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Parental Alienation (PA) is a term used to describe the refusal of a child or adolescent to engage with one parent due to the intentional or unintentional negative influence and/or manipulation of the other parent, often in the context of a high-conflict relationship breakdown, separation, or divorce. The short- and long-term negative impacts of PA on children and adolescents — who are already stressed, saddened, and confused by the myriad disruptions and breakdown of their family unit — can be devastating.
Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) was introduced in the 1980s by American child psychiatrist Dr. Richard A. Gardner. He asserted that “children who suffered from parental alienation syndrome had been indoctrinated by a vindictive parent and obsessively denigrated the other parent without cause.” While widely recognized, PA remains a controversial concept, with numerous critics raising concerns about its validity, and concerns related to false claims of parental alienating behaviors, and its potential use by abusive parents in legal proceedings.
A silent epidemic
In A Silent Epidemic, a 2022 article in the Psychiatric Times, authors Alan B. Blotcky, PhD, and William Bennet, MD, place PA “on par with physical and sexual abuse,” and share 2019 research findings that indicate that “an estimated 10 million adults have experienced severe alienation from their children.” More recent UK research concluded Parental Alienating Behaviors (PABs) as a significant public health emergency, with parents experiencing high levels of PAB reporting troubling symptoms, including depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation.
Troubling signs, signals, and behaviors
The 2022 Five-Factor Model for the Diagnosis of Parental Alienation identifies five key components of parental alienation, including a child’s avoidance and rejection of one parent, a prior history of a positive and loving relationship, and absence of abuse and neglect, a child’s exposure to alienating behaviors of the favored parent, and the presence of behaviors signifying the presence of alienating behaviors, including lack of remorse for disrespectful treatment of the rejected parent, ungrounded and weak reasons for rejecting a parent, the perception of the rejected parent as bad, and the favored parent as good, and the rejection of the rejected parent’s extended family.
Understanding triangulation
Triangulation in relationships happens when one or both parties in conflict engages a third party as a mean to an end. In the case of children caught in the throes of the upheaval of their parents’ high-conflict separation or divorce, they often, according to recent research, feel pressured to take sides, or provide emotional support to a parent. When a parent engages in parental alienating behaviors, the impacts can be devastating and long-lasting.
Devastating impacts for children and adolescents
The short- and long-term consequences of exposure to alienating behaviors for children in high-conflict separation and divorce can be serious and life-long. In the short term, children and adolescents experience anger, confusion, guilt, and sadness. These experiences lead to anxiety, depression, and social isolation. Longer-term consequences include self-esteem issues, anxiety, depression, substance use, increased suicidality, academic struggles, and a greater risk of repeating patterns of alienation, and losing contact with their own children later in life.
In a recently published study involving extended interviews with 20 adults who experienced parental alienation as children, participants reported mental health difficulties, including eating disorders, depression and anxiety, personality disorders, PTSD, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. They also reported addiction and substance use, mistrust, avoidance, and anger against the alienating parent.
Toward a better break-up
For couples in the throes of a high-conflict break-up, these impacts present a compelling case for finding a kinder, more compassionate, caring, and strategic way forward that recognizes and minimizes both the short- and long-term hurt and harm to all family members.
Here are six strategies to help couples navigate a high-conflict separation or divorce and avoid dynamics that set the stage for parental alienation:
• Pause, reflect, and acknowledge the challenging dynamics of your situation. Doing so will build and strengthen your awareness … and awareness is always the first step toward making positive changes and course-correcting.
• Realize the possible negative impacts of escalating conflicts — especially the hurt and harm to your child or children.
• Set an intention to behave impeccably. Behaving impeccably is about minimizing harm and avoiding years of regret from harmful or hurtful behaviors, actions, and choices.
• Remember that behaving impeccably includes treating everyone with kindness, compassion, and respect. Remember that your actions speak louder than your words, and that your children are watching how you treat others, and model compassion in difficult moments.
• Prioritize supporting and staying connected to your children through the process of separating and rebuilding your lives.
• Choose your legal representation and mediation specialists wisely, and communicate your concerns, priorities, and goals for a peaceful and mutually respectful resolution.
• Bring in mental health supports for all family members to help deal with grief, anger, sadness, and change, and move forward in positivity.
