{"id":4522,"date":"2022-02-15T09:45:55","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T16:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resolvology.com\/?p=4522"},"modified":"2022-03-14T21:28:59","modified_gmt":"2022-03-15T04:28:59","slug":"mike-denis-episode-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resolvology.com\/mike-denis-episode-02","title":{"rendered":"Mike Denis, R.Psych. \u2013 How Therapy Helps Families &#038; Teens in Separation and Divorce (#2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; admin_label=&#8221;Header&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.4&#8243; background_color=&#8221;#92D0CB&#8221; use_background_color_gradient=&#8221;on&#8221; background_color_gradient_start=&#8221;#c4ebe8&#8243; background_color_gradient_end=&#8221;#61ada7&#8243; background_color_gradient_type=&#8221;radial&#8221; background_color_gradient_direction_radial=&#8221;top right&#8221; background_color_gradient_end_position=&#8221;45%&#8221; background_image=&#8221;https:\/\/resolvology.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/audio_bars4.png&#8221; 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_module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; header_2_font=&#8221;|700|||||||&#8221; header_2_text_align=&#8221;center&#8221; header_2_text_color=&#8221;#031926&#8243; header_2_font_size_tablet=&#8221;&#8221; header_2_font_size_phone=&#8221;20px&#8221; header_2_font_size_last_edited=&#8221;on|desktop&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h2>FAMILY LAW MATTERS podcast<\/h2>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_title author=&#8221;off&#8221; date_format=&#8221;F d, Y&#8221; categories=&#8221;off&#8221; comments=&#8221;off&#8221; featured_image=&#8221;off&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.4&#8243; title_font=&#8221;Montserrat|700|||||||&#8221; title_text_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; title_font_size=&#8221;48px&#8221; title_letter_spacing=&#8221;1px&#8221; title_line_height=&#8221;1.2em&#8221; meta_font=&#8221;Montserrat|500|||||||&#8221; meta_text_color=&#8221;#031926&#8243; meta_line_height=&#8221;2em&#8221; text_orientation=&#8221;center&#8221; max_width=&#8221;1080px&#8221; title_font_size_tablet=&#8221;38px&#8221; 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custom_margin_last_edited=&#8221;on|desktop&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;||||false|false&#8221; animation_style=&#8221;fade&#8221; animation_direction=&#8221;bottom&#8221; animation_delay=&#8221;500ms&#8221; border_radii=&#8221;on|10px|10px|10px|10px&#8221; box_shadow_style=&#8221;preset1&#8243; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=&#8221;1_3,1_3,1_3&#8243; disabled_on=&#8221;off|off|off&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Listen On&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.6&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_3&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.4&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/resolvology.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/family_law_matters_on_apple_podcasts.png&#8221; alt=&#8221;Listen to Family Law Matters on Apple Podcasts&#8221; url=&#8221;https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/family-law-matters\/id1606223946&#8243; url_new_window=&#8221;on&#8221; align=&#8221;center&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Apple Podcasts&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.6&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_3&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.4&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/resolvology.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/family_law_matters_on_spotify.png&#8221; alt=&#8221;Listen to Family Law Matters on Spotify&#8221; url=&#8221;https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/1hCoAj7Vy8Hl31SdBrynNG&#8221; url_new_window=&#8221;on&#8221; align=&#8221;center&#8221; disabled_on=&#8221;off|off|off&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Spotify&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.7&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_3&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.4&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/resolvology.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/family_law_matters_on_google_podcasts.png&#8221; alt=&#8221;Listen to Family Law Matters on Google Podcasts&#8221; url=&#8221;https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5iY2FzdC5mbS9mYW1pbHktbGF3LW1hdHRlcnM=&#8221; url_new_window=&#8221;on&#8221; align=&#8221;center&#8221; disabled_on=&#8221;off|off|off&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Google Podcasts&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.7&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.7&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.4&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_testimonial portrait_url=&#8221;https:\/\/resolvology.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/mike_denis_bio.jpg&#8221; quote_icon=&#8221;off&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Guest Bio&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.7&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; body_link_font=&#8221;||||on||||&#8221; border_radii=&#8221;on|10px|10px|10px|10px&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>Mike Denis is a Registered Psychologist in Calgary, Alberta. In his private practice, Mask Psychological Service, Mike offers therapy to children, adolescents, and adults. He has significant clinical experience working in a variety of settings including hospitals, forensic centres, courts, and group homes. He offers forensic services when families are in high conflict and is an experienced family law mediator. Mike uses reality therapy as the basis of his therapy practice and feels adolescents and adults appreciate his &#8220;real&#8221; approach to his work.<\/p>\n<p>Learn more about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.maskpsych.com\/biography.