What Everyone Should Know About Parent Alienation: A Highly Recommended “Common Sense Approach” to its Alleviation.

Raymond Havlicek, PhD, ABPP, FAACP

1) Parents get divorced; children try to survive their parents’ divorce. Children of divorced parents needs for both parents remain the same, i.e., they continue to need the loving involvement of both parents. Children having two parents need continuing contact with both their parents within either an intact, functioning marriage or through agreed upon or ordered shared parenting in divorce.

2) Rejection of a parent by a child is almost always part of divorce. Some degree of alienation is present in 80 percent of divorces. Research shows when alienation occurs it is harmful to the emotional growth and appropriate development of children. Rejection of a parent is alienation when there are insubstantial reasons for the rejection in contrast to a prior pattern of appropriate interaction. Alienation as opposed to estrangement involves the programming of a child against the child's targeted parent. Estrangement involves the rejection of a parent for justifiable reasons. Given the life-long harm alienation brings, and its  tendency to get worse rather than better with time, parent alienation is child abuse.

As Chaim Steinberger, Esq. wrote in "Father, What Father? Parent Alienation and its Effects on Children," (Published by the Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, August, 2006 Volume XXII, Issue III): The full text of Chaim Steinberger, Esq. appears on my website: www.drhavlicek.com with the permission of Mr. Steinberger, Esq.

"There is no doubt that every child needs "frequent and regular" contact with both parents to develop in a psychologically healthy manner. A custodial parent is, therefore, obligated by law to ensure the continued relationship between the child and the non-custodial parent. The Appellate Division, Second Department, explained why frequent contact is needed between them: 

Only [with frequent contact] may a non-custodial parent provide his child with the guidance and counsel youngsters require in their formative years. Only then may he be an available source of comfort and solace in times of his child's need. Only then may he share in the joy of watching his offspring grow to maturity and adulthood... Indeed, so jealousy do the courts guard the relationship between a non-custodial parent and his child that any interference with it by the custodial parent has been said to be "an act so inconsistent with the best interests of the children as to, per se, raise a strong probability that the [offending party] is unfit to act as custodial parent."

... The decision to bear children, [moreover], entails serious obligations and among them is the duty to protect the child's relationship with both parents even in the event of a divorce. Hence, a custodial parent may be properly called upon to make certain sacrifices to ensure the right of the child to the benefits of visitation with the non-custodial parent. The search, therefore, is for a reasonable accommodation of the rights and needs of all concerned, with appropriate consideration given to the good faith of the parties in respecting each other's parental rights. 

Nevertheless, a twelve-year study commissioned by the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association of over 1,000 divorces found that "parental alienation," the programming of a child against the other parent, occurs regularly, sixty percent (60%) of the time, and sporadically another twenty percent."

3) Children cannot decide for themselves when they are caught in the middle of their parents’ conflicts.  In order to protect the emotional needs of children courts must act quickly to address a child’s loss of contact with a parent. Fortunately, our legal system is improving how it addresses the needs of children. Matrimonial and Family Courts are increasingly realizing the pivotal role they play, and in so doing avoid unwittingly fomenting chronic conflict via judicial inaction. Unending parent-alienation litigation drains scarce family resources that could otherwise be spent on treatment rather than attorneys’ fees. To make matters worse, when courts rely solely on the “in-camera” testimony of alienated children, some judges may decide to prevent parent-child co-parenting thus deepening the alienation. The financial and emotional stress on the alienated parent mounts until the alienated parent gives up.

4) Manipulation of a child by a parent is often subtle, and eventually becomes automatic in that the alienating parent no longer has to engage in alienating behavior or communications, since the child’s relationship with the targeted parent has already been disturbed, and the alienated child automatically recites the same rationale for avoiding the targeted parent. Unfortunately, without appropriate intervention targeted parents adopt increasingly damaging reactions to the alienation which contributes to the development of a self-fulfilling prophecy used by the alienated child to justify avoidance of the targeted parent.

5) Alienated children almost always say, “It’s my own decision and my mother (or father) doesn’t tell me what to think.” Alienating parents never acknowledge saying or doing anything, and instead insist that the alienated child reached their own conclusion about the targeted parent free of any parental influence. Alienating parents typically do not acknowledge that they are responsible for ensuring continuing contact with the targeted parent. It is frequently a matter of what the alienating parent does not do more so than the actual engaging in alienating behaviors and communication. As an example, an alienating parent may explain their child’s failure to keep an appointment for visitation on the basis of the child saying “I don’t feel like going.” The alienating parent may say "I was just following my child's wishes."

As Chaim Steinberger, Esq. also described in  "Father, What Father? Parent Alienation and its Effects on Children," (Published by the Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, August, 2006 Volume XXII, Issue III): The full text of Chaim Steinberger, Esq. appears on my website: www.drhavlicek.com with the permission of Mr. Steinberger, Esq.:

"They often view one parent as a "saint" and the other as a “sinner;" can often remember nothing good about their target parents; have an adversity to them that is disproportionate to their experiences with them; and are overly rigid in viewing their relationships to them. In addition, they often have distorted beliefs of reality, believing that their fathers do not love them and are fighting to see them merely to cause trouble for them and their mothers. They may also reject not only the target, but the target's extended family as well."

