Welcome and Key Points about Parental Alienation

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Judge Judy calls out false allegations and that children deserve to see both parents.

How to Alienate a Child in Three Five Six Easy Examples: 1.) Parental Alienation Caught on Camera: an erasing parent "supervises" a conversation between child and soon to be erased parent. Click here to see this picture. Question: is that child getting the message that a relationship with the other parent is not encouraged? Question: is that child going to feel comfortable relating to the soon to be erased parent? Does the erasing parent somehow feel that the other parent is somehow unsafe, unloving, or unavailable, and is the erasing parent communicating that to the child? Will the child feel tremendous pressure just to block the other parent out of his/her life? 2.) Parental Alienation Caught on Audio Tape: listen to the mp3 or wma recording, where an alienator records a session with his child where he manipulates a child into saying she does not like her mother, then submits the tape into testimony, evidently not realizing that it is a textbook example of how to alienate a child. 3.) Parental alienation Caught on Video Camera: see the youtube video above (currently the first one) or click here.  4.) You can also read some more theoretical information about the beginnings of parental alienation. 5.) Here is another example of an alienator in action, on an accidental voice mail.  6.) Expert Bill Eddy of the High Conflict Institute has a brilliant and uncanny explanation of how it happens by using a hypothetical example of turning a child against a dentist, in his "dental alienation" story.  It is remarkably accurate.

Also view the entire 2017 and 2018 Parental Alienation Study Group conferences and second  here on youtube

Overview and Introduction

People who are in a position to see parental alienation most often know it is real.  In a survey at the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts in 2010, 98% of 300 respondents agreed with the question “Do you think that some children are manipulated by one parent to irrationally and unjustifiably reject the other parent.”   [Lorandos, D., W. Benet and S.R. Sauber (2013). Overview of Parental Alienation. In Lorandos, D., W. Bernet and S.R. Sauber (2013) Parental alienation. The Handbook for Mental Health and Legal Professionals. Charles C Thomas, Springfield.]

Parental alienation can be defined it as “undermining and interfering with the normal child parent bond.” [paawareness.org]  “Parental alienation is the term used to describe a family dynamic in which on parent (referred to as the alienating or favored parent) engages in behaviors (referred to as alienation strategies) to foster a child’s unjustified rejection of and disaffection for the other parent (referred to as the rejected or targeted parent”  [Baker, Amy, Surviving Parental Alienation]

Through alienation strategies, such as denigration of the other parent and limiting a child’s contact with the other parent, a targeting parent is able to make a child feel rejected by the targeted parent, causing the child to treat the targeted parent with behavior normally reserved for one’s worst enemy.   Counter-intuitively, the child aligns with the parent that does not have their best interest in mind.  “Parental behaviors that seem particularly ripe for exploitation by the other parent have to do with money, remarriage, and moving out of the family home.” [Amy Baker, “Co-parenting with a toxic ex”]

When a social worker or counselor or neighbor hears a litany of complaints from one parent that appear to be confirmed exactly by each of the children involved, it is natural to assume that they are telling the truth, unless a detailed and disciplined investigation is conducted.   [Amy Baker, “Working with Alienated Children and Families: A Clinical Guidebook”.]   An incorrect assessment only serves to reinforce the misunderstanding of the exploited child.

Alienated children can suffer from depression, lack of trust, anger, and self-hatred, and substance abuse. [Amy Baker, “Adult Survivors of Parental Alienation”]

Targeted parents may be baffled and ashamed, while targeting parents may be angry or jealous and may suffer from a personality disorder.

However, all children deserve to be loved by both parents and to be able to love them in return.

Saramento Family Court News Description, April 18, 2014: Parental alienation is a social dynamic where one parent sabotages the relationship of the other parent with the child - sometimes euphemistically called 'aggressive parenting'  This happens physically by boycotting or "hijacking" any contact between them, but also psychologically by bullying the other parent away and by brainwashing the child. This will lead up to a situation where ultimately the child itself expresses unjustified hatred or unreasonably strong dislike of one parent, making access by the rejected parent even more difficult or impossible The alienating parent can now hide very well that he/she was solely responsible for this destruction of the relationship with the other parent, and the crime is complete: the child has lost a parent and grandparents.

