The Music of Life
Sharing my personal experiences through the pain of divorce, the healing through spirituality, and music's influence through life's greatest lessons and memories.
The Music of Life
The Truth About Family Court, Accountability & Healing; An Interview with Dr. Robert Goldman, JD, Psy.D
Divorce is never just about legal proceedings—it’s an emotional battlefield. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Robert Goldman, a seasoned attorney-turned-psychologist specializing in forensic evaluations, child custody cases, and court-ordered therapy. We dive into the complexities of the legal system, parental accountability, and how to manage expectations when seeking justice in court.
We also discuss the emotional toll of high-conflict divorces, the role of parental influence on children, and the healing journey post-divorce. Dr. Goldman offers his expert insights on narcissistic abuse, the power of resiliency, and why some people struggle to move forward while others thrive.
Episode Highlights:
[00:02] - Introducing Dr. Robert Goldman and his unique background in law and psychology.
[02:21] - Holding an ex-spouse accountable—what happens when court orders aren’t followed?
[03:25] - Managing expectations in the legal system and why “justice” isn’t always what people think.
[04:59] - How should a targeted parent respond when children are manipulated against them?
[06:14] - The danger of labels like "manipulation" and "narcissistic abuse"—why critical thinking is key.
[10:21] - The emotional toll of family court and why many feel re-traumatized.
[15:24] - Why even "amicable" divorces can feel like moral violations and trigger intense emotions.
[22:47] - Can trauma from a divorce physically change your brain? Dr. Goldman explains the science behind it.
[32:30] - How do you prove harassment in court? The importance of unbiased evidence.
[37:00] - The shifting role of fathers in custody battles—what changed since the 70s?
[41:57] - The power of healing: why some choose growth and others stay stuck.
[44:55] - Finding meaning in suffering—how trauma can lead to personal transformation.
Links & Resources:
📞 Contact Dr. Robert Goldman: 631-499-7500
📖 Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl – A must-read on resilience and finding purpose in suffering
Be sure to follow, share, and leave a comment if this show resonates with you! Send me a message at podpage.com/themusicoflife to share your experiences, or to leave a comment. I'd love to feature it in a future episode.
Hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life. I'm your host. Karen Portnoy, before I get into this episode, please comment, ask questions, share some of your experiences, and don't forget to subscribe. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the music of life. I'm here with a very special guest. Dr Robert Goldman, and I'm going to let him introduce himself. Go ahead. Dr Goldman, thanks.
Dr. Robert Goldman:So first of all, I want to thank you for inviting me on this podcast. I am all about, you know, resiliency and making music of life, even if things are challenging at times, I've learned that both as an attorney and a psychologist, I was a lawyer, first doing criminal law, family law, representing children in family court and matrimonial proceedings. Then I went back to school, and I got my doctorate in psychology, where later I would become the supervising psychologist for the probation department and the jails and the clinics. And now I'm in my private practice, where the majority that I deal with are forensics. So that involves things like child custody evaluations. It also involves court ordered therapy, parenting coordination, also therapeutic visitation. Wonderful.
Caryn Portnoy:I'm so happy you're here, and I appreciate your time. I wanted to ask what I keep hearing throughout, and I have a very strong presence on Facebook and a lot of these divorce groups, and I'm reaching over 300,000 people. So I read a lot of people's comments and posts, and I share my thoughts and opinions on them equally, but there's this resounding theme of, how do you hold your ex spouse accountable when court you know, makes decisions about things, whether it's a financial thing, like, like a spouse refuses to maintain the status the financial status quo in the home. How do you hold them accountable when, when a judge says that they have to keep it up, but then they choose not to. So
Dr. Robert Goldman:I think, you know, and I deal with that frustration a lot. I mean, I think it goes with people's expectations of the American legal system. I'm working on a book called The American lethal system, because people have these grandiose and expectations. They're not even grandiose. They're they're expected that they're going to find justice, which is somewhat reasonable. I view it as grandiose only because I realized in my experience, it's just not, it's not reasonable in terms of my experience. You know, nobody, nobody, including both parties, walks out of the courtroom and says, I found justice. I think that there's a lot of frustration within the justice system to by people, both attorneys and litigants, who leave it feeling that, well, that's not what I expect it to happen.
