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The Professional Debate About How Children are Alienated

3/23/2018

 
There is a debate within the professional community regarding just what causes children to become alienated within the context of their parents divorcing or its aftermath.

The debate boils down to this question: Is the behavior of the alienating parent sufficient to cause children to become alienated, or does the targeted parent’s behavior also play a role?

​While this may seem like an interesting question with not much significance, we find that its answer has profound implications regarding what may be recommended as a solution to the problem of Parental Alienation.
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For example, if one believes that the behavior of an alienating parent is sufficient cause to create the alienation within a child, and that the targeted parent simply plays little if any role in the creation of the alienation, the recommendations coming out of that understanding will focus much more on eliminating the toxic effects of that alienating parent’s behavior onto that child.

The goal here will likely enforce time with the targeted parent, even over the child’s protest in the beginning. This model will tend to see the child’s protests regarding that parent as unrealistic or even irrational. The goal will be to help the child to eliminate these unrealistic or irrational negative feelings about that parent.


If however, one believes that the alienating behaviors of the alienating parent is necessary but not sufficient to create alienation, then the responsibility for the child’s alienation will be also be placed at the feet of the targeted parent as well as the alienating parent.

Even though this model will recognize that it is unhealthy for a parent to influence a child to see their other parent critically and negatively, it will tend to see this parental alienating behavior as being simply bad parenting, but not tantamount to child abuse.

Under this understanding, recommendations will be more likely to include, among other things, parenting classes for the targeted parent, and will be less likely to enforce access between that targeted parent and that alienated child. These recommendations will probably refer to access between this child and this parent, as resuming when “the child is ready.”


As a greater generalized understanding of Parental Alienation develops, it appears that the latter model, the one that spreads the responsibility between both parents, is gaining more popularity among the professionals who do these evaluations.

This is concerning since this latter model tends to see the alienation of children, once sufficiently progressed, as being incurable. The first model however does not agree with this at all. In support of this position, growing evidence is cited, gleaned from once alienated children, that even severely alienated children can and do become no longer alienated, and do and can reconnect to the parent from whom they were once alienated.


What does this mean? It means that it is of paramount importance to know to which model your potential Parental Alienation evaluator subscribes. Both groups will boast knowledge of and familiarity with Parental Alienation, and they will do so honestly, but their recommendations will vary dramatically, as will their outcomes.

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Sharon
12/20/2018 02:07:42 pm

The alienator influences both the child and other parent. If the alienated parent acts in anyway different you can believe the alienator caused it. The alienated parent does not understand which can cause behaviors to be different. Its the alienator that causes it all.

Angela link
12/20/2018 11:58:59 pm

Linda Gotlieb has explains that hybrid cases where both parents behaviours are very very very very rare. That there is usually always one parent driving the alienation and the other parent reacting to it. I think those reactions would be considered normal by any other parenting scenario but in the case of an alienator who is teaching the child to view the other parent as a threat it is the opposite raction of what is required. Unfortunately, by the time you understand that you are dealing with PA it's likely too late... Nobody explains this stuff to you as a parent before you have kids and your relationship fails.

The fact that assessors have no real understanding of PA is the issue and until thst is fixed and the right support network is in place to help parents and children who are victims of this... we're going to see an ever increasing number of messed up kids growing up into messed up adults.

Spread the word the hybrid model is rare.

Megan Huxley
5/27/2019 07:29:37 am

It is often stated that Alienation occurs in divorce with “CONFLICT” or “HIGH CONFLICT” involved.
I believe that is one HUGE fallacy. It is the parent who is the softy, the lover, the giver, the trauma-bonded, etc., who is alienated. It truly is just more of the same CONTROL exercised by an abusive mate.

Cara Koch link
5/27/2019 07:30:23 am

Linda Gotlieb’s explanation fits my experience as a target parent of 43 years. I was very careful to not return the alienation behavior when my son was a child. As an adult I tried to tell him the facts, but he interpreted this as an attack on his father, telling me that his father never says anything against me. The truth is his father kept me from any contact whatsoever, including death threats,when my son was age 4-8 years, telling him that I abandoned them both and “took everything, leaving them penniless. Mine was clearly not a case of hybrid alienation.

Richard Burton
5/27/2019 08:23:37 am

The notion of a hybrid cause is a serious mistake arising from the propensity of family courts to appear neutral when describing a divorce as "HIGH CONFLICT". This term fudges the issue by suggesting that there is a conflict about which neither side is prepared to compromise sufficiently for a negotiated settlement to be reached between them. This is the fallacy of the "It takes two to tango" type. Actually "It only takes one to bugger up any dance". Quite naturally, the one person who is buggering up the dance will insist that they are not doing so! Or, that they are not doing so any more than the other person. Another way of saying "It takes two to tango"! So, anybody who says that should be immediately suspect. Angela and Cara are right to point out that there are no hybrid cases of parental alienation. What there might be is hybrid cases of attempted alienation, though these might more precisely be seen as full-throttle attempted alienation on one side being met with a belated attempt at counter alienation from the other (and soon-to-be losing) side. It is astonishing to see how the courts so easily resort to the term "HYBRID" to describe something they simply do not understand sufficiently (parental alienation), wheres by the same token they should easily resort to understanding that nearly always domestic violence is reciprocated in relationships and for this reason (as Erin Pizzy has shown us) can fairly reliably be called "HYBRID", yet the family court insist on asserting the fallacy that it is carried out by only one member of the relationship UNILATERALLY!!


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    J. Michael Bone, PhD.

    Dr. Bone is an experienced consultant for cases involving Parental Alienation and has spent over 25 years working with high conflict divorce as a therapist, expert witness, mediator, evaluator and consultant, both nationally and internationally. 

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