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Finding a Tenable Middle Space: Understanding the Role of Clinical Interventions When a Child Refuses Contact with a Parent
Abstract
This article provides a detailed explanation of the use of clinical interventions, such as the Multi-Modal Family Intervention (MMFI), in situations where a child resists or refuses contact with a parent. Geared toward a multidisciplinary audience of judicial officers, family law attorneys, and mental health practitioners, the authors guide the reader through the conceptual formulations of the ways these interventions can be helpful and then offer three case examples that demonstrate the practical application of the concepts. The authors believe that effective clinical intervention is essential in resolving the resistance/refusal dynamic, and it also enables the child to experience and maintain a tenable space where having relationships with both parents is possible.
... (p. 20) Similarly, Walters and Friedlander (2010) describe "intractable" rejected parents as unable to ally and collaborate with the therapist/coach or other professionals … [when they explain] that modifying their parenting or other behavior is necessary to alleviate their child's rejection, their very rigidity prevents them from modifying their ideas and behavior to avoid further damage to the parent-child relationship … the rejected parent's behavior, while not technically reaching the level of abuse, may be truly unpleasant, further polarizing, and unreasonable, which together make it very difficult for the child to manage. (p. ...
... Treatments under this heading are "talk therapies" of various kinds and may involve children attending sessions alone or with one or the other of the parents, who may also be seen alone; these methods are comparable to treatments used for reunification of children with parents after separation because of neglect or abuse. Walters and Friedlander (2010) have described the use of the multimodal family intervention model with families who are "stuck" in dealing with a child's VRR. Walters and Friedlander discussed in detail the ways in which attorneys and the court itself play roles in this kind of treatment. ...
Strong claims have been made for the possibility of diagnostic discrimination between children who refuse contact with a nonpreferred divorced parent due to parental alienation (PA) created by the preferred parent and those who refuse for other reasons such as abuse. PA proponents have also argued that interventions, which include custody changes, can alter the alienated children’s attitudes and create positive behavior toward the nonpreferred parent. This article examines the plausibility of PA diagnostic and treatment claims and relevant empirical evidence. It is concluded that PA advocates have failed to provide empirical support for the safety and effectiveness of their methods and that custody proceedings should take these facts into consideration. Future research directions based on established understanding of child development are suggested.
... The child may be unable to rely on his=her own experiences or feelings, perceiving and distorting events as an extension of the parent's beliefs (Fidler & Bala, 2010;Walters & Friedlander, 2010a). These behaviors may persist and impact the child's adjustment far into the future . ...
... Thus, parents may have refused cooperation or violated court orders for extended periods of time without really experiencing any consequences for their behavior. For these reasons, professionals may believe that these families cannot benefit from therapeutic help Walters & Friedlander, 2010a). Conversely, as others have noted, even seriously dysfunctional families can be helped if treatment methods are adapted to fit this population (Gershater-Molko, Lutzker, & Wesch, 2002). ...
Children at the center of high-conflict parenting disputes face a variety of emotional risks, emanating from both difficult historical experiences and the ongoing family conflict. Chief among these risks is that children's developmental progress will be compromised or distorted, such that children fail to master the essential developmental tasks and coping skills that they need to function in society and future relationships. In this article, the authors present a model of “child centered conjoint therapy” which can be used in both designated family therapy and as an approach to adapting children's treatment. CCCT is based on the core concept that the child's development, and his/her ability to master healthy coping abilities, must be the primary focus in all therapeutic intervention. This highly structured approach focuses on specific symptoms, behaviors, and skills, as well as the redirection of relationships and emotional healing necessary for children to adjust successfully. The authors also address common problems, obstacles, and the backdrop of support from a PC or the court, which may be necessary for therapy to succeed.
... In dyads, clinical work is done with the co-parents in an attempt to develop a disengaged and parallel model of co-parenting with emphasis on effective communication protocols, conflict resolution involving the children, and establishing appropriate parent-parent and parent-child roles and boundaries. Parent-child dyad sessions focus on developing effective communication and conflict resolution skills, and improving critical thinking (Baker & Sauber, 2013;Johnston, Roseby, & Kuehnle, 2009;Johnston et al., 2001;Judge & Deutsch, 2016;Lebow & Black, 2012;Walters & Friedlander, 2010;Warshak, 2019). In these less severe cases, the courts may order the parents and children attend therapy to work on alleviating the problems, without significantly changing residential care or legal custody. ...