Caryn Portnoy:So how do you manage expectations? Well, I
Dr. Robert Goldman:think that that is more so on. You know, the people who leave, I mean, attorneys are sometimes, if they're seasoned, they're used to the disappointment. And I think when you meet a client, particularly in a matrimonial matter of divorce, you're meeting them at an emotional level, right? Like things have happened. There's emotions of betrayal, right? There's emotions of you know, a contract that was predicated on love has now been broken, so it elicits an emotional response, quite understandably for a lot of people, and I think that our responses as attorneys is to make sure our clients expectations are within line of what is reality. And if we if we tell our clients that they're going to get X, Y and Z, and it's not realistic, it's going to be a recipe for emotional damage and physical damage, and it perpetuated cycle, because each time they'll be thinking that finally they're going to get their day in court, And that leads to a lot of disappointment.
Caryn Portnoy:Yeah, I hear that a lot, and I've experienced that myself as well. So in a divorce case where children are manipulated against the other parent, how should the targeted parent behave towards the children to defend themselves? Well,
Dr. Robert Goldman:so. So you used a lot of loaded words right there, right manipulated and and as a I have to approach every case as a scientist and as a doctor and from an evidence based approach, and I can't make any biases in terms of any assumptions that in fact, the child is being manipulated. It may very well be the case, and I'm not dismissing it, but if I take on a case and I see that a parent comes and says, Well, the father is just or the mother is just manipulating the child against me. Sometimes that oversimplifies the problem. And there are things that are very much become in the gray and like. We don't like as human beings. We don't like to operate in the grays. We like to think concretely black and white, right? Example, I am a huge Mets fan, therefore, anybody who's a Yankee fan, I don't like now you understand the logic approach to that, but that's the way it applies.
Caryn Portnoy:It applies to politics. It Right? I
Dr. Robert Goldman:mean, yeah, we like to put things, people in boxes, through labels, and that cuts off any forms of the opportunity to humanize the individual, sure, right? I mean, not to get too extreme, but I think it's important, you know, what is it, during the times of Nazi Germany, they took away their names and they gave them numbers. And when you take away a name and you give someone a number and you label them as such, you can dehumanize them, yes, and that takes away the humanity of the individual, and it prevents any opportunity to promote healing. And when I deal with a case where there is a suspicion of manipulation, to get back to your answer, I believe you need to take an approach that is very much a family systems approach that holds everybody accountable for their own behavior, right? So that, you know, I'm constantly assessing and reassessing and checking for my own biases and creating hypotheses, right of, how is this child refusing or to go along with, let's say, a parent. You know, what is it? Is there manipulation? Or does the child have their own issues and things like that? What has the child seen? What has the child lived with? Where is the child developmentally at one of the things I always like to test when I have cases to repair relationships, I'll say to both parents, and it's sort of like a test, Solomon test, I'll say to them, are you willing to or you have to be willing to sit in my office on my couch and say to The child in front of me that it's very important that you have a healthy relationship with mommy and daddy. And if one parent barks at it, you know, everything is diagnostic, right? So you know, if two parents can't sit alone in a room together and find a peaceful solution where they feel not anxious, they don't feel bad in their bellies and all of that. If they're able to do that, then my prognosis for repairing a relationship is much better, because I know the families can work together if, on the other hand, one parent says I can't even sit in a room with him, justified or not, because there could be many reasons, such as domestic violence and trauma. I'm not judging the reasons for that parent not willing to sit in the room. That's very important, right? But again, that I know from my years of experience and the research says that that will make my job that much harder. So I think words like manipulation, words like parent alienation syndrome, all of these words are labels that may very well, you know, have a grain of truth or be 100% but when we fall into the trap of having labels, which is what the legal system wants to do is like, label people, and therefore, if so, then, you know, life is just so much more complicated than that. Sure. Yeah, a lot of, lot of variables. Yeah. I mean, I say that I deal with the after birth of the legal system. I see what comes out. I see the disappointment that you spoke of. I see the people who are angry and said I didn't get my justice in court, yeah, how come he or she's not in jail? How come he continues to manipulate and nobody seems to care? Yeah? I mean, that's a resounding thought, yeah. And I think that, you know, I work with clients who have or are frustrated, and. And you know, there are things like mindfulness, radical acceptance, all these things in our toolbox that I think we as psychologists need to help our clients with in navigating the legal system and as attorneys, we also have to do the same by making sure the expectations are realistic, which
