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Domestic abusers may employ litigation tactics to continue abusing through the courts.

Abusers often try to portray their victims as crazy, addicted, violent, and "high-conflict."

Claims of "mutual abuse" and "parental alienation" confuse the courts and distract from real dangers.

Prolonged abusive litigation puts adult and child survivors at risk.

This piece is co-authored by Lisa Aronson Fontes, Ph.D., and Jenny Wiggs, Ed.D.

When they leave an abusive relationship, domestic violence survivors believe the hardest part is over. They expect family court will protect them and their children. It can be a shock to discover that the abuse dynamics have morphed but not ceased. Domineering tactics now unfold through pleadings, motions, custody evaluations, discovery, and courtroom proceedings.

Across jurisdictions, survivors report similar litigation narratives that undermine their credibility, cast doubt on their parenting, diminish their finances, and distort the past. Recognizing these patterns can help survivors and those who work with them respond strategically instead of reactively.

1. Pathologizing the Survivor: “Crazy and Addicted”

Abusers and their attorneys try to pathologize the survivor as mentally ill, substance-abusing, or both. Abusers often describe survivors as anxious, unstable, depressed, paranoid, dysregulated, irrational, and incapable of making sound decisions. Courts focus on the victim’s alleged shortcomings and away from true abuse.

Abusers, their attorneys, and the mental health professionals they hire often apply serious psychiatric labels to victims. Favorites include bipolar, borderline, paranoid, or histrionic personality disorders and even psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia or delusional disorders. Abusers often weaponize normative experiences such as postpartum depression or maternal anxiety to portray the survivor as permanently unfit for parenting.

This litigation strategy is effective because it exploits a survivor’s abuse-induced trauma. After prolonged abuse, many survivors experience post-traumatic stress symptoms (Fernandez-Fillol, 2021). These merit compassion; they should not be weaponized in custody litigation. Seeking treatment for trauma is evidence of resilience—not parental unfitness.

The psychological tests used by custody evaluators often obscure more than they illuminate. Instruments such as the MMPI were not designed as stand-alone measures of parenting capacity. Likewise, diagnosing complex psychiatric conditions requires careful clinical evaluation over time, incorporating several sources of information. No single test score, isolated interview, or litigation narrative should be mistaken for a comprehensive psychiatric diagnosis or a........

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