There have been significant developments over the past two decades that have expanded our understanding of the dynamics of parent–child contact problems post‐separation, which have resulted in some changes in judicial processes to respond to these cases. One significant advancement is a more sophisticated differentiation of the nature and severity of contact problems, which better assists legal and mental health professionals to provide more suitable legal and clinical interventions. However, the issue of innovative court processes has received limited attention. The authors describe a subgroup of families within the “severe” category, for whom an expanded intervention model, referred to as a Blended Sequential Intervention is proposed. This approach involves a reversal of care with court mandated therapeutic support for the rejected parent and child, but also involves the favored parent in the therapeutic plan from the outset, and is intended to avoid a permanent “parentectomy” of the child from either parent. The authors discuss how the courts should respond to these cases, and posit that until all therapeutic treatments are exhausted, interim orders should be preferred to final determinations, and judges should maintain oversight. The authors discuss the critical role of judicial leadership in working with lawyers and mental health professionals to manage and address the issues in these high conflict cases.
... Rejected parents may act in self-centered and immature ways, with little or no insight into how their own behavior is contributing and affecting the child" (2010, p. 20). Walters and Friedlander (2010) considered "intractable" rejected parents as rigid and noted that the rejected parent's behavior, while not technically reaching the level of abuse, may be truly unpleasant, further polarizing, and unreasonable, which together make it very difficult for the child to manage"(p. 432). ...
When children of high-conflict divorced parents prefer one parent and resist or refuse visitation with the other parent, some authors have spoken of this situation as parental alienation (PA). PA refers to cases of avoidance of a parent in which the preferred parent is alleged to have manipulated the child’s thinking and created antagonism toward the non-preferred parent, and in which neither abuse nor neglect has been substantiated. Advocates of the PA concept have offered treatment methods that entail court-ordered separation of the child from the preferred parent, followed by intensive treatment and aftercare through specialized counseling, with separation and treatment sometimes lasting years. This paper examines the published evidence and other material related to the safety and effectiveness of PA treatments, and concludes that the treatments have not been shown to be effective, but are in fact potentially harmful. Suggestions are made for research approaches that could help to explain avoidance of a parent and that could yield effective treatment for such avoidance.
Parent–child contact problems (PCCP) are among the most vexing and intractable matters encountered in contemporary divorce and post‐divorce litigation. These complex and incendiary family dynamics can confound even the most experienced evaluators, investigators, and jurists, fueling opposing confirmational biases, and sparking a destructive tug‐of‐war between the aligned parent's allegations of abuse and the rejected parent's allegations of alienation. This article describes all such either/or binary arguments as misleading, contrary to the science, and harmful to children. Rather than cast alienation and estrangement as mutually exclusive alternatives, the systemically‐informed professional must consider more than a dozen mutually compatible practical exigencies and relationship dynamics which can converge to cause a child to align with one parent and resist or refuse contact with the other. Together, these variables are described as constituting an ecological model of the conflicted family system. A rubric is proposed to standardize evaluation across time, children, families, and jurisdictions, minimize bias, avoid premature closure, facilitate more comprehensive evaluations, optimize the efficacy of associated interventions, and invite more rigorous future research.
One hundred and twenty licensed mental health professionals were surveyed about their work conducting court-ordered reunification therapy with moderate to severe cases of children’s rejection of a parent. Four issues were examined in particular: assessment/screening of alienation VS. estrangement, development of treatment goals, definition and measurement of treatment success, and barriers to successful treatment. Predictors of successful treatment were also examined. Results indicate that how success was defined, whether joint sessions are offered, number of barriers, and percent of cases perceived to be hybrids all predicted percent of successful cases. Findings offer many opportunities for refining and enhancing this very challenging work.
Parenting Coordination is a “hybrid legal‐mental health role that combines assessment, education, case management, conflict management, dispute resolution and, often times, decision‐making functions (AFCC, 2019, https://www.afccnet.org/Portals/0/PublicDocuments/Guidelines%20for%20PC%20with%20Appendex.pdf?ver=2020-01-30-190220-990). This article addresses issues that arise when the case has allegations or findings of intimate partner violence (IPV). Considerations of the type of IPV, the severity, timing, perpetrator and effects on coparenting are discussed in the context of the parenting coordinator's role. Through screening and assessment, we differentiate the kinds of cases with the presence of IPV where a PC may be effective as opposed to other IPV cases that may not predict success for retaining a PC.