Caryn Portnoy:is sometimes really, really hard to do. It's really hard to
Dr. Robert Goldman:do because every judge, right? I mean, I've heard this say that before, like when you look at Justice, Justice has, you know, as many courtrooms there are, there are different systems of justice. So what you know, we're all human, right? We're not judges. Are not, you know, AI. So when you go into one courtroom, you might wind up with one result, as opposed to a different judge, who will have a very different look at things. There's so many variables that are not within your control. So when you you know, we have outsourced our means to resolve conflict, right. For better, for worse, we have relied on attorneys psychologists to tell people that you know we'll fix your your conflict. But often I'll say to both husband and or wife, father or mother, I'll say, Where were you when you gave birth to your child? Oh, I was in the operating room, or I was in the room. The father will say the same thing, I was there when my son came out. Where are you when decisions are being made about parenting? Oh, I'm in the back, or I'm in the hallway, and my lawyer tells me this is the way it's going to be so and look, I operate in that system. That's the way the system is. But when you think about it, it's a very disempowering model, right? It's, it's what it says is that you can't settle this on your own. You need to be coddled. We need to solve it for you. But at the end of the day, what are we doing? At one time a man and a woman got together where there was some intimacy, some love, something that created this child, but now we're outsourcing it and giving the power over to strangers like me, dictating what their future and destiny is, and that is really set up for disaster, disappointment and frustration, because judges have so many cases on their calendar, and to expect that they think about their cases as much as you're thinking about your own case and how much this affects your life every day. Yeah, it's not fair for you know, it's just not realistic, nor is necessary fair to think that judges go home every day with the burdens that you carry, on a personal level, they be burnt out, right? You know, there's a thing about boundaries, right, that that we have to set the work that I do is very emotionally toxic for me. I get, you know, people who are angry or hate filled, who want to blame me, who want to blame the justice system, and often that removes any accountability or any responsibility for their own behavior. And I take it on. If I'm not, if I don't get my own help, I take it on and I, you know, I want to have a drink. I want to, you know, just yell and vent. I can't sleep at night thinking about, is this one okay? Is that one okay? So we all need to set our own boundaries.
Caryn Portnoy:I think a lot of like coming from the couples, and I feel like if they were able to work all this stuff out themselves, they would. But I think a lot of what breaks down in a marriage is communication and being on the same side and putting the kids needs ahead of their arguments and absolutely
Dr. Robert Goldman:all those Absolutely, if they could do it, they would. They would. And the problem is all those things that you talk about, what prevents it from happening in many times, not all cases, is the emotional brain is running away. You know, when moral violations occur. Social psychologist by the name of Jonathan H, a, i, d, T, talks about it in terms of moral foundations theory, when morality is violated, it triggers an emotional response that therefore triggers, triggers the what we call the amygdala, the limbic system, the septum, all these things are responsible for making knee jerk reactions. So when, and this is evolutionary right, because we didn't have time to think. Or engage the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for thinking. If I do this, what will be the natural consequences? So when we're engaged in a conflict where morality has been violated, it sets off the emotional brain, which can result in irrational thoughts followed by irrational behavior,
Caryn Portnoy:right? Talking about an a moral split, you know, where that's not the case, nobody cheated, or anything like that, where it's just the love isn't there anymore, and there was a breakdown in communication and having needs met, and you know, all the things that keep a marriage together when that falls apart and it's not there anymore, it's not like one can blame the other for something immoral. It's just it ran its course and it's time to move on. But
Dr. Robert Goldman:I would say it is moral for some, because it would be based on almost like a contract, right? A contract of trust, right? So everybody's different, but if they perceive the the breakdown of the marriage can still be seen as a moral violation, because it's predicated on a an agreement of working together and raising a family. The reason why these why morality elicits such a visceral response is because it was necessary for survival. So living together is so necessary for survival. The Law of 151 thing that is really interesting, the research shows that our brain size is relative to how much we can live as a community, and our brain side, at max, can have 150 connections, and that's necessary to be a hunter gatherer, right? We're not the strongest, we're not the fastest, but together, when we live as a community, we can hunt, right? We can surround an animal, right? When that is broken, it does elicit an emotional response, regardless of the moral violation of, let's say, cheating, right? And then