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mike Denis<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_testimonial][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.7&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; background_enable_color=&#8221;off&#8221; use_background_color_gradient=&#8221;on&#8221; background_color_gradient_start=&#8221;#ffffff&#8221; background_color_gradient_end=&#8221;#92d0cb&#8221; background_color_gradient_start_position=&#8221;50%&#8221; background_color_gradient_end_position=&#8221;50%&#8221; custom_margin=&#8221;||||false|false&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;0px||8vw||false|false&#8221; top_divider_height=&#8221;468px&#8221; bottom_divider_flip=&#8221;vertical&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.7&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; background_color=&#8221;#FFFFFF&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;|30px||30px|false|true&#8221; border_radii=&#8221;on|10px|10px|10px|10px&#8221; border_color_all=&#8221;#92D0CB&#8221; box_shadow_style=&#8221;preset1&#8243; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.4&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.4&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; header_2_font=&#8221;Montserrat|700|||||||&#8221; header_2_text_align=&#8221;center&#8221; header_2_text_color=&#8221;#666666&#8243; header_2_font_size=&#8221;36px&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h2>About This Episode<\/h2>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.7&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>Mike shares his perspective on working with teens, his approach to therapy and his interest in helping families experiencing separation and divorce. Mike talks about how his breadth of experience allows him to use reality therapy as the basis of his therapy practice and feels adolescents and adults appreciate his &#8220;real&#8221; approach to his work.<\/p>\n<p>Click for <a href=\"https:\/\/resolvology.com\/questions#parenting-questions\">resources and answers to common questions<\/a> around parenting.<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_toggle title=&#8221;Episode Transcript&#8221; icon_color=&#8221;#92D0CB&#8221; toggle_icon=&#8221;&#xe050;||divi||400&#8243; icon_font_size=&#8221;28px&#8221; open_icon_color=&#8221;#92D0CB&#8221; open_toggle_icon=&#8221;&#xe04f;||divi||400&#8243; open_icon_font_size=&#8221;28px&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Transcript Toggle&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.14.7&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; title_font=&#8221;Montserrat|||on|||||&#8221; title_letter_spacing=&#8221;1px&#8221; border_width_all=&#8221;0px&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>This is Family Law Matters, a podcast series that introduces you to mental health and legal professionals in the area of family law. We&#8217;ll be talking to experts who guide moms, dads and children along transitions of separation and divorce. My name is Janine Crofton, the principal at Resolvology Inc. I&#8217;m a family law mediator in Alberta and a psychologist in Alberta and Ontario. My hope is to provide information and a bit of optimism to listeners who are in the midst of restructuring their families. Before we begin, just a quick reminder that information heard on this podcast is not to be construed as psychological, financial or legal advice. Please consult a professional concerning your specific circumstances. On this second episode, we are interviewing a Calver psychologist, Mike Denis. Mike offers therapy to children, youth and adults, and also provides forensic services in the family law area. Before becoming a psychologist, Mike offered mediation services at the law courts in Calgary, helping many couples to form agreements allowing them to avoid family court. See a complete bio for Mike on my website at resolvology.com.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>Thanks, Mike, for joining us. Why did you decide to become a psychologist?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>It&#8217;s a good question, actually. So when I started out, actually my journey, if you want to say I actually wanted to be a police officer. So before I got my psychology degree, I have a degree in criminology as well. So I was actually a criminologist before I was a psychologist. So at the time that I was going to school, the first profiler show came on, which was probably in the sort of late nineties, early 2000s. And I don&#8217;t know if people remember it, but that made me want to be a criminal profiler, which is probably something that almost every psychologist kind of goes through or every police officer goes through. So I started taking psych courses and ended up doing two degrees, which is like criminal degree. I had planned actually on just kind of going through and doing a psychologist, but I got sidetracked with life and became a divorce negotiator, as you would know, because we work together. And then I had this somewhat epiphanous conversation with one of my more experienced colleagues, and I was capable coordinator at the time. And I was kind of snowed in on files and sort of being worked quite hard, as happens with the government.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>And she asked, well, why don&#8217;t I just become a psychologist or move on and do something else? And I had said that, well, that would be like four years and a whole bunch of money away. And she asked a pivotal question, well, what do you think you&#8217;ll be doing in four years if you don&#8217;t do anything? So the next day I applied for my Masters and went to U of C and sort of, here I am.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>Nice. So you have a master&#8217;s in what?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>I have a Master\u2019s in education counseling.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>And so how long have you been practicing?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>About six years, I think. I just had my 6th, possibly 7th birthday. So in terms of being registered on in June.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>And you do a lot of things like you worked for Woods Homes and you&#8217;ve worked with kids a lot, you also do forensic work. Tell me about the breadth of work that you do in the family law industry?