Mark L. Goldstein, Ph.D.
INTRODUCTION
In 1987, Dr. Richard Gardner first spoke about parental alienation syndrome, relating that it was a conscious or unconscious attempt by one parent to behave in such a way as to alienate the child or children from the other parent. Later, he expanded the concept by commenting that there may be factors that arise within the child, independent of the parental contributions that foster the development of the syndrome (1992). Today, most mental health experts concur that there is no syndrome of parental alienation, but most agree that parental alienation behavior is evident in many divorce and custody cases, particularly in high conflict divorces.
The alienation may range from mild to severe. Mild forms of parental alienation may take the form of the alienating parent having little regard for the importance of contact with the other parent or not supporting phone calls, letter writing or E-mails. Mild alienation may also include a refusal to be present at the child’s activities (e.g. dance recital, soccer game, school play) if the other parent is there, undermining the other parent’s time with the child by being late for pick-up or feeding the child a snack when the other parent has planned to take the child to dinner. In some instances, there may also be inappropriate verbalizations to the child, e.g. “I’ll miss you so much,” “I hope you’re not too bored,” or “If you don’t want to go, I won’t force you."
In more severe cases, the alienating parent may make more direct negative remarks about the other parent, including lies (e.g. “your father left us,” “your mother doesn’t love you,” or “you can’t go to camp because your father took all our money.” In addition, the alienating parent will often intentionally fail to inform the other parent of the child’s activities, refuse to have any contact with other parent (e.g. hanging up the phone), fail to inform the child if the other parent calls, and refuse to allow the child to talk about the other parent except in negative, disparaging ways. The alienating parent may also create loyalty conflicts and guilt for the child through their statements (e.g. “how can you go see your father when you know how much he’s hurt me?” or “why would you see your mother when you know that she left you and doesn’t love you?”). In severe cases of alienation, the negativity often extends to other family members and even friends, who serve to reinforce the importance of loyalty to the alienating parent.
When alienation is severe, the child often refuses to see the other parent, even though there is no evidence of physical or sexual abuse and no obvious emotional abuse. In addition, the child will usually be unable to provide even one positive quality of the other parent (In one case, I reminded the child that her father would take her to a toy store every visitation and let her choose a present. She responded that he should have allowed her to have unlimited presents, and as a result, was still “all bad.”).
DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS
All too frequently, mental health professionals as well as lawyers, ascribe parental alienation to a case, when in fact, there may be normal developmental factors to explain the child’s resistance to visitation. For example, younger children, under the age of 3 or 4 often display separation anxiety, particularly if the non-custodial parent had limited involvement in child rearing. At times, older children or those with separation anxiety disorder may exhibit separation anxiety as well. In addition, 3 to 6 year olds may develop libidinal attachment to the opposite sex parent. A preference for same gender parent often begins at age 12 or 13.
It is also essential to consider the social -cognitive stage of development of each child. 3 to 5 year old children make attributions, e.g. “Mommy hates Daddy cause she yelled.” 4 to 8 year olds have some capacity to see things from another viewpoint; however, they can only take one parent’s perspective at a time, rather than understand both parent’s positions simultaneously. As a result, children of this age commonly have shifting alliances. 7 to 9 year old children can hold more than one perspective at a time; as a result, they can consciously feel loyalty conflicts. 9 to 12 year olds cannot handle ambivalence for long, so they begin to fix alignment with one parent or the other. They may also begin to exclude or reject the other parent with varying degrees of intensity as a means of decreasing or eliminating the ambivalence. Adolescents may distant themselves, but also experience a greater pressure from family members to “take a stand” and take a more active role in the fight.
PATHOLOGICAL FACTORS
In parental alienation cases, the chronicity of the parental conflict needs to be considered. Johnston and Roseby (1997) relate that the more intense and prolonged the conflict, the more likely the children will be drawn into an alignment with one parent and be alienated from the other parent. Furthermore, the more that children are exposed to parental disputes, the greater likelihood there is for parental alienation to occur. Not only does the alienating parent contribute to the alienation, but the rejected parent and the child also have significant roles in fostering the alienation.
