It is my belief that Linda Gottlieb is being sued due in large part to the movement afoot by domestic violence groups nationwide who have coalesced with the help of Atty Danielle Pollack, a prime mover on getting Kayden's Law passed as a subsection to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) which was recently reauthorized by President Biden in March 2022. Atty Danielle Pollack (Policy Manager for the National Family Violence Law Center at GW University) provides technical assistance and guidance to lawmakers to develop and advance these important laws. This reauthorization makes $25 million in new federal grants available to states that modernize and reform their child custody laws. In order to be eligible for grant funding, states must have custody laws that govern how courts handle domestic violence and child abuse, limit a courts ability to force a child to be placed in the custody of a parent with a history of violent and abusive behavior, and require judges and other court personnel involved in child custody proceedings to complete 20 hours of initial training and continue education in domestic violence, sexual violence, and child abuse.
The significance of that legislation is that when states incorporate the intent and language akin to Kayden's law into their legislation, those states will qualify for millions of dollars more to educate judiciary and guardian ad litems about domestic violence (DV, now termed "coercive control") which often has been a simultaneous attack on PA as junk science --- WHY - because DV groups see PA as the defense raised by the other separating parent to defeat any claim of DV. The problem is that just as there may be false allegations of PA, there are also false allegations of DV -- WHY - because litigants know that while courts have the authority to impose sanctions, fines, and other repercussions for perjury (false statements said under oath), they very rarely, if ever, do, thereby incentivizing both camps to weaponize false claims to leverage better custody outcomes. For example, under Kayden's law, if any allegations are raised of DV, then that alone precludes any defenses of PA or introduction of such evidence (including expert testimony) (even if legitimate) until a hearing on the DV claim is had and realistically the consequences result in: 1) the falsely accused parent being prevented access to his/her child for up to a year or more until an evidentiary hearing is had, leaving a richly fertilized ground for the seeds of alienation to proliferate, & 3) preventing judiciary from making informed decisions. Family courts should not ignore the evidence of DV, nor should they ignore evidence of PA (or alienating behaviors). BOTH PA and DV are considerations for the court, and the court should be bound to consider both and to fail to do so is to ignore the best interest of the child.2
There is a concerted effort and push by groups like NSPO (National Safe Parents Organization) nationally who have linked themselves to statewide groups like state "Coalitions Against Domestic Violence" sharing information and legislative language and tactics on how to get this law implemented in each state, advising them that if successful, monies become available. Kayden's law is renamed under another child's name typically as each state adopts the law: Pennsylvania (Kayden's Law), Connecticut (Jennifer's Law), Colorado (Julie's Law), California (Piqui's Law), and Utah (Ohm's Law). You are seeing this case take center stage because DV groups like to target those entities having the most success with severe parental alienation cases - cases of serious psychological abuse and manipulation of the child that require reunification camps such as Linda Gottlieb's and others to remove the child from the toxic environment . There are many mental health components to these sad situations that few laymen understand that often include cluster B traits. While naysayers of reunification camps say they are coercive and traumatizing, they fail to acknowledge the very coercive and traumatizing issues that led the court to make orders for such camps. The need for removal from a toxic environment is precisely to change the power dynamic. Removal facilitates necessary psychological shifts for the child.
