Desarrollo del marco DPSIR del sistema de estudio

Participants are invited to comment on aspects of the Course that were help-ful and/or unhelphelp-ful. A general reprise of the course is given, and principles/

strategies suggested by participants and facilitators remembered and written up on the much-used flip chart. Farewells are said and arrangements made for keeping in contact, if needed, and for ‘refresher/booster sessions’.

11.7 Conclusions

We learn from the testimony of adults who have lived through divorce as chil-dren, grew up, married and raised their own families that, contrary to received wisdom, divorce can have a lifelong impact. Divorce does not easily recede into the memories of children as they enter adulthood (Hetherington, et al.,1998).

Wallerstein and Blakeslee (1989) report that divorce continues to occupy a cen-tral emotional position in the lives of many adults, 10–15 years after the event.

Both men and women told them that the stress of being a single parent never lessens and the fear of being alone never ceases. Wallerstein and Blakeslee (1989, p. 60) conclude their review of the literature as follows:

We wanted to believe that time would lessen the feelings of hurt and anger, that time itself heals all wounds and that people by nature are resilient. But there is no evidence that time automatically diminishes feelings or memories; that hurt and depression are overcome; that jealousy, anger and outrage will vanish. Some experiences are just as painful ten years later; some memories haunt us for a lifetime.

Nor were the continuing effects of divorce restricted to the adults alone. Waller-stein and Blakeslee (1989) found that after 10 years the children of the broken homes maintained that growing up was harder for them as children of divorce than it was for children from intact families. They felt that their lives had been overshadowed by their parents’ divorce, and they felt deprived of a broad range of economic and psychological supports. Many of the children entered adolescence and young adulthood with deep reservoirs of unresolved feelings, particularly anger about how their parents had behaved during their marriage. Bitterness was

another feeling typically expressed. No factors were identified that predicted the long-term effects of divorce on children (or adults) from how they react at the outset.

Hetherington and Stanley-Hagan (1999) also conclude, at the end of an impor-tant review of the literature, that divorce can have a lifelong impact. They add that the consequences are not always negative or regressive ones. Many children who grow up in the aftermath of a divorce overcome the trauma and go on to contribute to, rather than rebel against, society. Although children in divorced families, in comparison with those in non-divorced families, are at risk of devel-oping more social, emotional, behavioural, and academic problems, most even-tually emerge as competent, well-functioning individuals. Inevitably, there will be those who are quite happy with their present lives and who have no regrets about their divorce. This was true of about one-half of the men and women in the Wallerstein and Kelly (1980) sample when interviewed some 10 years later by Wallerstein and Blakeslee (1989).

As always, it is necessary to take individual differences into account. In attempt-ing to explain the origins and nature of a child’s ‘maladjustment’ followattempt-ing divorce, clinicians ignore moderating variables at their peril. Formulations posit-ing a linear relationship between a sposit-ingle heterogenous precursor such as the

‘breakdown of a family’ and the later development of adverse reactions could miss the impact on the child’s development of other experiences that determine his or her vulnerability or resistance to stressful life events.

In 1996, the Family Law Act was passed in the UK, requiring all those seeking divorce to first attend an information meeting to apprise them of the conse-quences of divorce, including the impact on children, the likely costs and the legal and welfare services (notably mediation/conciliation) available (Fisher,1990).

A mandatory period of reflection and consideration was stipulated before there could be formal acceptance that the marriage had broken down irretrievably ( James,2002). Beyond this point, as has been seen, there are various forms of help (preventive and remedial) available, in which CBT alone, or in combination with other methods within multimodal group programmes, have proved most effective.

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