Been There Got Out Podcast
Episodes
372 episodes
Does Parental Alienation Backfire in Court? A Beverly Hills Divorce Attorney Explains
“The court doesn’t care who was mean.” That’s not a throwaway line, according to Beverly Hills divorce attorney Nikoo Berenji, it’s one of the biggest blind spots she sees parents walk into family court with, and it can quietly sabotage an othe...
A Family Court Insider Reveals the Custody Mistakes That Quietly Sink Good Parents
She spent five years on the inside of the family court system as a Connecticut Family Relations Counselor — the person who meets with both parents, talks to the kids, and writes the recommendation the judge leans on. In this candid conversation...
Why Does My Toxic Ex Get Worse After the Divorce Is Final?
Most people believe that once the divorce is final, the chaos finally ends. With a high-conflict, narcissistic, or unpredictable co-parent, the opposite is often true. As they lose day-to-day control, they learn to control you from afar—through...
Why 50/50 Custody Can Backfire Badly in a High-Conflict Divorce
Everyone walks into family court assuming the “fair” answer is to split the kids right down the middle. Fifty-fifty. Equal time, equal say, problem solved. But what if that instinct toward fairness is quietly setting your children up for years ...
A DV Nonprofit CEO on What Family Court Gets Wrong About Abuse Survivors
If you have already left an abusive relationship and you're now staring down the family court system, this conversation was made for you. Lisa Johnson of Been There Got Out sits down with Liz Ortenberger, CEO of SafeNest, the largest domestic a...
Nilaja Ford: The Voice of the Child in New Jersey Custody
New Jersey judges are now hearing from children directly in custody matters, and parents whose exes have spent years working on those children are alarmed. Nilaja Ford's counter is that the children were already in the middle of it. The revisio...
Anne P. Mitchell: Spotting a False Allegation Before It Lands
Anne P. Mitchell coined the term "co-parenting." Decades before that, she was one of the first two attorneys in the country to argue that children have a right to an ongoing relationship with their father after a separation, work she started be...
Ashish Joshi: Parental Alienation Cases That Hold Up in Court
Two labels get used for very different situations in family court, and mixing them up changes who the judge thinks is to blame. A "high conflict" case is two parents who can't agree on a pediatrician or a summer camp. A family violence case is ...
Religious Abuse & Parental Alienation: How Faith Gets Weaponized in a High-Conflict Divorce
What happens when your ex doesn’t just badmouth you to the kids, but tells them God is on their side? In this episode, Lisa talks with interfaith minister and trauma-informed therapist Sherri Heller about one of the most under-recognized weapon...
The Science of Self-Medication: Trauma, PTSD & Substance Use After Abuse
If you've been living in a high-conflict divorce or custody battle, you probably know that feeling all too well — the exhaustion that never quite leaves, the hypervigilance, the sense that your nervous system has forgotten how to relax. And for...
How to Stop Your Brain from Panicking at Every Text from Your Toxic Ex
You know that feeling. Your phone buzzes. You see their name. And before you can even read the message, your heart is racing, your chest tightens, and you can barely think straight.You're not overreacting. You're not weak. Your brain ha...
Ian Steinberg: Making Mediation Work With a High-Conflict Ex
Two parents cannot sit across a table without it turning into a fight, so the mediation moves onto Zoom. Each one waits in a separate breakout room while the attorneys shuttle between them, trading a religious holiday here for an extra week of ...
"Am I Going to Lose My Child to Alienation?" A Psychologist Answers
If you've ever found yourself paralyzed by the fear that your ex is slowly turning your children against you and there's nothing you can do about it, this conversation is for you.In this episode of Been There Got Out, Lisa Johnson sits ...
How to Survive a Parenting Coordinator When Your Ex Won't Cooperate
If you've been ordered into parenting coordination, or you're wondering whether a parenting coordinator could help your high-conflict custody case, this conversation is for you.Lisa sits down with Nicole Sodoma, a family law attorney wi...
What a Guardian Ad Litem Actually Cares About
What does a Guardian Ad Litem really think when a 10-year-old says they want 50/50 custody?Crystal Wright has heard it hundreds of times — and she can tell instantly when a child has been coached. As a family law attorney AND a working ...
Male Victim Jon: Four Years of Parental Alienation, Then a Text Back
Jon went four years without speaking to any of his four children. This episode is a follow-up: two weeks before recording, one of his daughters texted him for the first time since telling him, in her twenties, that she never wanted to see him a...
Lynn Price: How to Negotiate With a Toxic Ex
Lynn Price once walked away from a negotiation and left real money on the table on purpose. After twenty-five years and more than eleven thousand negotiations as a corporate attorney, she did it because the conflict was making her sick and she ...
Why Did the Judge Do That? A Former Family Court Judge Explains
What does a family court judge actually think when you walk through those courtroom doors?If you have ever walked out of a hearing asking "why did the judge do THAT?" — this conversation is for you.Peggy Walsh spent 18 years as ...
What Reunification Therapy REALLY Is (And Why Courts Get It Wrong)
🔁 Dr. Premela Deck is back — and this time, she's going deeper.If you're navigating reunification therapy, supervised visitation, or simply trying to understand why court-ordered therapy isn't fixing anything, this is the conversation y...
Dr. Annie Brook: Four Ways to Stay Calm in the Courtroom
Freeze has no movement in it, and Annie Brook says that is exactly the problem. When you go numb before a hearing there is nothing moving, so there is nothing to feel, so there is no way back to your own awareness. Everything she teaches works ...
Your Child Refuses Therapy: What an Art Therapist Says Do Instead
Finding the right therapist for your child during a high-conflict divorce is one of the most important and misunderstood decisions you'll make.Most parents want immediate results. They want their child to sit down in session one and sta...
Julia Hochstadt: What to Do When Your Child Discloses Abuse
Julia Hochstadt has spent years listening to accounts that sound impossible, and she does not treat the implausibility as information. When a child discloses, her instruction to parents is to believe them and to say so explicitly, repeatedly, i...
James Porfido: When Your Ex Weaponizes the Court System
James Porfido spent decades on both sides of a criminal courtroom, prosecuting cases and then defending them. What he saw over 35 years became a book about a system he believes has tilted out of balance.James Porfido has practiced law fo...
Tosha Schore: When Your Child Comes Home From Your Ex's Enraged
The limbic system floods the cortex when a child goes into a rage, which is why talking them down does not work. Tosha Schore puts it plainly: you can feel your way out of thinking, but you cannot think your way out of feeling, and in that mome...
How to Stop Being Terrified of Family Court with Dr. Ben Garber
🎯 "I don't know what to expect — and that terrifies me."If that's where you are right now, this conversation was made for you.Dr. Benjamin Garber is a New Hampshire-licensed psychologist, former therapist of 30 years, custody ev...
