Adult Children of Divorce

The children of divorce, perhaps predictably, face rocky challenges in forming and maintaining their own significant relationships. In addressing the struggle of adult children of divorce to become free of their past, Beal, a practicing psychiatrist, and Hochman, a journalist, conclude that it is not the divorce itself, but the kind of family in which it occurs, that allows for successful adulthood for the children of ruptured marriages. How the parents managed their divorce and the child's role in it determines his or her behavioral maturity as an adult, according to the research and case studies cited here. A thoughtful book likely to encourage those contemplating divorce to pause and investigate healing alternatives. Author tour. (Mar.)