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>So for family law, I didn&#8217;t know it was actually going to come back to me a little bit in terms of discussions and stuff. But yes, you brought up with Homes. So I worked for the Phoenix program, which was working with youth who had committed proper acts against other people in terms of sexual nature. So started out kind of doing that and getting experience that way. And then once I was done my Masters, I started doing suicide and homicide assessments for the hospital. So part of a mobile response team up in Edmonton and then a few years later continued to work for Alberta Health Services, doing a lot of assessments then in terms of short term kind of really high risk assessments. And then I moved into the addiction center and we started doing addiction assessments and mental health assessments and completing those and completing sort of assessment devices to be able to streamline them. So that said, that&#8217;s more of sort of the clinical nature and the assessment nature. And then I worked for an organization that specializes with personality disorders and got trained in Dialectical Behaviour \u00a0Therapy (DBT). So in early training and helping treat some of the people that I did assessments with.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>So people who would cut people, high risk people, high risk of suicide, meth on fairly substantial behavioral issues. And from there, if you can sort of do that therapy, there&#8217;s other therapies that sort of fall within your paradigm like anxiety and depression and eating disorders and ghost pieces. So the first part of the forensic psychologist I do actually believe is fairly strong clinical piece that&#8217;s sort of its own timeline, as you said. So the other train track was that I was a divorce negotiator for about years for family justice. I started out being a court counselor and then was a Caseflow Coordinator with yourself. And what we would do is we would negotiate ad hoc started out in the hallways negotiating separations and anything to do with children in provincial court to be able to present to the judge any kind of agreement to streamline the process. And then judge and I, one of the assistant chief judges, helped create a Caseflow Conference program to streamline the government system a little bit more and really start to develop orders and to be able to process interim agreements without having to go into the court so that we can do everything on an interim basis in the most streamlined way possible.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>So you take those two experiences and put them together and kind of have a forensic psychologist.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>And so if you were to sort of say who your typical client is, who would your typical client be?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know if there is a typical so because I specialize when I came out of school, I specialize with youth. So twelve to 24 year old\u2019s, I still have a lot of experience and get a lot of referrals for those types of individuals, either high risk situations or some issues in school or most clients have an issue in a relationship that happens and then they want to come in to be able to either fix it or to be able to fix themselves after the relationship breakdown. So clients, clinically speaking, are quite intense youth or a\u2019s I&#8217;ve been progressing in private practice, more and more adults have been coming in. So if you can&#8217;t specialize anymore in a way, because I deal with people from twelve to 25, but my focus and sort of my heart still is with those twelve to 24 year old\u2019s. But forensic setting is anybody who is either separating or post separation that has to do with children.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>So that would be parent coordination? Can you give me a list of the services that you provide?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>Yeah. So in terms of terms of forensic settings, so I do parenting coordination. So anything that&#8217;s been listed on the practice note seven. So any kind of intervention or evaluation, I&#8217;ll do that. So there&#8217;s a fair amount there. The most famous ones are voices of child reports, parent child reunification therapy, or parenting coordination. So I also do unilateral mental health assessments, sometimes in their practice of seven, but sometimes on their own, and then offer services to lawyers and some clients actually, who are struggling with the process of their self rep or self-represented or the struggling sometimes with their lawyers or their lawyers are struggling with their clients. And I&#8217;ll offer a litigation support to be able to help either bridge gaps or give lawyers or clients a little bit more time to be able to process their case and develop a strategy for it.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>Oh, good. That&#8217;s good information. And I certainly know I hear from a lot of my clients, who have children that see you, that you do really good work. So I keep referring to you. So tell me, How is it that you&#8217;re so good at connecting with youth? Because that&#8217;s what I hear about you.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>Yeah. No, thank you. I think they trained us in school to be able to say right off the bat and then interview what your treatment paradigm is, although treatment paradigm is kind of a sort of loosey goosey term. So I guess even me just identifying that my paradigm is I&#8217;m a reality therapist, which means I shoot from the hip and I just sort of tell people what&#8217;s going on and try to be as polite and respectful by doing it. Youth typically, because I don&#8217;t have sort of a I wouldn&#8217;t say maybe condescending manner or real sort of typical psychologist approach kind of manner to me. So they like the real base and they like that they don&#8217;t have to anticipate what it is that I&#8217;m going to be saying and that I&#8217;ll talk to them as if they&#8217;re my level. So I find that they like that the most, and we have lots of fun. My background is an athlete, so a lot of kids like that. So often people describe me as a surfer and a suit. So I try to let go of some of the psychologist stereotypes and just be real.