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Therapeutic divorce mediation: Strengths, limitations, and future directions
Bruce M Smyth
Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, Australian National University, Canberra ACT
Lawrie Moloney
School of Public Health, La Trobe University; Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne VIC
Abstract
Therapeutic divorce mediation is one of several interventions that hold promise for assisting highly conflicted parents to resolve disputes about their children.
But how is it defined, what do we know about it, how is it constrained, and does it work?
This article seeks to address these questions by reviewing the divorce mediation-therapy literature, and critically examining the recent Conjoint Mediation and Therapy (CoMeT) initiative, which is currently being trialled in Australia.
Keywords
therapy, divorce, mediation, chronic high conflict, children, disputes, evaluation, reviews
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