Parental alienation harms an estimated 250,000 children a year in the United States alone. Thousands more are harmed worldwide.
The mental health and judicial communities are unforgivably delinquent in properly addressing parental alienation cases. Parental alienation is either grossly minimized or utterly ignored by some professionals who are charged with protecting children.
Our current situation for addressing parental alienation is tragic for alienated children because of the profound harm. The tragedy of parental alienation is that it is easily recognized, easily remedied, and easily preventable by an alienation specialist.
The purpose of this article to provide information to assist the professionals in the Family Court and mental health systems to achieve early diagnosis and implement timely remedy for parental alienation.
What is Parental Alienation?
Parental alienation is an observable, child-abusive family phenomenon. In this phenomenon, a parent unjustifiably brainwashes her or his child against the other parent and coercively manipulates the child to reject that parent.
The brainwashing/manipulating parent is known as the alienating parent, and the rejected parent is known as the alienated parent.
The alienating parent’s behaviors are “unjustifiable” because the alienated parent does not present a risk to their child. The alienating parent prevents contact between the alienated parent and their child for selfish, hurt, and/or vindictive reasons.
The alienated parent does nothing that would cause an uninfluenced child to override the child’s powerful instinct for survival to have and need a parent.
The alienating parent and brainwashed alienated child often falsely accuse the alienated parent of having committed child abuse and domestic violence.
These false allegations are examples of the alienating parent’s projections of their abusive behaviors onto the alienated parent and onto the professionals who recognize the alienation.
Minor, dependent children are unable to resist their alienating parent’s determined programming and manipulation. Alienated children eventually mimic the alienation narrative that their alienating parent had instilled in them and continuously reinforces.
After being subjected to one escalating version after another with the alienation narrative, alienated children add their own contributions. They spontaneously malign, denigrate, defy, and reject their alienated parent.
If timely effective remedy is delayed or precluded, alienated children will come to accept the false alienation narrative as truths. This is one reason they appear so credible even when reporting the most egregious lies about their alienated parent.
Alienated children eventually succumb to their alienating parent’s coercive, determined programming and manipulation. They make their alienated parent feel like a persona-non-grata.
FURTHER READING: What Is Parental Alienation & Why It Is Missed by Professionals
The Alienating Parent – Mild, Moderate, or Severe?
Alienating parents are on a continuum from mild to moderate to severe. They are assessed for severity by their awareness of what they doing and for their intentional, calculated determination to exclude the alienated parent from any involvement in their children’s lives.
Mild alienating parents may not consciously or aggressively engage in alienating behaviors. But by the time a case reaches the point of contentious custody litigation, they can no longer claim ignorance of what they are doing.
If it is not their intention to alienate, they will relinquish their alienating parents as soon their behaviors are called to their attention. If they persist in their alienating behaviors despite being so alerted, they have marched into the moderate category.
Mild alienators generally abide by Court orders for the alienated parent’s time and for joint decision making. They do not, however, go out of their way to co-parent, compromise, or cooperate in agreeing to exceptions – unless it benefits them.
Moderate alienating parents know exactly what they are doing. Their goal is to selfishly keep their children primarily to themselves. They allow the alienated parent modest participation in their child’s life – for example, permitting limited or supervised contact with their children.
Moderate alienators do not make it easy for the alienated parent to participate in decision making and legal matters affecting their children. They will update the alienated parent with major developments and emergencies in their children’s lives but usually not normal child development issues.
Severe alienating parents have a mission in life to drive the alienated parent from any involvement with their children. They seek to obtain legal orders denying visitation and decision making to the alienated parent – for no justifiable reason.
They freely violate the alienated parent’s Court-ordered parenting time. They make unilateral decisions for their children despite joint legal custody. They do not provide routine or emergency updates on their child’s developments – until under a contempt order.
Severe alienators commonly make false child abuse and domestic violence allegations against the alienated parent. They do so purposely, knowing that these allegations frighten the Court and invariably result in elimination of the alienated parent’s contacts with their children while the abuse allegation is being investigated.
