Understanding Therapists’ Beliefs, Attitudes, and Approaches to Working with Families in High Conflict and Involved in Legal Proceedings

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Persistent link to this item

Statistics
View Statistics

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Title

Understanding Therapists’ Beliefs, Attitudes, and Approaches to Working with Families in High Conflict and Involved in Legal Proceedings

Alternative title

Published Date

2024

Publisher

Type

Thesis or Dissertation

Abstract

Therapists of different mental health disciplines are often involved with families in high conflict who are enduring legal proceedings. Families in high conflict need the support of therapists due to the emotional turmoil often experienced. The need for therapy and other professional intervention has increased for these families, however, many therapists are hesitant to provide services to these families and are underprepared to work with them (Schmidt & Grigg, 2023). There is very little research regarding how therapists feel when working with families in high conflict who are engaged with the legal system. There is also little information on how therapists approach working with these families or evidence of effective practice. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore therapists’ beliefs, attitudes, and approaches when working with families in high conflict in the context of legal proceedings. Licensed therapists in a midwestern state were recruited to participate in semi-structured interviews utilizing purposive sampling. Twenty licensed therapists self-identifying to have worked with families in high conflict were interviewed. Interviews averaged approximately 45 minutes each. Colaizzi’s phenomenological data analysis approach (1978) was used to analyze the interview transcripts. The results of this study identified five superordinate and 19 subordinate themes. The superordinate themes that emerged included: (1) reluctant to be involved in the legal process, (2) managing problematic parents, (3) training/experience, (4) needing self-protection, and (5) no unified therapy approach. The dissertation closes with a final discussion of a summary of the findings, limitations, implications of the study, and potential future research directions.

Keywords

Description

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. 2024. Major: Family Social Science. Advisor: Steven Harris. 1 computer file (PDF); viii, 125 pages.

Related to

Replaces

License

Collections

Series/Report Number

Funding information

Isbn identifier

Doi identifier

Previously Published Citation

Other identifiers

Suggested citation

Guyette, Erin. (2024). Understanding Therapists’ Beliefs, Attitudes, and Approaches to Working with Families in High Conflict and Involved in Legal Proceedings. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/264311.

Content distributed via the University Digital Conservancy may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor. By using these files, users agree to the Terms of Use. Materials in the UDC may contain content that is disturbing and/or harmful. For more information, please see our statement on harmful content in digital repositories.