Transcript

Kathleen Schofield: I tell parents, we’ve got to avoid three things in our communication: escalation, defensiveness, accusations. When any one or all three of those things come into the conversation, we’ve lost our ability to be productive.

Voiceover: You’re listening to the Texas Family Law Insiders podcast, your source for the latest news and trends in family law in the state of Texas. Now, here’s your host attorney Holly Draper.

Holly Draper: Today, we’re excited to welcome Kathleen Schofield to The Texas Family Law Insiders podcast. Kathleen is a licensed professional counselor with ClearView counseling group in Dallas. She specializes in high conflict relationships, parent facilitation and coordination, reunification therapy, co parenting counseling, and private counseling for individuals going through divorce, separation and child custody issues. Kathleen enjoys working with high conflict families and providing education and support to return the focus back to the children and reduce the conflict. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Kathleen: Oh, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Holly: So why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Kathleen: Oh, sure. So therapy is actually a second career for me. I went back to school in my mid 30s. And, you know, made a pretty significant career shift. I’ve been a counselor since 2018. And I’ve pretty much focused exclusively on my training with high conflict families. So I really, really enjoy working with that population. And with that, you know, section of therapy, so.

Holly: I think it takes a special kind of person to enjoy working in that environment. And I’m sure people say the same thing about family lawyers, though all the time.

Kathleen: I don’t know, I really, really enjoy stepping in and helping everybody to communicate a little bit differently, you know, kind of mediating through some of these problems. And I genuinely think that people really don’t like to be in that mental and emotional state. There’s, they’re just not quite sure, hey, what do I do? How do I get out of this? How do I do something different? I know, I need to do something different. I’m just not sure what that is. And I really like stepping into kind of calm that chaos. And it’s, it’s really fulfilling, you know, type of work for me so.

Holly: So how would you describe your current practice?

Kathleen: Um, so I’d say it is, the majority of it is working with high conflict families, whether I’m working with the parents, the children, the parent and child together, or the actual individual that maybe is contemplating divorce or separation, or is actively going through it. You know, I do also have a private practice that has nothing to do with this, where I just work with anxiety, depression, life transitions, you know, maybe kind of feeling a little stuck, or, you know, mood disorders and kind of your your typical therapies. I’ve got, I’ve got a range of both, but helps me to stay pretty balanced.

Holly: Do you do a lot of court appointments and work with a lot of attorneys? Are you pretty much being hired by individuals outside of the family law system?

Kathleen: No, I definitely work with a lot of attorneys. I definitely, especially I’ve noticed in the last year coming out of COVID. And, you know, there’s, I noticed that everything within family law kind of slowed down. And a lot of cases that maybe had started in 2019, or, you know, some of the filings really slowed. And now everything’s kind of picking back up again and reopening so. And the conflict escalated significantly, during during that period of just kind of, you know, everything slowing down. So definitely, I’m working a lot with the court system right now, in these cases.

Holly: So when you sent me information kind of about being on the podcast and gave topic ideas, one of the things that you mentioned, was discussing the cycles of conflict and communication. What do you mean by that?

Kathleen: So I actually think it’s a really important part of this process, you know, depending it doesn’t matter which role you’re in. I think we’ve got to provide some education, as far as, hey, to these families or these parents, hey, this is what I think is happening. You know, this is how it’s starting, how it’s perpetuating. And then in that education and knowledge, we’re going to start to provide some tools and techniques to break some of the cycles. So I start a lot of my, you know, early therapeutic work with people providing some significant education on what I think is happening. And I explained it in this way. I believe that conflict originates kind of from two different areas.

And that first one is this concept of unmet expectations. Hey, I thought something was going to go a certain type of way. I thought my relationship was going to go a certain type of way, I thought I was going to feel a little bit differently and I don’t and now I’m left with a lot of emotions about that. Maybe frustration or anger, irritation, and where that really is applicable to these families. And I hear this all the time. I thought my divorce was going to go different. I thought my co parent would be different after the divorce. You know, I thought we’d be better after. And and they have this idea, this expectation of how they thought something was gonna go. And it really went the other direction. Because hey, guess what, even if you go through a divorce, you still have to co parent and the majority of the time, you’re the same person, or maybe you’re a little bit more emotional.

