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The current Research Digest focuses on the impact of parental divorce, separation and interparental conflict on children and adolescents. Data shows parental divorce and separation form the experience for many young people within the UK today.
There were 2.4 million separated families in Great Britain and 3.8 million children in those separated families (Gov Statistics ).
42% of marriages end in divorce (ONS, 2013a) Almost half of divorces involve children under 16 years (ONS, 2012).
27% of couples that were cohabiting when their child was born will have separated by the time the child is aged five. By contrast, 9% of couples that were married when their child was born will have separated by their child’s fifth birthday (Crawford, 2011).
Almost 25% of families in the UK are lone parent families (ONS, 2013b).
A search conducted into the reporting of parental divorce, separation and interparental conflict in clinical and theoretical papers within the Journal of child psychotherapy identified only two papers - Lohr et al. (1981) and Urwin . In researching the topic, it was also noted that it is a subject area which often receives only the briefest mention within theoretical and clinical psychoanalytic books. This situation is striking, given that, clinically, the impact of parental divorce, separation and interparental conflict is undeniable.
Within the ‘Handbook of attachment’, Feeney et al.’s (2016) chapter entitled ‘Divorce through the lens of attachment theory’ describes the way in which parental divorce has the potential to reduce the ‘child’s confidence in who and where his or her attachment figures are; in his or her perceived acceptability in the eyes of attachment figures; and in the availability, accessibility, and sensitive responsiveness of attachment figures’ (p. 949). In their paper, published in 1981, Lohr et al. describe the way in which, the ‘loss of continuity in the parental relationship can serve as a “developmental interference”’ (p. 123). The impact of