Huffington Post, 5/26/2015 by Traci Slatton, "The child basically constructs an alternate reality where the parent is some kind of monster. There’s no longer any sense of the parent as a human being with the ordinary nuances of the gray scale, or as a good-enough parent; the parent’s actions and statements are twisted, distorted, and massaged to “prove” that the parent is unworthy of contact."

Psychology Today Blog, 5/2/2013 by Edward Kruk, "As Amy Baker writes, parents who try to alienate their child from the other parent subtlely or overtly convey a three-part message to the child: I am the only parent who loves you and you need me to feel good about yourself; the other parent is dangerous and unavailable; and pursuing a relationship with the other parent jeopardizes your relationship with me."

Judge Lisa O. Gorcya, 7/2015 "Any lawyer, judge, mental health professional, or case worker who has ANY involvement in the family court is aware that one of the most devastating issues we face is that of Parental Alienation" .... and speaking to an alienated child "I’ve never seen anything like this. One day you can watch this video and realize that you two have been brainwashed. Your dad is a good man. Your dad is a good man who loves you. You have been brainwashed. This is not normal behavior. Only—no adult in this courtroom, except one, thinks this is normal. Every single adult in this courtroom thinks you have been brainwashed. Your dad is a good man. And wipe that smirk off your face.”

Texas Supreme Court Justice Debra Lerhmann, chair of the American Bar Association's family law section, said in Oct 2010 ....  "Anyone who's in this business knows there are situations where that [parental alienation] in fact is happening ... " she said.

"Over Loving" a Child 7/2015 To try to explain parental alienation and why an alienator would harm a child, some have proposed an analogy of "over loving" a child. It would be like the alienator hugging a child too hard and harming them ([Ryan Thomas]). To extend the over love metaphor, it would be for the alienator to love a child so much that they failed to recognize that the child was a separate person, with separate needs to connect with their other parent.  To "over love" them would be to hyper protect them from every nuance of every minor, exaggerated, and mostly imagined slight. These imagined slights include the alienator's own weaknesses, projected over to the other parent. All rules of "fair play" are ignored by the alienator out of a belief that they are right so rules do not apply.

Workshop on Parental Alienation This is a 100 page slide deck from a workshop on parental alienation

Dr Childress explains that, in brief, under the pressures and self doubts caused by a divorce, a parent with unresolved childhood family relationship trauma that left them acutely vulnerable to fears of inadequacy or abandonment can have these fears re-triggered by the divorce.

To survive their crushing emotions, the alienating parents uses 3 psychological defense mechanisms:

1.) delusion: the alienating parent creates a self delusion that the other parent is worthy of rejection and abandonment

2.) splitting: thinking their ex to be all bad

3.) projection: imagining that every personal negative feeling is a thing done by their ex.  For example, my feelings of abandonment are really my ex's feelings of actually being abandoned.

They can say to themselves, "See, I am not the abandoned, unworthy parent.  My ex is".

To support their self delusion, they manipulate their child to reject/abandon the other parent, thus triangulating them into the marital conflict. Once the child claims (false) victim hood status, most people and most therapists naively make the mistake of piling on against the rejected parent, therefore validating the delusion of the alienating parent, which spreads to the child

Said in another way, as excerpted from Foundations: "At its foundational core, parental alienation represents the reenactment of a false drama of abuse and victimization from the childhood of a narcissistic/borderline parent that is embedded in the internal working models of the "alienating" parent's attachment networks.  This false drama of a the reenactment narrative is created by the the psychopathology of a narcissistic/borderline parent in response to the psychological stress of the divorce and the reactivation of attachment trauma networks as a consequence of the divorce experience. In truth, there is no victimized child, there is no abusive parent, and there is no protective parent.  It is a false drama, an echo of a childhood trauma from long ago"

Click  here for many more details from Dr Childress

Here is an important excerpt from pages 17-22 Of Dr Childress' “An Attachment-Based Model of Parental Alienation"

Theoretical Overview

          The psychological processes involved in attachment-based “parental alienation” are complex, but they become increasingly self-evident with familiarity.  The primary reason for the initial apparent complexity of the dynamics is that they involve the psychological expressions within family relationship patterns of a narcissistic/(borderline) personality structure that has its origins in early attachment trauma from the childhood of the parent which is influencing, and in fact driving, the patterns of relationship interactions currently being expressed within the family.  The inner psychological processes of the narcissistic/(borderline) mind are inherently complex and swirling, and linking these distorted personality processes into the functioning of the underlying attachment system adds another level of complexity.  However, the nature of the pathology is stable across cases of “parental alienation,” so that this consistency in the pathology provides ever increasing clarity of understanding from increasing familiarity for the concepts.

