International Journal of Psychology and Counselling

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is considered fundamental to get along with others in the workplace. The dearth of literature on personality traits and EI among healthcare professionals calls for concerns. Therefore, this study examined personality traits and emotional intelligence among healthcare professionals in a tertiary hospital in Maiduguri. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted, and an accidental sampling technique was employed to select 91 healthcare professionals with mean (1.3) age and Standard Deviation (0.46). Hierarchical regression analysis and t-test for independent measures were used, in step one of the regression, age significantly predicted EI ( β = -0.27, t = -2.46, p < 0.05). Further t-test analysis to know the direction of the predicted variable (age) on EI showed that younger healthcare professionals are higher on EI [t (89) = 2.44, p < 0.05] than their counterpart. In step 2, psychoticism predicted EI in such a way that EI increases with a decrease in psychoticism trait ( β = -0.33, t = -3.01, p < 0.05). In conclusion, personality traits predict EI among healthcare professionals, also, being low on psychoticism traits and younger age predicted EI. It is therefore recommended that EI screening should be an essential prerequisite for recruiting healthcare professionals and subsequently, healthcare professionals that are young, soft-minded, empathetic, less aggressive and impulsive should be allowed to handle those professionals issues that are highly emotional or sensitive in workplace. the participants’ socio-demographic variables using descriptive statistics. Pearson correlation was used to test the inter-relationship between the study variables. To test hypotheses one, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was employed. Hypotheses two and three were examined using t-test for independent sample. In the 21 st Century Internet advertising is seen as important medium in reaching out to consumers. Internet users are increasing around the world as almost all the transactions can be done through online. Thus, online advertisers need to understand the peoples’ attitude towards online advertising in order to create effective online advertising. The main aim of this research is to study young adults’ attitude towards online advertising. Besides, this work also studies the association between attitude level and selected socio demographic variable. Statistical Packages for Social Science (SPSS) version 23.0 is used to analyze 50 sets of questionnaires collected from the respondents. This research revealed that 90% of the young adults had positive attitude towards online advertising. This study also revealed that there is no statistically significant association between attitude and sex (P= 0.187), age (P=0.091) and economic status (P=0.774). Family courts increasingly order psychotherapy to resolve issues of alienation and estrangement between parents and children. Reunification therapy is a clinical intervention and treatment application intended to unite estranged children and parents. Reunification therapy when used in the legal context implies that a cohesive family unit existed prior to the estrangement. Literature supports the implementation of reunification therapy in various cases; however, it should be utilized within specific parameters. Family integration therapy provides a more accurate representation of the process and describes the complex and comprehensive nature of integrating parent-child relationships. It is the authors’ opinion that the term “reunification therapy” is often a misuse of nomenclature that should be more accurately replaced by family integration therapy to facilitate increased options for the court and greater acceptance by custodial parents