The alienating parent typically has experienced loss, rejection and vulnerability as a result of the divorce. They may turn to their children for nurturance and/or companionship. Others project all of the blame for the failure of the marriage on their spouse; as a result, they feel compelled to “fight” to protect their children from the other parent.
Alienating parents often force the children to be messengers of communication and encourage the children to act as spies during visits. Intrusive behaviors, such as 2 or more phone calls per day during the other parent’s visitation, are common.
The rejected parent if often inept and/or unempathic with their kids. In addition, they may be self centered or narcissistic, superficial, defensive and externalize blame. They may be upset or angry by the children’s lack of respect to their authority. Others pursue the children relentlessly, while others try to reassert their parental role by force. The child’s negative reactions are denied, minimized or dismissed as “brainwashing” by the other parent. In particular, adolescents react strongly to the use of force; this is consistent with the development of the teenager, who is striving for autonomy at this time.
In some instances, the rejected parent has a mental disorder, substance abuse or personality disorder that significantly contributes to the alienation. In other instances, the individual has poor parenting skills, never bonded with the child, had a punitive discipline style, avoided the child during the marriage, avoided physical affection, focused on their own needs (e.g. golf, work) rather than the child’s needs (e.g. homework, activities) or avoided sharing feelings, all of which may contribute to creating the potential for alienation.
Parents who are truly alienated against tend to exhibit sensitivity to their children, as well as nurturing behavior. They also have a tendency to be overwhelmed with intense emotions, and are often insightful and passive.
Individual children respond differently. Like their parents, children experience anger, depression, anxiety and blame following divorce. By taking sides, they are less likely to feel caught in the middle and anxiety can be reduced. Often there is a hostile-dependent relationship, as well as unmet dependency needs and attachment difficulties between the child and the alienating parent. The rift in the relationship between the child and alienating parent widens when alienating messages occur. Furthermore, for many children there is a psychological need to take care of the custodial parent who the child perceives as emotionally needy. Ultimately, there is a continuum for children that ranges from:
--equal attachment with each parent
--affinity between child and one parent
--alignment with child and one parent
--child alienated from one parent
SYSTEMS FACTORS
Parental alienation usually results from very high conflict between both parents and both parents psychopathology. The conflict often escalates outside of the family to include relatives, family friends, as well as attorneys and therapists. It is common to find the father’s and/or mother’s therapists “buying” their client’s perceptions. Attorneys often exacerbate the rift by filing motions.
SIGNS OF ALIENATION IN CHILDREN
*Fusion of me to us (“Dad’s taking us to Court”
*Exaggerated, unjustified, trumped-up or superficial complaints about the target parent, with no substance or substantiation
*Indications of language uncharacteristic of children of that age
*Language, phrases the same or similar as the alienating parent in describing the other parent
*Rehearsed quality to the child’s description of the targeted parent
*Seeing parent as “all good” and one parent as “all bad” (splitting)
*Avoidance of specific questions
*Character assaults
*Often contradictory statements that may imply they want a relationship with the target parent
*Often heard inappropriate information
*Evidence of being used as spies
*Kids often asked to be cohorts in keeping secrets
*Bricklin Perceptual Scale scores reflect one parent with extremely high scores (55-60) on most or all items and one parent with extremely low scores (1-20) on most or all items.
*Kinetic Family Drawings and apperceptive tests are incongruent with interview data
*Observation of parent/child relationship is incongruent with interview data
TREATMENT INTERVENTIONS
Each family must be understood on a case-by-case basis. First, it is essential that an evaluation be conducted by someone that is trained to not only understand alienation, but also with an understanding of child development (child psychologist, child psychiatrist or social worker with specific post graduate training in child development). Secondly, research indicates that mediation does not work in dealing with parental alienation cases.
In mild to moderate cases, the following are recommended:
1. Court ordered therapy with a therapist who understands alienation.
2. Education for parents and children.
3. Restricted or prohibited phone calls into the target parent’s home or even monitoring the calls.
4. Court order that gradually increases contact to “reduce malignancy” and move toward the healthier parent, especially for younger children (Hobbs, Johnson, Nunan and Stahl, 1998).
