Parental Alienation

Members of Families Need Fathers can view our factsheet on Parental Alienation here.

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Parental Alienation (PA) refers to a situation in which a resident parent (usually but not exclusively) turns their child against the non-resident parent, intentionally or unintentionally, resulting in the child’s supposed desire to reject all contact with that parent. There is still much debate among medical and psychological experts as to whether this behaviour pattern constitutes a syndrome, often referred to as Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) which was initially described by Dr Richard Gardner (Gardner, R. A (1989), Recommendations for Dealing with Parents who induce a Parental Alienation Syndrome in their children, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 28 (3/4): 1-23).

Currently, PA is not officially recognised although there is much activity worldwide to influence its acceptance in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM- V, which is due to be published in May 2012 (www.psych.org/mainmenu/research/dsmiwsmv.aspx).

You may well find useful information in books and articles about PA and PAS but we advise that you do not use the term PAS in court proceedings as your arguments regarding what has happened to your children may become sidetracked into barren arguments about the use of the word Syndrome. Syndrome is a term used by medical practitioners, and usually implies a diagnosis.

In practice however poisoning against one parent does occur, and is a genuine problem which goes strongly against a child’s best interests. This effect is being increasingly recognised in the Family Courts in the UK, which is encouraging.

The question “why should children who were initially close to both parents suddenly seek to reject one of them” (Journal of Parental Alienation, Vol. 2 No 2- March/April 2006; Dr. L. F Lowenstein) is often raised at the beginning of a Family Court case. The child is ‘programmed’ by the alienating parent against the other, and is used as a tool in the process of exclusion of an ex-partner, thereby emotionally harming the child by depriving them of a good parent.

Judges, CAFCASS staff, social workers, and others often fail to recognise parental alienation as a genuine case of significant emotional abuse, and these children may lose a loved and loving parent for a long time or sometimes permanently. This situation is often referred to in UK courts as ‘implacable hostility’ caused by the ‘controlling’ parent subjecting the child to this form of emotional abuse. This can have devastating life-long effects for the children, excluded parent, grandparents and the child’s other parent.