Alienating Behaviors Meet the Criteria of Domestic Violence and Domestic Violence by Proxy
It is anti-instinctual for a child to reject a parent – even an abusive parent. I learned this in my work with 3000 abused and neglected foster children. Not a single foster child rejected a parent. It is implausible and inconceivable for children to autonomously reject a loving, protective parent.
Alienating parents employ extreme coercive control manipulations to force their children to override their powerful instinct to have and need their loving and protective alienated parent.
Alienating behaviors meet the standard definition of child psychological abuse, domestic violence, and domestic violence by proxy.
FURTHER READING: Alienating Behaviors – Domestic Violence Upon the Child
Parental Alienation Dynamics Are in the DSM-5-TR
The dynamics occurring in parental alienation meet the criteria of several family relationship problems and mental health disorders documented in the DSM-5-TR. They are:
- Child Psychological Abuse
- Child Affected by Parental Relationship Distress (CAPRD)
- Parent-Child Relational Problem
- Domestic Violence
- Domestic Violence by Proxy
- Child or Adolescent Antisocial Behavior
- Delusional Disorder
- Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another
Although the DSM-5 task force did not accept PAS into the manual, it was NOT because the task force did not deem PAS to be a legitimate syndrome. The task force elected not to stigmatize the child with a diagnosis and to avoid signaling only the child for treatment.
The task force, instead, appropriately targeted the entire family system for treatment. They accomplished this by identifying family interactions occurring in parental alienation as examples of other conditions requiring clinical attention.
Parental alienation was cited by its label in a 2015 peer-reviewed article as an example of the DSM-5 family relational problem,”Child affected by parental relationship distress (CAPRD).”
The article was written by child psychiatrist Willam Bernet and two child psychiatrists, Marianne Walmboldt and William Narrow, who had contributed to the relational section of the DSM-5.
What Is Parental Alienation Syndrome and Is It the Same as Parental Alienation?
Parental Alienation (PA) and Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) are not exactly the same although they share characteristics. Parental alienation focuses on a constellation of family relationship problems.
By definition, a syndrome can apply only to an individual. PAS focuses on the child.
The clinical presentation of PAS children is characterized by Gardner’s 8 symptoms that he observed to be manifested when a child unreasonably rejects a parent due to the other parent’s behaviors.
The symptoms are highly specific for alienated children – meaning that they do not appear in any other group of children.
The common characteristics of PAS and PA are the context of adversarial custody proceedings and the causal connection between the alienating parent’s behaviors and the symptoms in the child.
Parental Alienation Syndrome Is a Legitimate Syndrome
Dr. Gardner’s eight symptoms of an alienated child qualify as a syndrome. When you see one of the symptoms in the context of adversarial custody, you tend to see all or most of the symptoms. The following is the DSM-5 definition of a syndrome:
“A grouping of signs and symptoms, based on their frequent co-occurrence that may suggest a common underlying pathogenesis, course, familial pattern, or treatment selection.” (p.830)
The 8 symptoms are highly sensitive and specific for an alienated children – meaning they have an exceedingly low error rate. They are not manifested by non-alienated children of divorce nor by abused or neglected children.
No scientific study has been produced to show that Gardner’s 8 symptoms appear in any other group of children.
FURTHER READING: Parental Alienation Syndrome Is a Legitimate Syndrome
Signs of Parental Alienation – Gardner’s 8 Manifestations
Gardner’s eight manifestations are relied upon in the scientific community to identify an alienated child. Not all manifestations are required although the first two are almost surely necessary.
A finding for an alienated child does not depend upon the number of manifestations present. The finding depends upon how severely and intensely the child defames, defies, resists, and rejects the alienated parent – which is what the manifestation “denigration” is all about.
Denigration is an exceedingly severe and intense manifestation because it involves either contact refusal in most or all situations; or it involves maltreatment of the alienated parent should there there be contact.
Because of the denigration symptom, alienated children make their alienated parent feel like a “persona non grata.”
The second manifestation that is almost surely needed is “weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for the denigration”.
This symptom reveals the child’s unbelievable, irrational, and bizarre reasons for rejecting the alienated parent – reasons for which no uninfluenced child would ever reject a parent.