Atty Danielle Pollack was a key participant in promoting DV legislation and her affiliation with Attorney Meier's (Professor of Clinical Law and Director of the National Family Violence Law Center at the GW University Law School) assisted her to this end. Attorney Meier was promoting family court changes as a result of her greatly flawed 2017 study "Mapping Gender: Shedding Empirical Light on Family Courts’ Treatment of Cases Involving Abuse and Alienation" (GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 2017-43; GWU Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2017-43) which mapped the family courts' use of parental alienation theory in domestic abuse cases. A total of 240 cases involving parental alienation, abuse claims, etc. were reviewed. Attorney Meier's study concluded that family courts treated mothers unfavorably whenever parental alienation (PA) was invoked to deny abuse claims by the other parent. Furthermore, Attorney Meier's study found that family courts had a gender bent in that they were favoring fathers as opposed to the popular belief that courts favor mothers in child custody cases. PA thereafter became the arch enemy, and the only way to defeat it was to undermine it, calling it junk science. PA is settled science. Empirical studies of Alienation are plentiful. There has been a review of 58 quantitative research studies published in peer reviewed journals (ref. Saini M et al (2016), Empirical Studies of Alienation) as well as a psychological test from Dr. Ronald Rohner at UConn published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences (ref. Bernet W, Gregory N, Reay KM, & Rohner RP (2018), An Objective Measure of Splitting in Parental Alienation: The Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire), not to menton 900 articles, chapters, and books from 38 countries -- or the numerous professional organizations that accept PA: American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, American Psych. Association, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, etc.
Why does this case garner such attention now? For the very reason that politics and money have collided. VAWA incentivizes adopting Kayden's Law which DV groups support and also decries PA as junk science in order to defeat the very successful reunification camps. Family courts order reunification camps only with severely alienated children -- always cognizant that PA is emotional and psychological child abuse - no different than physical child abuse. DV or child abuse is a serious matter. PA, or child psychological abuse, is a serious matter. Both are abusive behaviors that should never be ignored or condoned. They MUST be addressed by the court. Women can be victims of PA just as men can be victims of DV. It seems that politics finds useful bedfellows by using gender as a biased approach to promote women's issues, when in fact no gender has an exclusive claim to PA or DV. It's not the gender, it's the behavior and the kids that should be the focus. Men nowadays are demonized and are often made out as political scapegoats. They often have become the whipping post for politicians who wish to garner votes from the female sector of their constituencies.
You rarely see alienated children who have undergone reunification come out to speak about the success of any one program -- WHY -- perhaps because these children don't want to advertise to the world their pain, or that they felt like they were "duped" or "stupid." Speaking out also will mean reliving the trauma of the alienating parent's actions and the child's own hurtful behavior to the targeted parent or the feeling that their own refusal to see a parent or to act out were to blame. These are questions that only the alienated child can answer, but I can only imagine the pain they live with and wish to move beyond. I imagine most alienated children are like domestic violence victims once they leave their abusers. Rarely do they share their true feelings for fear of having their vulnerabilities used against them. What we do know is that alienated adult children tend to suffer long term consequences beyond the days courts lose jurisdiction over them as a minor.
Remember that both PA and DV are considered to be ACE (adverse childhood experiences) that tend to have life long health repercussions: suicidal ideation, promiscuity, substance abuse, depression, difficulty with intimate relationships, sleep disorders, etc.
Parental alienation is a form of child abuse that we are only beginning to recognize. Technically speaking, it’s when a child aligns with one parent and rejects its other parent for reasons that are not warranted. According to The Parental Alienation Study Group, at least 3.9 million children in the United States are “moderately to severely” alienated from a parent. Put another way, there are three times as many children in the United States who are alienated from a parent than there are children with autism.
This is, obviously, a staggering number. But what are the effects of parental alienation on children? This was the question of a study conducted by psychologists Caitlin Bentley and Mandy Matthewson of the University of Tasmania.
In order to pursue this inquiry, they recruited adult participants who had a history of parental alienation. From there, they conducted semi-structured interviews, asking a series of exploratory questions about the alienation. Their narratives were then analyzed for themes.
The results were striking. Seven themes were identified, revealing the breadth and depth of the effects of alienation well into adulthood. A selective overview of the study’s findings is provided below.
Alienating Behavior and Impact
Adult children reported a multitude of alienating behaviors that damaged their relationship with the Target Parent and their own well-being. This theme broke down into seven sub-themes:
Abuse and control. Participants were emotionally and physically abused by the Alienating Parent. For example, they were made to feel fear or guilt when they didn’t comply with the Alienating Parent’s view of the Target Parent.
Denigration of the targeted parent—to the point where it damaged the child’s bond with the Target Parent.
Adultification—in which their parent inappropriately disclosed information and sought support during custody disputes.