The second concept is this idea of intent. Either I feel like I’m being accused of intentionally doing something, which by the way, that’s going to make me real defensive, I’m going to want to argue about my character. And I’m going to, I’m going to really want to go at the person who’s accusing me, or I feel like someone has done something purposefully and intentionally to hurt me. And then I’m going to turn around and argue about that. And one of the really big cycles that I see, and this is especially true when people have been arguing for a while, because you know, these fights didn’t just pop up, they’ve been, they’ve been brewing for a little while. This idea that we very quickly justify our behavior or reaction or response, we justify it as a reaction to what the other person did.

And I hear this all the time. Well, hey, I did this, because they did that. I would never have done that if they hadn’t done that. Therefore, I’m absolving myself of the accountability, or ownership for what has happened in this exchange, or in this co parenting relationship. And so I actually draw that out on a whiteboard. And I kind of show like, hey, you know, we’ve got this triggering action, you’ve got your emotional response, then you react, and then you very quickly justify it, and your reaction becomes the other person’s triggering action and event. And so we go round and round, until we get people to own their side of the street. Own what they’re doing.

Holly: So how do you help people get past that triggering behavior from the other side?

Kathleen: So one of the most difficult and you know, the saddest parts of these is that the children are often the biggest bearer of the brunt of the conflict between the parents, they know that the parents are fighting, they are, you know, kind of thrown in the middle, maybe they’ve they’re receiving a lot of adult information. And it really starts to affect them, you know, they they don’t understand, hey, why did we get divorced, if you’re still going to fight or I’ve got some anxiety and some depression, now I don’t feel comfortable. I know my parents are fighting, I’ve got to try and mediate their conflict. They try and become the peacemakers or trying to avoid each parent that they’re with from getting angry.

And so one of the things that I kind of shout loud and clear is, hey, if we keep doing this, we’ve got to ask ourselves two questions. If I do this, how will it affect my children? And how will my children feel about this? Because a lot of times we get wrapped up in our own kind of, you know, tornado, our own storm, it’s our fight, and we forget to look around to see how is it affecting the people around us, specifically, the children? And so one of the very first things that I do is I bring the focus back to the kids. What is it doing to them? How are they reacting or responding? What are they having to deal with, you know, out of this high conflict, you know, co parenting relationship?

Holly: So one of the other things you mentioned was about this fight didn’t just start oftentimes, it’s been going on for a very long time. How do you, I’m sure you see this a lot, we see this a lot people who are stuck on something that happened a long time ago, and cannot move forward from that. How do you get people to move forward and leave the past in the past?

Kathleen: That’s a that’s a really, really good question. Sometimes I’m able to speak with someone individually to get them past. And sometimes it’s, hey, you really need to do some individual work outside to move beyond this. Because the longer we stay fixated on this, the more it’s going to circumvent your ability to be able to still co parent with this person. So I kind of explained it, hey, we’ve got some different hats that we wear in our relationship, you know, so you’ve got the husband and wife, the ex, you know, the ex wife, the ex husband hat, and then you’ve got the mother, father co parenting hat. And if you’ve got one that is, you know, kind of bleeding or trickling over into the other, it’s gonna make it very difficult for you to still be mother and father.

So under that umbrella of husband and wife and exes, and co parent, you know, and husband and wife, we’ve really got to say, hey, do I need to draw a line in the sand and push that behind us to say, you know what, I’ve got to leave that in the past because it’s trickling over into my ability to actually be a co parent. So I try and establish trust, I validate how they’re feeling. I you know, provide a lot of understanding, but then still kind of say, hey, what would it look like for you if you let that go? Would it be easier for you, you know, in this kind of reality question. If you move beyond that, what all the sudden does your co parenting relationship look like? If we let that go, what does that do for you mentally and emotionally? Because we’ve got to accept our co parent for who they are. And they may not change, but we still got to get along with them. And that’s, you know, just the way that it is. So, that reality check.

Holly: So, as attorneys, obviously, we see a lot of people who are in high conflict situations or not necessarily high conflict, but it’s there’s conflict there for sure. How do we recognize when intervention for a mental health professional is appropriate?

