Court Ordered Reunification Therapy

What Is Reunification Therapy?*

Reunification Therapy is provided in response to a child resisting contact with a parent. It addresses the needs of a family where traits of alienation, estrangement, and/or unhealthy alignment occur resulting in resistance to contact with one of the parents. Most often, Reunification Therapy is court-ordered in response to dysfunctional loyalty issues and high conflict between the parents. Parties are typically referred to as the “preferred parent” and the “resisted parent” in this work.

*Important: All Reunification Therapy is Done Through Telehealth

What Are The Goals of Reunification Therapy?*

In Reunification Therapy the focus is on nurturing the quality of the parent-child relationship. The goals for Reunification Therapy include fostering healthy child adjustment, and improving parent functioning and roles, as well as the following:

✓To restore contact between the resisted parent and his/her child(ren).

✓To work with each parent and their child(ren) to identify and separate the child’s needs and views from each parent’s needs and views.

✓To improve each parent’s ability to fully understand the needs of each child, and the negative repercussions for the child(ren) of a severed or compromised relationship with a parent in their young lives and as adults.

✓To work with each family member to form more appropriate parent-parent and parent-child roles and boundaries.

✓To address distortions/irrational beliefs and replace with more realistic perceptions that reflect the child(ren)’s actual experience with both parents.

✓To improve the child(ren)’s ability to differentiate himself/herself in his/her emotional development in age-appropriate ways.

✓To help each parent differentiate valid concerns from overly negative, critical, and generalized views relating to the other parent.

✓To assist the parents in resolving relevant parent-child conflicts.

✓To improve each parent’s parenting skills and family communication skills.

*12th Symposium on Child Custody Evaluations AFCC November 5, 2016

Our Reunification Therapist(s):

Dennis Tucker, LCSW, CFMHE

Dennis has been with NBEVAL since 2014. He has been in practice since 1994, with experience with expert court appearances, forensic mental health evaluations, parenting plans, relocation, and child custody evaluations. Currently, Dennis is the only therapist with New Beginnings Evaluations currently taking Reunification Therapy Clients. He is a member of the AFCC, holding to national standards and guidelines for Reunification Therapy.