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>And so when you think about your involvement with the family law work, what do you find the most satisfying?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>It is a lot of work, but there are certain areas that are really gratifying. Obviously, it&#8217;s nice to get compliments. It&#8217;s extremely nice to get a compliment, especially in a parenting coordination area where parents come to an agreement, they&#8217;ve come to the end of their contract. You get the typical Mike, it&#8217;s nice, but I never want to see you again and thank you because I don&#8217;t have to sort of typical approach to say goodbye to know that in those settings, you know that you actually helped for the children. So the idea of becoming a psychologist from the government was we used to inadvertently help children or help children through their parents. So in the psychologist position, you actually get to help the children directly. So through parents, sometimes through parenting coordination, but often you can see the kids anyway or just directly. And either a youth makes a right decision about a tolerance break or about what University they want to go to, or they just have better communication with their parents or something more sensational with the high risk clients where people start to dig back into living and putting together a life that they want and a life for them that they would like to live.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>And so what is the role of a parent coordinator?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>The history of it is it came out of California a number of years ago, and the idea of it is to be able to provide a specialized service to parents that offers the ability for one professional to be able to get to know the family over an extended period of time. The suggestion is a one or two year contract with the parents where the parents cannot unilaterally fire the professional just in case there&#8217;s a disagreement or a dispute. The parenting coordinator. The definition general is supposed to be that the parenting coordinator is a highly experienced mediator. So with the experience mediation, what we rely on is the ability to be able to actually mediate most disputes. So the disputes would range from smaller sort of Halloween type items to often a majority of custody or major decision making disputes, but would be capped at anything that would change dramatically. Any kind of custody or any kind of mobility. So the parenting coordinator either could enforce or mediate already existing orders or create parenting plans on their own. So it sounds a lot like mediation with contract accept. A parenting coordinator also has the authority, through the parent&#8217;s consent, to be able to arbitrate any matters that the parents can&#8217;t agree to.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>The idea of the arbitration is to be able to speed up the process and minimize the amount of money spent by parents to be able to get decisions on those not as significant matters. So not in terms of custody and 50 50 versus every other weekend type style of disputes or mobility disputes. But what are we going to do for Halloween? What are we going to do for Christmas? What are we going to do on the children&#8217;s birthdays and the parents birthdays? Those matters clog the courts. In terms of the courts, they don&#8217;t want to see that kind of volume. But in terms of parents, it costs a lot of money to have your lawyers be involved in those types of disputes. So parenting coordination is an alternate dispute resolution Avenue for that.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>And so we know that through the mediation work, that you and I have done, that parents often get sort of stuck in those situations where one thing after the next seems to build until they have a lot of resentment towards one another based on their co-parenting relationship. And so it sounds to me like the parent coordination role really helps to sort of clean up some of those conflicts so that parents can get on with the best decisions that they can make.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>Yeah. The initial idea is to help with communication. So in my experience, often cleaning up some of those issues, to be able to move over, to be able to communicate more effectively. It seems to be the way that the cookie falls on that one, because the issues that the parents come in with originally, they&#8217;ve already disputed for a number of months, years sometimes, and need to be resolved before they can grieve that issue or sort of bury that issue and move on to trying to figure out how to parent together as parents and communicate with parents.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>So when you&#8217;re sitting in the role not of a formal assessor and not in the role of a parenting coordinator, but strictly in a counseling role, what do you think the impact is of parents or kids seeing a psychologist as they walk through the process of family law?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>The idea is the hope is that parents feel extremely well supported in terms of being able to move toward through what&#8217;s most commonly is a feeling of rejection or a feeling of betrayal or guilt around the separation of a family, and then being also able to process their feelings in conjunction with those ones that I just talked about with the grief around the separation of the family. So families are doing that. So a family has their own grief process. But individuals going through this process also have their own sort of pieces that they&#8217;re trying to get through and hopefully are being supported to be able to recover from, then they have the added sort of components and complexities of the legal system. So for most parents, it&#8217;s the first separation I&#8217;ve ever been to. If you ask if we weren&#8217;t experienced in what we knew and let&#8217;s say we were accountants and I needed an accountant, the ability for me to be able to find one if I didn&#8217;t have any friends who are accountants and I just looked at the yellow pages or Google, it&#8217;d be very difficult to be able to have any confidence in any professionals that were around.