Disrupting alienated adult child and targeted parent relationship. The bond between children and the Target Parent was damaged. Some moved to different states or overseas, making a relationship or even communication with the Target Parent difficult. Others were told that the Target Parent didn’t love them.
Perceptions of the Alienating Parent’s characteristics—including self-absorption, criticalness, and lacking in empathy and insight into how their behavior impacts others—even when confronted by their child.
Neglect. Basic needs and safety were disregarded.
Alienated adult child experience suppressed. Participants pushed down their thoughts, emotions, and memories, particularly regarding the Target Parent.
Mental Health
Adult children reported mental health struggles both as children and adults. This theme consisted of three sub-themes:
Mental health difficulties. All of the participants experienced mental health issues, ranging from anxiety and PTSD to suicidal ideation, which they traced to their Alienating Parent’s abuse.
Self-esteem. Participants reported having low self-esteem and low confidence in themselves and their abilities.
Substance use. Alienated adult children disclosed using alcohol and drugs, for some at an early age, in order to cope with the abuse.
Relationship Difficulties
Participants described having difficulties across friendships and romantic relationships. Five sub-themes surfaced:
Difficulty relating to peers. Participants felt different from and unable to confide their experience of parental alienation with other children.
Fear of loss. Most participants expressed fears of losing a relationship, causing them to avoid conflicts in relationships or even entering relationships.
Difficulty trusting. Participants had difficulty believing that someone would support them, and thus they hid their difficulties from others.
Dysfunctional and abusive relationships. Adult children often chose partners that were as abusive as their Alienating Parent, sometimes in a desperate effort to feel loved. Others stayed in unhealthy partnerships to avoid divorce at all costs.
Struggle to maintain healthy relationships. Participants felt that a lack of positive role models, mental health problems, and poor relationship skills made relationships challenging.
Learning and Development
Participants believed that the alienation stunted their development and capacity to learn. Two sub-themes emerged:
Identity. Being told that the Target Parent was bad, children were conscious of the ways in which they were like the Target Parent and felt shame about it.
Education and employment. Most participants had difficulty with learning and focusing on school, which altered the course of their lives. They felt blocked from fulfilling their academic potential at school because the Alienating Parent’s needs came before their own.
Grief and Loss
Participants felt a pervasive sense of grief and loss, which was tied to their experience of alienation. Five sub-themes were found:
Anger and emotional pain—largely for the “injustice” and “the mess” their parents made.
Feeling they missed out—on a childhood, including learning basic skills (e.g., cooking) and an early loss of innocence.
Guilt. Most participants felt the Alienating Parent made them feel guilty. They also felt guilty about the ways they treated the Target Parent, even though they knew they weren’t to blame.
Grieving the loss of the relationship with the Targeted Parent. One participant shared: “Most of my childhood memories are just, 'Oh God, even up until the age of 40, I just want my dad, I just want my dad.'”
Disappointment with their relationship with the Target Parent. Some participants felt the Target Parent had moved forward with a new relationship or family, gave up on them too soon, or was disinterested in them.
Disconnection and Dysfunction
Participants described “segregated” family lives. Two sub-themes were identified.
Disconnection. Participants felt they had abnormal family lives, with isolated childhoods and limited or irregular contact with extended family. Some had cut off contact with the Alienating Parent.
Intergenerational transmission of trauma. Participants observed that their parents had dysfunctional relationships with their own parents, and that the dysfunctional behavior had been learned.
Coping and Healing
Participants shared how they coped with alienation, giving rise to four sub-themes:
Coping and resilience. While many participants coped by themselves, others leaned on the Target Parent. Some developed a bond with a caring and protective person.
Reunification attempts. Many participants tried to reunite with their Target Parent. For some, this was healing, while others were ambivalent about reconnecting.
The healing process. Participants tried to make sense of their pasts, with some seeking therapy. Some found that identifying their experience as parental alienation was healing: “As I got a bit older, I decided to go see a therapist and that started to put things in place, and break the normalization... You start to realize that what you’ve gone through was abuse.”