5. Therapy for the alienating parent. If the alienating parent is in therapy, it is often necessary to change therapists (usually to a highly directive therapist).
6. Appointment of a child representative in order to monitor compliance.
7. No confidentiality agreement between all parties.
In moderate to severe cases, the following are also recommended:
1. Longer, uninterrupted time for the target parent with the children.
2. Rigid parenting schedule, with specificity about when and where transfers occur, windows of time for pick-up and drop-off, who transports the children, holiday and vacation time, etc.
3. Prohibited phone calls into the targeting parent’s home.
4. Therapist for the child. In families with multiple children, it may be necessary to have separate therapists for each child, with the different therapists collaborating.
5. Encourage parallel parenting.
6. Appoint parenting coordinator to enforce compliance.
7. Consider change to 50/50 custody arrangement in severe cases.
8. Consider a change of custody in worst cases only. However, too often the enmeshed child will develop severe anxiety and/or disintegrate, even run away or attempt suicide. In addition, the alienating parent may disintegrate or attempt suicide, creating guilt for the child. Therefore, a change to a 50/50 custody arrangement is preferred.
9. Forced reunification (Darnell and Steinberg, 2001).
10. Spontaneous reunification (Darnell and Steinberg, 2001)
11. In the most hopeless cases, encourage parent to “give up for now,” but continue to write and/or E-mail children.
12. Court ordered supervised contact.
RECENT COURT CASES
1. Divelbliss—1999—in this case, the Appellate Court upheld the trial judge’s decision to modify residential custody because the child’s mother had been unwilling to “facilitate and encourage a close and continuing relationship” between the child and father and that the mother “repeatedly denied visitations.” The expert witness (a clinical psychologist) evaluated the parties on three separate occasions over a period of several years, finding evidence of parental alienation each time. The psychologist initially recommended extended visitation with the father, as well as counseling. After the third evaluation, a change in residential custody was recommended due to the continuing alienation. After considering the testimony of the expert witness, the trial court ordered a “modification of residential custody and ongoing therapy in an attempt to break the cycle of parental alienation” and to assist the child in her “self adjustment.”
2. Wiederholt v. Fischer—1992—in this case, the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s decision, which denied father’s request for a change of placement. The father’s expert testified that the children suffered from Parental Alienation Syndrome and that the only remedy was to place the children with the father. The expert also testified that there was limited research data to support a change of placement. The trial court also refused to order further counseling for the children or parents, but did order a rigid visitation schedule with accompanying inconveniences. The Court did find that the three children were alienated from their father, but found that the alienation was attributable to both parents.
REFERENCES
Darnell, Douglas and Steinberg, Barbara. Restoring Relationships between Alienated Children and their Parents, workshop presented at the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts conference, May 2001.
Gardner, Richard. The Parental Alienation Syndrome and the Differentiation between Fabricated and Genuine Child Sex Abuse. Creative Therapeutics, 1987.
Hobbs, Karen; Johnson, Randi Scalise; Nunan, Shary and Stahl, Phillip. Parental Alienation: Syndrome or Symptom? workshop presented at the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts conference, 1998.
Johnston, Janet and Roseby, Vivienne. In the Name of the Child. Free Press, 1997.
Johnston, Janet and Campbell, Linda. Impasses of Divorce: the Dynamics and Resolution of Family Conflict. Free Press, 1988.
Lund, Mary. A Therapists View of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Family and Conciliation Courts Review, 1995.
Lund, Mary. Mediation and Parental Alienation Syndrome. Family Law Newsletter, 1992.
Rand, Deirdre Conway. The Spectrum of Parental Alienation Syndrome (Part 1). American Journal of Forensic Psychology, Vol 15 (3).
Rand, Deirdre Conway. The Spectrum of Parental Alienation Syndrome (Part 2). American Journal of Forensic Psychology, Vol 15 (4).
Stahl, Phillip. Complex Issues in Child Custody Evaluations, Sage Publications, 1998