            Fully understanding these seemingly complex psychological and family factors requires an integrated recognition of the psychological and interpersonal dynamics across three interrelated levels of clinical analysis, 1) the family systems level, 2) the personality disorder level, and 3) the attachment system level.  Each of these levels individually provides a coherent explanatory model for the dynamics being expressed in “parental alienation,” and yet each individual level is also an interconnected expression of the pathology contained at the other two levels of analysis as well, so that a complete recognition of the psychopathology being expressed as “parental alienation” requires a conceptual understanding of the process across all three distinctly different, yet interconnected, levels of analysis.

          The family systems processes involve the family’s inability to successfully transition from an intact family structure that is united by the marital relationship to a separated family structure that is united by the continuing parental roles with the child.  The difficulty in the family’s ability to transition from an intact family structure to a separated family structure is manifesting in the child’s triangulation into the spousal conflict through the formation of a cross-generational coalition with one parent (the allied and supposedly favored parent) against the other parent (the targeted-rejected parent).  These principles are standard and established family systems constructs that are extensively discussed and described by preeminent family systems theorists, such as Salvador Minuchin and Jay Haley.

          The problems occurring at the family systems level of analysis have their origin in the narcissistic/(borderline) personality dynamics of the allied and supposedly favored parent.  The personality pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent is creating a distorted emotional and psychological response in this parent to the psychological stresses associated with the interpersonal rejection and perceived abandonment surrounding the divorce.  The inherent interpersonal rejection associated with divorce triggers specific psychological vulnerabilities for the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, who then responds in characteristic but pathological ways that adversely influence the child’s relationship with the other parent.

            The characteristic psychopathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent draws the child into a role-reversal relationship with the parent in which the child is used by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent as an external “regulatory object” to help the narcissistic/(borderline) parent regulate three separate but interrelated sources of intense anxiety that were triggered by the divorce,

• • Narcissistic Anxiety: The threatened collapse of the parent’s narcissistic defenses against an experience of core-self inadequacy that is being activated by the interpersonal rejection associated with the divorce;

  • Borderline Anxiety: The triggering of severe abandonment fears as a result of the divorce and dissolution of the intact family structure;

  • Trauma Anxiety: The activation and re-experiencing of excessive anxiety embedded in attachment trauma networks from the childhood of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent that become active when the attachment system of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent activates in order to mediate the loss experience associated with the divorce.

            At the core level of the psychological and family dynamics that are traditionally described as “parental alienation” is the attachment trauma of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent that is being triggered and then reenacted in current family relationships.  It is this childhood attachment trauma of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent that is responsible for creating the narcissistic and borderline pathology of this personality.  The childhood attachment trauma experienced by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent subsequently coalesced during this parent’s adolescence and young adulthood into the narcissistic and borderline personality structures that are driving the distorted relationship dynamics associated with the “parental alienation.”  The childhood attachment trauma (i.e., a disorganized attachment) creates the narcissistic and borderline personality structures that then distort the family’s transition from an intact family structure to a separated family structure.

            At the foundational core for triggering this integrated psychological and interpersonal dynamic is the reactivation by the divorce of attachment trauma networks from the childhood of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent that are contained within the internal working models of this parent’s attachment system.  The representational schemas for this childhood attachment trauma are in the pattern of “victimized child”/“abusive parent”/“protective parent,” and it is this trauma pattern from the childhood of the “alienating” narcissistic/(borderline) parent that is being reenacted in the current family relationships.