INTRODUCTION
Hospital is a service organisation, and heterogeneous setting with a variety of clinical specialties working towards a common goal through frequent interactions among healthcare professionals (formal caregivers), *Corresponding author. E-mail: victorchid01@yahoo.com.
Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License patients and patient's relatives (informal caregivers). In most cases, healthcare professionals find themselves directly or indirectly involved in a situation where they have to treat or communicate the outcome of their intervention to the patients and their relatives (Ptacek and Eberhardt, 1996). Most often during the interactions, emotional expressions may be misunderstood by either of the parties, and this may lead to interpersonal problems. To avoid these kinds of misunderstandings in workplace, high Emotional Intelligence (EI) is needed because EI as an integral part of humanity cannot be separated from the workplace where series of professional relationships and interaction takes place.
Emotional intelligence is the concept, which is currently in focus among the public, medical practitioners and researchers. It is being widely believed by the public that emotional and social competence is as important, or even more important, than the traditional dimension of intellectual ability and personality. EI is defined as "the composite set of capabilities that enable a person to manage himself/ herself and others" (Goleman, 1995(Goleman, , 1998Mayer et al., 2000). Similarly, Goleman (1998) sees EI as the ability to acknowledge one's feelings and emotions and also those of others.
EI has five components which are: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. The first component of emotional intelligence is selfawareness which implies that people who are high on it know how their feelings affect them, others and their job performance (Goleman, 1995). The second component of emotional intelligence is self-regulation. People with a high level of self-regulation do not make bad decisions because they are in control of their emotion; selfregulation help individuals make thoughtful decisions. The third component of emotional intelligence is motivation, which extends to the deep inner desire to achieve for the sake of achievement. Highly motivated people remain optimistic even though they have experienced failure or a setback. The fourth component of emotional intelligence is empathy, which implies being considerate and aware of other's feelings. Empathic individuals are effective in retaining talent because they are able to develop a personal rapport with others. The last component of emotional intelligence is social skills. Individuals use their friendliness to have people do what they want. Social individuals are effective persuaders (Goleman, 1995).
Personality traits have a significant influence on human behaviour, especially emotional intelligence. Personality temperament distinguishes one person from another as evidenced by the person behaviours and perception which is relatively stable over time (Phares, 1991). According to Eysenck and Eysenck (1975), personality is an overall pattern of the actual and potential behaviour of organisms, as determined by heredity and environment. Personality traits are measured on different dimensions. Eysenck and Eysenck (1975) proposed three dimensions of personality, known as extraversion (E), neuroticism (N), and psychoticism (P), better known as PEN. This model has been widely researched in Nigeria (Okhakhume and Ojezele, 1999;Olapegba and Olumuyiwa, 2000).
Traits of psychoticism are aggressive, cold, egocentric, impersonal, impulsivity (impulsive), antisocial (no empathy), hard hearts (tough-minded). On the neuroticism, this is the tendency to experience negative affects such as fear, hostility, and depression (Goldberg, 1990). Those high in Neuroticism tend to overreact to unpleasant events, such as frustrations or problems, and take longer to return to a normal state after being upset. Neurotic individuals are also easily irritated and complain about even the smallest transgressions (Eysenck, 1990;Eysenck and Eysenck, 1985). On extraversion, the typical extrovert is sociable, likes parties, has many friends, needs to have people to talk to, he/she craves excitement, take chances, often sticks his/her neck out, acts on the spur of the moment, and is generally impulsive. While the typical introverted is quiet, retiring sort of person, introspective, found of books rather than people. He is reserved and distant except to intimate friends, he tends to plan, look before he leaps and distrusts the impulse of the moment, and does not like excitement.
In a study conducted in Jordan, Mahasneh (2013) reported a significant positive correlation between personality traits and emotional intelligence. EI and service quality are positively related as they are both vital for increasing performance, in view of this, Andi (2012) found strong relationships between emotional intelligence and personality traits. Chen and Lai (2015) investigated personality traits, emotional intelligence and academic achievements among one hundred and sixty university students in Malaysia. Extraversion was positively correlated with emotional intelligence. Only neuroticism negatively associated with emotional intelligence. Hosseini and Anari (2011) worked on the correlation between emotional intelligence and unstable personality among substance abusers. It was found that there was a negative correlation between emotional intelligence and stable personality. In a study conducted in Nigeria among secondary school teachers, Iruloh and Ukaegbu (2015) reported that personality traits taken together significantly predicted emotional intelligence of secondary school teachers. Agreeableness and extraversion significantly predicted emotional intelligence while the reverse was the case for others (conscientiousness, openness, and neuroticism).
In an effort to include some demographical variables, the study considered gender and age of the participants. In a study conducted by Dunn (2002), it was observed that girls score higher with regard to empathy, social responsibilities and interpersonal relationships than boys. More sensitivity was found towards their relationships with parents, friends and siblings. Similarly, Ciarrochi, Chan and Bajar (2004) found that girls were more adept at perceiving emotions, regulating emotions, and utilizing emotions for building relationships. Though, Petrides and Furnham (2003) discovered that men perceive themselves to possess higher EI levels than women. Also, in a study conducted among one hundred and sixty participants in Pakistan, Ahmad, Bangash and Ahmadkhan (2009) found that males have high emotional intelligence as compare to females.
Besides, age also has a great influence on EI; this goes in line with the findings of Singh (2002) that younger boys expressed sadness and anger than older boys.
This implies that emotional and social intelligence skills increase as one gets older. In a similar study, Almran and Punamaki (2008) conducted a study examining gender and age differences in emotional intelligence among three hundred and twelve Bahraini adolescents, it was discovered that gender, not age was significantly correlated with emotional intelligence.
EI is considered to be necessary for health workers as they are required not only to deal with the health problems of patients but also to give feedback on etiology, epidemiology, prognosis, treatment option of patients' ailments and importantly to manage and understand their feelings and that of others which will subsequently increase productivity. However, despite the important function of EI among healthcare professionals, personality traits of an individual play a significant role. The roles of personality traits, age and sex in explaining EI amidst healthcare professionals in Nigeria have not been well documented.
Also, to the best of the researchers' knowledge, most studies done in this area were conducted in developed countries (Andi, 2012;Mahasneh, 2013;Chen and Lai, 2015), and none of these studies were conducted among health care professionals. Few studies that were done in Nigeria among healthcare professionals were conducted in South-West and North-Central respectively (Olowodunoye and Dennis, 2018;Saasongu, 2018). Therefore, it becomes essential that identifying the links between personality dimensions and EI among healthcare professionals in North-Eastern Nigeria has implications for enabling healthcare professionals to cope better in this geopolitical region.
The general objective of this study is to examine the influence of personality traits on EI among healthcare professionals in a tertiary hospital. While the specific objective are: (i) To examine the influence of healthcare professionals age on EI. (ii) To investigate the influence of sex on the EI of healthcare professionals.
Based on the above reasons it is of necessity to test the following hypothesis: (i) Age, sex, religion, marital status, work experience and personality traits will independently and jointly influence emotional intelligence of healthcare professionals; (ii) health care professionals' age will have a significant influence on EI; (iii) gender will have a significant influence on EI of healthcare professionals. Kwajaffa et al. 33