Caryn Portnoy:I wonder, like, you know, there's so much I know in today's world, in today's society, there is mostly two income homes where both parents are working full time and they're earning what they're earning and and there's more of an equal distribution of responsibility in that regard, right? But when, let's say the husband works full time and the wife is a stay at home mom, just naturally, the husband isn't as involved, because the wife is home and she's handling everything about the kid and yeah, and school and activities and all that stuff, plus managing a household and plus everything else that they do for their life together, there's a big imbalance in responsibility and who makes decisions and who's hands on and who's not. So when there's that disruption and equilibrium in a marriage, you know? I feel like it tends to lead to a bad place, you know, yeah,
Dr. Robert Goldman:and I think, I mean, this is my own personal beliefs. I'll share it. I don't think taking care of children, raising them, being there for them because of male or female, isn't it's not respective and not respected enough as such a valuable piece. I agree, because as a as a psychologist, we know from the research that, you know, children are better off when they have that parent that can do all those things. Yeah, it's a resilience factor to have a parent that can help that child along the way be there for them.
Caryn Portnoy:That note, I read a study that said that the way to tell if a child will thrive is based on the mother's happiness. Have you heard that or read that?
Dr. Robert Goldman:I haven't necessarily heard that. I'm not surprised by that, but I think that if a mother or a father are under stress, okay? And there is, let's say they're a victim of domestic violence, right? That's whether the child views it or not. That's going to disrupt that parent's ability, yes, to be an effective parent and an effective human being. So happy parents, you know, definitely help the children thrive. You know, what's funny is, when I was a little boy in my room, was children learn what they live right, or live what they learn, learn what they live right. And I had this, and I bought, I recently bought, like you can find it online, I bought it. It's a whole but it's all different. It's like 10 things, you know? It's so cute, and it's so basic, and it's still so true, that children are like sponges, right? And they pick up on the the happiness or sadness. You. Of parents, and a lot of times when parents don't get along and there's tension in the house all the time, they assume the role of what we call the pleaser and appeaser, where they have to hope that the parents are not going to fight or argue in front of them and have bats in their stomach every time their parents are around each other, right? And obviously that's going to have negative ramifications for their own future development and how they view relation.
Caryn Portnoy:I agree, unfortunately, I agree with that. Spoke to a teacher recently who said to me, though, in her experience as a teacher, not as a psychologist or anything, but she was saying that what children learn first, they learn best. And it sat with me because, you know, I would like to think that in a happier childhood and a happier time in the home and all of that, that they remember that, but I don't know that they do
Dr. Robert Goldman:well. I think, you know, that's a good that's a very good statement. We know there are critical periods within the brain where they're more receptive to learn things, for example, language, right? So you teach a child two languages at an early age, they're going to be able to remember that and develop that, as opposed to if they were to learn that much later in life, you know, and also when we are exposed to a traumatic event, and be it domestic violence, be it verbal abuse, be whatever that sticks in our brain more than The good things, right? Does it depend on age? No, it really well. It depends on age. The younger you are, the less, as I said before, the less developed your your prefrontal cortex is. It doesn't fully develop until you're 24 but the way the brain is wired is that you have the emotional brain, which I talked about, but right next to the emotional brain, behind it, is what's called the hippocampus, and the hippocampus is responsible for learning. So when you take it, it's like you take the emotional brain and let's say this is it, and then you wrap it around or close to the hippocampus. The hippocampus re remembers. It remembers the emotional event, and that, again, is adaptive, because we don't, you know, we're wired to discount the positive and focus on the negative, which is not good for our mental health, right? But we're the reason why we're wired to focus on the negative is because if we focus on the negative, we can avoid those negative things that may be a threat to
Caryn Portnoy:us. Interesting. So I've been hearing a lot about what trauma in a divorce can do to your brain in terms of and I'm just going to say this is something I've heard just, you know, read amongst the people on these divorce groups, right? They talk about narcissistic abuse and what that does to their brain. And I keep hearing that it affects your brain physically. And, you know, the overload of cortisol and affecting the hippocampus and all of these things, and you know is that something that you can heal from.