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>So the idea is that we&#8217;re trying to provide support through somewhat naive situation because the parents have never been in this process before, as well as guidance to be able to figure out their emotions while they&#8217;re trying to figure out logical solutions for their kids.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>And so when you think about what a good outcome is for you, when\u00a0 you&#8217;re seeing a couple going through a separation and they&#8217;ve got lots of big feelings, there are hurts and they&#8217;re having a hard time co-parenting, let&#8217;s just say you&#8217;re seeing one of them. What do you think is the main goal that you have for those parents?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>My main goal is to improve communication, but to be able to improve that one parent&#8217;s ability to communicate, often we have to get through some of the difficulties or often power imbalances that occurred in the relationship and heal some of the effects of us. Some people are in a more power position and often don&#8217;t understand what it is that&#8217;s happening and why the other parent is recoiling and not communicating about why they&#8217;re recoiling, which would mean using the silent treatment in a way or just not responding because the one parent is just being too fervent in their want and demonstration for communication. And then on the other side of the other parents where often there&#8217;s an inability or a difficulty in trying to actually establish or to maintain a boundary or a limit to be able to create some kind of structure around communication. So ultimate goal is for parents to be able to communicate together better. The ultimate goal for parents, honestly, is for them to be able to communicate better as well. So moving into what the dynamic of why that&#8217;s not occurring gets a little bit more money and generally is more of an individually based sort of process to be able to build parents up or give parents clarity about what they&#8217;re doing that maybe they shouldn&#8217;t be doing.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>So Mike, one of the things that separates psychologists from sort of other people in the world is that we have expertise in trauma and treating trauma. And so where do you find trauma shows up most in the family law industry?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>It&#8217;s an excellent question. So I think speaking with lawyers, lawyers will often say to me that they would like to have some involvement or my involvement to be able to help deal with some of the bigger emotions are sort of how they would term it for parents to be able to sort of not only regulate, but they have people in their offices where they just feel equipped to be able to deal with what you&#8217;re talking about, which is the trauma of the relationship. So in terms of trauma, you could relate the trauma of family law or of family separations to Little T and Big T trauma. So most parents are worried about their children. In terms of Little T traumas, are they coping okay? Little Jane is coping well, and I can see that she&#8217;s doing okay in school and she&#8217;s talking to me. So that&#8217;s okay. Little Johnny is not saying anything and he&#8217;s always been the one who stops his emotions. So big worry there. So in terms of that, a separation is a hallmark sort of moment for a child&#8217;s attachment, especially if there isn&#8217;t communication or there&#8217;s a fair amount of difficulty and conflict in a relationship.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>So parents are actually right to be able to be worried about their children that way. And frankly, if they&#8217;re starting to worry about the support system that they&#8217;re able to put in place, then I would end up seeing children. And that would be in the context of what you&#8217;re asking in terms of Little Tea trauma. So are they doing okay? Let&#8217;s do a sort of more of a mini treatment assessment for them. Let&#8217;s make sure that they have their voices heard and by someone who has the ability to be able to temper out the connection between voice and choice. And then we&#8217;ll figure out a strategy to be able to relay it to the parents in a safe manner. So for parents, most of the trauma that I see is around betrayal. So around a really acute nature of mistrust or an event that happens where a parent can no longer trust the other parent and the way the human beings work is we develop emotional trust. We generally don&#8217;t develop parenting trust for a parent. So as soon as we destroy the emotional trust and that is traumatic. First of all, for a parent to be able to experience that level of betrayal, whether or not it&#8217;s depending on the circumstances around it or just the level of rejection that occurs, the leaving parent or the parent who is deciding to leave the relationship, I don&#8217;t know if Little T trauma as well.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>I don&#8217;t want to get into the definition of trauma and what&#8217;s used overused and whatever in terms of semantic nature of it, but it is traumatic for parents. So there&#8217;s a number of things that they&#8217;re dealing with, which is the separating, actually of kids. What if a child isn&#8217;t doing very well. That was their decision making to be able to do that often parents will lose the facts of what it was that they were separating for in the beginning, because the separation often doesn&#8217;t go very well and moves towards a high conflict nature, and they feel responsible for that. So there&#8217;s some shame and guilt there. So those are the parents kind of. And in terms of the children, so the big tea trauma is what the government is scared of. There&#8217;s new provisions in the Divorce Act to be able to do domestic violence screening. Every therapist I know, especially forensic psychologists, are extremely worried about missing or not or disadvantaging any parents or person in their sessions or in the system of making anybody more vulnerable. So without going into too much statistics in its own presentation, on its own in terms of trauma, because it&#8217;s a massive issue and a massive topic to be able to talk about that.