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The Divorce and Divorce Therapy Handbook
BOOK REVIEWS
The Divorce and Divorce Therapy Handbook. Edited by Martin Textor. Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aron son Inc ., 1989,392 pp., $40.00 (hardcover). In the old mill town of Monongah ela in western Pennsylvania is an elderly Jewish furrier renowned for the fineness of his work and the reasonableness of his prices. One enters his shop by stepping down from the street into the basement of his old brick home . The room, a bit cramped , is lined by new and used coats, jackets, and hats of a wide variety of furs as well as an assortment of pelts and remnants and serves as his fitting and salesroom. One evenin g, an attractive , petite woman was nervousl y trying on a model coat. She gazed at herself in the three-way mirror as the furrier, humming in heavy low tones, checked the fit. "The sleeves are too long ," she ventured. She was in her midthirties and a professional, but this was her first trip to a fur shop, and she felt tentative . The furrier bent over and fingered the coat sleeve where it hung past her left wrist. He raised his eyes over his spectacles. " No, " he intoned with mournful humor, " the sleeves are fine . Your arms are too short! You see ," he glanced at the rest of us in the room with an irreverent smile and theatric ally added , "I am a pessimist. " This charming old furrier was frequentl y on my mind as I considered Martin Texto r's The Divorce and Divo rce Therapy Handbook . Marital therap y is biased toward optimi sm. It hopes to support, soothe, and mend the injuries between a husband and wife-to preserve their marriage , improve their relation ship, and thereb y enhan ce the qualit y of their lives. By experience, we know many marriages will not mend, and the marital therapi st will have to act accordingly, but to most couples and to a degree to the therapeutic community, the first goal of marital therapy is to save marria ges, a goal imbedded in optimism. With the high percentage of marriages ending in divorce , however, there graduall y developed a consensus among many therapists that a new approach was warranted that would specifically focus on the process of divorce and its associated emotional problems . The shift in emphasis is at once subtle and important. Marital therapy reflects the socia l convention that marriages are meant to be permanent unions ; divorce therapy in turn reflects the less optimi stic reality that marriages frequentl y fail and end in divorce , and a therapist can provide valuabl e assistance to the family through their breakup. My own initial response to this was to view divorce therapy as a sort of therapeutic bankruptcy court, but after reading this text , I am, in fact , persuaded to be more appreciative of the value of divorce therapy and also of its paralegal counterpart, divorce mediation . Textor divides the book into three sections . The first section, " Divorce, " discu sses the process of divor ce , the effects divorce has on adults and children, divorce mediation, and child advocacy in divorce court. The section demonstrates the strengths and weakne sses that are representative of the book as a whole . Some of the chapters are quite good . L. Rebecca Prosbst and Linda Fries give a pragmatic and useful approach to the problems and needs of adults during and following divorce , and in his chapter, " Chil-
514
dren' s Adjustment, " Lawrence Kurdek gives a scholarly review of the literature on the topic of childhood adaptation to divorce with a thorough bibliography of 99 references. Kurdek identifies several protective factors for children in divorcing families and also emphasizes the impact of age and developmental context in the formation of reactions and adaptations to the parents ' separation. An interesting and underappreciated point that Kurdek astutely observes is how involvement by the nonresidential parent is beneficial to the children by its direct support of the well-being of the residential parent. The evidence suggests that by continuing to give support, the nonresidential parent increa ses the parenting compet ence of the residential parent. "It is this parenting competence which, in turn, directl y affect s the children 's adjustment " (p. 93) . Other chapters in the section are less successful. The introductory chapter by Textor on divorce transition is ambitiously broad in scope but weakened by a lack of focus and specificity . As a child psychiatrist, I was disappointed in the chapter on "Problems and Needs of Children" by William Nichols; the content is quite variable , and the subtopics are sometimes handled in a dismis sive manner. The chapters on divorce mediation , "Mediation" by William Neville, and "Mediating Child Custody Disputes" by Craig Everett and Sandra Volgy , are good introductions to an alternative method of settling