Dr. Robert Goldman:So I think the that the court system and how we deal with the adversarial approach is a very stressful, traumatic experience for many of us. I mean, I hear so many people who I work with say they hate going to court. It's so it's like, re traumatizing all the time comes in, yeah, it comes in waves. Like, first they get to court, they they're sick to their stomach, they show up, and they're usually disappointed. Nothing happens. And then then the wave, you know, quiets downs until the next court date that comes up with more expectations, and then followed by disappointment, right? So one of the things that you know the trauma and how the brain is affected, yeah, I, I think that past trauma of relationships and people have problems calling it trauma in certain sex, because they say, Well, what are you talking about? Trauma is more like wartime, right? Like that's trauma, but I call it any life, you know, stressful life event that is unable to be processed within your body and to be, you know, and that still holds you back. It to me, trauma is pretty it's us what is kind of subjective in a way, the DSM got rid of the reasonable person standard and cause it now a subjective standard, yeah, so that's good and bad, because it opens up the floodgates for what one person calls. Traumatic. Another person calls exhilarating. You know, it's like, oh, I have to speak in front of people. That's very traumatic for me, right? Others would say, I love to speak in front of me. So what is traumatic now is somewhat relative, yeah. But getting back to your your question is, you mentioned the label again, narcissist, and I'm not saying that narcissism does not exist. I'm just again saying How helpful is it to label somebody that in terms of your ability to navigate what you're doing? It might be helpful if it leads to acceptance. In other words, let's say I have a child who has a parent who may have mental illness, right? And they're not going to change. It's like a physical illness. It's like having cancer, okay? And you say to to the child. Listen, this may be your expectations that your dad is going to be able to have a catch with you, but because he has cancer, he's too weak to have a catch. So lower your expectations without resentment. Can you do that? And that's what relationships, marriage and everything. This may sound very cynical, but I believe relationships are like a limbo, right? How low can you go, lowering your expectations without resentment? You know, is it
Caryn Portnoy:the same, though, when somebody has a physical disability versus a personality disorder?
Dr. Robert Goldman:Okay? Well, the great question, is it the same when somebody has a physical disability, as opposed to personality disorder? Well, personality disorder, by definition, under the DSM, is something that is not likely, is doesn't change. It's constant. It's who they are as a person, correct, right? So how you approach it, if you say this is who they are, and you believe they have a personality disorder, then you have to what's your alternative? I mean, you have to behave accordingly. You have to exactly work with what you have and Right, right? But when you know where things go awry is where you use a label to avoid any accountability or responsibility for your behavior, and you say, oh, that person is just a narcissist. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not saying that's in every case. It's like any type of label you give people and therefore you take away any responsibility you have for your own behavior by labeling them as such.
Caryn Portnoy:I'm gonna over generalize for a second, just based on what I read in these comments and stuff. But it seems to me that a lot of men who call their ex wives narcissists are the ones that primarily are escaping accountability. I find that, for the most part, the women who are calling their ex husbands narcissists are just trying to survive and trying to figure out, how do I navigate this? How do I behave? How do I defend my right to live? You know, it's a very different dynamic,
Dr. Robert Goldman:right? And you bring up a really good point. You said, this is the sample that you're getting. So that would be a really interesting topic to read, to study. Yeah, you know you have to get a fair sample size, though, because you know everybody, like from father's rights advocates from all these different groups do have their own agenda, because they have, in their opinion, been wronged by the and they pick up somewhere and then. So, you know again, and I'm not dismissing them, because they may be helpful for people, but when we put ourselves in silos, which is what the world is now, right? We're gonna have our our bias, and then we're gonna find anybody who supports our belief, and if that person does not feel supported, they'll just find another Facebook group, or they're gonna find another organization or TV channel or show that speaks to them and that will perpetuate in psychology, we call it a bias, a cognitive bias, right? And you know, when we have these biases, we want to look for evidence that supports these biases and throw away the ones that that don't I mean, again, getting back to my previous point, we don't like to be in the grace. We don't like to think critically. And it's my job as a forensic psychologist to think critically, to take hypotheses, to listen to what. Everybody has to say and test it against the other evidence that I have. And always question, am I being biased in any way myself? I
Caryn Portnoy:mean, I would think the answer is yes, in most cases, like everybody has a bias, right? I
Dr. Robert Goldman:think everybody has their own bias. Everything. Everybody comes to the table with life experiences, and they're only looking at things. I think the only way to defend against biases is to acknowledge our own and try to make sure we're doing our best. One of the great things is I have people I work with, and I want to always test, you know, and ask them what they think understood,
Caryn Portnoy:what circumstances would would you be able to prove that an ex spouse is harassing you in court? Like, how do you how do you prove that?