Child alienation is manifested by significant resistance to parental contact that is disproportional to actual past experience. Individual interviews and questionnaires with all parties and structured family interactions are needed to assess presence and severity. In cases of moderate alienation, a family treatment model featuring psychoeducation, inclusive family goal setting, progressive desensitization, exposure, and development of a new family narrative is recommended
L’ampia diffusione delle separazioni coniugali ha portato all’attenzione il fenomeno del rifiuto, apparentemente immotivato, di un figlio verso un genitore. Il presente studio ha avuto l’obiettivo di esaminare, attraverso una ricerca di archivio, i percorsi psicogiuridici di un gruppo di famiglie separate giunte all’attenzione dei servizi sociali territoriali, in cui un figlio rifiuta immotivatamente un genitore. Il campione e costituito da 106 fascicoli relativi a nuclei familiari seguiti nei servizi sociali individuati. I dati sono stati raccolti attraverso una scheda di analisi costruita ad hoc. I principali risultati indicano che spesso gli interventi effettuati sono fallimentari in quanto non specifici, sovrapposti e prevalentemente orientati alla valutazione. E necessario, quindi, progettare interventi specialistici e coordinati con l’iter giudiziario.
Parental alienation is a post-divorce family dysfunction characterized by a children’s unjustified rejection of a parent in response to inter-parental conflict and loyalty issues. Researchers and clinicians have developed a number of interventions specifically targeted to children who refuse visitation with a parent and their family. Following PRISMA guidelines, a systematic review of current interventions for parental alienation has been conducted. Twenty four publications were included and classified in three categories. Categories, based on the type of intervention described and/or evaluated, are as follows: change of custody and reunification programs; psychotherapy; counseling.
Children often need help before their parents are ready to stop fighting. Children at the center of high-conflict disputes, particularly those who resist contact with a parent, face extraordinary risks of maladjustment. Years of investigation and litigation may precede any meaningful attempt at intervention, based on the questionable belief that all elements of causality (or blame) must be established before any effective treatment can occur. Children's functioning may continue to deteriorate during this time, undermining their future adjustment and reducing the chance of successful intervention later. We illustrate the application of the coping-focused, multisystemic Child Centered Conjoint Therapy model to assisting these families. Methods to assist children without compromising external investigations are discussed.
A subgroup of intractable families, in which a child refuses post separation contact with a parent, perplexes and frustrates professionals who work with them. This article discusses the underlying forces that drive the family's intractability, as well as guidelines for working with the family. The guidelines include specific court orders developed from the very beginning of the case that elaborate the court's stance about goals and expectations for the family, along with specialized individual and family therapies that are undertaken within a framework of planned collaboration with the court. The collaborative team of legal and mental health professionals works in an innovative and active way to structure, support, and monitor the family's progress in resolving the resist/refuse dynamic.
Interest in the problem of children who resist contact with or become alienated from a parent after separation or divorce is growing, due in part to parents' increasing frustrations with the apparent ineffectiveness of the legal system in handling these unique cases. There is a need for legal and mental health professionals to improve their understanding of, and response to, this polarizing social dynamic. This book is a critical, empirically based review of parental alienation that integrates the best research evidence with clinical insight from interviews with leading scholars and practitioners. The text draws upon the growing body of mental health and legal literature to summarize the historical development and controversies surrounding the concept of "alienation" and explain the causes, dynamics, and differentiation of various types of parent-child relationship issues. The chapters review research on prevalence, risk factors, indicators, assessment, and measurement to form a conceptual integration of multiple factors relevant to the etiology and maintenance of the problem of strained parent-child relationships. A differential approach to assessment and intervention is provided. Children's rights, the role of their wishes and preferences in legal proceedings, and the short- and long-term impact of parental alienation are also discussed.
Children who are triangulated into their parents' conflicts can become polarized, aligning with one parent and rejecting the other. In response, courts often order families to engage mental health professionals to provide reunification interventions. This article adapts empirically established systematic desensitization and flooding procedures most commonly used to treat phobic children as possible components of a larger family systems invention designed to help the polarized child develop a healthy relationship with both parents. Strengths and weaknesses of these procedures are discussed and illustrated with case material.