divorces that is less adversarial and less costly than a court dispute . Dr. Neville's enthusiasm at times approaches rhapsody, but both chapters present well the preconditions and guidelines for successful divorce mediation. Considering the intense emotional and financial hardships that court disputes can entail, divorce mediation offers an approach to divorce and custod y settlements that merits continued support and development. It appears to require a necessary degree of cooperation and openness between the dissolving couple to be succe ssful; Neville emphasizes that amon g other prerequisites, couples must agree to make full disclosures of their assets and liabilities for divorce mediation to be possible. Otherwise it's back to court. The second section of the book, "Divorce The rapy ," focuses on therapie s that are used with adults and children during and after divorces. It is the best of the book ' s three sections. The chapters are thoughtful and informative as the authors focus on the techniques and problems of treatment. The first chapter of the section by David Rice is an overview of managing marital therapy after the couple in treatment decides to divorce. When should a therapist suggest divorce to a " hopelessly married " couple in marital therapy? When does the antidiv orce "mind-set" of the couple and therapist actually interfere with a healthy discus sion of or decision to divorce? How does the therapist handle extramarital affairs by the clients ? How does he or she handle competing therapies? Rice raises a number of thorny issues and discusses them with a succinct sensibility. This chapter is followed by Douglas Sprenkle's review of the clinic al practice of divorce therapy . This is an excellent chapter, perhap s the best in the book, and provides the reader with a progression of practical ideas and structures upon which to build this type of therapy . l. Am . Acad .Child Adolesc.Psychiatry , 30:3 , May 1991
BOOK REVIEWS
The writing is stron gly didactic as is the model of therapy Sprenkl e presents. He points out the divorce therapist should be accepting of divorce but also careful not to structure therapy so that it favors divorce over recon ciliation, and he describe s how a proper facilit ation of a deci sion to divorce can deescalate the emoti onal intensity and allow the couple to make their plans in a more constructive atmosphere . The remainin g chapters in Part II address postdivorce treatment , psychotherapy for children after divorce, schoo l interventions, and group interventions . The chapter by Donald Granvold , "Postd ivorce Treatment," describes a cognitive-behavioral approach to the problems encountered after divorce , a situation rife with cognitive distortions and irrational ideas. I found Janine Bernard ' s review of schoo l interventions most useful and reco mme nd it to mental health workers and educational counselors interested in schoolbased appro aches, both prevent ative and therapeutic . The author views the schoo l's tradit ional role as an educat ional and socializing institution as a natural vehicl e for addre ssing a problem as prevalent as reactions to divorce. Part III , " New Family Systems ," is compri sed of three short chapters on , respectively, single parent families , step families, and treating remarried families. This section rounds out the structure of the book , that is, working with the new family units after the divorce is accomplished and reviews subjec ts that are familiar to many clinicians, especia lly family therap ists. In summary, The Divorce and Divorce Therapy Handbook attempts to present an overview of the expanding field of divor ce medi ation , divor ce therapy , and therapie s addressing the after math of divorce. There are a numb er of solid thoughtful chapters and a strong emph asis on the practical aspects of treatment. The book' s most striking shortcoming is a lack of ed itorial cohesive ness . The chapters markedly vary structurally and stylistically, which compromises the book' s sense of purpose . In form, it is more of a collection than a handbook . Perhaps , we may view this lack of standardization as a reflection of the current state of affairs in a relat ively new branch of psychotherapy, and Dr. Textor has not assumed to artificia lly homogen ize the present disparate situation. As the old furrier might say, " The coat is fine , but your arms are still too short!" I reco mmend this book as a resource for therapists and counselors who are interested in the therapeut ic challenges presented by divorcing and recentl y divorced coupl es and famili es. DAL E J. HINDMARSH , M .D . Assistant Professor of Psychiatry University of Pittsburgh
Reading, Writing, and the Hickory Stick, The Appalling Story of Physical and Ps ychological Abuse in American Schools. By Irwin A . Hyman , Ph.D. , Lexin gton , MA: Lexin gton Books, 1990, 282 pp ., $ 18.95 (hardcover) .
