Countering Denialism About Parental Alienation
Refuting claims against parental alienation as a form of family violence.
Posted November 8, 2023 | Reviewed by Devon Frye
Parental alienation is a complex form of family violence that targets a parent by means of damaging that parent’s relationship with their child. The two main features of parental alienation are the child’s unjustified rejection of and refusal of contact with the targeted parent and the alienating parent’s abusive strategies to denigrate the parent.
Parental alienation is a relational problem that must satisfy five criteria: The child refuses or opposes contact with the parent; the child has previously had a good relationship with the parent; the parent has not subjected the child to violence, abuse, or gross neglect; the favored parent uses several alienating strategies and methods; and the child shows signs of psychological or behavioural disturbances that may indicate that they are prone to alienation (Bernet et al, 2022). The negative effects of parental alienation on the child and the targeted parent are profound, and the incidence of parental alienation is much higher than is commonly assumed.
The scientific status of parental alienation has been confirmed through a large body of research (Harman et al, 2022), and the DSM-5 -TR has identified the core elements of parental alienation under the condition of “parent-child relational problem” (including “negative attributions of the other’s intentions, hostility toward the other, and unwarranted feelings of estrangement”). However, parental alienation remains controversial in the realm of family law, policy-making, and professional practice, even though the opposition to acknowledging this form of family violence is inadequately justified (Bernet & Xu, 2022).
Misleading statements, misinformation, errors, use of science denial techniques, and misrepresentations of the current state of peer-reviewed published research and case law support regarding intimate partner violence and parental alienation have been made by vocal critics of parental alienation, which have been documented by a number of scientific associations. In particular, the claim that abusive men bring forward false allegations of parental alienation to deflect attention away from their own perpetration of intimate partner violence is used to discredit the concept of parental alienation and to induce a moral panic , seized upon by popular media accounts based on misunderstandings about the concept.
Arguments against the concept of parental alienation are easily refuted by the wealth of scientific evidence that has emerged in the past decade, in particular regarding intimate partner violence, family violence, and parental alienation. To counter the claim that parental alienation is a hoax, we need to draw attention to the following:
Bernet, W., Baker, A. J., & Adkins, K. L. (2022). Definitions and terminology regarding child alignments, estrangement, and alienation: A survey of custody evaluators. Journal of forensic sciences .
Bernet, W., & Xu, S. (2022). Scholarly rumors: Citation analysis of vast misinformation regarding parental alienation theory. Behavioral Sciences & the Law .
Harman, J. J., Warshak, R. A., Lorandos, D., & Florian, M. J. (2022). Developmental psychology and the scientific status of parental alienation. Developmental Psychology.
Harman, J. J., Kruk, E., & Hines, D. A. (2018). Parental alienating behaviors: An unacknowledged form of family violence. Psychological Bulletin.
Kruk, E. (2018). Parental alienation as a form of emotional child abuse: Current state of knowledge and future directions for research. Family Science Review .
Sharples, A.E., Harman, J.J. & Lorandos, D. (2023). Findings of abuse in families affected by parental alienation. Journal of Family Violence .
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Edward Kruk, Ph.D. , is Professor Emeritus of Social Work at the University of British Columbia, specializing in child and family policy.
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