Procedures
The researchers sought and obtained permission to conduct the research from relevant authorities of the hospital; before that, ethical clearance was received from the ethical committee of the institution. The respondents were given relevant information relating to the nature and purpose of the research. The confidentiality of the information was assured. The staff must be a current employee of the hospital. Furthermore, Yamane (1967) simplified formula for calculating sample size recommended 90 participants. However, the researcher's finally used 91 clinical staff of the hospital in an attempt to increase the external validity of the study, and the participants were selected using accidental sampling technique.

Setting
The study was carried out in Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Maiduguri, Borno state. The institution serves a population of 25 million in North-East sub-region of Nigeria, as well as across the borders of the Republics of Cameron, Niger and Tchad.

Emotional intelligence
Trait Meta Mood Scale (TMMS) was used to assess emotional intelligence. This scale was developed by Salovey et al. (1995). TMMS is a 48 items instrument on five-point Likert type scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Sample of items includes: "I try to think good thoughts no matter how badly I feel", "Sometimes I can't tell what my feelings are", "and the best way for me to handle my feelings is to experience them to the fullest". TMMS has three subscales, the internal consistency of these three scales was established with the following Cronbach's coefficient alpha for each scale (Attention = 0.86, Clarity = 0.87, Repair =0.82) Salovey et al. (1995). A cronbach's Alpha of .820 was established in this study.

Personality traits
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was used to assess personality traits. This scale was developed by Eysenck and Eysenck (1975); the scale consists 90 items with a response format of yes or no. The scale was designed to measure three aspects of personality dimensions; psychoticism, extraversion, neuroticism. Sample of items includes: "Have you ever taken the praise for something you knew someone else had really done", "Have you ever blamed someone for doing something you knew was really your fault" "Are you mostly quiet when you are with other people". A Cronbach's Alpha of .70 was established in this study.

Data analysis
The researchers analysed the participants' socio-demographic variables using descriptive statistics. Pearson correlation was used to test the inter-relationship between the study variables. To test hypotheses one, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was employed. Hypotheses two and three were examined using t-test for independent sample.

