One of the most serious, well-intended but thoroughly misguided therapeutic protocols is for a therapist to advocate for what a child wants. This may be a good idea in most situations, but there is one situation that places a child in the middle of a conflict--when parents are battling over child custody. The reason for this is obvious to me, but apparently not to the people who make therapeutic protocols. When there is a high-conflict relationship between parents, putting the child in charge puts the child squarely in the middle of the conflict. If you want to profoundly damage a child, then put them in the middle of the conflict between parents. In any high-conflict co-parenting relationship, both parents contribute to the problems observable to third parties, such as therapists. When wellness rather than legal cases is emphasized, parents may differentiate themselves from one another by embracing therapeutic coping strategies such as Nonviole...