DIAGNOSIS OF PARENTAL ALIENATION

The phenomenon known as parental alienation (PA) had been described in the mental health and legal literature for many years. However, it was given its name—parental alienation syndrome—by Richard Gardner in 1985 (Ref).

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 (Ref 2) stated five factors must be met to conclude PA has occurred:

1. The Child Manifests Contact Resistance or Refusal, ie, Avoids a Relationship With One of the Parent
2. The Presence of a Prior Positive Relationship Between the Child and the Rejected Parent
3. The Absence of Abuse, Neglect, or Seriously Deficient Parenting on the Part of the Rejected Parent.
4. Factor four requires that the favored parent has manifested several of the 17 common alienating behaviors that have been observed in cases of parental alienation. These are

Bad-mouthing the rejected parent
Limiting the child’s contact with the rejected parent
Interfering with the child’s communications with the rejected parent
Limiting mention of the rejected parent
Withholding approval when the child shows an interest in therejected parent
Telling the child that the rejected parent does not love them
Allowing the child to choose between their parents
Creating the impression that the rejected parent is dangerous
Forcing the child to reject the alienated parent
Confiding in the child about adult topics
Asking the child to spy on the rejected parent
Asking the child to keep secrets from the rejected parent
Referring to the rejected parent by their first name
Referring to a stepparent as “Mom” or “Dad”
Withholding medical, social, or academic information fromthe rejected parent
Changing the child’s name to remove association with therejected parent
Undermining the authority of the rejected parent

Factor five requires that the child, who is engaging in contact refusal, has manifested some or all of the common behavioralsigns of parental alienation. These are:

Campaign of denigration, whereby the child repeats their list of criticisms of the rejected parent to counselors, evaluators, attorneys, and, ultimately, the judge
Weak, frivolous, and absurd rationalizations for the child’s rejection of a parent
Lack of ambivalence regarding both the favored parent andthe rejected parent, ie, the child considers one parent all good and the other parent all bad
The independent thinker phenomenon, whereby the childstrongly professes that the decision to cut off the rejectedparent is theirs alone
Absence of guilt about their rude, hurtful treatment of the rejected parent
Reflexive support for the favored parent in parental conflict
Presence of borrowed scenarios, ie, making accusations about the rejected parent that use phrases and ideas adopted from the favored parent
Rejection of the rejected parent’s extended family

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. 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.

DISTINGUISHING PARENTAL ALIENATION FROM PARENTAL ESTRANGEMENT

It is critical to distinguish a child who rejects a parent because he/she has been genuinely abused (physically, emotionally and sexually) or neglected (estrangement) from a child who rejects a parent because he/she is alienated from a parent. 

PA is easily distinguished from other forms of abuse because some of the behaviours exhibited by an alienated child are unique and different from those of children abused in other ways (see aove). For example alienated children will give frivolous reasons for rejecting a parent which parrot what they have been told by the alienating parent. 

Another key difference is the lack of ambivalence shown towards each parent - the alienated child considers one parent all good and the other parent all bad. In the psychological jargon, this phenomenon is known as “splitting” and is considered a primitive defence mechanism insofar as it is observed in various personality disorders such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). 

This phenomenon of splitting in alienated children has been known since the 1980s is discussed further in the section on the psychology of PA. Research has shown that splitting is not observed in intact, divorced or even neglected children (REF). This study used a detailed questionnaire to measure the degree acceptance / rejection of a parent in these various different groups compared to alienated children. This research shows that splitting is uniquely found in alienated children and is a reliable way of distinguishing alienation from estrangement. 

These observations are consistent with observations that abused children in foster care typically yearn for their abusive parent (16) and hope the parent will reform (36). They are also consistent with the fact that abused children tend to engage attachment-enhancing behaviours rather than attachment-disrupting behaviours toward their abusive parents (17). This, again, is in line with our understanding of psychology and is discussed below.