«Coercive control is an act or set of physical abuse, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other ill-treatment used to hurt, punish or frighten the victim. This is a particularly insidious form of abuse after separation. To prevent future harm to children affected by parental alienation, researchers recommend a systemic family approach that involves both victims and the abuser. They caution against any approach that concerns only the parent or child concerned. Parental alienation syndrome not only blocks the child`s ability to give and offer affection to a parent, but also highlights fear and anger towards the separated parent [18]. Parental alienation is seen as an attachment-based trauma in which alienating parents, instead of meeting the child`s emotional and psychological needs through stability, use their children to meet their own needs. The «alienating» behavior I would suggest should be called for what it is – a domestic violence strategy. «We need to stop denying this,» Harman told the Colorado State University publication, source. «You have to treat a separated parent like an abused person.

You must treat the child as an abused child. You take the child out of this abusive environment. You will receive treatment for the abusive parent and place the child in a safe environment – the healthier parent. «In all cases, children are victims when they witness or are affected by abuse. From a social perspective, debates about whether to create the diagnosis of parental alienation as a psychiatric diagnosis in its own right have emphasized the risk of stigmatizing the child as a mental disorder that is difficult to demonstrate and understand on a large scale. In addition, there are still controversial conceptual elements regarding the definition of the term and diagnostic algorithms [28,29,30,31], taking into account lesser-known facts and the subjective perception of the parents (the custodial parent) and the child. We often think of parental alienation as a post-relational phenomenon. In fact, it is something that happens in the context of ongoing relationships, just like after a relationship ends.

In both cases, it is a fabricated manipulation that hurts everyone – except, of course, the alienator – from the abused partner to the children used as a weapon. Although parental alienation is not a psychiatric diagnosis per se, nor is parental alienation, its separation is crucial for the child to adequately address the situation in the best interests of the child at the time of establishing custody. If the child`s distancing is based on a real history of violence in the child-parent relationship, the child`s attitude is justified [36]. The national legal framework prescribes forensic expertise in such cases in order to avoid the detection of false positive cases of parental alienation [7,37] and to recognize the risk of maladjustment and mental development of the child. Elements that can increase the degree of difficulty of the examination are the child at a very young age, a long period of time that has elapsed since the first accusation and the presence of psychiatric pathologies in the parents / children [38]. 1. Harman JJ, Leder-Elder S, Biringen Z. Prevalence of adults who are targets of parental alienating behaviour and its effects. Review of Child and Youth Well-Being.

2019;106:104471 Parental alienation is a pathological phenomenon in which a child is convinced by one parent that his or her other parent is unworthy and dangerous and should be rejected.2 The child is persuaded by the alienating/abusive parent through various tactics and maneuvers. If these maneuvers succeed, the child develops the psychological state of parental alienation. This alienation can be mild, moderate or severe.3 In severe cases, the relationship with the rejected/targeted parent is completely interrupted due to the child`s mental state. Even with mild and moderate alienation, there are harmful disturbances in the parent-child relationship. Unlike parental alienation, parental alienation only affects the abused child and the abusive parent with whom he or she refuses to interact. The cause of this child`s refusal is the intrinsic fear of parental abuse in the midst of aggression by the parent from whom he or she is separated, objectified or objectivable. In order to avoid parental alienation, it is necessary to end child abuse and provide adequate social, medical and legal support [5]. Based on new evidence on how family relationships fundamentally affect children`s development and well-being, three researchers, Jennifer Jill Harman, Edward Kruk and Denise A Hines, argue that parental alienation – a deliberate attempt to break a parent-child relationship – should be classified as child maltreatment. The researchers recommend a family system response to parental alienation that involves both victims and abusers to re-establish all relationships with the child.

Practitioners will only intervene when the severity of the abuse reaches a certain threshold. This requires an accurate and qualified diagnosis, complicated by the lack of systematic and empirical research on the causes of parental alienation. These forms of maltreatment, in the given context, can lead to feelings of worthlessness, conditional value and lack of self-confidence [3,23]. In the comparative study of children whose parents were alienated in an average age sample of 11 years, Lavadera et al. found only in themselves the tendency to manipulate behavior, a lack of respect for authority, emotional ambivalence, and a distorted perspective of family dynamics [24]. Studies of adults who were separated from their parents in childhood have shown increased anxiety [25], depression, low self-esteem, substance abuse, alienation of their children, divorce, lack of identity, and lack of belonging [3,26,27]. A case of parental alienation must be rigorously investigated by the state protection agency, similar to a suspected case of physical or sexual abuse. To do otherwise is to neglect the central point – that parental alienation is just as toxic and harmful as these other forms of abuse. The persons involved in the phenomenon of parental alienation are the child, the alienating parent (the one with whom the child lives) and the alienated parent (the one from whom the child is separated). In addition, other people close to the child, usually trusted parents who contribute to the process of denigrating the separated parent, also intervene in the process of parental alienation. The source of parental alienation lies in a complex spectrum of extrinsic elements involved in manipulating the child to avoid interaction with the parent from whom he or she is separated [7,34]. Recent research has begun to characterize parental alienation as a form of intimate terrorism and child abuse.

Social psychologist Jennifer Harman of Colorado State University co-authored a research paper with Edward Kruk, associate professor of social work at the University of British Columbia, and Denise Hines, professor of psychology at Clark University. They found that while about 22 million Americans are affected, parental alienation has been largely ignored or denied by legal and health professionals as a form of domestic violence. Some authors are reluctant to describe this phenomenon to distinguish it from parental alienation, referring to cases where a child has been genuinely abused by a parent with whom he or she has refused to interact with him, the rejection being justified [5]. Researchers highlight aspects of parental alienation that fit definitions of child maltreatment. The rejection of a parent due to parental alienation is a devastating and tragic event for the child. Research clearly shows that children need both parents to be actively involved in their lives.