This manifestation is highly suggestive of alienation because it supports the lack of bona fide abuse and neglect on the part of the alienated parent. By definition, a case cannot be alienation if the rejected parent is not a safe parent.
Gardner makes it clear that a finding of an alienated child includes looking for alienating behaviors on the part of a parent.
But consider this: the manifestation, itself, of borrowed scenarios implies influence and programming by an alienating parent. Borrowed scenarios means that the child reports events that could not have been obtained through first knowledge, and the child uses language and concepts beyond the child’s cognitive development.
Another fact to consider: the manifestations, when taken in a cluster, have an exceedingly low known error rate. This means that they have an exceedingly low false positive rate for identifying a child who is not alienated.
In fact cognitive scientist and physician, Steven G. Miller, determined that the manifestations have an error rate of <1%.
To use a medical analogy: if a biopsy comes back positive for cancer, the oncologist would not require the patient to get an X-ray or some other test for the sole purpose of confirming the biopsy’s cancer finding.
My evidence based practice confirms the low error rate of Gardner’s 8 manifestations to identify alienated children.
I have consistently observed the manifestations in more than 800 alienated children with whom I directly worked. I further observed the manifestations in approximately 2000 alienated children whose files I reviewed.
I did not observe a single manifestation – let alone a cluster of them – in any of the 3000 abused and neglected foster children with whom I had worked. If non-alienated children were to manifest these symptoms surely I would have expected to see them in those 3000 foster children.
I further did not see any of the manifestations in the 1000 non-alienated children of divorce with whom I directly treated.
FURTHER READING: Manifestations of Alienated Children – As Seen by an Expert
Signs of Parental Alienation – 17 Parental Alienating Behaviors
Alienating parents utilize 17 research-validated alienating behaviors that were identified by Baker and Fine. These behaviors are relied upon in the scientific community to identify an alienating parent and to assess the parent for severity.
The 17 alienating behaviors were found by numerous replicated studies to have an exceedingly low error rate. Not all 17 behaviors are required to identify an alienating parent. Identification is determined by the severity and the effectiveness of the behaviors utilized.
Of the approximate 400 alienating parents with whom I directly worked, all alienating parents utilized most – if not all – of the 17 alienating behaviors. None of the 400 alienated parents utilized any alienating behaviors.
Of the 1000+ severely alienating parents whose files I reviewed, all of these severely alienating parents utilized most, if not all, of the alienating behaviors. None of the 1000+ alienated parents utilized any alienating behaviors.
FURTHER READING: Parental Alienating Behaviors Discussed by an Expert
Signs of Parental Alienation – Summary
The signs of parental alienation are reflected in the following three factors:
- Gardner’s eight manifestations of an alienated child
- Baker and Fine’s 17 research validated alienating behaviors
- Absence of abuse or neglect by the alienated parent as determined by the scientific method to make clinical findings.
Parental Alienation Does Not Target Mothers
Alienated mothers make up 50% of my caseload and that of my colleagues. We all vigorously advocate for alienated mothers’ parental rights in their legal proceedings against alienating fathers.
I share the pain of the alienated mothers with whom I work. They feel abandoned DV groups in their desperate efforts to save their alienated sons. Alienated mothers are being subjected to physical abuse by their alienated sons, who are instigated by their alienating fathers.
Many of these physical assaults have resulted in alienated mothers needing to seek emergency medical treatment.
Abuse of alienated mothers by their alienated sons – in addition to the pain from being alienated from their children – is being ignored by DV groups. Alienated mothers are incredulous and exceedingly disappointed and frustrated.
They fear for the future of their sons. The fear that without timely intervention, their sons will grow up to be the next generation of abusers of women. At this irrational point, DV groups will first very belatedly jump in with assistance and protection.
It seems to me that preventive intervention, while these boys are still in their youths, is the treatment intervention of choice. The current situation is tragic for alienated mothers and their alienated sons.
Conclusion
Any distraction about whether or not parental alienation exists perpetuates the horrific child abuse occurring in parental alienation.
No one can credibly argue that, in the entire history of custody legal proceedings, there was not a single case in which a parent had turned a child against the other parent.
This being a fact, our Family Courts should properly examine the evidence in the case before it when parental alienation is claimed.