Reading, Writing and the Hickory Stick is a very readable book of 225 pages of text and 51 pages of Append ices and J . Am .Acad . Child Adolesc. Psychiat ry ,30 :3, May 1991
References. Nevertheless, it is not an easy book to describ e or summarize . In the Introdu ction , Dr. Hyman ident ifies the problem of corporal punishment in the scho ol system s of the nation and defines this as completely inappr opr iate (which it is). He describes the purposes of the book as ( I) a descrip tion of the abuse suffered by children with whom he has been involved , (2) a talk with those who are concerned abo ut physical and verbal assa ults of American students, (3) a plan of action for those who want to stop the probl em , and (4) a description of the Nat ional Center for the Study of Corpora l Puni shment and Alternat ives in th e Sch ool s (NCSCPAS). An unstated goal is the description of and argument for the validity of a syndro me entitled EducatorInduced Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (EIPTSD), a disorder that he believes abused children and witnesses of abuse have and that is useful in increasing the amounts of settlements in lawsuits, which in turn will dissuade schools from using corpora l punishment. Another introductory state ment that sheds light on the book is his description of personally being abused as a student and how this has altered his career. The book consists of nine chapters , with the first three generally describing episodes of abuse , statistics regard ing corporal punishment in schools, and historic al and national perspectives on corpor al punishm ent. Chapters 4 and 5 contain the description of EIPTSD and arguments for its diagnost ic valid ity . Chapte r 6 largely addresses issues of alternatives to corporal punishment in schoo ls and schoo l clim ate-the environmental stra tegies for school, legal, and media interventions to prevent corpora l puni shment in schools. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 addre ss both indivi dual and group responses to corporal punishment and the organi zation against corpora l punishment. This description of the chapters is unfortun ately an ove rsimplification. Each chapter, although having a major theme, usually co ntains clinical descript ions of student abuse, references to surveys or scientific papers, negative comments about teacher s, and a plea and strat egies to intervene with the schools and courts. While this orga nizational plan allows a repetitive exposition of his prem ises, it detracts in other ways . Without a clearer organization by chapter, the reader is never sure whether material is factu al , in a scie ntific sense, or affec tive ly derived from experien ces. Sin ce there is not a single positive comment made about corporal punishment, it is unclear whether there is no data supportive of this position or they are ju st not given. Thi s cer tainly makes the book a stronger advocate aga inst corporal punishment but leaves the reader with a " pseudoscientific" sen se. One is le ft with th e nagging doubt th at perhaps the
author believes so strongly in his cause that he may not be intellectually honest with the material he present s . It is unfortun ate that this occurs because the dat a and Dr. Hyman's experiences could clea rly support the abolition of corporal punishment in the schoo ls on their scientific merits. The verbal and physical abuse of children in any setting is inappropriate. It is amazing that parents co ndo ne this behavior. It is eve n more amazing that the co urts preserve the use of corpora l punishment in school s and exempt the teachers and administrators from abuse investigations by
515
The Divorce and Divorce Therapy Handbook. Edited by Martin Textor. Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aron son Inc ., 1989,392 pp., $40.00 (hardcover). In the old mill town of Monongah ela in western Pennsylvania is an elderly Jewish furrier renowned for the fineness of his work and the reasonableness of his prices. One enters his shop by stepping down from the street into the basement of his old brick home . The room, a bit cramped , is lined by new and used coats, jackets, and hats of a wide variety of furs as well as an assortment of pelts and remnants and serves as his fitting and salesroom. One evenin g, an attractive , petite woman was nervousl y trying on a model coat. She gazed at herself in the three-way mirror as the furrier, humming in heavy low tones, checked the fit. "The sleeves are too long ," she ventured. She was in her midthirties and a professional, but this was her first trip to a fur shop, and she felt tentative . The furrier bent over and fingered the coat sleeve where it hung past her left wrist. He raised his eyes over his spectacles. " No, " he intoned with mournful humor, " the sleeves are fine . Your arms are too short! You see ," he glanced at the rest of us in the room with an irreverent smile and theatric ally added , "I am a pessimist. " This charming old furrier was frequentl y on my mind as I considered Martin Texto r's The Divorce and Divo rce Therapy Handbook . Marital therap y is biased toward optimi sm. It hopes to support, soothe, and mend the injuries between a husband and wife-to preserve their marriage , improve their relation ship, and thereb y enhan ce the qualit y of their lives. By experience, we know many marriages will not mend, and the marital therapi st will have to act accordingly, but to most couples and to a degree to the therapeutic community, the first goal of marital therapy is to save marria ges, a goal imbedded in optimism. With the high percentage of marriages ending in divorce , however, there graduall y developed