Key Points for the Family Court Community
Family law and psychology agree that children should have the opportunity to enjoy a healthy relationship with both parents
Adult conflict can polarize a child's relationships, including rejection of one parent
Existing clinical and forensic “reunification” strategies often prove inadequate
Reliable and valid cognitive behavioral methods can be adopted to facilitate this process
A cognitive‐behavioral “exposure‐based” reunification protocol is discussed
La presente ricerca si propone di verificare le proprietà psicometriche di una traduzione italiana della Psychological Maltreatment Measure (PMM-I) in un campione di popolazione generale, composto da 739 partecipanti di nazionalità italiana. È stata esplorata la struttura fattoriale dello strumento, indagata la coerenza interna ed esaminata sia la validità convergente, rispetto ad una misura di cura genitoriale, sia la validità predittiva, relativamente a due possibili esiti negativi del maltrattamento psicologico in età adulta (ovvero il distress e la bassa autostima). I risultati, in linea con le nostre ipotesi e la letteratura sul tema, evidenziano una struttura a due fattori del PMM-I e suggeriscono che possa essere uno strumento attendibile e valido per valutare il maltrattamento psicologico nella popolazione adulta italiana.
This research aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of an Italian version of the Psychological Maltreatment Measure (PPM-I) in a sample of 739 community members. The factor structure of the measure was explored, and internal consistency was tested. Finally, concurrent validity of the PPM-I with a measure of parental care and predictive validity to scores on distress occurrence and low levels of self-esteem were checked. Results, according to our assumptions and to the psychological maltreatment literature, show a two factor structure of the PPM-I, and suggest it is a reliable and valid measure for assessing psychological maltreatment in adult Italian samples.
FACTORS AFFECTING RECONCILIATION BETWEEN THE CHILD AND TARGET PARENT IN SEVERE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME
Deirdre Conway Rand and Randy Rand
OVERVIEW & INTRODUCTION
This chapter explores factors affecting reconciliation between the child and target parent in severe parental alienation syndrome (PAS), where the parent-child relationship has been seriously damaged or destroyed. “Severe” includes several types of scenarios: child obsessed with denigrating the target parent; child displaying chaotic, destructive and bizarre behavior in response to intense post-divorce conflict over which parent will stay and which parent will go; child abducted by the alienating parent; child involved in false allegations of sex abuse; little or no contact with the target parent for a period of several years or more.
Alienation is the process by which the child’s love for the other parent is extinguished and replaced by an attitude of reflexive hostility. Reconciliation is the process of reversing alienation and becoming open to the relationship once more.
Some severely alienated children eventually seek out the target parent on their own and are able to reconcile, but little is known about how often this occurs. Gardner (2001b) conducted a follow-up study of 99 PAS children in which spontaneous reconciliation appears to have occurred in four of 77 cases, or 5 percent. Stuart-Mills-Hoch & Hoch (2003) estimated that spontaneous reconciliation occurred in 10 percent of severe PAS cases. This chapter provides numerous case examples with this type of positive outcome, as well as descriptions of failed reconciliation attempts, and worst-case scenarios.
Case reports from published sources, and from our own work over the last 30 years are used to explore the factors associated with reconciliation of the child and target parent in severe PAS. The published cases were drawn from the professional and popular literature, including books, articles in journals and magazines, and newsletters of non-profit organizations. The vignettes designated "case known to authors" are based on the accounts of parents, children, and colleagues we have encountered over the years. They were disguised in accordance with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001).
In the 1970s, we were fortunate enough to interface professionally with Wallerstein, Kelly, and Johnston, as their research on children of divorce was getting underway in Marin County, California. This exposure stimulated our interest in high-conflict divorce and interventions that enable children to have relationships with both parents. We learned about parental alienation in the 1980s, when Gardner began writing about PAS. In the 1990s, interventions with severe PAS families became a focal point of our work. The reunification protocol we follow involves the whole family, including the alienating parent. Children who have successfully reconciled with the target parent after participating in our brief, intensive intervention (4 days on average), typically feel that the alienating parent would benefit from the program as well. It all comes back to the idea that children of divorce, like children in intact families, need both parents.
