Family Members' Narratives of Divorce and Interparental Conflict: Implications for Parental Alienation

Abstract

This study focused on the internal dynamics of family members who experience divorce and interparental conflict. Interparental conflict and triangulating children increase the likelihood of alienating children from a parent. Narrative interviews with members of three families were used to explore meaning structures. Results showed how parents and children thought, felt, and created meaning about their experiences; how family members responded to conflict and behaviors associated with parental alienation; and how they viewed family relationships. Metalevel findings suggested each family member held dichotomous views and used cognitive and behavioral control response strategies. Thus, parental alienation stems from a relational dynamic and needs to be addressed from a family systems perspective.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 14 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.