RESULTS
Correlation analysis was first conducted to ascertain possible forms of relationships that exist among the study variables. Pearson Product Moment Correlation was conducted and presented below in the table.
The result in Table 1  . This implied that the higher the psychotic personality trait of healthcare professionals, the lower their emotional intelligence tends to be. Extraversion was not significantly related to emotional intelligence [r(89)= -0.25, p > 0.05] and it means that the extrovert's personality trait of healthcare professionals is not associated with their emotional intelligence. Neuroticism was negatively and significantly related with emotional intelligence [r(89)= -0.21, p < 0.05]. This implied that the emotional intelligence of healthcare professionals increases with decrease level of neuroticism personality traits.
It was essential to understand that the test for multicollinearity was conducted to avoid the occurrence since the personality traits considered were sub-sections in the same instrument. The Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) and Tolerance test were both utilised for these purposes and the VIF indicated values that range between 1.02 and 1.31, while that of Tolerance ranges between 0.77 and 0.98. The VIF was below 5.00, while the Tolerance exceeds 0.10. This means that the variables had no indication of the lack of orthogonality.
In step 2 of the regression, personality traits were added and it was noted that psychoticism predicted

DISCUSSION
The first hypothesis which states that age, sex, religion, marital status, work experience and personality traits will independently and jointly influence emotional intelligence of healthcare professionals was confirmed. This study was supported by Iruloh and Ukaegbu (2015) findings that personality traits predicted emotional intelligence. Also, Mahasneh (2013) was of the same view that there is a positive correlation between personality traits and emotional intelligence. However, only age and psychoticism significantly predict emotional intelligence among healthcare professionals. This suggests that younger healthcare professionals and those who scored low on psychoticism were more emotionally intelligent. This finding confirmed the study conducted by Singh (2002) that age influence EI but the direction was not specified. Other dimensions of personality traits such as extraversion, neuroticism did not predict EI. This was contrary to the findings of Hosseini and Anari (2011) that neuroticism and extraversion influence EI, and also disagree with Chen and Lai (2015) that extraversion positively correlated with EI. However, Chen and Lai (2015) reported that neuroticism negatively connected with emotional intelligence, this was in line with the findings of this study that neuroticism trait did not predict emotional intelligence.
The second hypothesis which states that healthcare professionals' age will have a significant influence on EI was accepted. This finding was in line with the finding of Singh (2002) who found age to have a great influence on emotional intelligence. Though, in Singh's study, younger boys expressed sadness and anger more than older boys which implies that emotional and social intelligence skills increase as one gets older. But in this current study, being young has more influence EI than older age. The reason behind this finding might be that higher EI found among younger healthcare professionals is a result of a decline in work commitment mostly found among the old staff of most organisations as a result of perceived organisational injustice.
The third hypothesis which states that gender will have a significant influence on EI of healthcare professionals was rejected. This study was contrary to the finding of Dunn (2002) who observed that girls score higher with regard to empathy, social responsibilities and interpersonal relationships than boys. Similarly, contrary finding was reported by Ciarrochi et al. (2004) that girls were more adept at perceiving emotions, regulating emotions, and utilizing emotions for building relationships. Like other previous studies, Ahmad et al. (2009) found that males have high emotional intelligence compare to females.
It was deduced from this study that being higher on EI is not a function of one's gender. EI manifest in different ways in both genders. Diverse of EI was found in thousands of men and women; women are more aware of their emotions, show more empathy, more proficient interpersonally, while men are self-confident, positive, and flexible. In general, gender roles and EI are interwoven, some men are empathetic as the most interpersonally level-headed women are, while some women are just as able to withstand stress as the most psychologically resilient men.
In conclusion, personality traits predict emotional intelligence, and to be specific being low on psychoticism trait and younger age also predicts EI of healthcare professionals. This implies that younger healthcare professionals are higher in emotional intelligence than older ones especially in a professional setting like hospitals where patients and their relatives need to be communicated concerning their ailments proficiently. Also, healthcare professional's gender does not influence emotional intelligence. Both males and females tend to respond in the same manner to situations depend on personal characteristics, situational/contextual factors and personal experience.
The study of this nature cannot complete without its limitations. Firstly, the generalisation of this study is limited due to the total number of the participants which was considered to be relatively small and only one setting was considered from the numerous health care facilities in the Maiduguri. Secondly, in recent time, dimensions of personality has been improved upon by different scholars, this study considered Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) which is three dimensions. These three dimensions of personality are not compressive, and cannot be used to explain personality traits fully as other dimensions such as (five dimensions) has been researched on and established.
It is therefore recommended that EI screening should be an essential prerequisite for recruiting healthcare professionals. This is because empathic communication which is an important ingredient of EI is one of the skills needed to be effective and successful in dealing with the patients in terms of psycho-education/sensitization on epidemiology and etiology of illness and breaking bad news.
Healthcare professionals that are young, soft-minded, empathetic, less aggressive and impulsive should be allowed to handle those professionals issues that are highly emotional or sensitive in the workplace.
The management of health care institutions should ensure continuous training on how to understand the key components of EI such as emotional repair, attention, and clarity. This would enable the professionals to reduce incidences of transferred aggression on patients and colleagues at work because they will be able to understand and manage their emotions better.
Lastly, three dimensions of personality traits measures used in this study should be improved on by other researchers. Measure like big five inventory that has five dimensions of personality traits should be considered in a subsequent study.