a consensus among many therapists that a new approach was warranted that would specifically focus on the process of divorce and its associated emotional problems . The shift in emphasis is at once subtle and important. Marital therapy reflects the socia l convention that marriages are meant to be permanent unions ; divorce therapy in turn reflects the less optimi stic reality that marriages frequentl y fail and end in divorce , and a therapist can provide valuabl e assistance to the family through their breakup. My own initial response to this was to view divorce therapy as a sort of therapeutic bankruptcy court, but after reading this text , I am, in fact , persuaded to be more appreciative of the value of divorce therapy and also of its paralegal counterpart, divorce mediation . Textor divides the book into three sections . The first section, " Divorce, " discu sses the process of divor ce , the effects divorce has on adults and children, divorce mediation, and child advocacy in divorce court. The section demonstrates the strengths and weakne sses that are representative of the book as a whole . Some of the chapters are quite good . L. Rebecca Prosbst and Linda Fries give a pragmatic and useful approach to the problems and needs of adults during and following divorce , and in his chapter, " Chil-
514
dren' s Adjustment, " Lawrence Kurdek gives a scholarly review of the literature on the topic of childhood adaptation to divorce with a thorough bibliography of 99 references. Kurdek identifies several protective factors for children in divorcing families and also emphasizes the impact of age and developmental context in the formation of reactions and adaptations to the parents ' separation. An interesting and underappreciated point that Kurdek astutely observes is how involvement by the nonresidential parent is beneficial to the children by its direct support of the well-being of the residential parent. The evidence suggests that by continuing to give support, the nonresidential parent increa ses the parenting compet ence of the residential parent. "It is this parenting competence which, in turn, directl y affect s the children 's adjustment " (p. 93) . Other chapters in the section are less successful. The introductory chapter by Textor on divorce transition is ambitiously broad in scope but weakened by a lack of focus and specificity . As a child psychiatrist, I was disappointed in the chapter on "Problems and Needs of Children" by William Nichols; the content is quite variable , and the subtopics are sometimes handled in a dismis sive manner. The chapters on divorce mediation , "Mediation" by William Neville, and "Mediating Child Custody Disputes" by Craig Everett and Sandra Volgy , are good introductions to an alternative method of settling divorces that is less adversarial and less costly than a court dispute . Dr. Neville's enthusiasm at times approaches rhapsody, but both chapters present well the preconditions and guidelines for successful divorce mediation. Considering the intense emotional and financial hardships that court disputes can entail, divorce mediation offers an approach to divorce and custod y settlements that merits continued support and development. It appears to require a necessary degree of cooperation and openness between the dissolving couple to be succe ssful; Neville emphasizes that amon g other prerequisites, couples must agree to make full disclosures of their assets and liabilities for divorce mediation to be possible. Otherwise it's back to court. The second section of the book, "Divorce The rapy ," focuses on therapie s that are used with adults and children during and after divorces. It is the best of the book ' s three sections. The chapters are thoughtful and informative as the authors focus on the techniques and problems of treatment. The first chapter of the section by David Rice is an overview of managing marital therapy after the couple in treatment decides to divorce. When should a therapist suggest divorce to a " hopelessly married " couple in marital therapy? When does the antidiv orce "mind-set" of the couple and therapist actually interfere with a healthy discus sion of or decision to divorce? How does the therapist handle extramarital affairs by the clients ? How does he or she handle competing therapies? Rice raises a number of thorny issues and discusses them with a succinct sensibility. This chapter is followed by Douglas Sprenkle's review of the clinic al practice of divorce therapy . This is an excellent chapter, perhap s the best in the book, and provides the reader with a progression of practical ideas and structures upon which to build this type of therapy . l. Am . Acad .Child Adolesc.Psychiatry , 30:3 , May 1991
BOOK REVIEWS
The writing is stron gly didactic as is the model of therapy Sprenkl e presents. He points out the divorce therapist should be accepting of divorce but also careful not to structure therapy so that it favors divorce over recon ciliation, and he describe s how a proper facilit ation of a deci sion to divorce can deescalate the emoti onal intensity and allow the couple to make their plans in a more constructive atmosphere . The remainin g chapters in Part II address postdivorce treatment , psychotherapy for children after divorce, schoo l interventions, and group interventions . The chapter by Donald Granvold , "Postd ivorce Treatment," describes a cognitive-behavioral approach to the problems encountered after divorce , a situation rife with cognitive distortions and irrational ideas. I found Janine Bernard ' s review of schoo l interventions most useful and reco mme nd it to mental health workers and educational counselors