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>Thank you for asking, because should be transparently spoken about. So Alberta has some difficulties in terms of domestic violence. So does Canada and from the world. And we&#8217;re trying to make it triage transparent and in the forefront with professional training for everybody involved to be able to at least speak about it and give someone the opportunity to talk about it. It&#8217;s a big issue. Parents deal with it, and children deal with it in their own ways. And hopefully everybody has the opportunity to be able to speak to someone or to get some help, especially if there is the tea value there. That trauma, whether or not it&#8217;s big or little or regardless of what someone&#8217;s definition of just emotionally hurt and dysregulated it.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>Yeah. So we know that there are many programs across Canada and specifically in Alberta about managing high conflict between parents. You used to teach Parenting After Separation, which was a long standing in person course that was taught to all parents who were proceeding in courts. It&#8217;s since gone online. And when you think about what kinds of things parents need to know about kids who are going through separation and divorce, what comes to mind?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>Well, the most important pieces it was highlighted in Parenting after Separation, for sure. However, the most important pieces is that children actually need to know that the parents are still there to be able to put them first. So if the children start to doubt that, they start actually making decisions on their own and they start to be putting themselves first to be able to meet their own needs, which means they&#8217;re effectively parenting themselves. So children, youth, young adults somewhat have a really hard time parenting themselves. So that would be the one of the bigger pieces. Another Avenue is that if it is at all possible, if the parent or if the children have the ability to be able to see parents getting along and getting along, even if parents don&#8217;t get along at all. But getting along for the children in front of the children, as fake as you might think it is. And I hear lots of parents say, I&#8217;m not going to be fake in front of my children. They need to see the real thing. They don&#8217;t. They need to see parents attempting to get along so that they know that their parents can emotionally regulate the kids in front of them.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>You&#8217;re not actually teaching a whole bunch about how to teach the other parents. You&#8217;re actually teaching the children that they are special enough that the parents will hold it together when the children already know that the parents don&#8217;t like each other. That is a massive modeling for the children and for them to realize what I had said first. Number one, is that the parents will put them first and the kids are that special even in this relationship where they can continue to feel grounded because the parents can do what the children probably think is impossible and parents think it&#8217;s impossible. You just have to act it sometimes. Those would be the two biggest pieces that I see.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>Right. So those programs, I think, were put into place based on the fact that we know that children seeing high degrees of conflict between the parents is really damaging for them. Kids can start, as you say, to \u00a0parent their parents, and they become more aware sometimes of their parents needs than their own, and then they&#8217;re just not getting all that attention that is required in their developmental stage. So it sounds to me like what you&#8217;re saying is that kids can see their parents putting their own needs aside to some degree that that&#8217;s actually what kids need from their parents during a separation.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>Absolutely. And it&#8217;s probably more potent than we realized yet. So there was research, studies out there, something that we continued on, that the ability of the psychological advantage of parents being able to put especially conflict aside and the children seeing that, I believe it does wonders for the children in terms of them being and feeling valued, which is what we&#8217;re trying to do, is validate children. So unfortunately, to be clear, people listening to this, there are two groups. There&#8217;s general separating individuals who have the ability generally, regardless of how much they dislike the other parent, to not feel unsafe by the other parent. So we would categorize them as non-high conflict parents. So that recommendation for those parents is exactly what we&#8217;re looking for and I think would provide leaps and bounds for your children in terms of them being able to accept the separation for high conflict parents, that one, unfortunately, doesn&#8217;t work because we have to expose ourselves to trusting the other parent to be able to regulate their emotions. So in terms of the high confidence, there is a high conflict parenting course, and it&#8217;s impossible to answer here in five minutes.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>But there is more specialized type training and therapeutic intervention offered in Calgary, actually through some non-profit agencies or through private sort of individual therapy to be able to help people in the more, let&#8217;s say, dangerous situations or possibly traumatic situations for them. So that often moves into what would be called litigation support.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>So the old adage stay together for the sake of the children is a really outdated sort of concept because we know that staying together for the children often times leads to higher conflict in front of children and that that&#8217;s clinically damaging for kids to live in a toxic kind of environment.