
stepfamily
norms, uniquenesses, dynamics, and
Therefore, your orders and rulings are largely based on your and law-makers' concepts of
biofamily norms and laws which may or may not
be relevant to current litigants. (T F ?)
-
If you use human-service experts to help
you make just rulings, you must trust their credentials and
reputation because you can't evaluate their (a) personal
and (b) practical knowledge of these
These guesstimates are probably also true of your judicial peers and the other
human-service
you work with.
Similar
is
probable in typical jury or tribunal members and media professionals.
I further suspect...
-
Your docket is usually full to
over-full, and you routinely adapt to having too much to do, in too little
time, with too little help. The personality
that control you may insist that you're too busy to read and
assess the
validity of the ideas in these prevention articles. If your true
usually
your personality, s/he will
make time to do so.
-
You may seldom or never (a) have reflected on how litigants' key
attitudes harm or help their cases
and families, and/or (b) included informational (vs. critical) comments on
litigants' apparent attitudes in the verbal and written language of your orders and rulings. (T F ?)
-
You usually have too little factual, unbiased information about litigants'
situations to help you decide what's just. Plaintiffs,
respondents, and their attorneys all want you and/or a jury to agree
with their biased view of what's "real" and "fair."
-
The state and circuit courts you work with have
few or no
informed,
effective programs to help
and
divorcing and
stepfamily adults and kids to combat these
and raise the
of their homes and families. (T F ?)
-
You don't know of
any credible local seminars,
or
support groups designed to help co-parents
learn (a) effective communication basics and skills, (b) healthy
grieving basics and values, and (c) healthy stepfamily life. (T F ?)
If you do know of such programs, they're probably
underfunded, under-taffed, and often unable to handle the number of
people who need their services. I suspect you also have neither the
time nor the means (or responsibility) to assess the long-term effectiveness of any such
education and support programs - yes?
Finally, I suspect...
-
typical litigants you work
with are focused on
resolving current stress. Unless you counsel them, they will
discount or ignore their equal
need to avoid or reduce future conflict and trauma for
their family's and society's sakes.
If many or all of these points describe you, then no
matter how experienced you are, you can
significantly improve the effectiveness of
your orders and rulings by learning key facts about...
The
introduction to this prevention series offer
perspective on this, and options and resources for doing it. The rest of this article
proposes ways you can use this core knowledge in your home, your courtroom and
your profession to help prevent family stress and
psychological and legal divorce.
Combat Three Core Ignorances
My 29-year clinical
experience is that most adults involved in domestic, civil, or criminal
legal actions suffer from three combined stressors.
The most
impactful and least obvious is unawareness of up to six psychological
and what they
You won't be able to appreciate the profound significance of these wounds
until you honestly assess yourself for them.
If you ignore this assessment...
you may be enduring the effects
of being ruled by a protective
without knowing it,
your family may be stressed by
the [wounds + unawareness] cycle without your knowing it,
your judicial orders and rulings may
increase litigants long-term problems, and...
the
rest of this article will be of little practical use to you.
The second core reason that
people resort to legal force is
because they don't know how to negotiate, problem-solve, and compromise
effectively. If you agree, then you can help everyone in your courtroom and
profession by asking or ordering them to study and apply communication and
problem-solving basics. Do you do that now?
To
educate yourself on key effective-communication concepts, invest time in
these steps. They apply to all your personal, professional,
and
The third core factor that contributes to personal and social conflict is
that average adults (like you) aren't aware of the difference between
surface needs and the
that cause them. Result: well-meaning,
busy people waste time and energy trying to resolve the
surface symptoms over and over again, and their underlying primary needs remain
unsatisfied.
In frustration, they turn to people like attorneys and say "Here -
you fix my problem!"
Implication:
typical litigants' complaints are usually symptoms of
their problems (unmet needs). If you ignore or minimize
this reality, your rulings may (a) unintentionally increase litigants'
personal and family stress, and (b) provide temporary resolutions at best.
Recap:
all divorce and co-parenting conflicts and impasses are symptoms
of [ wounds + inability to communicate effectively + unawareness of primary
needs]. If you and other legal professionals focus only on the
litigant's surface complaints and responses and ignore these underlying
problems, litigants risk (a) having their stress continue
after their cases are "settled," and (b) growing cynical about legal
professionals and the value of our judicial system.
| If
you haven't yet committed the time and effort to learn and apply these
core concepts, I urge you to do so now for personal
and professional benefits. What follows assumes you have done so.
|
Prevention Options
You can use your new knowledge to significantly help (a) attorneys and other
human-service professionals, (b) litigants, and (c) your professional peers
to reduce and prevent family stress. Do this by
strategically alerting them to at
least the three core problems above.
Option -
also alert them to the value of learning healthy grieving and relationship basics and,
where appropriate, stepfamily basics.
Consider this
summary of your general prevention
options. Then add these specific options:
1) Alert Legal and
Other Professionals
Do this by (a) validating
this article for yourself, and then (b) handing out
copies of it, and/or encouraging others to study it on the Web (http://sfhelp.org/prevent/intro.htm). Then suggest that they take responsibility for
providing the same handout or Web referral to their clients and co-workers.
Are you willing to do this now?
When needed, you ask or direct other professionals to help you
adjudicate some cases. They may include therapists, mediators, social or
case workers, law-enforcement and prison officials, expert consultants, and in a family context, providers of
programs like anger-management, divorce recovery, and parenting classes.
Option:
give these professionals a copy of this article,
and/or ask them to read the same information online. Then follow up - see if they do,
and ask their reaction.
Those who are ruled by a
may ignore your request, postpone acting on it, or scan the article and do
nothing. You can't affect this, but you can chose
colleagues to help you make effective rulings. You can also suggest they
create professional in-service training sessions on each
topic for their
colleagues.
Option: start weaving references to psychological wounds, effective
communication and problem-solving, and
into your interactions with litigants and
professional colleagues in and outside of your courtroom.
2) Alert
Litigants
Typical litigants and their attorneys won't know the key
identified
in this prevention series. That means
you are the front line in
alerting them and others working on their case. You can
alert litigants...
directly - through handouts, orders, and verbal
recommendations; and...
indirectly, via alerting their attorneys and other
involved professionals (e.g. mediators and psychological evaluators), and
urging them to alert their clients to these topics.
Here is a selection of clinically-based, practical articles on common domestic
disputes that you may copy and hand out to litigants and your colleagues. Each
article is based on the universal need for awareness of psychological wounds,
effective communication skills, and learning how to discern primary needs.
Though the articles are written for stepfamily co-parents, they apply to
most other people as well. The asterisked topics are common domestic surface issues - i.e. they
are symptoms of primary relationship and co-parenting
:
For the full array of educational articles available to hand out to
litigants and professionals, see this.
Note that the key articles in this
nonprofit divorce-prevention site are integrated in a series of six
guide-books
for co-parents and lay and professional supporters.
For wider
perspective, see these
questions and answers pertaining to typical
troubled biofamilies, divorcing families, and stepfamilies. Then imagine
what would happen if you asked the people in your courtroom and chambers to
study and apply them...
Handing out articles like these will be most effective if you explain
that you want to alert litigants to their primary
problems, rather than wasting their and the court's resources trying to
reduce surface stressors. A way to
start this process is to write a letter like
this to your litigants and their
attorneys.
Continue
with options for alerting your professional colleagues to these core
topics.
+ + +
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