Dr. Robert Goldman:Well, so, how can you prove that an ex spouse is harassing you? I mean, usually that's proven in court through more collateral information, more evidence that is not subject to, you know, what he or she said in terms of what the person is reporting, but clear cut, You know, videos or you know, clear cut evidence that's that speaks for itself. Whenever I do an evaluation, I look for what's called convergent validity, and that's a term used to help us say, like you know, are do we get hospital records? Do are we getting collateral sources who may not be biased, right? Or are we getting all the information from everybody out there that then comes together to load on a certain variable, right? It can't be a he said, she said, game, because, again, understandably, those parties are biased. But if we can really, I try my best to get as many outside sources that are corroborative of what one person is saying, and that does not have a bias one way or the other, so things like pediatric records, right speaking to doctors, you know, again, even speaking to therapists, they may they have their own relationship with that patient. So understandably, they have their own bias, right?
Caryn Portnoy:So it has to be somebody who doesn't know or isn't invested in both parties, right?
Dr. Robert Goldman:I try to say that the less emotional and the less anybody has to gain in speaking to me, the more the more valid or more reliable. But again, you want to make sure it adds up, right? Okay,
Caryn Portnoy:I was thinking about this before, like back in the 70s and 80s, when couples were going through divorce. I think typically, it's safe to say that the mother usually had the children, and the mother and the children stayed in the home and the father moved out. Totally generalizing, but that was kind of the temperature it was the 70s and 80s,
Dr. Robert Goldman:right? That was under what's called the tender years presumption, and that the mother was, you know, suited and fit to to have custody. It was almost like you started off with that presumption, right?
Caryn Portnoy:So cut to now, where a father can remain in the home with the children and the mother moves out. What happened between then and now? What caused
Dr. Robert Goldman:that? I mean, I think some of the things that have happened is, there has been some research saying that the importance that fathers have in involvement in the children's life. There's some research to suggest that I think women and men both have become seen more as equals in terms of, you know, both having the ability and or the obligation to work, and I think that there's been a change along the way. I think it was 2007 don't quote me on this in New York, specifically, the law was changed where lawyers attorneys for the children. So I started off first when I was a law guardian. And law guardians were charged with recommending what they feel is in their best interests. And ironically, I went the reason why I went back to school to get my doctorate in psychology, one of the reasons was I would say, what does a lawyer know about the best interests, right? What does a child do too, right, right? So then I come out of school later on, and I find out there's been a shift. No longer are lawyers advocating for best interests. They're advocating for expressed interests. Now that. But again, life is not black and white, and now we've gone to the point where, you know a lawyer is even if a lawyer disagrees with the best interests, with that this decision that the child is expressing, they still have the obligation do zealously lawyers? They've taken out the zealous part for lawyers, but the the attorney for the the child now has an obligation to zealously represent what their child or client wants, I should say. And here becomes, you know that doesn't make the best psychological sense, because, you know, children don't lack the capacity to enter into contracts. They lack the capacity to go off to war. They lack the capacity to vote, write a Will they like, the capacity to vote, to smoke cigarettes, all of this, you know, and now you're asking them to chime in and give weight to a decision that will have long lasting effects on their sense of, you know, future, that's heavy, that's heavy. And what I notice happens with this shift is that children now become in the middle of the conflict, and they become empowered. And you have constantly bargaining, right? So you'll have one parent say, now you're right in the middle of the conflict, and one parent will now try to push the other child in the child into choose my side, you know, because now you can be on my side, because now you have a lawyer who will fight for me, right by fighting for you, right? So that's not fair to the child,
Caryn Portnoy:and in saying that the parent wants the child to choose them, this is where the manipulation plays into
Dr. Robert Goldman:well, obviously that thing can a child is then can be manipulated,
Caryn Portnoy:sure they get spoiled, and I'll buy you whatever you want. And right? So it
Dr. Robert Goldman:becomes, it becomes problematic when you give a child so much power to make a decision that, unfortunately, the parents can't, right. So
Caryn Portnoy:my, my next question, which plays into this is, I believe in New York, children are allowed to make this decision as of 12 years old and higher. Is that correct? You
