Beyond Divorce and Separation
By Landon Poppleton, PhD, JD Divorce and separation are rarely just legal events. They're psychological ones, lived out in courtrooms, therapy offices, congregations, and kitchen tables. Beyond Divorce and Separation is a newsletter for attorneys, clinicians, and anyone navigating high-conflict family dynamics who wants to understand what's actually happening beneath the surface, not just what the law or the latest parenting advice says should happen. Each issue draws on psychology, family law, and research on conflict and coercion to explore the harder questions: How do good people justify harmful behavior? When do the institutions meant to protect families end up reinforcing the very power imbalances they're supposed to interrupt? What's the difference between a legal outcome and a family that actually heals? No easy answers, no oversimplified frameworks, just a closer, more honest look at what high-conflict separation does to the people living through it, and what moving beyond it actually requires.
When Institutions Become Instruments of Coercive Control
How religion, psychology, and the law can unintentionally reinforce private power
We often think about coercive control as something that happens between two people. One person monitors the other. One controls the money. One isolates the other from friends or family. One determines where the othe...
by Landon Poppleton —
Oct 06, 2026
When Good People Do Harm
Moral disengagement in high-conflict divorce — and how Bandura's theory explains the psychological machinery behind escalating conflict, blame, and destructive co-parenting
Almost no one going through a bad divorce thinks of themselves as the aggressor, even while the party on the other side migh...
by Landon Poppleton —
Oct 06, 2026
