Eight Symptoms of Parental Alienation

1. Campaign of Denigration – In the campaign of denigration, the child is typically obsessed with the hated or rejected parent. The campaign of denigration is an expression of hate, dislike, not wanting to be near the target parent, describing them as never being a caring, loving parent and who never did anything with them as in a normal parent-child relationship, and never recalling any positive times together.

The campaign of denigration is like a public relations campaign to convince the audience, in this case an evaluator or therapist, about the abusiveness, neglectfulness and unloving behavior of the rejected parent. Frequently, the parent who brings the child will just sit back and shrug and go, “I wish they felt differently but that’s just the way that they are.” So, the presentation carries the appearance that this is coming solely from the child.

The significant component is that the children are obsessed with their rejection of the parent. For example, they cannot remember anything positive about that parent or recall good times with the other parent.

2. Weak, Frivolous, and Absurd Rationalizations – Typically, alienated children give irrational and often ludicrous justification for their rejection of a parent. These children may also justify their alienation with memories of minor incidents that may have happened years earlier and, in some cases, they may report events that never have occurred. Frequently, past events are exaggerated in terms of the frequency and intensity.

3. Lack of Ambivalence – The symptom of a lack of ambivalence is where there is absolutely no wavering. That is, a child is consistent in terms of having a commitment to their position or opinion about the targeted parent. That parent is an evil person and there is nothing good about that parent whatsoever and never was. When asked, “Did you ever have a good time?” Answer: “Never.” With this symptom, however, being one of the more significant or severe ones, when you see a child who presents with a lack of ambivalence that is an indication you might be dealing with a more severe degree of the disorder.

4. Independent Thinker phenomenon – Alienated children frequently, and proudly announce that the things that they are relating about the rejected parent are their own thoughts and feelings, and that no one has told them or influenced them to say these things.

5. Reflexive Support of the Alienating Parent – As the reader reviews the symptoms, one will see how they start to link up especially as they increase in frequency and duration. The alienated child demonstrates an unbridled support for the favored or alienating parent. An alienating parent would be very encouraging of the things that we are talking about. If the process is going on at an unconscious level, then they will reinforce the occurrence unwittingly. They may not even be aware of it. But in the reflective support symptom, the child is suggesting, “as much as I hate the targeted parent, I am that much more positive and committed toward the favored/alienating parent.”

This symptom is elicited by questioning if there is anything that they agree with or like about the targeted parent. Even in high conflict divorces where parental alienation is not present, children will in some ways endorse both parents’ positions about different issues and, if anything, there is an urgency to not take sides. Typically, in the case of divorce, the children do not want to take sides and they do not like being put in that position. In parental alienation cases, however, one sees children clearly taking a side and never taking a supportive position of the targeted parent. As with the other symptoms, this is fundamentally unnatural. These are things that just do not happen normally when people go through a divorce. The child must be nudged significantly by one parent through some kind of indoctrination process.

6. Absence of Guilt – In severe cases there will be an absence of guilt frequently observed in the child. The absence of guilt has to do with the lack of caring or affection toward the target parent. There is an absence of any conscience about what is happening to their parent or their role in it. When children have this degree of symptomatology, they will say such things as, “I want them out of my life; I want nothing to do with them,” etc. In short, they express that they never want to see that person ever again. They have no use for them, they have never been in their life up to this point, there is no point in their being in there now, etc.

This is one of the more severe symptoms and typically not seen until parental alienation has been in the process for a while. This is a very chilling symptom because if one considers attachment theory, a child’s sense of self and relationship emanates from their relationships with their parents. When you have a child who is this disconnected from one of their parents, they are likely going to have among other things serious medical, psychological and relationship problems in their life. With the absence of guilt, it says a lot about their ability to empathize and function normally and truthfully in relationships. One conclusion that can be made is that when children do go through this process, at this level of dysfunction, it is tantamount to a crash course in how to develop a personality disorder. It creates an individual who will be manipulative as an adult, who will have difficulty empathizing, who will tend to not be able to see other people’s perspectives or be honest in their communication. While the research is building and on-going in this area, the dysfunctional dynamics being taught to children strongly suggest that this may be a reasonable hypothesis.

When the parental alienation enters the context of the legal system, an alienating parent may successfully convince a Court that a targeted parent is a truly bad parent and horrible person. Convinced of the accuracy of this description of the target parent, Courts typically minimize or eliminate the targeted parent’s contact with their child. The child will observe those tactics are very effective. They will learn that this is how you get what you want in life. And depending on how thoroughly this is done and how long the process takes, the child could start believing like their alienating parent that the things that have been said about the targeted parent must be true. If the child is left untreated, it is not inconceivable that they will potentially experience serious consequences of this experience.

When parents are separated from their children under false allegations as a protective action, eliminating parent-child contact can have a serious negative affect on the children. That is, the children are denied access to an otherwise healthy parent who would normally make appropriate role model contributions to the children’s development. Some children will blame the parent responsible for the separation. This is when the false accusation of alienation actually “back-fires” on the professed victim of parental alienation. Younger children typically want to maintain a relationship with both parents. In any event, the lack of evidence of parental alienation is all too apparent.

7. Borrowed Scenarios – An evaluator will hear words or phrases that are common to both a parent and a child. The terminology will be repeated with the alienating parent coming in during their interview. They will use some of the same vocabulary and the child will come in and the evaluator will get very similar phraseology, if not exact vocabulary.

8. Spread of Animosity to the Extended Family of the Alienated Parent – There is a spread of animosity to the extended family of the targeted parent and especially significant others that enter the relationship.

Unfortunately, it is not just new male or female friends, quite often it is grandparents. These are people who have had a positive, loving relationship with the child their entire life but now they become objects of hate. An evaluator will see evidence, such as photographs and through interviews with parents and grandparents, of the children having a good relationship with them and being very involved. The separation/divorce will occur at some point and, if parental alienation is present, suddenly that child will begin to express a real dislike and even hatred of those grandparents because they are the father and the mother of the targeted parent.