Myths and Truths about Parental Alienation
Parental alienation (PA) is just a legal defense used by abusive fathers
In over half of the cases where PA was found to have occurred, there were no allegations of other forms of abuse. Research indicates that mothers and fathers are just as likely to be alienated parents: PA is a form of abuse that does not discriminate based on gender.
Mothers do not alienate children: They protect them from abusive fathers
Parents who use their child as a weapon against the other parent, regardless of gender, are committing psychological abuse when it results in severe PA. There are ways to protect children from abuse without causing psychological harm. Research indicates that there is a double standard to accept and justify a mother’s parental alienating behaviors while sanctioning fathers for the same behavior.
PA should be not be recognized because it will be misused by abusers
For any type of abuse, there is always a risk of abusers pretending to be victims. This risk creates the need for clear standards and reliable screening and assessment tools to prevent misuse. The Five-Factor Model provides that standard by requiring that abuse and neglect are not present before PA can be diagnosed.
The alienated parent must be abusive for a child to reject them so strongly
Children who are abused by a parent tend to engage in behaviors to preserve and protect the relationship: they do not seek to destroy it. Children in foster care usually yearn for their birth parents and frequently minimize the maltreatment that their birth parents perpetrated against them. The rejection of a healthy parent is not normal and is an outcome that is encouraged and often rewarded by the alienating parent.
Both parents are responsible for PA
Researchers have found that the alienated parent’s behaviors are not typically the cause of the child’s rejection. It is the alienating parent’s behaviors that are largely responsible for the child’s PA, and these behaviors are usually not reciprocated by the alienated parent.
Research on PA is not “scientific”
Clinical, legal, and scientific evidence on PA has accumulated for over 35 years. There have been over 1,000 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, and books published on the topic, and the empirical research on the topic has expanded greatly, leading to what has been considered a “blossoming” of the scientific field.
PA theory was created by a “pedophile”
Dr. Richard Gardner coined the phrase “parental alienation syndrome.” His clinical descriptions of sexually abused children have been mischaracterized by child abuse and domestic violence advocates to portray him as a pedophile. Such advocates have engaged in ad hominem attacks by taking his writings out of context to further an agenda that denies PA is real.