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>Absolutely. Even in terms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Now, depending on your perspective of it and sort of the paradigm that seems to exist for PTSD, we often worry about PTSD for our children and we worry about it for victims of domestic violence. PTSD now in the new DSM Five, also has a cumulative component that doesn&#8217;t have threat to integrity or immediate injury or death. There also is the witness of a traumatic situation over a communal amount of time. And there&#8217;s more and more research that&#8217;s being done in the development of the diagnostic disco manual, but also post-traumatic stress disorder treatment around this idea that child, even if they don&#8217;t witness a life threatening event over and over and over and over again, if they witnessed some type of really high conflict situation where their cortisol levels spike and they&#8217;re fearful and they have no one to be able to go to to be able to sooth them, then that will end up being traumatic for those children as well. So that can happen during the relationship, but also in transition times when the children get to see both parents together again.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>Do you have any advice for parents who are going through separation and divorce as it relates to their kids or their own self care?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>The first advice would be that I don&#8217;t think naive is a negative word. If you&#8217;ve never been through that experience before, then you need help somewhere. It doesn&#8217;t have to be through a paid professional. It can be through anyone that you trust to be able to give you some kind of support to get through it. So often. We&#8217;re human beings and we anticipate events, so we need to know what to anticipate. We need to know what the corners of the puzzle are before we can make any decisions on the inside. So to be able to get that information as soon as possible, which would be doing your own reading or blogs. Please be careful, though, that anybody who has likely had a negative result or a negative experience in a separation, you&#8217;ll likely be getting that color. Anybody who has had a positive result or being able to make changes and positive changes in their separation, and I now have a fairly positive outcome. You&#8217;re likely getting those rose colored sort of colors as well. You&#8217;re welcome to use both or however your decision making is, but front Loading all of the information as fast as possible is money spent in the back end, so for your children it wouldn&#8217;t be monetary, but is validation spent in the back end as well to be able to know you&#8217;re making the correct decision.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>So for the children, often parents will bring their kids into get an assessment just to make sure that they&#8217;re okay. It&#8217;s not specifically needed. Most parents that I know or have seen really have excellent Spidey senses about their kids. If there&#8217;s conflict and a massive amount of conflict between the parents and the communication is terrible. That is one of those little Amber flags that says maybe bring them in. Let&#8217;s make sure that they&#8217;re doing okay. So it isn&#8217;t a bad idea to be able to introduce a child to an outside third party professional, so long as the parents have interviewed and agreed on that professional so that they know that the professional is trained in whatever it is that they&#8217;re asking them to do. And we&#8217;ll make sure that they don&#8217;t hold the child too long in therapeutic sessions to start to become boring, or to start to make the therapeutic relationship something that the child doesn&#8217;t like. What we&#8217;re really trying to do is have an introduction, make sure the child is okay, say hey, you&#8217;re welcome to come back anytime you want. And then the child knows that they always have a neutral third party that they know now who&#8217;s not a boogeyman that they can go to whenever they want.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>The idea is not always to fix a child right away or to assume that there actually is a problem.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>What are some of the symptoms you would say parents should be on the lookout for during separation and divorce in their kids?<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>The easiest one and the clearest one that creates the least amount of conflicts, often because it&#8217;s an objective third party is talk to the teacher. If there&#8217;s a teacher involved in your children are of that age. Most are, then that&#8217;s the big piece. Teachers tend to have more time with their children than we do, so they&#8217;re a great resource. If there&#8217;s any kind of guilt or shame involved in the family separating, that will be a little bit more difficult because teachers actually are great advocates for the children when they know that there actually is a separation happening. So they have the ability to be able to make a whole bunch of different sort of environments and a bunch of different curriculums to be able to modify to be able to help your children out. So teachers are great if you find that there is a marked change in behavior. So chatty child becomes really quiet or a really quiet child just all of a sudden. Generally they&#8217;ll end up becoming more aggressive then that&#8217;s probably an easy one that you&#8217;ll note I have noted already and didn&#8217;t really need the advice for so for kids under five, where the teachers aren&#8217;t involved, you&#8217;re looking for generally some kind of regression.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>But it&#8217;s much more difficult to qualify and quantify because those children will be worried about the transition and will react to the transition anyway of going back and forth. So there are childhood development specialists who are out there. But often the hallmark to know that your child isn&#8217;t okay if they&#8217;re five and under is take a look at the process that you&#8217;re going through in terms of the separation that hasn&#8217;t been over two years. And is there a lot of conflict? If it&#8217;s really high conflict, then you can likely assume your child&#8217;s not doing very well.