Kathleen: So I definitely think, you know, there’s, there’s a couple of things that we can look for it clearly, if the children are being affected, if they’re aware, if we’re starting to see some behavioral issues, maybe decline in school, loss of friends, anxiety, depression. You know, and I actually think it’s really wonderful for children to get into therapy, when you know, the the family system is starting to transition or change. So definitely paying attention to the children. But then the other thing is, do we have basic communication?

Are we fighting about just about everything? We fighting about haircuts, and water bottles and practice? And you know, or are we able to get through some of these these basics. And then I think, also, it’s really good to consider if there’s a high likelihood for pretty intense future litigation, would that would a mental health professional, or you know, someone in that role be able to mitigate through some of that and prevent the likelihood for future litigation, because it’s, it’s really good for them to have someone to come and talk to you before always, you know, rushing back to, you know, consider court or consider filing.

Holly: So I know, there are a variety of ways in which you work with families in high conflict situations, I’d like to kind of go through those different options and what they are, when it’s appropriate, and how attorneys can recognize which type of service they should really be looking for. So I know you do parenting, facilitation, parent coordination, those are two things that even some experienced lawyers confuse. So can you talk about those two, how they’re different, what they are, and when you would recommend them?

Kathleen: Sure. So the largest difference between facilitation and coordination is coordination is a confidential process. You know, I can’t be called to testify, I can’t, you know, I don’t send status reports to the court. I basically can only say, hey, we’re either meeting or we’re not meeting. You know, so coordination would be good if, you know, the parents are wanting to keep, you know, this a bit more private, you know, there’s a less likelihood for, you know, future litigation or a need for, you know, the, the, the, you know, interventionist to be able to speak with an order to report what’s happening. You know, and a lot of people prefer that they want to keep it private, you know, they don’t, you know, want to, you know, kind of have all of that being non confidential.

Parenting facilitation, it has a couple of different uses, and is important for a couple of different ways. So, first off, you know, everything is, you know, readily available and accessible as far as, hey, we can be called to court, we can send memos to the court, we can testify, you know, speak to attorneys and etc. Both of these roles, you have to go through very specific training and basic mediation, advanced family law, mediation, and then there’s a workshop, and, you know, domestic violence training for PF and PC. But it’s an individual that’s tasked with stabilizing the co parenting core, providing accountability for the court order, mediating through decisions or disagreements that might be popping up.

And then also providing some extensive documentation as to what is transpiring. You know, so we work really hard to exact change within that co parenting relationship. But then there’s other times where if you know, one, or both parents are resistant, or they’re doing things to, you know, destabilize that co parenting relationship, or it’s not in the best interest of the children, then it is important for us to be communicating, you know, that, that that is happening and what is transpiring. So, you know, I think one of the bigger differences is, you know, parent facilitation, there’s a lot of documentation, a lot of accountability, a lot of adherence to the court order.

And then there’s, of course, several parameters, where we can’t have any sort of decision making opinion or statements or comments about and that’s going to be, you know, the, the rights, who has medical decisions and educational decisions. You know, who’s the primary parent, you know, parenting time, possession, access. We can’t touch any of those larger, you know, things that is, you know, where the Texas Family Code enjoins us from, you know, having any, you know, opinion or comments on that so.

Holly: But you can help the parties try to reach agreement on those things.

Kathleen: Yes, absolutely. I, you know, I don’t I don’t necessarily document that in a joint appointment agreement document. I would still send that back to the attorneys because I think you need that court order from some of those bigger rights and responsibilities. But, you know, I mediate difficult decisions, and just conversations and joint appointments, if both parties consent and agree to that.

Holly: So I know one of the other areas that you do is co parenting counseling. So how does that differ from using either a PC or a PF?

Kathleen: So the PF and the PC role is pretty, you know, it’s delineated within the Texas Family Code as to what that is what that looks like, what the process looks like. It’s mandatory, you know, that’s going to be included in a court order a temporary orders or rule 11, like the parents have to come. Sometimes when I’m doing co parenting counseling, that both parties are willing and voluntarily wanting to participate. You know, and I can do a combination of doing some individual appointments to help each parent individually, and then joint sessions together, to help them you know, diffuse, you know, some of the conflict that they’re having. So, that’s a little bit more of a therapeutic, you know, process, whereas parent facilitation and parent coordination is, is pretty strictly delineated in that Texas Family Code as to how we’re supposed to do it, and what’s our rights and roles and responsibilities.

