Parental Alienation: What it is, why it matters, and effective interventions to reverse alienation

Parental Alienation is an unacknowledged and poorly understood form of family

violence. There is professional consensus about what it is and what its causes are.

Alienated children are often separated from the target parent for long periods of time -

this separation coupled with parental alienating behaviors is associated with poor

psychological adjustment among children. Research shows that alienated children

experience more psychosocial adjustment disorders (e.g. internalizing and

externalizing problems) than children who have not been alienated. For target parents,

the outcomes of parental alienation appear to be similar to other forms of intimatepartner

violence. Targeted parents report experiencing depression, anxiety, and high

levels of suicidality, and live with unresolved feelings of grief and ambiguous loss.

Children who reject a parent after divorce, who refuse or resist contact, or whose

contact with a parent is characterized by extreme withdrawal or gross contempt are

often thought of a "lost cause" - especially when a pathogenic parent engages in a set

of strategies to undermine and negatively influence the child's relationship with the

other parent. When objectively assessed, strident and hostile responses that are

disproportionate to the child's actual experience of that parent in the pre-separated

family or the conduct of that parent can be detected.

The psychosocial properties associated with parental alienation is not just highly

counterintuitive in nature, but most often requires a skilled evaluator to be able to

differentiate the psychological and family dynamics which has caused a serious

disruption in the family hierarchy.

The training will focus on the how the prevalence of parental alienation is scientifically

assessed in a specific case, how it comes about that the alienated child splits morally,

and how prior feelings of love and adoration for a parent gets surpassed by a

delusional narrative of fear, abandonment and abuse as justification for the rejection.

The training will furthermore emphasize the different intervention strategies

appropriate to the levels of severity of the alienation and how the treatment of severe

cases differ from mild to moderate cases. It will also explain why the potential benefits

of a remedial methodology aimed at repairing a child's relationship with the rejected

parent and possibly fostering healthy relationships with both parents, far overweighs

any short-term discomfort caused by the intervention protocol.