Dr. Robert Goldman:know, I That's news to me. I mean, I don't. I googled it. I don't, I don't see a law. I don't there. I'm not aware of a law that says a child at 12, then can make a decision. I don't know where it's in the Family Court Act. I haven't seen it anywhere. I'm writing an article called to substitute or not substitute. That is the question, because an AFC, the attorney for the child, can make a substitute and substitute judgment when the child lacks capacity, or they're placing their decision is placing them in imminent harm. So there, there are times when attorneys for children don't like to do that, because the higher courts can often come down very hard on them. They can get sanctioned if they don't represent what their client wants, right? It's very murky, yeah, different systems of judgment. So attorneys for children are put in a very precarious position,
Caryn Portnoy:you know? Okay, so if it's not law that children can decide for themselves from 12 on, let's just say, for argument's sake, that that's true, if you're saying that a child's brain isn't fully formed until they're 24 Correct, right? How do they know what's in their best interest? Right?
Dr. Robert Goldman:Right? So, so the theory is that the judge will determine the the best interests, right? That the judge is the arbiter of what the best interest is, after hearing from the attorney for the child, you know, and everybody else and the respective attorneys. But look, that's our system. Now, I always feel we pendulate from one system to another, and, you know, we go from one extreme to the other. The thing is, we don't react. We overreact. Well,
Caryn Portnoy:I think the time for reacting is during the marriage, before there's a divorce, and when those reactions aren't worked out, then it becomes overreacting, because what choices? Bingo.
Dr. Robert Goldman:That's right. And if children learn what they live and if they see a marriage that is not functional and conflict is resolved by fighting, arguing and hitting, they will then live that life too. So it starts with us, because we as parents are role models for how our children are going to navigate conflict. Conflict in their future on the playground and everything else. So
Caryn Portnoy:personally, my divorce is now officially done, and I've been out of the house and I'm healing and all of this stuff, I would say that who I am now, as opposed to during the divorce, is night and day. I mean, totally night and day. How do you help support your your patients into healing instead of just living the rest of their life, hating their ex and doing nothing to help themselves be better? I think
Dr. Robert Goldman:a lot of it, part of it, is what we call psycho education. We have to, like, provide our clients with what will happen if they continue down this road, as far as for their own mental health, their physical health, and their children, most of all, so you have to motivate. You know, a client that they can see how they're operating is not good for themselves. You know, the motivation is key, and the most important thing in working with clients is developing a good therapeutic alliance and being empathic to what they're going through and acknowledging it, but at the same time offering them real, substantive tools. You know, you got through this, right and along the way, I mean, and so you are there for the embodiment of resiliency? Yes, right. And you had some risk factors and resilient factors, and I think we need to build up the resilience factors that made you get through this and try to address the risk factors that the, for example, the trauma experienced and going through the court system, the stressful events, the life events that even came before this. And how do you minimize that and maximize the resilient factors that are in all of us? Right? We are innately resilient. Otherwise we wouldn't be
Caryn Portnoy:here. And I'm glad you said that, because in all of these groups that I'm in, and you know, I've gotten such positive feedback about how my perspective is so unique, how I pose the most thought provoking questions to the group, and how I've driven people to tears because what I say is exactly what they needed to hear in that moment. And because of the fact that I'm where I am right now, I'm using this platform in my podcast to help and inspire other people to heal as well. So I was called to tell my story, and after that, I'm now starting the the journey of my healing and what I like. I mean, look, I'm I'm not a professional. I don't have any, you know, psychology degrees or doctor doctorates or anything like that. I'm a regular mom who survived a very, very toxic divorce which was set to destroy me, and now I'm thriving. So I have my experience to draw on, to provide credibility to my audience, so that they know that I've lived what they've lived, and how I got out of it, and how I helped to heal myself. And I just wonder if there's a big enough group of people that are driven and motivated to heal, or do they kind of like they know that the tools are there. They know that they can help themselves, but they choose not to, or they choose to be a victim, or they choose to to kind of like, this is what happened to me, and that's where they live for the rest of their life.
