Premise: all of these but estate
planning and possibly child adoption are clear symptoms of client-adults'
psychological
and
Legal action may force resolution of local conflicts, but will not reduce
these primary problems.
Family-law professionals can (a) ignore this, or (b)
work proactively to help clients reduce their wounds and ignorances.
In the best case, legal professionals like you can work to prevent
the toxic ancestral
of wounds and
ignorance - starting with your own family.
This
article is based on my
29 years'
clinical (vs. legal) research and experience with typical troubled Anglo
families. It proposes that you have an opportunity and a moral
responsibility (a) to learn about and (b) alert the people you serve
and work with to five vital family-protection
Doing this can
significantly help to reduce and/or
prevent family stress, and the major trauma of psychological and
legal
Before continuing, take a reality check: on a scale of one (I'm not
very motivated) to five (I'm very motivated), how important is it to
you now to prevent family stress and divorce? ___
Perspective
Typical people hire family-law attorneys because they (a) lack legal
information and/or (b) seek help resolving major family conflicts involving
legal rights and responsibilities. Others hire attorneys to legally protect
their estate and bequeath their assets.
Your clients are usually parents, grandparents, or legal guardians; or one or
more minor children. In cases of child
or
you may represent
the people in your state. Normally, no one expects you to (a) define the
adult's whole family as "my client," and (b) draft contracts or argue for rulings that will
strengthen the family's
over time. Do you agree?
Family-court suits force resolution of conflicts and/or impose social
sanctions, at the high social cost of added stress among the family
members. The stress comes from a mix of (a) the
of something
valuable to one or more adults or kids, (b) significant legal expenses, and
(c) increased disrespect, distrust, hurt, resentment, frustration, and anger
("hostility") among family members
that can take years to recede.
From this perspective,
adversarial court cases always
hinder the client-family's functioning short and long term. This
requires attorneys, family-court judges, mediators, and psychological
evaluators, to justify their profession and services while (a)
ignoring the family's underlying
and
often (b) psychologically harming client families, long term.
What "primary problems"?
My professional experience since 1979 suggests that the main problems with average client families are that (a) the conflicted
adults are
of being
and how to
effectively. The core problems are our society's (a) failure to educate
children and parents on some basic
and (b) passive acceptance of unwise marriage and child-conception
decisions, and parental ignorance,
Unchecked, these fuel a trans-generational
that inexorably weakens our
society and squanders its resources:
-
inherited low family
which...
-
psychologically
minor children and cause webs of
significant family conflicts, which...
-
leads to psychological or legal
more than half the time in America, which...
-
causes many adults to use the legal system
to force one or more other
family members to comply with their values, opinions, and needs;
which...
-
generates hurt, resentment, distrust,
disrespect, frustration, guilt, shame, and anger ("stress") among family
members, which...
-
lowers the family's nurturance level.
Unless you're interested in legal reform, you may say "OK, but I
can't change these societal problems."
What you can do is (a)
redefine "effective legal advocacy," (b) define each of your
clients as "the whole
family, including descendents;" and (c) choose to alert your adult clients
and your legal colleagues to five core topics, even though no one expects
you to. Notice your
to this premise.
What is Fully-effective Legal Advocacy?
Reflect and say out loud what specific factors you use to define
"effectiveness" (vs. "success") in your profession. Would you agree that
your professional services can be judged as "ineffective" to "somewhat effective" to "totally effective"
by yourself, clients, and colleagues?
Competent trial lawyers aggressively and strive to win
their cases for their clients and personal rewards. Non-trial attorneys
may define success as...
-
fully meeting my client's needs in a way that...
-
complies with my integrity, the law, my employer's goals and values, and
professional ethics; and...
-
earns my self respect and a comfortable living.
Do
these describe you?
I
propose that both of these are
minimally-effective legal work. Fully effective
professional service also includes attorneys and judges making a best-effort
attempt to (a) alert client families and (b) other human-service
professionals and organizations to four to six stress-
The introduction to this prevention series recommends that you first
(a) learn about these topics, and then (b) apply them to yourself and your
family. The rationale for this is that typical human-service professionals
and their partners and associates are unaware of having
childhoods, and bearing significant psychological
Could this be true of you and those you live
and work with?
If
you've studied and applied the four or five topics to your own life, what are your moral
responsibilities and professional options? If you haven't studied and
applied the topics, (a) you may be dominated by a protective
and (b) the rest of this article will probably be of little value to you.
How You Can Help Prevent Family Stress and Divorce
Whether you're
a trial lawyer or not, the most powerful step you can take to reduce family
stress is to (a) redefine
your client as the family of the person who is hiring you, and
(b) redefine your mission as helping to protect your client's family from
significant stress long term. This will probably conflict with
typical client adults'
focus on short-term legal objectives that will probably harm
their family, long term.
Unless you're a
also a social worker, therapist, or family-life educator, you and your clients and
co-workers may feel that working outside your legal responsibilities is
inappropriate. I propose that your
moral responsibilities as a member of society outweigh your job description
as an attorney. If you were a wounded, ignorant client-family adult,
would you want your lawyer to alert you to some unseen psychological
dangers that threaten you and your descendents? If you don't alert your
clients and co-workers - who will?
There
are three major ways you can help prevent family stress and divorce:
-
learn about the four core topics and apply them honestly to yourself and
your family;
-
decide to proactively alert the judges attorneys,
paralegals, other colleagues to the five topics, and...
-
alert your client
families. The simplest
way to alert your colleagues and clients is to
provide
them with selected
reprints, and explain why you're doing so - e.g...
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 guidebooks
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.
