smoke without fire: the challenges of identifying and ... · immature, self-centred induces guilt...

Smoke Without Fire: The challenges of identifying and working

with parental alienation

Dr Sue Whitcombe, Chartered Psychologist

[email protected]

• Beginnings – my journey: observations, questions and the search for answers

• Research – the experience of parents• A solution? Family Psychology Solutions –

tackling the issues on all levels• Over to you ……

Background

no contact

What is parental alienation?

Unjustified or unwarranted rejection of a parent where there was previously a normal loving relationship

Intentional or unintentional actions by the parent with care (PWC) to turn their child or children against the non-resident parent (NRP)

Over time, the child becomes hostile, vitriolic and abusive, before usually rejecting NRP and refusing contact



Defence mechanism: Children unable to deal with hostility and conflict

between parents Feel forced (unconsciously) to choose between

parents to maintain basic needs - stability and safety to live and grow

Splitting defence - one parent is all good, and the other is all bad

Unable to manage the reality that there is good and bad in both

What is parental alienation?In the absence of family violence or abuse:1. A campaign of denigration2. Weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for the

criticismPlus 2 or more of the following:3. Lack of ambivalence4. The "independent-thinker" phenomenon5. Reflexive support of the alienating parent 6. Absence of guilt over cruelty to the alienated parent7. The presence of borrowed scenarios8. Spread of the animosity to the friends and/or

extended family of the alienated parent Over a sustained period of time


A campaign of denigration

Hostile and abusive Physically resisting contact Rejecting phone calls, letters,

emails and gifts and expressing hatred

Use of adult expressions and language


A campaign of denigration

James – age 9He’s a dick. She’s a dick – they’re all dicks.I jump in front of his van and shout “fucking prick”.

Katy – age 4I kicked him in the balls and shook my butt at him.

“We see them every other weekend. But the damage is done and they are not with us long enough to repair it. They resist coming, they deliberately act up presumably because they think we will give up or loose our temper, and they go all out to have a bad time with us. We turn this around as the weekend goes on but then they go home and we have to start again the following visit.”

personal email

He isn’t a nice man. He is fat

and his house is messy


Weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for the criticism

He forces me to eat broccoli

She won’t let me watch TV when

I’m eating dinner

Her friends are horrible. They ask me questions and

bribe me with chocolate


Lack of ambivalence - cannot acknowledge any good aspects of the rejected parent “all bad” – black and white thinking

What surprised me is how easy it was for the children to

become alienated, from having a wonderful loving

relationship with them, to them saying that they did not

want to see me, to them saying that they hated me, took a

matter of weeks

research participant


The "independent-thinker" phenomenon

The child is totally influenced by the alienating parent or brainwashed by that parent against the now absent parent and the child will claim that what he/she has stated is his/her idea rather than that of the alienator.

Lowenstein, 2013


Reflexive support of the alienating parent

The child and the PWC are enmeshed – an overly dependent relationship, best friends, child can see no fault in the PWC


Absence of guilt over cruelty to the alienated parent

When he was in sight of Jane he turned and hit me, looking at Jane with a broad grin on his face looking for approval.

Moore, 2013


The presence of borrowed scenarios

“When we arrived at Jane’s house my son turns to me and says, ‘You don’t give my mummy any money and you should be giving me money each week”

Moore, 2013

You hurt me when

I was a baby

You abandoned us because you didn’t love us any more

We had to move house because you didn’t give

us enough money


Spread of the animosity to the friends and/or extended family of the alienated parent

My ex has played games for 8 years now, and has finally managed to stop

contact with all 3 of my kids, aged 14 11 and 9, it breaks my heart and my

entire family and all my friends have been removed from their lives

research participant

My ex husband has made it his sole purpose to exclude me and my family

from my children's lives. My children are brainwashed to believe that they

are better off having no contact with me or their grandparents, aunts,

uncles and cousins and that we are all bad people who want to destroy their

lives.research participant


The alienated child

More likely to be:

Only child or eldest child Girl Age 8-13 Sensitive Attuned to the feelings of

others Intelligent


The alienating parent

Narcissistic damage Estranged or alienated from a parent / enmeshed with a parent Personality traits – history of relationship difficulty Gatekeeping Conditional love Overly emotional Engages child in adult discussions Depends on child for emotional fulfilment Child choice and use of treats Actively denigrates and includes child in denigration False allegations


Alienating behaviours

A recent Resolution survey of young people whose parents have gone through divorce, carried out by polling agency ComRes, showed that many teens and young adults felt that their parents placed additional stresses on them during the process of break up. Almost a third (32%) said one parent tried to turn them against the other during divorce, while over a quarter (27%) said that “my parents tried to involve me in their dispute.”

