Building a Better Way: A Lawyer’s Response to Benjamin D. Garber and Robert A. Simon

ABSTRACT

One of the most complex dilemmas in family courts today is the issue of the conflicted family system that presents itself when a child appears to be strongly aligned with one parent and resistant to having a relationship with the other. In the interest of understanding and serving these children, family law professionals best serve children (and family systems) when the professionals themselves do not become polarized and jeopardize the best interests of the children involved. The Garber and Simon (2024) article seems to be a wholesale condemnation of the Five Factor Model, (“FFM”), the model under review therein. However, the authors’ analysis seems to resurrect the FFM in their conclusion because they state that the FFM is a “step in the direction toward standardizing family law professionals’ assessment processes” and could be incorporated into the Ecological Model. The purpose of this article is to consider the critique of the FFM from the perspective of a legal professional working with conflicted family systems. Garber and Simon’s article can help advance the best interests of children when the result is collaboration among family law professionals.

Keywords:

• Parental alienation
• estrangement
• resist refuse
• parent child contact problems
• five factor model

This article is referred to by:

Looking Beyond the Sorting Hat: Deconstructing the “Five Factor Model” of Alienation

This article responds to:

Moving Toward Consensus: Joining Bernet and Baker, Emery, and Griffin to Better Understand the Dynamics of Parent-Child Contact Problems (PCCP)

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).