Biography
Maria Filomena Gaspar is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra. She conducts research in the areas of family and (co)parenting education, parental burnout, and evidence-based socio-educational intervention with children, young people, and families. She is a researcher at: 1) the Centre for Social Studies (CES) since 2013; 2) the ProChild CoLab Collaborative Laboratory Against Poverty. She holds a PhD in Educational Psychology from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Coimbra (FPCE.UC), in collaboration with the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford, on the theme of socio-educational intervention with families to promote child development. She has taken the Aggregation Exams in Educational Sciences. Co-author of the Children in Conflict programme to support collaborative and protective co-parenting, with extensive experience in training professionals to support

Plenary title
Rigid triangulation, disqualification and non-functional communication in chronic conflict in shared parenting: impacts on the child.

Abstract
The practice of co-parenting before, during and after a conflictual divorce/separation is marked by the rigid triangulation of the child, the disqualification of the other parental figure and the existence of non-functional communication between the figures who share parenting. This form of co-parenting generates stress in the child, having different impacts on their development and functioning. When this stress is chronic and the child does not have a sensitive, consistent and predictable relationship with one or more adult caregivers, there are implications for the physiology and architecture of their brain, with negative consequences throughout their life. These consequences can be observed in different areas: emotional and social development; behavioural development; mental health and physical health in the short, medium and long term; school learning. In this presentation we characterize this non-protective form of exercising co-parenting, its implications on the physiology and brain architecture of the child and its development and we end with suggestions for intervention that can break this “vicious cycle” of interaction in order to transform it into a “virtuous cycle” that protects the child.