interested in schoolbased appro aches, both prevent ative and therapeutic . The author views the schoo l's tradit ional role as an educat ional and socializing institution as a natural vehicl e for addre ssing a problem as prevalent as reactions to divorce. Part III , " New Family Systems ," is compri sed of three short chapters on , respectively, single parent families , step families, and treating remarried families. This section rounds out the structure of the book , that is, working with the new family units after the divorce is accomplished and reviews subjec ts that are familiar to many clinicians, especia lly family therap ists. In summary, The Divorce and Divorce Therapy Handbook attempts to present an overview of the expanding field of divor ce medi ation , divor ce therapy , and therapie s addressing the after math of divorce. There are a numb er of solid thoughtful chapters and a strong emph asis on the practical aspects of treatment. The book' s most striking shortcoming is a lack of ed itorial cohesive ness . The chapters markedly vary structurally and stylistically, which compromises the book' s sense of purpose . In form, it is more of a collection than a handbook . Perhaps , we may view this lack of standardization as a reflection of the current state of affairs in a relat ively new branch of psychotherapy, and Dr. Textor has not assumed to artificia lly homogen ize the present disparate situation. As the old furrier might say, " The coat is fine , but your arms are still too short!" I reco mmend this book as a resource for therapists and counselors who are interested in the therapeut ic challenges presented by divorcing and recentl y divorced coupl es and famili es. DAL E J. HINDMARSH , M .D . Assistant Professor of Psychiatry University of Pittsburgh
Reading, Writing, and the Hickory Stick, The Appalling Story of Physical and Ps ychological Abuse in American Schools. By Irwin A . Hyman , Ph.D. , Lexin gton , MA: Lexin gton Books, 1990, 282 pp ., $ 18.95 (hardcover) .
Reading, Writing and the Hickory Stick is a very readable book of 225 pages of text and 51 pages of Append ices and J . Am .Acad . Child Adolesc. Psychiat ry ,30 :3, May 1991
References. Nevertheless, it is not an easy book to describ e or summarize . In the Introdu ction , Dr. Hyman ident ifies the problem of corporal punishment in the scho ol system s of the nation and defines this as completely inappr opr iate (which it is). He describes the purposes of the book as ( I) a descrip tion of the abuse suffered by children with whom he has been involved , (2) a talk with those who are concerned abo ut physical and verbal assa ults of American students, (3) a plan of action for those who want to stop the probl em , and (4) a description of the Nat ional Center for the Study of Corpora l Puni shment and Alternat ives in th e Sch ool s (NCSCPAS). An unstated goal is the description of and argument for the validity of a syndro me entitled EducatorInduced Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (EIPTSD), a disorder that he believes abused children and witnesses of abuse have and that is useful in increasing the amounts of settlements in lawsuits, which in turn will dissuade schools from using corpora l punishment. Another introductory state ment that sheds light on the book is his description of personally being abused as a student and how this has altered his career. The book consists of nine chapters , with the first three generally describing episodes of abuse , statistics regard ing corporal punishment in schools, and historic al and national perspectives on corpor al punishm ent. Chapters 4 and 5 contain the description of EIPTSD and arguments for its diagnost ic valid ity . Chapte r 6 largely addresses issues of alternatives to corporal punishment in schoo ls and schoo l clim ate-the environmental stra tegies for school, legal, and media interventions to prevent corpora l puni shment in schools. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 addre ss both indivi dual and group responses to corporal punishment and the organi zation against corpora l punishment. This description of the chapters is unfortun ately an ove rsimplification. Each chapter, although having a major theme, usually co ntains clinical descript ions of student abuse, references to surveys or scientific papers, negative comments about teacher s, and a plea and strat egies to intervene with the schools and courts. While this orga nizational plan allows a repetitive exposition of his prem ises, it detracts in other ways . Without a clearer organization by chapter, the reader is never sure whether material is factu al , in a scie ntific sense, or affec tive ly derived from experien ces. Sin ce there is not a single positive comment made about corporal punishment, it is unclear whether there is no data supportive of this position or they are ju st not given. Thi s cer tainly makes the book a stronger advocate aga inst corporal punishment but leaves the reader with a " pseudoscientific" sen se. One is le ft with th e nagging doubt th at perhaps the
author believes so strongly in his cause that he may not be intellectually honest with the material he present s . It is unfortun ate that this occurs because the dat a and Dr. Hyman's experiences could clea rly support the abolition of corporal punishment in the schoo ls on their scientific merits. The verbal and physical abuse of children in any setting is inappropriate. It is amazing that parents co ndo ne this behavior. It is eve n more amazing that the co urts preserve the use of corpora l punishment in school s and exempt the teachers and administrators from abuse investigations by
515