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>So in those younger ages, you might see them developmentally regressing: things like if they were once toilet trained, maybe they&#8217;re not any longer. Those are the kinds of things you&#8217;re talking about.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>Yeah. Those are the classic examples. A lot of the times, what I&#8217;ll end up seeing is that night terrors will come back. So we process things through our dreams, a massive amount of cleanliness. The children will return back to one of the parents beds, generally the nurturing parent. And that often creates conflict for the parents because there should be a piece or a sociological sort of assumption about children moving into their own beds. But you&#8217;ll see that happen, and I think another piece will actually be the children&#8217;s bedtime. So you&#8217;ll see their bedtime, not only them returning back to bed, but in addition to the bedtime routine. And the bedtime will start to disintegrate. So those will be pretty classic hallmarks to look for not only these pieces, but then the rest would be if you see that happening, then either get some support through books or through any developmental specialists that you can find.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>I sometimes advise parents to take some notes and to keep track so that they can identify patterns of behavior. When they see a psychologist and they say they&#8217;ve just not been themselves, and you would say, well, how long has that been going on? I think in the midst of a lot of stress, adults don&#8217;t necessarily have great reference points, and so they kind of base it on their own sense of stress. It\u2019s helpful if they can write down details about when they first started noticing things or how long it&#8217;s been going on,\u00a0 then they have some really concrete information that might be really helpful.<\/p>\n<h5>Mike Denis<\/h5>\n<p>Absolutely. It helps us in terms of the assessments and maybe finding some sort of catalyst to the behavior or just watching what has happened. It&#8217;s especially helpful if both parents are noting there is an element of trust there to be able to not fall into the well, it doesn&#8217;t happen at my house behavior, but in terms of being here if I was parenting coordinator and in terms of being able to mediate, if both parents were taking that information and both parents were giving me their signs and symptoms or what they noted was happening with the child. The interest there is that both parents are caring for the children and both parents are providing information that they believe is the best for the parents. That is not a fairly easy one, but it&#8217;s a quicker reframe for the parents to be able to get on board to whatever solution it is that they would like to jointly agree to to be able to create some kind of intervention for the job, whether it be an intense intervention or just a light change of bedtime or a simple communication back and forth between the parents that&#8217;s needed, depending on what the catalyst is.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>Mike, you&#8217;ve shared lots of really great information with us. Thank you so much for your time.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>Divorce and separation is an ideal time to reach out to a psychologist. The Holmes Rahe Life Stress Inventory, which is a social adjustment rating scale, notes divorce and separation rank second and third as the most stressful life events. The only greater readjustment is the death of a spouse. You do not need a referral from your doctor to see a psychologist. You can go to the Psychological Association of Alberta for the name of a psychologist in your city. In the event of a crisis, you can call the Distress Center in Calgary at 403-266-1601. If you experience a mental health emergency, call 911 or walk into an emergency room at your local hospital. Mental health is an important health issue. In addition to separation and divorce, we know that Covid 19 has negatively impacted children&#8217;s mental health. The loss of playdates, soccer, sleepovers and dating has isolated children and pushed them further towards their devices. Greater instances of depression, anxiety, irritability, attention span, hyperactivity, obsessions and compulsions are all noted to have increased during COVID-19. Reach out early to get children services they need. There are specialists who can help. That&#8217;s it for this edition of Family Law Matters.<\/p>\n<h5>Jeannine Crofton<\/h5>\n<p>I&#8217;m Jeannine Crofton. Thanks for listening. Connect with us by emailing Family Law Matters at info@resolvology.com. Ask your questions about family law issues and look for our blog articles to address your pressing questions. Check out the other work we do at resolvology.com. You can follow us on Twitter at R-E-S-O-L-V-O-L-O-G-Y_YYC. Thank you to Meg Wilcox for her work on this podcast series. Thanks as well to Mike Denis for his thoughts on resolving your family law issues. Be sure to subscribe to the rest of the series where you can gain insight from other professionals to assist families going through separation and divorce in Alberta.<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_toggle][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; custom_padding_last_edited=&#8221;on|desktop&#8221; admin_label=&#8221;Footer Section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.22&#8243; background_color=&#8221;#222222&#8243; custom_padding_tablet=&#8221;50px|0|50px|0&#8243; custom_padding_phone=&#8221;&#8221; transparent_background=&#8221;off&#8221; padding_mobile=&#8221;off&#8221; make_fullwidth=&#8221;off&#8221; use_custom_width=&#8221;off&#8221; width_unit=&#8221;on&#8221; global_module=&#8221;1610&#8243; collapsed=&#8221;on&#8221; global_colors_info=&#8221;{}&#8221;][et_pb_row column_structure=&#8221;1_4,1_4,1_4,1_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;3.25&#8243; background_size=&#8221;initial&#8221; background_position=&#8221;top_left&#8221; 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