Imagine
that you're a typical client or colleague being advised to read and heed these
handouts. Then read each one in order, and imagine a typical client's
reactions. You can't know
whether clients will benefit from these handouts or not.
You can feel satisfied that
you've raised their odds of breaking the
of low-nurturance wounding
and ignorance.
Option: follow up with your clients by (a)
pointing out how the prevention topics relate to their family's long term
welfare, and/or by (b) asking if the clients are choosing to act on any of
the relevant prevention topics.
Status check:
pause, breathe, and assess yourself: on a scale of one (I'm not interested)
to 5 (I'm very interested) in...
-
reading each
these handouts to raise my own awareness, I'm a __
-
alerting my
clients to their wounds, ignorances, and options, I'm a __
Did your
just make these two assessments? If not, which of your other
personality
did?
Broader Ways to Reduce Family Stress and Divorce
Do you agree that the life-long process of "maturing" includes
gradually expanding your
primary concern from me to my loved ones
to groups of people (like all women, children, disabled, Blacks,
homeless, single parents, elderly, blind, etc.) to all people
to all living things? My experience over
70 years suggests that people who are
steadily guided by their
and
seem to mature faster than others. Where are you on this spectrum now? For
perspective, review
If you are significantly concerned with the welfare of special groups or all
people, you can help to reduce psychological wounds and ignorance of the
five prevention topics by working at goals like these:
-
Key: Commit to
your true Self to guide your other subselves - i.e. work to
any significant false-self
over time.
Doing this honestly will probably increase your motivation to alert your
clients to the origins and
of inner wounds.
-
Accept without guilt that you may not be
ready to work at any of the options below now, and keep them in mind as
you mature. Watch for chances to alert
others who are ready to work at some of these options.
-
Sharpen your definition of what a
high-nurturance workplace is. Then assess the
nurturance-level of (a) your workplace and (b) the organizations you
often work with, and (c) take responsible actions from the results. More
on this below.
-
Alert your
co-workers and professional
colleagues to the five prevention
in discussions, in-service
seminars, and with handouts like
these. Then invite these people to (a) define their clients as whole
families, not individual adults or children; and (b) focus on
long-term human-service impacts and outcomes, vs. resolving clients'
immediate problems.
-
Work
to upgrade...
-
the
curriculum and graduation requirements of
the schools that train family-law attorneys and paraprofessionals to include
the five prevention topics; and/or to upgrade...
-
the
state licensure
and evaluation criteria for legal professionals or all
human-service professionals to include the five topics; and/or upgrade...
-
the
goals, standards, and priorities of your professional associations
to include (a) the five prevention topics and (b) preventing the
family [wounds + ignorance] cycle. Option: write a professional
journal article or series on your version of how the five prevention
topics relate to practicing your profession;
-
Identify and work with like-minded
colleagues in working patiently for changes like these.
These illustrate some meaningful family-stress prevention options you
can choose to include in your professional work. For more perspective and
options, reflect on this.
Whether you work in a group setting or are self-employed, consider this...
Option: Assess You and
Your Workplace
Reality check: on a scale of
one (my true Self usually
my
personality) to 10 (I am severely wounded and usually dominated by a false
self), I see myself now as a __. Note that a typical false-self will
protectively
your answer to this, and earnestly deny or justify doing so.
Your "workplace" is comprised of (a) a physical setting and environment, (b)
lay and professional co-workers and colleagues, and (c) social factors like
laws, policies, and resources that affect whom you work with, how you
provide your service, and the results of your service. Collectively, these
factors can be judged to be "very low-nurturance" (seldom filling the
of the people involved) to "very high-nurturance" - frequently filling
everyone's primary needs.
My professional experience since 1981 is that significantly-
people unconsciously seek (a) human-service avocations or
professions, (b) wounded associates and low-nurturance workplaces.
These unconscious choices
significantly hinder personal
wound-recovery and delivery of effective human-services. Do you agree with these
ideas? Could they pertain to you?
Options: honestly assess (a) your current life
priorities, (b)
for significant false-self wounds; (c) the
nurturance-level of your workplace/s, and (d) what these mean long-term for the quality and
productivity of your life.
If you feel you're working in a low-nurturance
setting, as long as you remain there and don't lobby for constructive
changes...
-
your
(a) odds for meaningful personal-wound
are reduced, and (b) odds for ongoing work-related stress are increased;
-
you
and your co-workers are probably providing minimally to
moderately-effective professional services to your clients; and...
- these won't
change unless you choose to (a)
your true Self,
and (b) assume responsibility for working for constructive
change, or finding a more nurturing workplace.
Recap
This article is one of a series inviting lay people
and human-service professionals to help reduce the spreading
epidemic American cycle of [family ignorance +
psychological
The article proposes that family-law attorneys and the people who train,
license, evaluate, and employ them have a moral obligation to...
-
educate themselves on key family-stress
prevention
-
apply the
topics to their own lives and families as appropriate, and then...
-
alert clients and other human-service
professionals to the topics, and work for positive change in attitudes
and laws that promote the [ignorance + wounding] cycle in local and
national families.
Key recommendations here
are for family-law attorneys to (a) define their
clients as families, not individuals, regardless of the type of
service requested; and to (b) update their definition of
fully-effective legal advocacy
to include alerting (at least) clients to how the five
stress-prevention topics apply to them and their descendents.
This article offers,,,
-
background perspective, and suggests
-
a
definition of fully-effective professional legal service, and...
-
specific
options for alerting clients and other human-service providers to five
stress-prevention topics, and...
-
perspective on assessing the
nurturance-level of your professional workplace.
Recall why you read this article. Did you get what you needed? If so, what
do you need to do now? If not, what
you need?
For
more perspective, read this related prevention article written
to professional motivators.
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