The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

                                      The Family Mental Health and Child Custody Act and Petition 1. Before marriage or the birth of the first child, and again during separation and divorce, the State of Oregon shall provide and require parents to take mental health and communication classes, including: Nonviolent Communication Listening Skills Mindfulness or similar secular or religious practices in accordance with a family's spiritual beliefs, provided that the practices have been scientifically documented to heal trauma the way mindfulness does. These practices include Christian centering prayer, yoga, hiking in nature, Buddhist meditation, and Native American religious ceremonies, including sacred dancing and sweat lodge ceremonies. Journaling, which can, over time, both heal trauma and document it. 2. After separation or if unmarried parents live separately, parents shall c...

 Hackers have been bedeviling me since January 2020. I wish the politicians who run the state and federal government cared about the people of the United States.

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...