Holly: So at what point if you’re going to have co parenting counseling, at what point if ever, would you loop the children and make it into family therapy?

Kathleen: So typically, therapists can only have one role when working with a family. So if I start out in something, I’m going to stay with that. You know, I really like to not involve the children as much as I can, and probably my first move would be, hey, let’s get them into therapy. And maybe I have a collaborative process with the child’s therapist to understand what’s going on. So then I can turn around and, you know, help families. Or, one of the more fun aspects of this work is when I get to do joint sessions with other clinicians. And I love that, so maybe we do a family session where, you know, another parent’s individual counselors there, or the child’s therapist is there, and we work with everybody together to have a really good and productive, you know, communication about what’s happening. So I’d probably stick with whatever role I started with. But then we could also turn it into a collaborative process.

Holly: So with when it comes to family therapy, is are there times when that’s appropriate and is appropriate to include the children?

Kathleen: Absolutely. In fact, I’ve got a couple cases where I’ve been court appointed as the family therapist, you know, to bring everybody in to repair all the relationships. You know, I think it’s understandable if like, one child maybe is having some issues with one parent, or both parents or maybe they’re struggling to understand or comprehend through this process. Because divorce is, is challenging for everyone, it you know, it affects absolutely everyone. You know, so in that way we meet with, you know, different members of the entire family system to all of them together, you know, based on what we see is going on and what is best.

When I am in the family counseling role, I typically start off with the parents, and I want to stabilize the parents first, because it is amazing when the parents start to do a little bit better, that children really their children are really resilient. And they, we can see some change in them as well. And they start to stabilize. So I typically start with parents first, hey, let me stabilize that the last thing I want is for their children to see their parents fighting in a session. That’s not going to go well, you know, so I’ll start with the parents first. And then if it’s appropriate, and we’re stable in that co parenting core, I might bring, you know, the children in later.

Holly: And we also do reunification therapy. And how does reunification therapy differ from traditional, more traditional family therapy?

Kathleen: It is some of the hardest work that we do. It is so so difficult. By the time reunification therapy seems to be needed, there has been so much that has transpired. You know, so the terms that we often use are the rejected parents and the preferred parents. And I, you know, describe, you know, the reunification process, it’s a complex issue with the entire family system. You know, so we are trying to reunify, repair the relationship between the rejected parent and the child, but of course, that preferred parent’s going to have some of their own issues and concerns and emotions about that.

And it’s it’s incredibly, you know, complicated. And then oftentimes, there is conflict between the two parents there. And when that’s transpiring, it also affects the relationship between the child and you know, the rejected parent. It’s, it’s it’s very emotional work. It’s very difficult. You’ve got to work to help facilitate the difficult conversations, where we’re trying to repair, we’re trying to talk about what has happened, make amends, forgive, you know, a lot of times the children are stuck in what we call resistant refusal. I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to see this parent, I’m so mad, I’m so angry, you can’t make me.

And it’s really hard to get a child to move beyond that, especially when, usually things that have happened have been happening for a while. You know, so it’s, it’s challenging work, and everybody’s got to be on board, everybody’s got to understand their part, and how to support the reunification therapy process. And then just understanding, hey, it’s bumby. We’re going to have a really emotional conversation between the child and the parent, and the parent has to be ready to apologize to make amends, you know, to have those difficult conversations and to start that process of forgiveness and repair.

Holly: When you’re doing, you’re doing reunification therapy, do you typically have a plan from the beginning? This is how possession is gonna go? This is how it’s going to be increasing? Or is that a very fluid, we’re gonna see where it goes along the way?

Kathleen: So actually, that’s a really, really good question. I don’t take on a reunification case, unless that’s already worked out, in, because we really cannot have an opinion on possession and access and parenting time. So you know, the attorneys can come up with a stairstep plan for what that will look like, as long as everything kind of goes according to plan. You know, but if the child is resisting and refusing, you know, for a longer period of time, and needs more individual sessions, or the parent’s not ready, we’ve got to do some, some parents, you know, training and coaching to get them ready to have those conversations.

