Bringing Sense to Parental Alienation: A Look at the Disputes and the Evidence

Abstract

A growing number of child custody decisions refer to children who irrationally reject one parent as a result primarily of the negative influence of the other parent. Critics of such decisions form a continuum. The most critical are those who deny the possibility that any child could develop an irrational alienation from a parent. Next are those who acknowledge the existence of irrational alienation but doubt that it is abnormal, and those who believe that alignment with one parent against the other parent is an unfortunate but natural by-product of divorce or a developmentally expected reaction. Further along the continuum are those who believe that irrational alienation exists but is never a product mainly of the favored parent's influence, and those who agree that some parents succeed in undermining their children's relationship with the other parent but object to specific terms that courts and mental health professionals have used to designate the phenomenon, such as brainwashing, parental alienation syndrome (PAS), and parental alienation. At the least critical end of the continuum are those who disagree only about how courts should respond to children's irrational alienation. This article draws on a wide body of scientific literature to examine disputes about the existence, conceptualization, and treatment of parental alienation. The intent is to illuminate the nature of the major disputes and to provide information to assist attorneys and judges in evaluating the utility of alternative perspectives.

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