Parental alienation awareness. Participants felt it was important to raise awareness about parental alienation, and how they might have benefited from intervention.
References
Caitlin Bentley & Mandy Matthewson (2020): The Not-Forgotten Child: Alienated Adult Children’s Experience of Parental Alienation, The American Journal of Family Therapy, DOI: 10.1080/01926187.2020.1775531
Alienating Behaviours are child abuse. Teaching a child to hate is wrong. Teaching hatred is child abuse. Teaching a child to irrationally fear someone or some thing is intentional and deliberate child abuse. This is settled science. So, teaching a child to hate a parent is also child abuse. There is no debate on this. Those who oppose the well known and well respected science of alienation are almost always members of one of three groups. The first group of Alienation Deniers consists of those who are alienators themselves who use whatever means available to them to criticize and belittle the other parent regardless of how wonderful they may be. The second group of Alienation Deniers is a group of individuals who proclaim to be experts in the field but are not experts because they may not even be in a field that would be able to assess family dynamics. This group consists of lawyers, law professors, judges, and advocates in fields that focus not on families but on extraneous parts of families and fail to realize that families are a dynamic system that involves all parts of families including extended family and other people including new partners. These individuals are not trained in Family Dynamics, Social Work, and Psychology; they are simply not qualified to assess matters of Family Dynamics. In addition to legal professionals, this group includes advocates who focus solely on one aspect of families while seeking monetary gain. Radical "women's rights" advocates who work at shelters which are government funded fill this group; ironically these 'advocates' do not recognize the plethora of women who are alienated from their children because there is no money to gain by advocating for alienated mothers. This group of advocates believes that every woman who enters their premises with a story is a victim, and thereby indiscriminately house perpetrators. Money is the motivator for this group. The third group of Alienation Deniers includes those who may have experienced some form of abuse but fail to understand that their alienating behaviours may be causing harm. This group includes individuals who fail to accept the fact that their behavioiurs cause conflict between the children and the targeted parent which will cause life-long emotional and psychological harm to the children. These individuals believe that using alienating behaviors is a justified response to any abuse that they may have experienced. Individuals who have experienced abuse who do not use alienating behaviours do not fit the three categories of "Alienation Deniers". Instead they are in a separate category who have learned how to co-parent in an equitable manner using behaviours called "healthy co-parenting behaviours" and focus on cooperation and respect.
It's equally shocking, troubling and telling that the "family" court reform efforts in this country have been, and continue to be, stuck and not progressed in 20+ years over the same pointless and circular arguments regarding "parental alienation" and "what it is."
If anyone believes parents are not encouraged to tell lies in court regarding abuse, and that many parents keep children from seeing their other parent and family members for no valid reason, they're deaf, dumb, blind and delusional. This is engrained in our society and the Divorce Industry as a norm and standard operating procedure.
This is also why shared and equal parenting, absent a finding of abuse in a court of law, must become the norm in our country. And one more and more states are adopting - with very positive results.
I lost custody myself after a drawn out case and appeal due to being accused of folie à deux. I had a no contact order placed and massive bills for reunification therapy. Things that I find crazy: the reunification therapist testified in my trial that my ex admitted to hitting me in front of my son (coming to my home post divorce) but was a good dad because he apologized. After I lost, my son was put in the hospital twice by his dad. He then gave me back custody as long as he had no financial obligations of child support college etc. The judge signed the order for custody back to me within weeks. Puzzling to me if I was such a bad parent that no one ever followed up thereafter. That diagnosis as far as I know is a rare condition that occurs in remote areas. Multiple women on Long Island same court reunification therapist Barbara Burkhard/ Judge Cheng were diagnosed with it to lose custody. I appreciate this article. You never know how horrible it can be having your rights taken from you by the court system until it happens. Lawyers and the system need to protect children and their safety emotionally as well as physically. -Diana Ferrone
Go read the appellate case on this and get the real story. The mother in this case IS the abuser.