INTRODUCTION
The network has become the standard of individuals' lives with the quick improvement of the occasions, and it is got from web-based life to carry more comfort to individuals' life. It likewise carries more business chances to ventures. Online networking has indicated the eventual fate of "victory" advancement and "scale". The manner in which individuals use information and lifestyle has been incredibly influenced by the utilization of web-based life (Bruner and Kumar, 2000). Attitude is characterized as a scholarly inclination to carry on reliably in a manner concerning a given article (Fernandez and Rosen, 2000). An Individual's own assessment, enthusiastic inclination and activity propensity toward certain articles or thoughts is attitude (Kottler and Keller, 2008). It is a generally worldwide and suffering assessment of an item, issue, individual or activity (Azeem and Haq, 2012). It can likewise be characterized as a general assessment of a person towards an item, issue, individual, or activity that communicates the degree of favor or disgrace and furthermore will, in general, be a suffering enthusiastic inclination. Attitudes can be shaped dependent on contemplations and convictions from the information we get. It can likewise be founded on feelings. In this manner, considerations, sentiments, and conduct of an individual are influenced by their attitude ).
Shopper's view with respect to online notices is their attitude towards online advertising. Also, our conduct in the presentation to an online notice, preferring and buy expectation is affected by our attitude. Attitude is the immediate human reflection toward online advertising which includes the substance and arrangement of the advertising (Bruner and Kumar, 2000).
In the present time, advertising assumes a fundamental job in conveying and giving information to people in general. Clients' recognition of the company their items relies upon the level and quality of the information gave in an ad. Along these lines, guarantee that the information conveyed through online advertising is adequately educational (Azeem and Haq, 2012). These days, the progression in innovation has empowered internet infiltration into all aspects of our lives, and we are investing more energy on the internet which can be the most elevated opportunity for an internet client to take part in online advertising. Consequently, advertisers can get this chance to arrive at their shoppers through online stages to make mindfulness and to promote their items, administrations, and to expand deals later on (Yasin et al., 2008). It is simpler for the company to refresh their items' information quickly through online promotion which permits the customers to get the most recent information about the items and administrations that the company offers in the market (Ducoffe, 1996) With respect to online advertising would be its lower costs contrasted with advertising by means of customary media. Bigger objective crowd and land regions can be reached and secured by means of online advertising, contrasted with customary advertising requiring little to no effort. This demonstrates its value in the present Internet soaked world (Rachel, 2011). To make brand mindfulness and energize buy goal is the essential point of online advertising. Customers are urged to buy when they are presented to a notice and build up the chance to get the items which thusly prompts the acquisition of the items (Bijmolt et al., 1998).
Billions of individuals around the globe utilize online life and have got one of the characterizing advances in the present time frame. It is accounted for that there is almost 2.38 billion month to month dynamic clients of Facebook and 1.56 billion every day dynamic clients as of March 31, 2019. All-inclusive, the quantity of individuals utilizing internet based life is assessed to develop to 3.29 billion clients in 2022, which includes 42.3% of the total populace of the world (eMarketer, 2018).
The target of the study is to discover the attitude of buyers towards online advertising.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The quantitative and descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in Budhanilakantha Ward 9 over a period of 2 weeks. 50 respondents were involved in this study. Non probability purposive sampling technique was used to collect the sample. Young adults of both sex (male and female), who are able to read and write, ranging from age group 18-35 years and willing to participate in the study are included in this research. 5 point Likert scale was used to collect the data. Total score of 6 responses were obtained from all participants and they were categorized as positive and negative from neutral score of 18. All the data were reviewed, organized and coded. Coded data were entered into SPSS and analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage); chi square test was used to find out the association between attitude and selected socio-demographic variables.

