11 - Adjustment to parental separation and divorce

Summary

Introduction

The terms ‘adjustment’, ‘separation’ and ‘divorce’ are not as straightforward as they might appear at first sight. Adjustment is a multidimensional concept and requires contextual and operational definitions to be clinically useful. Divorces are diverse in their manifestation, and multifactorial in their origins, pathways and outcomes. The adjustment of adults, children and adolescents to the impact of divorce and separation can be measured in various ways (e.g. Munsinger and Kaslow, 1996), as is the case with the rating of the acrimony accompanying the break-up (e.g. Kurdek, 1987; Emery, 1992). Adjustment may refer to adaptation to trauma, itself a matter of degree, in any or all of several domains: emotional, behavioural, cognitive or social. These reactions may be concurrent, brief in duration, long term or delayed (‘sleeper effects’). The adaptation required may not necessarily be to a life event perceived as traumatic, but rather to one experienced as a happy release from maltreatment (Browne and Herbert, 1997).

Increasingly, it is not a marriage that is ending in separation, but a cohabiting relationship that has failed. In the early 1960s, some 90% of children and teenagers were raised in homes with two married birth parents; today, the figures are around 59% in the UK and 40% in the USA. This marked reduction in numbers is due to the dramatic increase in divorces and separations.