posting with permission:
Dear All,
It is my belief that Linda Gottlieb is being sued due in large part to the movement afoot by domestic violence groups nationwide who have coalesced with the help of Atty Danielle Pollack, a prime mover on getting Kayden's Law passed as a subsection to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) which was recently reauthorized by President Biden in March 2022. Atty Danielle Pollack (Policy Manager for the National Family Violence Law Center at GW University) provides technical assistance and guidance to lawmakers to develop and advance these important laws. This reauthorization makes $25 million in new federal grants available to states that modernize and reform their child custody laws. In order to be eligible for grant funding, states must have custody laws that govern how courts handle domestic violence and child abuse, limit a courts ability to force a child to be placed in the custody of a parent with a history of violent and abusive behavior, and require judges and other court personnel involved in child custody proceedings to complete 20 hours of initial training and continue education in domestic violence, sexual violence, and child abuse.
The significance of that legislation is that when states incorporate the intent and language akin to Kayden's law into their legislation, those states will qualify for millions of dollars more to educate judiciary and guardian ad litems about domestic violence (DV, now termed "coercive control") which often has been a simultaneous attack on PA as junk science --- WHY - because DV groups see PA as the defense raised by the other separating parent to defeat any claim of DV. The problem is that just as there may be false allegations of PA, there are also false allegations of DV -- WHY - because litigants know that while courts have the authority to impose sanctions, fines, and other repercussions for perjury (false statements said under oath), they very rarely, if ever, do, thereby incentivizing both camps to weaponize false claims to leverage better custody outcomes. For example, under Kayden's law, if any allegations are raised of DV, then that alone precludes any defenses of PA or introduction of such evidence (including expert testimony) (even if legitimate) until a hearing on the DV claim is had and realistically the consequences result in: 1) the falsely accused parent being prevented access to his/her child for up to a year or more until an evidentiary hearing is had, leaving a richly fertilized ground for the seeds of alienation to proliferate, & 3) preventing judiciary from making informed decisions. Family courts should not ignore the evidence of DV, nor should they ignore evidence of PA (or alienating behaviors). BOTH PA and DV are considerations for the court, and the court should be bound to consider both and to fail to do so is to ignore the best interest of the child.2
There is a concerted effort and push by groups like NSPO (National Safe Parents Organization) nationally who have linked themselves to statewide groups like state "Coalitions Against Domestic Violence" sharing information and legislative language and tactics on how to get this law implemented in each state, advising them that if successful, monies become available. Kayden's law is renamed under another child's name typically as each state adopts the law: Pennsylvania (Kayden's Law), Connecticut (Jennifer's Law), Colorado (Julie's Law), California (Piqui's Law), and Utah (Ohm's Law). You are seeing this case take center stage because DV groups like to target those entities having the most success with severe parental alienation cases - cases of serious psychological abuse and manipulation of the child that require reunification camps such as Linda Gottlieb's and others to remove the child from the toxic environment . There are many mental health components to these sad situations that few laymen understand that often include cluster B traits. While naysayers of reunification camps say they are coercive and traumatizing, they fail to acknowledge the very coercive and traumatizing issues that led the court to make orders for such camps. The need for removal from a toxic environment is precisely to change the power dynamic. Removal facilitates necessary psychological shifts for the child.
