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Ten Parental Alienation Fallacies That Compromise Decisions in Court and in Therapy

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Abstract

False beliefs about the genesis of parental alienation and about appropriate remedies shape opinions and decisions that fail to meet children's needs. This article examines 10 mistaken assumptions: (a) children never unreasonably reject the parent with whom they spend the most time, (b) children never unreasonably reject mothers, (c) each parent contributes equally to a child's alienation, (d) alienation is a child's transient, short-lived response to the parents' separation, (e) rejecting a parent is a short-term healthy coping mechanism, (f) young children living with an alienating parent need no intervention, (g) alienated adolescents' stated preferences should dominate custody decisions, (h) children who appear to function well outside the family need no intervention, (i) severely alienated children are best treated with traditional therapy techniques while living primarily with their favored parent, and (j) separating children from an alienating parent is traumatic. Reliance on false beliefs compromises investigations and undermines adequate consideration of alternative explanations for the causes of a child's alienation. Most critical, fallacies about parental alienation shortchange children and parents by supporting outcomes that fail to provide effective relief to those who experience this problem.
Ten Parental Alienation Fallacies That Compromise Decisions in Court
and in Therapy
Richard A. Warshak
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
False beliefs about the genesis of parental alienation and about appropriate remedies shape opinions and decisions
that fail to meet children’s needs. This article examines 10 mistaken assumptions: (a) children never unreasonably
reject the parent with whom they spend the most time, (b) children never unreasonably reject mothers, (c) each
parent contributes equally to a child’s alienation, (d) alienation is a child’s transient, short-lived response to the
parents’ separation, (e) rejecting a parent is a short-term healthy coping mechanism, (f) young children living with
an alienating parent need no intervention, (g) alienated adolescents’ stated preferences should dominate custody
decisions, (h) children who appear to function well outside the family need no intervention, (i) severely alienated
children are best treated with traditional therapy techniques while living primarily with their favored parent, and (j)
separating children from an alienating parent is traumatic. Reliance on false beliefs compromises investigations and
undermines adequate consideration of alternative explanations for the causes of a child’s alienation. Most critical,
fallacies about parental alienation shortchange children and parents by supporting outcomes that fail to provide
effective relief to those who experience this problem.
Keywords: alienation, custody reversal, high-conflict divorce, parental alienation, reunification
Common false beliefs about parental alienation lead therapists and
lawyers to give bad advice to their clients, evaluators to give inade-
quate recommendations to courts, and judges to reach injudicious
decisions. The increasing recognition of the phenomenon of chil-
dren’s pathological alienation from parents brings with it a prolifer-
ation of mistaken assumptions about the problem’s roots and reme-
dies. These assumptions fail to hold up in the light of research, case
law, or experience.
In some instances, a professional may not have thought to question
the belief, or may lack sufficient experience and familiarity with
research literature to test the accuracy of the assumption. The more
often the fallacy is mentioned in professional presentations and pub-
lications, the more likely it becomes a woozle—a commonly accepted
idea that lacks grounding in persuasive evidence yet gains traction
through repetition to the point where people assume that it is true
(Nielsen, 2014). In other cases evaluators, therapists, and lawyers
make unreliable predictions based on the relatively small sample of
their practices. Some professionals hold rigid ideological positions
that inhibit receptivity to disconfirming facts or lead to intentional
evasion of data that conflict with desired conclusions (Lundgren &
Prislin, 1998;Martindale, 2005). Even those with no strong ideolog-
ical motivation to advocate a particular position are susceptible to
confirmation biases that predispose them to search for and focus on
information that supports previously held beliefs and expectations,
while overlooking, ignoring, or discounting facts that fail to conform
to their preconceived views (Greenberg, Gould-Saltman, & Gottlieb,
2008;Jonas, Schulz-Hardt, Frey, & Thelen, 2001;Rogerson, Gottlieb,
Handelsman, Knapp, & Younggren, 2011). An untested assumption
about the significance of one factor, such as a generalization based on
a child’s age, may lead family law professionals to place undue
weight on that factor when making recommendations or decisions.
This article identifies 10 prevalent and strongly held assumptions and
myths about parental alienation found in reports by therapists, custody
evaluators, and child representatives (such as guardians ad litem), in case
law, and in professional articles. Ideas were determined to be fallacies if
they are contradicted by the weight of empirical research, by specific case
outcomes, or by the author’s more than three decades of experience
evaluating, treating, and consulting on cases with parental alienation
claims. The following discussion pertains to the pathological variant of
parental alienation and not to situations in which a child’s rejection of a
parent is proportional to the parent’s treatment of the child. The 10
fallacies about parental alienation fall into two categories: those that
predominantly relate to the genesis of parental alienation and those
concerned with remedies for the problem.
Fallacies About the Genesis of Parental Alienation
1. Children Never Unreasonably Reject the Parent
With Whom They Spend the Most Time
It is generally assumed that children will identify most closely
with the parent whom they see the most. When children live
This article was published Online First June 22, 2015.
RICHARD A. WARSHAK received his PhD in clinical psychology from the
University of Texas Health Science Center. He is a Clinical Professor of
Psychiatry at the UT Southwestern Medical Center and consults and
testifies internationally in child custody proceedings. He studies the psy-
chology of alienated children; children’s involvement in custody disputes;
and outcomes of divorce, child custody decisions, stepfamilies, relocations,
and parenting plans for young children. Also he develops educational
materials and interventions to help understand, prevent, and overcome
damaged parent– child relationships.
CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS ARTICLE should be addressed to
Richard A. Warshak, 16970 Dallas Parkway, Suite 202, Dallas, TX 75248.
E-mail: doc@warshak.com
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice © 2015 American Psychological Association
2015, Vol. 46, No. 4, 235–249 0735-7028/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pro0000031
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... These findings also support the need for more research on treatment for parental alienation across all levels of severity. Individual therapy without removing a severely alienated child from the abusive parent has been found to be contraindicated and often makes the child's condition worse (Clawar & Rivlin, 2013;Warshak, 2015). Likewise, intensive intervention programs designed to treat a more general resist/refuse dynamic are not effective for some families (Saini, 2019) because of a failure to differentiate cases where there has been severe parental alienation versus other forms of family conflicts (e.g., loyalty conflicts). ...
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