What is a High Conflict Situation?

A high conflict situation is any conflict post separation between two parents that continues beyond 2 years. Often parents have serious concerns about the other parent which include the following:

• Allegations of child abuse (ie. physical and sexual abuse) or neglect
• Allegations of domestic violence (including threats of harm, physical assault and stalking behaviours)
• Concerns that one parent may have an addiction or a substance abuse problem involving drugs/alcohol
• Concerns that one parent may have criminal charges (either because of their actions towards the other parent or the children) and pose a threat to that other parent and children
• Mobility issues where one parent wants to relocate to another community
• Concerns about alienation
• Where one parent wants to remove access to the children by the other parent and seeks an emergency motion in court
• Where one parent has concerns about the mental health of the other parent and wants to change access by that parent to the children
• Where police involvement has occurred on numerous occasions

Howard Hurwitz believes that the primary objectives and the central role of mental health professionals is four-fold:

• To work with the parents to reduce the level of conflict. This is done by assisting both parents to gain insight into how/why there is conflict. Also, it is important to understand what's contributing to or 'driving' the conflict?
• To give both parents a 'pathway' out of the conflictual relationship with each other so they can move forward with their lives
• To ensure that the children are not drawn into the conflict
• To promote healthy parent-child relationships

Howard Hurwitz has developed proven approaches to helping children and their parents achieve these objectives.