You know, it doesn’t necessarily always go to plan. So I actually do not, you know, possession, access parenting time needs to be worked out, prior, you know, to me taking on a case, because that way, I already have that set set, you know, set in stone, you know, because I really can’t have any sort of opinion about that. I can’t really make any sort of recommendations that’s exclusively to an evaluator, you know, or, you know, the, you know, the legal side of things.

Holly: So, do you think it’s typically better for people going through reunification therapy to cut back on their time and have less, have shorter, frequent visits with children? Do they need to increase the time because you know, more time is going to give them more opportunity to reunify? How does it normally work?

Kathleen: You know, it’s really different for each case, you know, sometimes I’ll get a reunification case where there’s still a normal possession and access schedule, there’s just a lot of conflict within that. You know, so it really depends on where the child is at what the child’s ready for, you know, where the parents at what they’re ready for. It’s really, it’s one of those where we have to tailor the process to whatever that family system needs. I wish there was a, and I say this in my intake appointments, hey, I’m not going to know how this is all going to move forward until I meet with everybody. And once I meet with everybody, then I kind of understand where everyone’s at and what they’re ready for. And we can start to formulate what that plan is going to look like as far as appointments moving forward.

But I always meet with both parents first, in the reunification process before meeting with the child. So I wish I could give more of a, you know, a stronger answer. As far as you know, this is normally what I see. But I’m I’m going to be honest, you know, the reunification cases that we’re getting right now. They’re, they’re complicated. And usually, there’s been other therapeutic interventions prior and you know, they’ve, you know, either not gone well, or the child is kind of stuck more in that resistant refusal place. And, you know, we’ve really got to take a look at where everybody’s at in that system to figure out what they need.

Holly: So as attorneys, what can we do to help prepare our clients for a positive outcome when they’re working with a mental health professional in a high conflict case?

Kathleen: So I think one of my favorite questions that attorneys ask me on phone calls is, hey, what can my client do better? What does my client need to work on? Because in every case that I work, it’s always both. It’s always everybody’s always contributing to where this conflict has gone. And so recognizing, hey, my client plays a part in this, you know, what is that? And what can I help them to understand or see or be open to, you know, in order to work on whatever’s going on on their side of the street. Everybody comes in with a very specific narrative of what the other parent is doing. And you listen for a little while, but it’s like, okay, hey, we’ve also got to talk about what you’re doing to contribute to this escalation, this conflict.

You know, so helping everyone just the hey, you play a part in it, you know, yes, your co parent needs accountability, but so do you. And I can always tell when a parent has been prepped, because they’ll come in and they’ll say, hey, I know, I know, I messed it up, too. I know, I’m messing up to you, I know you’re gonna, you know, call me on things I know, you’re gonna challenge, you know, but I also need to tell you what’s going on on the other side of the street. And I go, okay, you know, we’ve got a good understanding that, hey, everybody’s going to be challenged here. And everybody’s going to be called to act and communicate and behave differently. I tell parents, we’ve got to avoid three things in our communication: escalation, defensiveness, accusations.

When any one or all three of those things come into the conversation, we’ve lost our ability to be productive. So I think the other thing to touch on in that question is what does a positive outcome look like? And a lot of times people come in, and it’s like, I want you to, you know, really go at my co parent, like their idea of a positive outcome is winning, but winning against the other parent. And I say, you know, what, we’ve got to shift and say, the positive outcome is that we’re co parenting and we’re acting in the best interest of the children. So what does a positive outcome look like? It looks like we’re getting along in a businesslike and professional manner.

We’re doing the business of co parenting well, and our children are thriving, because they’re not in the middle. And I think just shifting away from that, you know, that kind of that adversarial conflictual, I want you to I want you to get my co parent to say, okay, yeah, I’ll see it, I’ll see everything, you know, but the real positive outcome and win is that we’re getting along, and we’re refraining from from conflicts. Getting, getting them ready to be challenged, because it’s gonna happen.

Holly: So how do you know that it’s, it’s not going to work, and it’s time to throw in the towel on this.