RESULTS
50 participants were included in this study, among them 52% were males and 48% were females. Sixty-six percent of the participants were of age group 18-26 years and thirty-four percent belonged to the age group 27-35 years. Descriptive statistics of the study population, the distribution of age group, sex, economic status are shown in Table 1. Attitude towards online advertising is shown in Tables 2 to 4 shows cross tabulation: attitude level and selected socio-demographic variables. About 90% of the participants had positive attitude towards online advertising.

Disagree
(2) Strongly disagree (1) Online advertising is useful as it promotes the latest products 7 35 6 1 1 I got to know more innovative ideas through online advertising 6 23 14 6 1 Online advertising allows me to enjoy the best deal out of the competing products advertised 29 13 3 4 1 Online advertising is where creativity is highly appreciated 3 33 9 4 1 Online advertising plays an important part in my buying decision 2 34 12 1 1 My general opinion of online advertising is favorable 5 37 5 2 1

DISCUSSION
This research uncovered that most of the respondents had an inspirational attitude towards online advertising; this is predictable with discoveries of research done on "Attitude towards online advertising" by James and Terrance (1993), which likewise indicated the respondents had an uplifting attitude towards online advertising. This finding is harmonious with the finding of the study done by Abbas (2017), which states promotions of brands impact individuals to a level that cannot be disregarded. The reaction of shoppers towards Web destinations impacts their consequent image attitudes and their attitude towards Internet advertising itself. This research shows that there is no any measurably noteworthy relationship among attitude and sex and age, supporting this finding. The study was done on shoppers' attitude toward online advertising by Wang et al. (2009); it uncovers that there is no critical relationship between buyers' attitude and sexual orientation and age. This research also indicates that there is no measurably significant relationship between attitude and age and financial status, as opposed to the findings of Gaffney (2001) who showed that there is a critical relationship between attitude level and monetary status. The study showed that individuals with higher financial status had an inspirational attitude towards online advertising.

Limitations
This study is conducted in Budhanilakantha Ward 9, with small sample size. So, the findings of the study cannot be generalized. Also, data collection is done by purposive sampling technique using interview method; so the findings of the study cannot be generalized.

Conclusion
Findings revealed that majority of the respondents had positive attitude towards online advertising. This research also revealed that there is no any statistical association between attitude level and different socio demographic variables, supporting the hypothesis of the study.

