Diagnosis of Parental Alienation

Rejection of one parent, by a child, does not occur naturally unless there is a cause. In PA, this cause is the parental alienating behaviours (PABs) of the alienating parent. A recent scientific paper stated five factors have to met to conclude PA has occurred:

1. the child refuses, opposes, or avoids a relationship with a parent
2. the child had a positive relationship with that parent before they rejected them
3. there is no evidence of abuse or neglect perpetrated by the rejected parent
4. the other parent has used multiple parental alienating behaviours (see table 1)
5. the child exhibits behavioural manifestations of parental alienation (see table 2)

Meeting all five factors establishes that a child has not rejected a parent because he / she has been abused by that parent, but rather because of the alienating behaviours of the other parent. Moreover, PA is easily distinguished from other forms of abuse because the behaviours exhibited by an alienated child are unique and different from those of children abused in other ways (see table 2). For example alienated children will give frivolous reasons for rejecting a parent which parrot what they have been told by the alienating parent. This is discussed further in the section on the psychology of PA, which explains why this form of abuse is so damaging.

Unsurprisingly, the severity of PA positively correlates with the frequency and number of alienating strategies deployed as well as the length of time alienation has gone on for. It varies from mild to moderate to severe which differ in the degree of hostility / rejection of parenting time shown to the targeted parent. In the severe form the child desires the complete cessation of contact.