Dr. Robert Goldman:And I, I've seen that and and it's, it's heartbreaking, yeah, because they're living a very toxic life, and it's people like you that can share your personal narrative. You know, one of my favorite books that I love for all my patients to read is a book called Man Search for Meaning by Victor Frankel, and he's the father of positive psychology, and he wrote how he was able to find meaning behind his suffering as he went through the Holocaust. Oh, wow. So one of the thing Frankel says is, between everything, there is a stimulus and a response, and before you respond, there's a space. That space represents your freedom, yeah, for how you're going to respond. And you know, that's a thing that I think you know, really taking a pause and engaging the prefrontal cortex before we act out of emotion is a very valuable life lesson and finding meaning behind your suffering. You know, to say, everything happens for a reason. I don't believe it's necessarily true, but I do believe it's our job in life to find the reason behind it. You know, that's the only way you get through
Caryn Portnoy:I'm at a point now where I can look to the three and. Half years of hell that I went through, and really and truly was at the bottom of the barrel, like I was, I was determined not to be broken, and I wasn't. And I rose from that. But at the same time, it's like I chose to heal. I CH, like i Yes, well,
Dr. Robert Goldman:that's the whole thing we go back to. And you're empowered. The justice system is didn't heal you? No, you healed from it. Yes, so that that's the whole thing, like
Caryn Portnoy:now I can thank the whole experience, because I would not be where I am now and who I am now had I not gone through that. And
Dr. Robert Goldman:that's everybody's life story, right? You come across a stressor event, you have a choice. Are you going to say, I'm going to find meaning behind this, or am I going to fall victim to it? Yeah.
Caryn Portnoy:I mean, while you're going through it, there's, there's no way not to you're a
Dr. Robert Goldman:victim, so you're so hard. Yeah, you know? So
Caryn Portnoy:I applaud anybody who is brave enough to choose to heal and choose to get themselves out of it and move forward,
Dr. Robert Goldman:yeah? Because it's not easy. I marvel at those people. Yeah, so I marvel at you. Thank
Caryn Portnoy:you. Thank you very much. I'm very humbled quiet. I'm very grateful for where I am right now. I all I want to do is help other people. And you know, I know how hard it is to get out of it, and the fact that I was able to heal at the same time that I was being abused is like, like, that doesn't happen. I I am very aware I'm a unicorn in this space, but, but I feel like I have something to offer people to help them, you know, move forward. So on that note, I think we're coming up to our time, unless there's anything else that you want to share, just personally or otherwise. If any
Dr. Robert Goldman:you know, again, this is a real difficult, stressful time, and if anybody you know, I have a great team behind me that really helps people navigate through the stressful life event that is, you know, divorce and or separation and managing that of the collateral damage that's left behind, if any way I can help the same way you like to help it can reach me at 631 499, 7500 just book an appointment with me, my staff. And you know, hopefully we can offer you support. I
Caryn Portnoy:appreciate that, and I just want to thank you again for being here and for giving us your time and your expertise, and I will speak to you later.
Dr. Robert Goldman:You got it. Thank you. Thanks again. Bye. Bye.
Caryn Portnoy:Please. Join me every Thursday for a new episode. If you'd like to reach out to me and ask questions or share stories of your own, your own experiences through any of these things, I would love to hear from you. Please also subscribe. You.