In this study of 74 children ages 5-12 years in custody disputes, child alienation was defined as the expression of persistent, strong negative attitudes and rejecting behaviors toward one parent with corresponding emotional enmeshment with the other parent. According to parents' ratings using the Child Behavior Checklist, alienated children had more emotional and behavioral problems of clinically significant proportions compared to their nonalienated counterparts. Personality assessments using the Rorschach suggest that alienated and nonalienated children differ in a number of ways with respect to how they perceive and process information, their preferred coping styles and capacities, and how they express affect. In these domains there were also some unexpected findings. Clinical intervention and social policy implications of the findings within the forensic context are discussed.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of structural and therapeutic interventions for interrupting parental alienation syndrome (PAS) toward the severe end of the spectrum. Follow-up was obtained on 45 PAS children from a custody evaluator's practice. The child's adjustment and relationship with both parents at evaluation and follow-up were compared. Children who had enforced visitation with the target parent, or were in target parent custody, maintained relationships with both parents unless the alienator was too disturbed. In the completed alienation outcome group, the alienating parent had custody before and after the evaluation, and was able to violate court orders with impunity. Therapy as the primary intervention was ineffective and sometimes made things worse.
This study of custody disputing families tests competing hypothesis about the correlates of children's alignment with one parent and rejection of the other. Hypotheses include: (a) parental alienation by the aligned parent, (b) abuse by the rejected parent, and (c) boundary diffusion or role reversal in the family. The data were coded from clinical research records of 125 children referred from family courts for custody evaluation or custody counseling. The findings support a multi-factor explanation of children's rejection of a parent with both the aligned and rejected parents contributing to the problem, together with role reversal in parent-child relationships.
The phenomena of impasse and rupture in the psychotherapy relationship have been discussed mostly in terms of the dynamics of the therapist-patient dyad. Therapist alienation identifies the disruptive impact of third-party contamination of the patient's therapeutic alliance with the therapist. Therapist alienation and its intrafamilial cousin, parental alienation, are examined here from an attachment perspective, emphasizing the role of the cognitive schemas underlying each relationship. Case examples are drawn from the author's experience conducting psychotherapy with children of highly conflicted caregivers. Specific recommendations are offered to minimize the likelihood of therapeutic rupture due to therapist alienation. How to respond when and if therapist alienation is suspected and future directions for clinical work, empirical research, and legal process are discussed.
In this article, controversies and problems with parental alienation syndrome are discussed. A reformulation focusing on the alienated child is proposed, and these children are clearly distinguished from other children who resist or refuse contact with a parent following separation or divorce for a variety of normal, expectable reasons, including estrangement. A systemic array of contributing factors are described that can create and/or consolidate alienation in children, including intense marital conflict, a humiliating separation, parental personalities and behaviors, protracted litigation, and professional mismanagement. These factors are understood in the context of the child's capacities and vulnerabilities.
The concept of parental conflict, as it is used in the custody evaluation literature, rarely conveys the motivational complexity of chronic parental acrimony. The concept of pathological hatred better describes and explains why some parents continue bitter fighting years after their divorce. Kernberg's classificatory schema of pathological hatred is applied to high-conflict divorces in which such hatred may be viewed as an effort to destroy, while at the same time desperately needing, the other parent. Difficulties mourning the lost marital relationship, stemming from either character pathology or childhood trauma, create a fertile breeding ground for pathological hatred. The concept of parental competence is also frequently oversimplified in the custody evaluation literature, where it is viewed as an assortment of unrelated skills. From a psychoanalytic perspective, the capacity for parenting is viewed as an outgrowth of a parent's object relationships, defensive structure, ego functioning, superego functioning, and unresolved developmental conflicts. Pathological hatred of the other parent tends to erode the parent's capacity for nurturance, as the parent sacrifices support of the child's developmental needs to the goal of making the child a pawn in the interparental hatred. The negative impact on the child's development can be insidious. An understanding of pathological hatred in high-conflict divorce enables the forensic custody evaluator to assist courts in making appropriate recommendations for therapeutic intervention, as well as custodial and visitation plans that have the potential to ameliorate or at least contain the damaging impact of the interparent hostilities on the child's development.
Analytic child therapy techniques developed as modifications of techniques from adult psychoanalysis. Child therapy continues to be regarded as an adaptation of adult analysis and to give a central place to the methods and conditions of adult analysis, such as interpretation, in its understanding of how therapy heals. I propose that child therapy is not a modified form of therapy and that the essential processes of therapy are fully present in child therapy. In fact, they often may be seen more clearly there than in adult therapy. I suggest two interrelated processes as the essential ones in all analytic therapy. The first is play. I examine several interrelated aspects of play, specifically as they occur in child therapy. These include the emergence and integration of dissociated self‐states, symbolization, and recognition. The second process I propose as essential in analytic therapy is the renegotiation of self—other relationships through action. This renegotiation is what can help patients become able to play in therapy when they have difficulty doing so. Since I suggest that action is at the heart of analytic therapy, I go on to consider the role of talking in an action therapy. Finally, I explore the dimensions of mutuality in the relationship between child and therapist, including mutual influence and regulation, mutual recognition, and mutual regression. The intersubjective nature of psychotherapy, which is increasingly appreciated in adult analytic therapy but not in child therapy, provides a fertile context for the evolution of play and for the productive renegotiation of self—other relationships.