          The childhood trauma patterns for role-relationships contained within the internal working models of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent’s attachment system are being reenacted in current family relationships.  The current child is adopting the trauma reenactment role as the “victimized child.” The child’s role as the “victimized child” then imposes the reenactment role of the “abusive parent” onto the targeted parent, and the coveted role in the trauma reenactment narrative of the all-wonderful “protective parent” is being adopted and conspicuously displayed by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent to the “bystanders” in the trauma reenactment.  The “bystanders” in the trauma reenactment are represented by the various therapists, parenting coordinators, custody evaluators, attorneys, and judges.  Their role in the trauma reenactment is to endorse the “authenticity” of the reenactment narrative.  These “bystanders” also serve the function of providing the narcissistic/(borderline) parent with the “narcissistic supply” of social approval for the presentation by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent as being the idealized and all-wonderful “protective parent.”

          At its foundational core, “parental alienation” represents the reenactment of a false drama of abuse and victimization from the childhood of a narcissistic/(borderline) parent that is embedded in the internal working models of the “alienating” parent’s attachment networks.  This false drama of the reenactment narrative is created by the psychopathology of a narcissistic/(borderline) parent in response to the psychological stresses of the divorce and the reactivation of attachment trauma networks as a consequence of the divorce experience.  In actual truth, there is no victimized child, there is no abusive parent, and there is no protective parent.  It is a false drama, an echo of a childhood trauma from long ago, brought into the present by the pathological consequences of the childhood trauma in creating the distorting narcissistic/(borderline) personality structures of the alienating parent.

          The child, for his or her part, is caught within this reenactment narrative by the distorting psychopathology and invalidating communications of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent that nullify the child’s own authentic self-experience in favor of the child becoming a narcissistic reflection for the parent.  Under the distorting pathogenic influence of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the child is led into misinterpreting the child’s authentic grief and sadness at the loss of the intact family, and later at the loss of an affectionately bonded relationship with the targeted parent, as representing something “bad” that the targeted parent must be doing to create the child’s hurt (i.e., the child’s grief and sadness).  The (influenced) misinterpretation by the child for an authentic experience of grief and loss is then further inflamed by distorted communications from the narcissistic/(borderline) that transform the child’s authentic sadness into an experience of anger and resentment toward the targeted parent who (supposedly) caused the divorce and who (supposedly) is causing the child’s continuing emotional pain (i.e., the child’s misunderstood and misinterpreted feelings of grief and sadness).

          Through a process of distorted parental communications by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the child is led into adopting the “victimized child” role within the trauma reenactment narrative.  Once the child adopts the “victimized child” role within the trauma reenactment narrative, this “victimized child” role automatically imposes upon the targeted parent the role as the “abusive parent,” and then the combined role definitions of the “abusive parent” and “victimized child” that are created the moment the child adopts the “victimized child” role allows the narcissistic/(borderline) parent to adopt the coveted trauma reenactment role as the all-wonderful nurturing and “protective parent,” which will then be so conspicuously displayed to the “bystanders” for their validation and “narcissistic supply.”

          The description of an attachment-based model for the construct of “parental alienation” will uncover the layers of pathology, beginning with the surface level of the family systems dynamics involving the family’s difficulty in making the transition from an intact family structure to a separated family structure.  The description will then move into the personality disorder level to describe how the pathological characteristics of the narcissistic/(borderline) personality structures become expressed in the family relationship dynamics, particularly surrounding the formation of the role-reversal relationship of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent with the child in which the child is used (exploited) as a “regulatory other” for the psychopathology and anxiety regulation of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  Finally, the origins of the “parental alienation” process in the attachment trauma networks of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent will be examined, with a particular focus on the induced suppression of the child’s attachment bonding motivations and the formation and expression of the trauma reenactment narrative.

          Following this discussion of the theoretical foundations for an attachment-based model of “parental alienation,” a broad overview of the diagnostic considerations emanating from an attachment-based model of “parental alienation” will be discussed, and three definitive diagnostic indicators for identifying attachment-based “parental alienation” will be described.  A descriptive framework for a model of “reunification therapy” will also be presented which will be based on the theoretical underpinnings for an attachment-based model of the “parental alienation.”  Finally, a discussion of the domains of knowledge necessary for professional competence in diagnosing and treating this special population of children and families will be identified.

