What is parental alienation?

There is no universal definition of parental alienation, but leading researchers offer a gender-neutral description as follows;

• "Where a child expresses unreasonable negative feelings and beliefs (including fear) about a parent that are significantly disproportionate to that child's actual experience with that parent".

The creator of the theory of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), Richard A. Gardner, made his views clear on gender. He described it as a "syndrome" where mothers entered into a "campaign of denigration" and made false allegations to vilify their husbands, punish them and gain custody.  He believed children to be "brainwashed" or "programmed" by their mother to falsely believe the father had abused them. Gardner had extreme and distasteful views on women and paedophilia. Leading experts discredited his theory due to the lack of scientific evidence.

Promoters of parental alienation today describe it as;

• "When a child is manipulated into rejecting one parent (usually the non-resident parent) without a legitimate reason. It is the demonising of a parent; it's a form of psychological abuse. The alienating parent intends to bolster their position in their dynamic with the child".

• "It is generally used by mothers in an attempt to ensure little or no contact between their exes and children".

• "A pathological alignment to one parent, typically causing the child to reject the other parent and blame the estrangement onto the rejected parent, accompanied by justifications such as abuse or harm."

• "Children are alienated through the abusive conduct of the primary caregiver who deliberately and cynically attempts to alienate the child in order to deny the other parent contact".

The stereotypical image of an alienating parent portrayed today, on reading several websites, is one of a hostile, vengeful, deceitful, controlling, pathological and psychologically abusive mother; she is undoubtedly cruel and lacks empathy.

The ill-informed parent

Mothers may cut off contact unfairly with a healthy, safe father, for no other reason than they believe him to be of no benefit in the child's life. These mothers have often been the primary caregiver before separation and are unaware of the term 'parental rights and responsibilities' until they enter the Family Court. They may have taken unilateral decisions, believing themselves to be more responsible. The mother is not necessarily hostile, vengeful or her behaviour pathological; she is often ill-informed.

Narcissism and parental alienation

Many mothers cut off contact abruptly with a coercively controlling, physically violent or sexually abusive father. These mothers are often terrified and take action to protect their child from harm. The abusive father's sense of entitlement encourages him to seek control to hurt the mother and win; the child is a pawn. The abusive father's lack of empathy enables him to seek parenting time or custody at the expense of his child's mental health, and he recruits professionals in his 'campaign of denigration' against the mother. It is the ultimate revenge after separation.

These dangerous fathers are often highly narcissistic and psychologically manipulate the child. They render the child into an anxious state; they attempt to 'brainwash and program' them. The child is scared and compliant. Extremely narcissistic parents lack the capacity to parent effectively and cannot put the child's needs before their own.

These fathers do attempt to alienate the child from the mother; they are hostile and vengeful. They are cruel as per Gardner’s descriptions of an alienating parent. However, on describing it, they suspiciously fail to mention the alienating parent’s skilful ability to mask their behaviour and project it.

'Parental alienation' is the narcissistic abusers means to deny and conceal their behaviour; blaming their ex for the behaviour they are guilty of is a common tactic of a perpetrator. Narcissists are persuasive and convincing and can deceive others easily, including judges, barristers and welfare reporters.

Their sense of entitlement and lack of empathy is relevant when we consider parental alienation. Most narcissistic individuals who lack empathy, are men, as this study shows. Mother’s and father’s narcissistic traits affect their capacity to parent a child in different ways.

The narcissistic deception behind the stereotypes

So how has the stereotypical image of an alienating parent got so skewed from reality? Why are we subtly persuaded that most mothers alienate their children in this abusive manner?

When narcissistic fathers get rejected, they don't self-reflect, show remorse and make amends; they attack, via the Family Court. There is an abundance of parental alienation specialist lawyers, psychologists and therapists waiting to help them prove that the mother has abused the child. Systemic bias in the system enables abusive fathers to use parental alienation as a powerful weapon to shut down allegations of abuse.

'Parental Alienation is child abuse!' gets shouted from the rooftops on social media and PA proponents websites. Yes, when carried out by a cruel, narcissistic parent, it often is child abuse, but surprisingly, it's mostly mothers and children who are on the receiving end of this abuse.

The adjective 'narcissistic' will never appear in any of the descriptions of a stereotypical alienating parent because it does not serve the agenda of 'parental alienation' and the gender the theory supports. Deception is taking place on a mass scale; mothers are not only challenged with facing deceitful narcissists in the courtroom, but they must also overcome the narcissism in the ‘industry’ too.

What can change to enable better outcomes for children?

The Family Court system is an industry of ‘conflict’ and it’s a lucrative one. Private Family Law cases of ‘abuse v parental alienation’ keep the gravy train running.

The misrepresentation of the stereotypical alienating parent is not helpful to judges when considering 'safe' child contact arrangements. Children are losing their lives by being forced into unsafe contact with abusive parents. The lack of compassion in the industry for the child is apparent to those who see beneath the guise of 'parental alienation'.

An end to the presumption of contact would help, along with recognition and acceptance of domestic abuse as a social issue, and one that impacts children in the short and longer term. The use of credible experts, transparency and accountability would be beneficial and increase confidence in the family justice system.