Parentification is a term commonly used to refer to role reversal in the parent-child relationship wherein parents rely upon their children for emotional support. The construct has been discussed widely within the context of divorce as a parenting behavior likely to place children at risk for poor outcomes; however, rigorous empirical examination of parentification following divorce remains sparse. The present paper provides a new framework for considering parental support seeking, suggesting that the process of family restructuring may blur specific parent-child boundaries related to intimacy and power. We elaborate on this model as a mechanism for integrating family systems and developmental psychopathology perspectives and as a framework within which to conduct future research on parentification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The authors argue that current formulations of the problem of resistance to visitation in separation and divorce are conceptually weak because they fail to take into account the adversarial influence of the legal paradigm. First- and second-order change theory is used to clarify the problem, and a new formulation is proposed that shifts the focus from the parent and/or child exclusively to the resistance dynamic as a whole. General guidelines for intervention are proposed based on a holistic, participatory model that takes into account the tensions involved in working toward compliance while upholding the best interests of the child.
This article describes goals and strategies for family-focused counseling and therapy when children are alienated from a parent after separation and divorce. The confidential intervention takes place within a legally defined contract and is based on a careful assessment of the dynamics of the multiple factors that contribute to the alienation and how the chil?s development is affected. Strategies for forming multiple therapeutic alliances with often reluctant, recalcitrant, and polarized parents are discussed together with ways of helping the child directly.
Preliminary findings on the outcomes of family-focused counseling interventions for alienated and estranged children are presented based upon data from a longitudinal study of children in chronic custody disputes who were interviewed as young adults and from the clinical records of long-term therapy with these children who were resisting visitation.
This article provides an overview of the key concepts, themes, issues, and possible mental health and legal interventions related to children's postseparation resistance to having contact with one parent. We maintain that the too often strongly gendered polemic on alienation and abuse is polarizing and needs to be replaced with a more nuanced and balanced discussion that recognizes the complexity of the issues so that the needs of children and families can be better met. This article reviews the historical development of the concept of alienation; discusses the causes, dynamics, and differentiation of various types of parent child contact problems; and summarizes the literature on the impact of alienation on children. These are complex cases. A significant portion of the cases in which alienation is alleged are not in fact alienation cases; for those where alienation is present, interventions will vary depending on the degree of the alienation. More severe alienation cases are unlikely to be responsive to therapeutic or psycho-educational interventions in the absence of either a temporary interruption of contact between the child and the alienating parent or a more permanent custody reversal. We conclude with a summary of recommendations for practice and policy, including the need for early identification and intervention to prevent the development of severe cases, interdisciplinary collaboration and further development and research of interventions.
Overcoming Barriers Family Camp is an innovative program designed to treat separating and divorced families where a child is resisting contact or totally rejecting a parent. Both parents, significant others, and children participate in a 5-day family camp experience that combines psycho-education and clinical intervention in a safe, supportive milieu. This article describes the components of the program, from referrals to intake to aftercare. Evaluation immediately following the camp experience is provided for the camps that ran in 2008 and 2009, and 6-month follow-up interview information is provided for the 2008 camp program as well as 1-month follow-up about the initiation of aftercare with the 2009 families. A discussion of the strengths and challenges of this approach with entrenched, high-conflict family systems concludes the article.
This article describes an innovative educational and experiential program, Family Bridges: A Workshop for Troubled and Alienated Parent-Child RelationshipsTM, that draws on social science research to help severely and unreasonably alienated children and adolescents adjust to court orders that place them with a parent they claim to hate or fear. The article examines the benefits and drawbacks of available options for helping alienated children and controversies and ethical issues regarding coercion of children by parents and courts. The program's goals, principles, structure, procedures, syllabus, limitations, and preliminary outcomes are presented. At the workshop's conclusion, 22 of 23 children, all of whom had failed experiences with counseling prior to enrollment, restored a positive relationship with the rejected parent. At follow-up, 18 of the 22 children maintained their gains; those who relapsed had premature contact with the alienating parent.
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