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Clinical listening to divorced families in psychological expertise forms the framework for the observations reported here. The families concerned fitted into a continuum of the marital conflicts that existed when their bonds became severed and the balance between their desires and defences broke down. They transferred the rest of their old conflicts onto their children and residence arrangements through conflictual transitions and disruptions to their parental communications. Some children who were more nostalgic of the parental union testified to the tearing apart of the group envelope that previously fulfilled a support function. They were then to reconstitute their psychic envelope by allying themselves with one of the parents while designating the other parent as hostile.