INTRODUCTION
It is the opinion of the authors that the term "family integration therapy" should replace "reunification therapy" as the common term of art and usage. Reunification therapy refers to a clinical intervention and treatment application intended to unite estranged parents and children and has become a frequent recommendation of family court judges as it continues to grow in popularity in mental health literature and practice in general. Courts will order therapy to facilitate relationships between children and alienated parents in the context of active and post-decree family court proceedings. The use of the term "reunification therapy" by judges and attorneys and in the literature addressing the clinical application of reunification therapy is often too capacious. This implies a potentially spurious precondition: that there was at some point in time, a cohesive family unit that existed prior to an occasion of separation. It supports an assertion that the goal is to reunite and reengage a previously united family system. While literature supports the use of reunification therapy in various cases, particularly those where a unified family system once existed, the need for a tightly defined indication and definition of what is commonly referred to as reunification therapy is necessary to ensure the safety of children in a vulnerable position vis a vis potentially ill serving and even destructive parents. Kleinman would argue that Corresponding author. E-mail: drajaffe@jaffepsych.com.
Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License reunification may not have the research-based efficacy to suggest significant benefits to be a reasonable and sound intervention. When one lacks the proper understanding of the process and practice of reunification therapy, it may be ineffective or possibly harmful (Kleinman, 2017). A significant contribution to the confusion of the term "reunification therapy" is due to the inferences that are drawn from the term. Reunification has been used in order to draw attention to the disruption in the relationship from a once intact family system (Sauber, 2013). In such cases where the family was at one time intact, the term is used accurately and with specificity. The underlying understanding of reunification is that an intact family, even if unstable, at one point existed and can exist again (Sauber, 2013). The very use of the term "reunification therapy" is often paradoxical as it is based on the false premise of a previously established close/intimate parent-child relationship. The inherent contradiction in the use of this term is not simply a semantic problem, but one that has practical and real-life implications. The assumptions often inherent in court-ordered reunification therapy and in literature addressing the clinical application of reunification therapy inherently imply the belief or precondition that there was at some point in time, a cohesive family unit that existed prior to the separation and the assertion that the goal is to reunite and reengage the family system.
Much of the current research discusses reunification therapy within specific parameters, such as after removal from the home (Ainsworth and Maluccio, 1998;La Guardia and Banner, 2012) or after allegations of abuse (Hewitt, 2008;Lindahl and Hunt, 2016;Digiorgio-Miller, 2002). Reunification therapy is also discussed in the context of parental alienation, especially when alienation is the byproduct of a custody case or high conflict divorce (Weitzman, 2013;Templer et al., 2017). The implication, then, is that reunification reunites or rehabilitates a family system or a parent-child dynamic that has been separated.
Reunification therapy as a court-ordered requirement or a voluntary process is often misleading for both professionals and the individuals to be involved in treatment. Providing an intervention that will facilitate interaction and intimacy between parents and children is a worthwhile endeavor so long as the intervention is properly represented for what it is and does not inherently misrepresent the previous parent-child relationship.
In courtroom settings, a judge is frequently petitioned by an alienated parent to order counseling with an estranged child. In such cases, the custodial parent will often object to a therapeutic intervention based solely on the fact that the alienated parent never historically enjoyed a close or meaningful relationship with the child. For that reason, the custodial parent feels correctly that the agreement to permit reunification represents an implied stipulation that a former parent-child relationship was at one time closer than the true reality of the relationship. Even before the desirability of parent-child therapy is considered, custodial parents are inclined to be resistant to such treatment because it is based on an inaccurate premise and insidiously seeks to establish a false reality. The custodial parent refuses to sanction a misrepresentation of the true reality of the parent-child relationship, by participating in an upfront empathic failure toward the child, even before the proposed treatment is to commence. In order to ameliorate this misconception, the term used to describe the process of integrating parent-child relationships should be more accurately represented as "family integration therapy".
For at least the last twenty years, varying therapeutic techniques and procedures have been used in attempts to reunify families (Sauber, 2013). However, the reason behind the separation between family members may not be fully appreciated and considered when reunification therapy is recommended. Children who have been removed from the home, abused, or alienated from one parent may be afraid of renewed interaction or may have never had a healthy or unified relationship prior to the initiation of reunification therapy. The family courts are largely responsible for determining the structure of the reunification intervention processes, which emphasize the need for further research associated with standardizing the reunification process, including protocols and efficacy which measures are necessary to ensure the safety and health of children involved in this process (Weitzman, 2013).
The current state of reunification therapy, including the intake and assessment procedures, therapeutic techniques, and termination, are still largely without significant literature and understanding in the mental health field, leaving clinicians with the task of determining the appropriateness of services and how to engage clients in these services. The literature that is available on this topic may be specific to particular indications, but not all current nor future literature will always apply to families ordered for reunification services. In particular, Ainsworth and Maluccio (1998) suggest that for children involved in out-of-home care, immediate and consistent contact between the child and family would allow for the most effective reunification process. In cases involving parental alienation, the degree of alienation can indicate difficulty for a family's engagement in family integration and the therapeutic approach that should be taken (Sauber, 2013). It is also imperative that the presence of parental alienation be identified through proper assessment of the child(ren) (Jaffe et al., 2017). Hewitt (2008) suggests that the reunification approach should focus the pace on the comfort and needs of the child. In particular, the use of reunification therapy is more complicated when abuse allegations are unsupported (Lindahl and Hunt, 2016). There are many social variables and family circumstances that offer the occasion for family integration therapy to be of benefit to parents and children.
As the academic and clinical practice considerations of the integration of families evolve, it is imperative that the full