Research overview
Overview
No Kids in the Middle: A Group-Based Interdisciplinary Protocol for High-Conflict Post-Divorce Families, from Legal and Psychiatric Perspectives
Journal: BRAIN. Broad Research in Artificial Intelligence and Neuroscience · Volume 17, Issue 3 · Pages 504–510
Publication: September 2026 · Submitted: 24 April 2026 · Accepted: 21 July 2026
Put the child
back in view.
The No Kids in the Middle protocol shifts attention away from winning the conflict and toward the child’s lived experience, working with parents, children and their wider social networks at the same time.
Two villages · One child
The conflict is systemicIt is sustained by two wider relational networks, not only two individuals.
Stress narrows attentionChronic threat can inhibit reflective capacity and empathy.
Experience drives changeThe protocol uses group and experiential work, not theory alone.
See the system, the stress reframing and the protocol
The conflict can be maintained by two competing social networks; both villages need to be brought together.
From moral failure to a stress response
Indifference or personality pathology
Rigid positions, impaired empathy and emotional reactivity may be read as deliberate indifference or personality pathology.
Functional consequences of sustained stress
The protocol reframes these behaviours as neurobiological consequences of chronic stress, making therapeutic engagement possible.
Under severe and chronic stress, these presentations can mimic numerous psychiatric disorders; differential diagnosis is therefore not meaningful in this context.
Why conventional systems can stall
No single professional system can resolve a networked conflict alone. A closed circuit of referrals can emerge when sustained clinical ownership is absent.
Legal proceedings can intensify adversarial engagement.
Knowing the NKM principles can enable lawyers to better listen to, understand and advise these parents.
Lawyers often need clearer routes toward assessments and care that promise beneficial change.
Six principles orient the work
Be alongside the parents without judging them.
Therapists acknowledge the pain of moving from a happy couple to a broken one. It is not a question of judging them, but of helping them.
Parallel groups. Shared purpose.
Six couples work in a parents’ group while their children meet at the same time in another room. Each group is led by a pair of NKM therapists.
Establish safety and bring the child symbolically into the room.
Children meet their therapist pair playfully. In the parents’ room, photographs are placed on small chairs and each parent introduces their child through a positive personal memory.
Change is rehearsed through experience
From reactive anger to lucid sadness, then corrective action.
Parents observe destructive patterns, embody the child’s position, test new narratives and exchange messages with the children’s group.
Therapists guide parents through experience rather than teach them how to be.
Recognise the conflict pattern
Parents learn to identify attack–attack, attack–avoidance and avoidance–avoidance patterns, initially without pressure to change them.
Experience the child’s position
Adults sit in the children’s chairs and respond physically and emotionally while other parents enact familiar conflict patterns.
Create a bridge between parents
Each parent develops a divorce story that avoids denigrating the other and allows the child to move peacefully from one parent to the other.
Exchange messages and responsibilities
Children communicate their experience through drawings, models or writing. Parents identify what belongs in their own backpack and what values they want the child to carry.
Promising clinically. Not yet proven by outcomes.
No outcome data are presented, and the evidence base for NKM remains in early development.
Research priority
Controlled outcome studies should test effectiveness and identify the conditions required for implementation across legal and healthcare systems.
Implementation reality
The protocol requires institutional coordination, parallel groups and trained therapist pairs, which may limit access in under-resourced settings.
Bring the child back into view
Explore how the article describes conflict patterns, social networks and experiential work. This is a fictional illustration, not a clinical assessment.
