Louisiana should join several other states in a growing movement to curtail what is known as court-ordered family reunification therapy.
The controversial practice began about a dozen or so years ago applied to extremely contentious child custody cases. Its premise rests upon the belief that one parent who has near-exclusivity in custody of minor children uses that monopolistic arrangement to denigrate the other parent to the point that the other parent considers that misleading and unfair to his (almost always a male) ability to have a relationship with the children, in essence poisoning their relationship to him that reduces if not eliminates that aspect of his life. Its point is to place forcibly the children in the presence of the shunned parent, even if they don’t wish that (under the assumption the custodial parent has “brainwashed” the children against him), and without the custodial parent involved, for her part having to undergo a kind of reeducation to change her ways that allegedly have turned the children against the non-custodial parent.
In its most extreme form, a court orders – at exorbitant expense to the non-custodial parent paid to a third party that claims special expertise in these matters – the children transported to a site where they are encouraged to interact with him, regardless of their or the custodial parent’s wishes. Controversy has risen over these tactics, with verifiable claims from some children involved that these involuntary confining and behavioral devices that have included restraints and food and drink restrictions constitute child abuse, while custodial parents complain that, unless they admit to denigrating falsely the other parent to their children to fulfill selfish desires, they aren’t allowed to regain custody or even have contact – even in instances where the non-custodial parent in the past engaged in abusive behavior towards the children. This has led to some children being separated for years from the parent they do wish to live with and did live with and having to live with the parent they don’t wish to live with and continue not to wish that, despite heartfelt and consistent pleas to be returned to the other parent who has an excellent custody record.