6) Courts have a responsibility to address and protect the needs of children who have been alienated, because (1) children cannot understand or control their parents’ mentally manipulating behavior during their formative years, or (2) control or limit the harm done to their relationship with the targeted parent as well as (3) control or limit the damage done to their psychological development.

7) Alienation is a failure in parenting, stemming from poor parent understandings about children’s emotional needs to be unconditionally loved, and to be prevented from being placed in the middle of their parents’ conflicts. Alienation frequently involves money conflicts, and/or revenge motivation. Alienating parents inappropriately, frequently discuss their one-sided opinions regarding their litigation struggles with their children. Vulnerable, less secure children are much more likely to be alienated, because they may unconsciously fear loss of the alienating parent's love and support. Targeted parents develop stress syndromes to the ongoing alienation dilemma, which may harm their capacity to respond appropriately to their children when they do interact. Targeted parents receive too little fair and balanced assistance from the judicial system, as they deplete their financial resources attempting to gain access to their child.

8) Adversarial law applied to alienated children frequently makes matters worse, because while attorneys argue in court over the evidentiary merits of an alienation claim, the alienation persists and deepens the more the court process interrupts or delays effectively dealing with an agreement or court order for visitation, and/or the proper implementation of a court mandated intervention. Legal due process is frequently destructive to alienated or pre-alienated children. Courts become part of the problem when they are not part of the solution. Judicial inaction is frequently looked at as vindication for the alienating parent.

9) Courts must be part of the solution by establishing a “common sense” approach that immediately establishes therapeutic contact to begin the process of re-bonding. Parents who violate court orders or agreements which provide for a parenting plan must be held responsible for the disruption they cause. The lack of civil penalties in many jurisdictions for alienating behavior enables and encourages alienating parents to continue alienating. While some jurisdictions permit targeted parents to withhold child support when alienation occurs, this is at best an inadequate solution because targeted parents do not want to injure their children, nor provide the alienating parent with more ammunition to use against them.  Penalties appropriate to the actions of the alienating parent must come from the judicial system.

10) Attorneys and judges frequently forestall the implementation of a therapeutic re-bonding process in order to provide time for the parties to present their arguments and evidentiary claims. This practice runs up huge legal bills and rewards and encourages the bad parenting behavior that led to the alienation in the first place. Parents should understand that not even the best court ordered neutral forensic evaluation can precisely determine what the exact contribution of each parent is to the most harmful breakdown in the family system, because the court appointed evaluator relies on what people say, not direct observation, to reach conclusions. Additionally, it is rare that only one parent contributes to the problem.  These circumstances are analogous to having a hearing regarding the merits of a potentially life saving medical intervention versus prayer while a child is bleeding to death. Families and children's needs would be better met if the problem of alienation was looked at as caused by, and exacerbated by and existing within dysfunctional court and family systems. To avoid the endless, damaging, and expensive conflict, which has all too often become the standard for what happens when a child becomes alienated, judges, attorneys and mental health experts should opt for a “common sense approach,” based upon the concept that parents’ separations should not lead to parent-child separations. Absent dangerous circumstances such as violence, substance abuse, neglect, and/or sexual abuse, a “common sense approach” that mandates immediate contact under the watchful eye of a trained and experienced psychologist would address the need of alienated children to have healing contact (i.e., positive exposure to the rejected parent), which if handled appropriately would eventually lead to the child being able to ultimately form his or her own views regarding the targeted parent, free of the sole influence of the alienating parent. Exposure to the targeted parent immediately addresses half the problem at very little expense by providing restoration of parent-child contact, which had previously been in place, and which was disrupted in the context of separation.  Exposure to the targeted parent may also provide for healing if the exposure therapy is implemented in a peaceful, mutually enjoyable manner. This “common sense approach” has the advantage of providing courts with a professional, neutral witness, who if necessary can be called upon to testify about improper parent behavior arising in the context of treatment, thus sidestepping the need for endless and expensive court battles over which parent did what to cause the problem. In many cases both parents contribute to the problem to a greater or lesser degree. An experienced psychologist can educationally assist parents improve their understanding of, and improve their meeting of their children’s needs through improved parenting. At all costs, the exposure process must not be focused upon conflict issues, and instead be provided in a soothing, pleasant perhaps even playful venue. When I provide the kind of treatment I am describing, I frequently suggest we have our meeting over dinner or during some pleasant experience such as during a hike. Where appropriate, psychologically supervised "parent alienation camps" could provide even more pleasant, desensitizing exposure treatment.