Kathleen: You know, I think one of the things that sometimes does happen is, you know, if a person is not, you know, ready to be challenged, or they are really struggling to, you know, have insight and awareness and ownership and accountability for their part in it, then the conflict starts to shift to the mental health professional. And when that happens, when they’re becoming the source of the conflict, they’re not going to be able to be effective. You know, so when I see that happening, it’s like, okay, you know, I have done, you know, as much as I can, I provided that documentation and accountability, potentially a fresh set of eyes on this case, or, you know, a lot of us say similar things, we just maybe do it in different ways, or we just have different tools and techniques.

So it isn’t, you know, necessarily, you know, by my deficiency, but maybe someone else is going to say something a little bit differently, that’s going to resonate with that person. And, you know, what, sometimes where we’ve done all we can do, and we’ve got to drop that ego and say, you know, what, I think we’ve, we need a new pair, a new set of eyes on this. And I think also, you know, time if we’re seeing people stuck, and they’re really stuck, and maybe they need to step away and do some individual work, and then come back and re engage in, you know, in that that session. Usually, usually when I would say, okay, let’s pause.

Holly: So we’re just about out of time, but one of the questions I like to ask everybody who comes on the podcast is, if you could give one piece of advice to family lawyers, what would it be?

Kathleen: I, you know, I’d probably say, you know, to facilitate really collaborative conversations, where we’re looking at a case in a very balanced way. Recognizing, hey, the clients are always playing a portion. Work with me, I’m going to strive very hard to, you know, remain neutral, and unbiased and not take a side and really just describe what I’m seeing is happening. And allowing us to all work together, you know, to stabilize this, you know, and not necessarily to be that, you know, that source of the fight or the conflict, simply because I’m providing, you know, feedback for the client. Because I’m going to see, I’m going to see everything, and I genuinely want to stabilize and work to defuse this conflict. And I enjoy it, you know, so work with me in that collaborative space, recognize and understand the limitations of your clients, you know, and then working with me to, you know, to help stabilize these these high conflict family systems.

Holly: I think that’s excellent advice. You can almost, you can kind of sum it up a little bit. Don’t drink too much of your own client’s Kool Aid. You have to be able to see the whole picture and, you know, work towards the ultimate goal.

Kathleen: One of the things that I’m seeing because I do feel like the conflict is shifting and it’s intensifying in the last several years, I think a lot of professionals are seeing it’s just so much worse and so much more intense. I think, you know, back when we were navigating divorce in the 80s and 90s. I don’t think we really did it very well. You know, I don’t think we had any resources for parents to go from being exes to co parents. I think there was a lack of therapeutic support for children and parents going through the process.

And I think sometimes what we’re seeing now is these these adults are were children and products of divorce in the 80s, and 90s. And a lot of it is, you know, they’re getting triggered and it’s, you know, very reminiscent of maybe some things that they went through when they were a child, and now they’re adults going through it. And I do think it’s becoming a little bit more intense. And, you know, I see it shifting a little bit and we’ve got to provide more support and more education and more tools to help navigate these these situations.

Holly: So where can our listeners go if they want to learn more about you?

Kathleen: So we’ve got a website it is cvcounselinggroup.com. We’ve got bios up there and my all my contact information is there. You know, you’re free to email me. I love networking and meeting with other professionals, whether it’s attorneys, you know, judges, mental health professionals, I love collaborating and networking. It’s one of my most favorite parts of of this, of this job.

Holly: Me too. And it’s been one of the best things of the podcasts is I get to meet a lot of new people that I never otherwise would have met and it’s been a lot of fun.

Kathleen: I echo that. I take something away from everyone that I meet. I love learning. I love hearing about people’s experiences and you know, drawing from you know, from things that they have done and what they’ve, you know, learned in their journey.

Holly: Well thank you so much for joining us today. For our listeners if you enjoyed this podcast, go take a second to leave us a review and subscribe to enjoy future episodes.

Voiceover: That Texas Family Law Insiders podcast is sponsored by the Draper Law firm. We help people navigate divorce and child custody cases and handle family law appellate matters. For more information, visit our website at www.Draperfirm.com