Handbook of Couple and Family Forensics: A Sourcebook for Mental Health and Legal Professionals, edited by Florence W. Kaslow. New York: John Wiley & Sons; 2000. 554 pages, hardcover, $75.00.
Handbook of Couple and Family Forensics: A Sourcebook for Mental Health and Legal Professionals is a seminal work in the burgeoning field of the family, law, and psychology. The manifold contributors to this prolix volume are drawn from variegated professional and academic backgrounds, including law; family therapy; and forensic, family, and clinical psychology. Filtering the textual material through a multifaceted, somewhat enigmatic psycho-legal screen, the stellar assembly of contributors gingerly and assiduously enter a complex, demanding world peopled professionally by lawyers and therapists. The resultant painstaking dissection and examination of myriad issues are performed in a manner that should be of immense practical value to clinicians while concomitantly inciting considerable theoretical interest on the part of researchers with respect to family-related issues at the interface of law and mental health.
The volume is styled essentially as a textbook. The material presented over the course of 25 chapters is generally recondite in nature. Research-minded readers should savor the rich abundance of references supplied by the various contributors. The vast body of information and insights provided by this impressive tome should obviate at least some of the confusion and uncertainty enshrouding the highly complex, and often contentious, field of couple and family forensics. However, prospective readers should be mindful that, even though the text indubitably adds considerable flesh to the bones of legal and therapeutic issues pertinent to family and couple forensics, withal, the contributors make it manifestly plain that many sticky issues in this continually evolving area remain decidedly moot and unresolved. Adoption; surrogacy; foster parenting; sexual harassment; abortion; physical, spousal, and elder abuse; child custody; and euthanasia comprise a sampling of some of the many thorny topics within the ken of the contributors.
A curious paradox revealed by the text is that although lawyers and therapists, at least ostensibly, may be kith and kin in providing professional services to family members, there is probably, to some degree, an immanent tension between the two: lawyers are advocates, focused on adversarial relations; therapists are healers, coveting mutually beneficial outcomes; and a judge is a "trier of facts." This is the cast of professionals often interacting to shape the legal framework and address the plethora of unsettled questions affecting couple and family forensics. Frankly, the picture painted by this invaluable vade mecum for mental health and legal professionals includes a cloud of tenebrosity, overhanging the oft-litigious and emotionally draining landscape of the family, law, and psychology.
Although this overall excellent volume should serve very capably as a sort of rudder for persons seeking general direction and guidance with respect to family forensics-related issues, the generalized counsel proffered by the text does not constitute a substitute for expert professional assistance to resolve specific, real-life problems. It also is ill tailored to fit the casual reader. The relatively abstruse, ponderous prose comprising the text simply does not vouchsafe productive, casual reading.
Contrariwise, the volume should be of very considerable value to serious-minded readers interested professionally in family-related issues enmeshed with the law and psychology. The copious textual material also should be quite appropriate for teaching purposes, with respect to courses focused on topics encompassing forensics, the family, and mental health.
Surely, the many contributors to this lengthy volume warrant hearty felicitations for their fine work.