The concept of “parental alienation” remains a controversial subject in family law in Australia, and is sometimes confused with “Parental Alienation Syndrome”. While the former is regarded as a valid concept, the latter has been widely discredited and is not considered credible in our court system.
What is “parental alienation”? The term refers to the situation where one parent deliberately works to destroy the relationship between a child and its other parent, causing a breakdown of a previously normal, healthy parent-child relationship. This behaviour is most often seen during high-conflict divorce and child custody proceedings, and frequently where there is a personality-disordered parent (such as the narcissistic or borderline parent).
It occurs when a child is seen to be harshly and unreasonably rejecting a formerly loved parent due solely to the influence of an alienating parent who is actively (and passively supporting, encouraging and enabling the child to do so. The alienation manifests itself in dysfunctional parenting patterns of behaviour, such as denigrating or badmouthing the other parent, limiting time spent with them, and other disruptive behaviours that amount to a campaign of denigration against the targeted parent. The result is often the loss of contact with the parent and extended family, emotional harm to the child, who may feel guilt and self-hatred and have self-esteem issues, coupled with the fact that there is continued unconscious identification with the rejected parent, or a child may come to believe unfounded abuse allegations.
It’s important to make the distinction between “parental alienation” and the term “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) as coined by controversial American psychiatrist Dr Richard Gardner several decades ago. Where parental alienation refers to the behaviours of the parent, PAS refers to a supposed subsequent disorder caused in the child. Dr Gardner controversially argued women often—in fact, in 90% of cases—maliciously programmed or brainwashed their children into manufacturing allegations of sexual abuse. His work has however since been widely discredited as a ‘junk science’ and the American died a much-despised figure (not least because of his later claims that paedophilia was common and normal).
Despite Gardner’s fall from grace and the debunking of his non-scientific methods, the term PAS has still managed to find its way into the court system at times. However, as Chief Justice of the Family Court, Diana Bryant, has said: “It isn’t something that the Family Court accepts. All of the internal counsellors that are in the Court subscribe to the view that there is no valid condition as Parental Alienation Syndrome.”
Deputy Chief Justice of the Family Court, Justice John Faulks has also noted, “So far as the syndrome is concerned, I wouldn’t have thought anyone was relevantly suggesting that that was still a psychologically valid concept, but that does not in any way suggest that there aren’t situations in which parents do engage in a process of trying the alienate the children from the other parent. That’s not a syndrome of the child, that’s a feature of the evidence of the parent.” (Source: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/in-the-childs-best-interests-v2/6533660#transcript)
The truncated term “parental alienation”, as used to describe when a parent consciously undermines the child’s relationship with the other parent, has been accepted into usage in our court system. It describes the experience of one parent alienating the other to the point where the child acts hateful to the alienated parent and wishes to spend no time together. The child will consciously denigrate that parent and become overly allied with the other. The result is that the child-parent bond is disrupted and trauma is caused to the rejecting child and rejected parent.
Over the past decade there has been a vast increase in the number of cases mentioning parental alienation in the Australian court system, though in about half the cases, the court has not found alienation has occurred, finding instead estrangement has occurred due to abuse, violence or other poor parenting, or finding that the child is disengaged but not alienated, or that there is simply insufficient evidence of alienation. Estrangement is very different to alienation. In some cases the child’s rejection of a parent is justified by abuse, poor parenting or tensions within a stepfamily.
Is there any remedy to parental alienation? Parents who feel alienated sometimes benefit from family therapy or other counselling, mediation, or post-separation parenting education. At the judicial level, courts may order reunification therapy, while the most extreme intervention is a change of residence, and there is evidence of increasing judicial willingness to consider this. In Wang & Dennison (2009), for example, the mother was found to have engaged in ‘behaviour intended to incite hatred in the children against the father’. Despite these findings against the mother, the Court had to address the ‘intense antipathy’ that the children felt towards the father, to the point where they threatened self-harm if they were forced to live with him. The Court ordered that the children live with the mother, and the judge ordered a post-orders program with a view to reunification with the father. Parental alienation has also played a role in several other recent cases, such as Mitchell & Mitchell (2014), where the father admitted he had denied the children their right to a meaningful relationship with their mother, or Feltham & Feltham (2014) where the father ‘demonised the mother and turned the children against her’. In both cases the Court reversed the children’s residence away from the alienating parent.
What to do if you are experiencing parental alienation
It’s important to focus on parental alienation as a concept, and not PAS as a syndrome, if you wish to be taken seriously in our courts. Documentation of all alienating behaviours is necessary—but see your family lawyer to ensure you follow the law on what is allowed and what isn’t in terms of collecting documentary evidence. If possible, get witnesses to destructive alienating behaviours. It’s also important not to attempt to reason with your child about their rejection of you. Rather, spend the time with your child making positive memories. Above all, never retaliate with verbal attacks on the alienating parent—always take the high road.
Please call us here at Alliance Family Law on (02) 6223 2400 for compassionate advice regarding your family law matter—we are here to help you.