Atty Danielle Pollack was a key participant in promoting DV legislation and her affiliation with Attorney Meier's (Professor of Clinical Law and Director of the National Family Violence Law Center at the GW University Law School) assisted her to this end. Attorney Meier was promoting family court changes as a result of her greatly flawed 2017 study "Mapping Gender: Shedding Empirical Light on Family Courts’ Treatment of Cases Involving Abuse and Alienation" (GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 2017-43; GWU Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2017-43) which mapped the family courts' use of parental alienation theory in domestic abuse cases. A total of 240 cases involving parental alienation, abuse claims, etc. were reviewed. Attorney Meier's study concluded that family courts treated mothers unfavorably whenever parental alienation (PA) was invoked to deny abuse claims by the other parent. Furthermore, Attorney Meier's study found that family courts had a gender bent in that they were favoring fathers as opposed to the popular belief that courts favor mothers in child custody cases. PA thereafter became the arch enemy, and the only way to defeat it was to undermine it, calling it junk science. PA is settled science. Empirical studies of Alienation are plentiful. There has been a review of 58 quantitative research studies published in peer reviewed journals (ref. Saini M et al (2016), Empirical Studies of Alienation) as well as a psychological test from Dr. Ronald Rohner at UConn published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences (ref. Bernet W, Gregory N, Reay KM, & Rohner RP (2018), An Objective Measure of Splitting in Parental Alienation: The Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire), not to menton 900 articles, chapters, and books from 38 countries -- or the numerous professional organizations that accept PA: American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, American Psych. Association, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, etc.
Why does this case garner such attention now? For the very reason that politics and money have collided. VAWA incentivizes adopting Kayden's Law which DV groups support and also decries PA as junk science in order to defeat the very successful reunification camps. Family courts order reunification camps only with severely alienated children -- always cognizant that PA is emotional and psychological child abuse - no different than physical child abuse. DV or child abuse is a serious matter. PA, or child psychological abuse, is a serious matter. Both are abusive behaviors that should never be ignored or condoned. They MUST be addressed by the court. Women can be victims of PA just as men can be victims of DV. It seems that politics finds useful bedfellows by using gender as a biased approach to promote women's issues, when in fact no gender has an exclusive claim to PA or DV. It's not the gender, it's the behavior and the kids that should be the focus. Men nowadays are demonized and are often made out as political scapegoats. They often have become the whipping post for politicians who wish to garner votes from the female sector of their constituencies.
You rarely see alienated children who have undergone reunification come out to speak about the success of any one program -- WHY -- perhaps because these children don't want to advertise to the world their pain, or that they felt like they were "duped" or "stupid." Speaking out also will mean reliving the trauma of the alienating parent's actions and the child's own hurtful behavior to the targeted parent or the feeling that their own refusal to see a parent or to act out were to blame. These are questions that only the alienated child can answer, but I can only imagine the pain they live with and wish to move beyond. I imagine most alienated children are like domestic violence victims once they leave their abusers. Rarely do they share their true feelings for fear of having their vulnerabilities used against them. What we do know is that alienated adult children tend to suffer long term consequences beyond the days courts lose jurisdiction over them as a minor.
Remember that both PA and DV are considered to be ACE (adverse childhood experiences) that tend to have life long health repercussions: suicidal ideation, promiscuity, substance abuse, depression, difficulty with intimate relationships, sleep disorders, etc.
Maureen Martowska
Vinita Mehta Ph.D., Ed.M.
Parental alienation is a form of child abuse that we are only beginning to recognize. Technically speaking, it’s when a child aligns with one parent and rejects its other parent for reasons that are not warranted. According to The Parental Alienation Study Group, at least 3.9 million children in the United States are “moderately to severely” alienated from a parent. Put another way, there are three times as many children in the United States who are alienated from a parent than there are children with autism.
This is, obviously, a staggering number. But what are the effects of parental alienation on children? This was the question of a study conducted by psychologists Caitlin Bentley and Mandy Matthewson of the University of Tasmania.
In order to pursue this inquiry, they recruited adult participants who had a history of parental alienation. From there, they conducted semi-structured interviews, asking a series of exploratory questions about the alienation. Their narratives were then analyzed for themes.
The results were striking. Seven themes were identified, revealing the breadth and depth of the effects of alienation well into adulthood. A selective overview of the study’s findings is provided below.
Alienating Behavior and Impact
Adult children reported a multitude of alienating behaviors that damaged their relationship with the Target Parent and their own well-being. This theme broke down into seven sub-themes:
Abuse and control. Participants were emotionally and physically abused by the Alienating Parent. For example, they were made to feel fear or guilt when they didn’t comply with the Alienating Parent’s view of the Target Parent.
