History of Parental Alienation, with Historical Examples

The valid clinical construct of parental alienation was not simply fabricated out of then air. There are examples in history.

The history of parental alienation in the United States is also related in part to the evolution of US Custody practices and customs.

Here is a worldwide timeline:

    1. BC: In the Bible, when 2 parents came to Solomon to claim that they were the real parent, Solomon offered to cut the baby in half, but the authentic mother said no. It became clear that one "parent" did not have the child's best interest at heart (and was willing for the child to die). If it took the wisdom of Solomon to find which parent really had the best interest of the child at heart (the authentic parent), there is reason to believe that in our present age, this can be tough (because parental alienation is counter intuitive). In Parental Alienation one parent is claiming to "protect the child", but they are actually be using the child for their own needs.

    2. BC: Trauma reenactment: PTSD may appear in the Book of Job, and Greek Historian Herotodus probably alluded to it. Homer appears to have mentioned it. For sure it shows up in Shakespeare's King Henry the IV. MacBeth has famous scenes of trauma reenactment ("out spot").

    3. 1606: First performance of Shakespeare's MacBeth, featuring trauma reenactment ("out spot").

    4. 1600s: Queen Mary of the Scots appears to have been alienated from her son James. Her child James was taken away at a young age and did not ever see his mother. Even when Queen Elizabeth had queen Mary unfairly beheaded, James did not care very much, a sign of a plugged up attachment system. Besides missing contact with her, he incorrectly believed that she was a guilty of murder and adultery http://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-queen-of-Scotland http://www.britannica.com/biography/James-I-king-of-England-and-Scotland

    5. This reference by Lorandos describes early court cases, including:

      • 1804 King v De Manville

      • 1817 Shelley v Westbrook

      • 1826 Earl of Westmeath v Countess of Westmeath, which is documented more fully here

      • 1844 Barry

    6. 1850 Charlies Dickens is said to have alienated his children "When Dickens’s last child, youngest of a large brood, was six years old, Dickens, who’d fallen in love with the actress Ellen Ternan, expelled his wife Catherine from his life, and demanded that his children do the same. He justified his brutality against his wife with claims that Catherine was an unloving mother – not true – and that the children did not love her – a much more pernicious lie."

    7. 1862: Victor Hugo had parents who were divided over political loyalty, and Victor was triangulated into this conflict. It is therefore fitting that when he wrote Les Miserable (a book about human misery), there is a large section about parental alienation, where Marius' grandfather alienates him from his father, or as Sparknotes puts it "Marius Pontmercy is a young man who lives with his wealthy grandfather, M. Gillenormand. Because of political differences within the family, Marius has never met his father, Georges Pontmercy. After his father dies, however, Marius learns more about him and comes to admire his father’s democratic politics. Angry with his grandfather, Marius moves out of Gillenormand’s house and lives as a poor young law student". Said another way "due to a political divide, grandfather tells father he must give up son if son is to inherit wealth. Then grandfather ridicules father to son; son despises father. Father affectionately goes to mass every week and to secretly lay eyes on son. Son only learns of this after Father’s death. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Victor-Hugo http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lesmis/summary.html

    8. In the early 1900s, according to Linda Gottlieb, "US custody law began changing from custody to father, to the tender years doctrine, to the best interests of the child." "Prior to that ,subsequent to the founding of this country, children as well as their mothers were considered to be the property of the father/husband, and children were automatically awarded to the father in divorce situations." See 2018 below, where the Tender Years doctrine was found to conflict with science.

  1. 1904: A mother alleges the father had alienated the child against her claiming he had: (1) "inoculated him with hatred" (New York Times); (2) "prejudiced him against her" (New York Tribune), and (3) "poisoned her child's mind against her" (New York Tribune).

    1. 1914: Because parental alienation requires a deep understanding of multiple area of psychology, including family systems, personality disorders, and attachment systems, it is fitting that Albert Einstein may have been the first person to use the word "alieanated" (translated from German) in private letters stating that his vindictive ex was alienating his son from him:

  2. 1923: Ethel Montgomery Crum case. A newspaper cited court testimony of one parent telling the other parent "I am going to teach Terry to hate every drop of blood in your body".

  3. 1927: Sparks case. A newspaper states that the child said "You are not my mama."

    1. 1935: Motion picture "O' Shaughnessy's Boy", about parental alienation.

    2. 1940s: An asthma doctor, Dr. Peshkin, discovered that some of his most severe asthma patients improved markedly when their (overbearing) parents were removed from the equation. [Peshkin]

    3. Willhelm Reich (1945) wrote that many divorced parents defend themselves against what he called narcissistic injury by fighting for custody of their children. He found that parents who experienced narcissistic injury often defamed each other and did so in front of the children. Reich, W. (1945, 2006). Charakter alyse [Charter Anslysis] [German] (8th ed.). Cologne, Germany: Kiepenheuer & Witsch. MO. He wrote "The true motive is revenge on the partner through robbing him or her of the pleasure in the child" [p. 265]. "The lack of any consideration of the child is expressed in the fact that the child's love for the other partner is not taken into account" [p. 265]. See "Character analysis," New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

    4. 1974: Minuchin wrote: "The parents were divorced six months earlier and the father is now living alone… Two of the children who were very attached to their father, now refuse any contact with him. The younger children visit their father but express great unhappiness with the situation" (1974, see p. 101), from Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and family therapy. Harvard University Press. From p. 61-62, 101, 102

  1. 1950: Ethel Martin. Child screams at parent "go away" in court. Judge admonishes a grandparent for "brutally poisoning the mind" of a child.

by Howie Dennison