News Release about Dr. Childress

NEWS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 8/24/2015

For more information contact:

Howie Dennison, Advocate for Children

Central Ohio Parental Alienation

howie.dennison@gmail.com

Breakthrough in Fighting Child Abuse

8/24/2015, Columbus, OH - Dr. Craig Childress of Pasadena, CA, has made a scientific breakthrough that will help countless children worldwide who have been subjected to psychologically distorted parenting, according to Howie Dennison, an advocate for children at the Central Ohio Parental Alienation.  Dr. Childress' theoretical model explains what happens to these children and how to help them.

Dr. Childress, a clinical psychologist, explained to Howie Dennison that, in simplified terms, some parents are so afraid to face their buried fears of being unlovable and unwanted, that when they face significant rejection during a divorce or breakup, they retreat into a fantasy world. In that fantasy world, they imagine that their ex partner is the unlovable and unwanted person, an abusive parent, and a fundamentally bad person. To build their fantasy, they coerce their children to reject their other parent by bringing them into the adult relational conflict through triangulation. To complete their fantasy, they then assume the coveted role of being an “all wonderful” parent who is ostensibly trying to protect their children from their “abusive” former partner. The “wonderful” parent then uses their children to satisfy their own emotional needs.

Dr. Childress has made it easy for professionals to identify when a child is a victim of this type of psychological abuse, because the child will show a unique behavior pattern: 1.) a rather sudden, unwarranted lack of attachment (feelings of love and affection) for the “rejected” parent 2.) feelings of being superior to the “rejected” parent which appear as arrogance, entitlement, a lack of empathy, and splitting (black and white thinking that one parent is all bad and the other parent is all good)  3.) a fixed but false belief that the “rejected” parent is inadequate.

In the language of standard psychology, a parent suffering from a narcissistic or borderline personality disorder can, under unrelenting stress or pressure, decompensate into a persecutory delusional state. These parents then expel their feelings of inadequacy or abandonment onto their former partner by using the defense mechanisms of projection and splitting. Through triangulation, psychological enmeshment with their children, and the formation of a cross generational alliance with their children, they influence their children to share their delusion. These parents then use their children as a narcissistic supply (or regulatory-other), creating a role reversal relationship that shows a lack empathy for their children’s own developmental needs.

Dr. Childress calls this pathogenic parenting or an attachment model of “parental alienation.” His theoretical formulation avoids controversy because it uses only accepted psychology about attachment, family systems, and personality disorders.

This fundamental advance in understanding will help abused children worldwide.

The overwhelming certainty of parental alienation

According to an APA Peer Reviewed Journal:       In a 2010 survey of professionals, 98% of the 300 respondents agreed with the question, "Do you think some children are manipulated by one parent to irrationally and unjustifiable reject the other parent?

To Do Nothing is to participate in the continued abuse of children

"Dr. Baker defined an "alienated child" as one who unjustifiably rejects one parent (the 'disfavoured parent') and is aligned with the other parent (the 'favoured parent')," Blok wrote. "This is distinct from the "realistic estrangement" of a child, who has rejected a parent but has done so for an objectively good reason." In her report, Baker described parental alienation as "a form of emotional abuse. To do nothing is to participate in the continued abuse of children."

Here is how one psychiatrist described it, without jargon: "False accusations of hostility, divisiveness and hatred occur not infrequently in marriages with high levels of conflict and with impending separation or divorce. When of an extremely severe nature, such anger can lead to demonizing a spouse in an effort to undermine the trust of the children in that spouse and to obtain their loyalty instead. This pathological behavior is referred to as parental alienation and is clearly psychologically damaging to Catholic youth, spouses and families. Spouses who make false accusations against a husband or wife frequently have serious lifelong psychological conflicts often with excessive anger, a compulsive need to control and intense selfishness with an inflated sense of self. The goal of the accusations is primarily to control the spouse and children, as well as to gain custody of the children through divorce litigation. The origins of these actions are often from unconsciously modeling their presence in a parent or from giving into the pull of selfishness in the culture."

Convicted felons can see their children but erased parents often cannot.  See the research.

By Howie Dennison