Denigration of the targeted parent—to the point where it damaged the child’s bond with the Target Parent.
Adultification—in which their parent inappropriately disclosed information and sought support during custody disputes.
Disrupting alienated adult child and targeted parent relationship. The bond between children and the Target Parent was damaged. Some moved to different states or overseas, making a relationship or even communication with the Target Parent difficult. Others were told that the Target Parent didn’t love them.
Perceptions of the Alienating Parent’s characteristics—including self-absorption, criticalness, and lacking in empathy and insight into how their behavior impacts others—even when confronted by their child.
Neglect. Basic needs and safety were disregarded.
Alienated adult child experience suppressed. Participants pushed down their thoughts, emotions, and memories, particularly regarding the Target Parent.
Mental Health
Adult children reported mental health struggles both as children and adults. This theme consisted of three sub-themes:
Mental health difficulties. All of the participants experienced mental health issues, ranging from anxiety and PTSD to suicidal ideation, which they traced to their Alienating Parent’s abuse.
Self-esteem. Participants reported having low self-esteem and low confidence in themselves and their abilities.
Substance use. Alienated adult children disclosed using alcohol and drugs, for some at an early age, in order to cope with the abuse.
Relationship Difficulties
Participants described having difficulties across friendships and romantic relationships. Five sub-themes surfaced:
Difficulty relating to peers. Participants felt different from and unable to confide their experience of parental alienation with other children.
Fear of loss. Most participants expressed fears of losing a relationship, causing them to avoid conflicts in relationships or even entering relationships.
Difficulty trusting. Participants had difficulty believing that someone would support them, and thus they hid their difficulties from others.
Dysfunctional and abusive relationships. Adult children often chose partners that were as abusive as their Alienating Parent, sometimes in a desperate effort to feel loved. Others stayed in unhealthy partnerships to avoid divorce at all costs.
Struggle to maintain healthy relationships. Participants felt that a lack of positive role models, mental health problems, and poor relationship skills made relationships challenging.
Learning and Development
Participants believed that the alienation stunted their development and capacity to learn. Two sub-themes emerged:
Identity. Being told that the Target Parent was bad, children were conscious of the ways in which they were like the Target Parent and felt shame about it.
Education and employment. Most participants had difficulty with learning and focusing on school, which altered the course of their lives. They felt blocked from fulfilling their academic potential at school because the Alienating Parent’s needs came before their own.
Grief and Loss
Participants felt a pervasive sense of grief and loss, which was tied to their experience of alienation. Five sub-themes were found:
Anger and emotional pain—largely for the “injustice” and “the mess” their parents made.
Feeling they missed out—on a childhood, including learning basic skills (e.g., cooking) and an early loss of innocence.
Guilt. Most participants felt the Alienating Parent made them feel guilty. They also felt guilty about the ways they treated the Target Parent, even though they knew they weren’t to blame.
Grieving the loss of the relationship with the Targeted Parent. One participant shared: “Most of my childhood memories are just, 'Oh God, even up until the age of 40, I just want my dad, I just want my dad.'”
Disappointment with their relationship with the Target Parent. Some participants felt the Target Parent had moved forward with a new relationship or family, gave up on them too soon, or was disinterested in them.
Disconnection and Dysfunction
Participants described “segregated” family lives. Two sub-themes were identified.
Disconnection. Participants felt they had abnormal family lives, with isolated childhoods and limited or irregular contact with extended family. Some had cut off contact with the Alienating Parent.
Intergenerational transmission of trauma. Participants observed that their parents had dysfunctional relationships with their own parents, and that the dysfunctional behavior had been learned.
Coping and Healing
Participants shared how they coped with alienation, giving rise to four sub-themes:
Coping and resilience. While many participants coped by themselves, others leaned on the Target Parent. Some developed a bond with a caring and protective person.
Reunification attempts. Many participants tried to reunite with their Target Parent. For some, this was healing, while others were ambivalent about reconnecting.