Traditional psychotherapeutic methods are useless in reversing alienation. As Chaim Steinberger, Esq. wrote in "Father, What Father? Parent Alienation and its Effects on Children," (Published by the Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, August, 2006 Volume XXII, Issue III): The full text of Chaim Steinberger, Esq. appears on my website: www.drhavlicek.com with the permission of Mr. Steinberger, Esq.

"Traditional or "regular" therapy unfortunately is generally ineffective to treat parental alienation.  Moreover traditional therapy may aggravate the alienation and its attending harms. This type of therapy is usually designed to help people "get in touch" with their feelings. It does not generally deal with, and is therefore ineffective to counteract, the social interaction issues and programming messages inculcated in alienated children.

Alienated children suffer from distorted perceptions and images of their targeted parent. These distortions cause them to feel hatred and animosity towards the target. Their hatred and animosity, though unfounded, are genuinely held. As a result, exploring their feelings will likely not dissipate the hatred and animosity and, more likely, will only amplify and exacerbate them. It is only by identifying, unraveling and then finally challenging the distortions and beliefs that underlie their feelings that the children can begin to open their hearts and minds to the possibility of a relationship with the target. Requiring them to spend large quantities of time with the parent then enables them to see him as the caring, loving parent he often is. 

Unfortunately, alienated children and the parent with whom they are "aligned" will resist every such effort to have the children spend time with the target. They will likely view any intrusion on their belief system as evidence that others are out to harm them. The alienating parent will usually marshal all of her resources to prevent the children from spending this much needed time with the target parent. By arranging activities and other events, all of which are "more important" than spending time with the target, the alienating parent prevents any rapprochement. 

As time marches on with little or no contact between the children and the target, and as the inexorable litigation continues through its mediation, negotiation, psychological evaluations, and ensuing therapy phases, the alienating parent and child perceive it as covert approval of their programme, further entrenching their position against the target. With this passage of time, the child grows to be a staunch corroborator” of the alienating parent's programme."

11) Parents who violate the terms of a parenting plan or the process of exposure therapy must be held responsible for their interfering behavior by the court system. To forestall the development of alienation, as well as the downward cycle so typical of chronic alienation cases mishandled by a dysfunctional judicial system, parents and attorneys should come to expect that rejection of a parent will not be tolerated by the system, and will be immediately reinstated unless there is some compelling issue such as violence, substance abuse, neglect and/or sexual abuse. Courts must be prepared to penalize offending parents, by at a minimum mandating that they pay a greater share for the treatment their therapeutic interference causes. The financial burden must be lifted from the targeted parent, and at least shared equally at the inception of treatment and shifted towards the parent that undermines the process; and at a maximum transferring custody to the targeted parent, when exposure therapy is deemed ineffective.

As Chaim Steinberger, Esq. points out in "Father, What Father? Parent Alienation and its Effects on Children," (Published by the Appellate Divisions of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, August, 2006 Volume XXII, Issue III), studies have shown that interventions that do not provide for a change in custody typically fail while those interventions that transfer custody almost always reverse the alienation. Even if a change in custody does not always work, it should be seriously considered when exposure treatment fails.

12) Children who engage in “acting-out” against an appropriately participating targeted parent within the treatment-exposure process are engaging in “reflexive” or “programmed behavior.” Programmed behavior is different from expressions of memories and emotions children may engage in. Expression of feelings and memories can lead to discussion, insight, understanding and forgiveness. Acting-out, “reflexive,” "programmed" behavior may develop to punish the targeted parent for forcing the exposure process by attempting to promote a judicial decision that the process is inhumane, with the hope that the acting-out behavior may be used to sabotage the process. “Deprogramming” is the confrontation of and reframing of “reflexive,” “programmed” behavior, with the goal in mind of gradually alleviating the child of their unfounded misconceptions.

13) Unless there are extenuating circumstances, the exposure therapy must when appropriate expand contacts to provide greater parent-child visitation in various environments, and with gradually less direct psychologist supervision. Parents should understand that the exposure therapy process should last indefinitely, though with fewer directly supervised professional contacts as circumstances permit. This approach would if implemented reduce alienating parents’ motivation to undermine the process. Additionally, parents should understand that the court appointed treating psychologist should remain on their case indefinitely despite the well known frequent efforts of alienating parents to have the psychologist removed. This would lessen the motivation for alienating parents to engage in undermining efforts, and decrease alienated children’s inclination to attempt to sabotage the process or re-bonding. The alienated or pre-alienated child would come to realize early on that contacts will occur. Early intervention is extremely important, because short-term alienation is much more easily reversed.

14) Court appointed psychologists providing exposure therapy treatment should receive training and continuing education regarding the effective and appropriate management of exposure therapy with alienated children and their parents.

15) Judges should be required to take continuing education courses on parent alienation and its appropriate management, since the judicial system is such a vital part of the solution. State legislatures should if necessary enact legislation to ensure that parent-child therapeutic contacts will be immediately established when alienation occurs.