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Article Excerpt
Sound practice in clinical work with alienated children and their targeted parents suggests that assessment and recognition of parental alienation and parental alienation syndrome is a critical starting point. In the absence of valid, reliable and readily available assessment tools, as well as evidence-based psychotherapeutic approaches to treatment, sound practice guidelines are offered. Key treatment considerations for both alienated children and targeted parents are offered, as are next steps for societal change, including increasing public awareness and providing more training for mental health and legal professionals.
Divorce affects one million new children every year. Of these children, approximately 20% of their parents remain in conflict, with little, if any, cooperation (Garrity & Baris, 1994; Kelly, 2005). When children get caught in the middle of parental conflict, they are at risk for many psychosocial problems, including alignment with one parent against the other (e.g., Amato, 1994; Johnston, 1994; Wallerstein, Lewis, & Blakeslee, 2001; Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1996). Especially problematic is when the alignment becomes so entrenched that children join forces with one parent to completely reject and denigrate the other, once-loved parent (Darnall, 1998; Wallerstein & Kelly 1980; Warshak, 2001).
Parents who encourage such alignments employ parental alienation (PA) strategies designed to turn a child against the other, targeted parent. The alienating parent is often filled with hatred, blame, anger, and shame and lacks awareness of the separate and independent needs of the children to have a relationship with the other parent (Ellis, 2005; Gardner, 1998; Rand, 1997). Through various strategies such as bad-mouthing, limiting contact, belittling, and withdrawing love, the alienating parent creates the impression that the targeted parent is dangerous, unloving, or unworthy, thus compelling the child to reject that parent (Baker, 2007a; Baker & Darnall, 2006). At its most extreme, when a child completely rejects the targeted parent, the result is referred to as severe alienation or parental alienation syndrome (PAS) (Gardner, 1998).
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Mental health providers are among the first professionals to whom the targeted parents of alienated children turn to for help for their children or to whom courts refer for answers to accusations of brainwashing (Ellis, 2000). These parents and courts count on therapists to help whether it is to prevent continuing litigation in clogged courtrooms, or to intervene with counseling, as well as to give the parents supportive tools to repair and sustain the parent-child relationship. Because therapists are one of the first resources courts and parents use, they must be knowledgeable in the field of parental alienation and high-conflict divorce. They must be able to tolerate conflicting data from parents and children while searching for emotional truth within the children being counseled (Vestal, 1999). Along the same lines, Wallerstein insightfully comments in her forward to Marquardt's (2005) book Between Two Worlds that what is needed is "an honest recognition of the experience of children" (p. xvii). In order to more honestly recognize and understand the experience of these children, mental health professionals must begin with the available knowledge that they currently have, incomplete as it is. To delay treatment due to incomplete information would be akin to a medical doctor refusing to treat a bleeding patient because he or she did not know what had caused the wound, and thus, by his or her refusal to treat the wound, the patient bleeds to death.
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As Sternberg (2006) noted, "Scientific evidence regarding prevention and intervention is clearly helpful, but it is not yet sufficiently precise [in this parental alienation arena] so as to provide an answer to every question a psychotherapist might need to ask ..." (p. 270). Because there is no longitudinal research that matches interventions with outcomes, the current authors propose a way of approaching treatment using sound scientific principles and evidence-based interventions with these children, in spite of the uncertainty. Mental health professionals remain in the trenches where they have to differentiate false accusations from legitimate ones and deal with the confused realities of these children and their parents. Common wisdom, increasing professional exposure and demand, and mounting professional opinion is that parental alienation exists and must be addressed in order to optimize children's development (Ackerman, personal communication, August 19, 2007).
The purpose of this article is to suggest sound practices about parental alienation (PA) and parental alienation syndrome (PAS) and to identify some key prevention and intervention issues so that mental health professionals who counsel children and families experiencing loyalty conflicts or parental alienation tactics will be better prepared to help this highly vulnerable population. Consideration of these practices should enhance mental health providers' ability to approach these issues from a more informed and reflective position.
Recognizing Parental Alienation
Recognition of parental alienation is a critical first step. Whether the task before the counselor is to halt the deterioration of the parent-child relationship and prevent the further effects of parental alienation or to restore a ruined relationship, therapists must correctly analyze and interpret the family dynamics in order to differentiate a child's rejection due to parental alienation from a child's rejection due to other causes such as estrangement or abuse (Stoltz & Key, 2002; Warshak, 2002). Discerning alienation from legitimate estrangement must be first.
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Unfortunately, therapists do not have widely accepted parental alienation tests and other diagnostic tools available, nor is there a consensus regarding tools to use to assist in the diagnosis. For example, a recent survey of custody evaluators revealed a lack of consensus regarding diagnostic and assessment tools (Baker, 2007b).
For a diagnosis of PAS, we recommend following the lead of Dunne and Herrick (1994) and making an assessment through determination...
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