The healing process. Participants tried to make sense of their pasts, with some seeking therapy. Some found that identifying their experience as parental alienation was healing: “As I got a bit older, I decided to go see a therapist and that started to put things in place, and break the normalization... You start to realize that what you’ve gone through was abuse.”
Parental alienation awareness. Participants felt it was important to raise awareness about parental alienation, and how they might have benefited from intervention.
References
Caitlin Bentley & Mandy Matthewson (2020): The Not-Forgotten Child: Alienated Adult Children’s Experience of Parental Alienation, The American Journal of Family Therapy, DOI: 10.1080/01926187.2020.1775531
Alienating Behaviours are child abuse. Teaching a child to hate is wrong. Teaching hatred is child abuse. Teaching a child to irrationally fear someone or some thing is intentional and deliberate child abuse. This is settled science. So, teaching a child to hate a parent is also child abuse. There is no debate on this. Those who oppose the well known and well respected science of alienation are almost always members of one of three groups. The first group of Alienation Deniers consists of those who are alienators themselves who use whatever means available to them to criticize and belittle the other parent regardless of how wonderful they may be. The second group of Alienation Deniers is a group of individuals who proclaim to be experts in the field but are not experts because they may not even be in a field that would be able to assess family dynamics. This group consists of lawyers, law professors, judges, and advocates in fields that focus not on families but on extraneous parts of families and fail to realize that families are a dynamic system that involves all parts of families including extended family and other people including new partners. These individuals are not trained in Family Dynamics, Social Work, and Psychology; they are simply not qualified to assess matters of Family Dynamics. In addition to legal professionals, this group includes advocates who focus solely on one aspect of families while seeking monetary gain. Radical "women's rights" advocates who work at shelters which are government funded fill this group; ironically these 'advocates' do not recognize the plethora of women who are alienated from their children because there is no money to gain by advocating for alienated mothers. This group of advocates believes that every woman who enters their premises with a story is a victim, and thereby indiscriminately house perpetrators. Money is the motivator for this group. The third group of Alienation Deniers includes those who may have experienced some form of abuse but fail to understand that their alienating behaviours may be causing harm. This group includes individuals who fail to accept the fact that their behavioiurs cause conflict between the children and the targeted parent which will cause life-long emotional and psychological harm to the children. These individuals believe that using alienating behaviors is a justified response to any abuse that they may have experienced. Individuals who have experienced abuse who do not use alienating behaviours do not fit the three categories of "Alienation Deniers". Instead they are in a separate category who have learned how to co-parent in an equitable manner using behaviours called "healthy co-parenting behaviours" and focus on cooperation and respect.
It's equally shocking, troubling and telling that the "family" court reform efforts in this country have been, and continue to be, stuck and not progressed in 20+ years over the same pointless and circular arguments regarding "parental alienation" and "what it is."
If anyone believes parents are not encouraged to tell lies in court regarding abuse, and that many parents keep children from seeing their other parent and family members for no valid reason, they're deaf, dumb, blind and delusional. This is engrained in our society and the Divorce Industry as a norm and standard operating procedure.
This is also why shared and equal parenting, absent a finding of abuse in a court of law, must become the norm in our country. And one more and more states are adopting - with very positive results.
I lost custody myself after a drawn out case and appeal due to being accused of folie à deux. I had a no contact order placed and massive bills for reunification therapy. Things that I find crazy: the reunification therapist testified in my trial that my ex admitted to hitting me in front of my son (coming to my home post divorce) but was a good dad because he apologized. After I lost, my son was put in the hospital twice by his dad. He then gave me back custody as long as he had no financial obligations of child support college etc. The judge signed the order for custody back to me within weeks. Puzzling to me if I was such a bad parent that no one ever followed up thereafter. That diagnosis as far as I know is a rare condition that occurs in remote areas. Multiple women on Long Island same court reunification therapist Barbara Burkhard/ Judge Cheng were diagnosed with it to lose custody. I appreciate this article. You never know how horrible it can be having your rights taken from you by the court system until it happens. Lawyers and the system need to protect children and their safety emotionally as well as physically. -Diana Ferrone