Resolution, 19 Feb 2015http://www.resolution.org.uk/news-list.asp?page_id=228&page=1&n_id=273

Bernet, W., Baker, A. J. L. & Verrocchio, M. C. (2015). Symptom Checklist-90-

Revised Scores in Adult Children Exposed to Alienating Behaviors: An Italian

Sample. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 60(2), 357-362.

http://www.resolution.org.uk/news-list.asp?page_id=228&page=1&n_id=273


The alienated parent

Passivity or withdrawal in face of conflict Immature, self-centred Induces guilt Vents rage, blames alienating parent for brainwashing and takes no

responsibility Harsh, rigid and punitive parenting style Dismissive of child’s feelings and negative attitudes Lacks empathic connection with child Counter-rejecting behaviour Inept and unempathic pursuit of child, pushes calls and letters,

unannounced and embarrassing visits Loses temper, intimidating character traits

Parental alienation - outcomes

short-term children may appear to function reasonably well in their day to day lives

life-long effects include depression, substance abuse, damaged self-esteem, personality and identity issues, enduring relationship issues with lack of trust, divorce and alienation from their own children have been found in adults who experienced PA as a child (Baker, 2005a, 2007)

have to deal with their belief that their parent was a “bad” person, but also the later recognition that they have been forced to exclude a loving, caring, decent parent from their life may cause irreversible damage to their relationship with the alienating parent

2012: 57,139 couples divorced – 99,822 children (ONS, 2013)2010: 122,820 children involved in private family law proceedings (MoJ, 2011)2014: year to March, 46,495 new private family law cases (Cafcass, 2014)

Extrapolating from overseas studies – parental alienation is likely to be a feature in a minimum of 5,000 family proceeding applications per annum involving more than 10,000 children

Parental alienation - prevalence

• Justifiable rejection, estrangement, can occur due to poor parenting, sexual abuse or violence – this is not parental alienation

• Alienation can be mild, moderate or severe (pure)

• Mild or moderate alienation can be hybrid – both parents are involved in alienating behaviours

Children who resist post-separation contact

Global studies suggest 4 possible remedies:• accept the child’s contact refusal• place the child in care away from both parents• reside child with favoured parent + psychotherapy and

enforceable case management• reside child with rejected parent + psychotherapy

Intransigent to remedy if child remains with parent unable to foster child’s relationship with other parent

What can we do as practitioners?

747

Research – the experience of parents

• 94% family proceedings• 70% former partner repeatedly broke orders• 78% currently had no direct contact• 56% had not seen child in the last year

Research – the experience of parents

False allegations

June 2015

Judge Stephen Wildblood QC:“Following a very high level of inquiry, it has been found that the mother positively invented allegations against the father on two occasions in an attempt to stop him having any contact or relationship with the child.”

In the Bristol Family courtRoger Williams – Applicant

-v-Rebecca Minnock – First respondent and

Ethan Freeman Williams (by his guardian) – Second respondent

False allegations

Sheriff Drummond QC:

She painted herself as a victim of abuse and used her child “as a source to advance her personal vendetta with her former partner” by, for example, making contrasting statements to police and in evidence about her child’s welfare.

July 2015

False allegations

• High Court judge Mrs Justice Pauffley ruled children had been "tortured" &"brainwashed" by Draper & Christie.

• Draper was in middle of a battle with children's father over access arrangements when she falsely accused him of sexual abuse, resulting in him receiving death threats.

• Children’s "fantasy" accounts of abuse stemmed from "relentless emotional and psychological pressure" by Draper and Christie who beat them into concocting stories. In video clips, the children falsely accused their father of leading the cult -but later confessed to police that they had been forced to lie.

March 2015

POWERLESS – the experience of parents

I’m fighting with both hands behind my back

I feel completely impotent about the matter


The constant shattering of your hope each time you get rejected by family court for contact is unbearable. Your confidence, drive, energy, happiness, ambition, love and passion are extinguished. Your work life is destroyed, your personal life is destroyed, you can’t focus, you can’t eat, you [can’t] sleep, you forget how to laugh, you forget how to have fun. I have not slept properly for nearly 3 years, I have lost everything


I got very depressed, I saw a Crisis team due to it. I wrote suicide notes for my son & myself as mentally I was gone & in my mental state I thought it was how best to protect him


• Knowing your own children have been so deeply emotionally abused and there is nothing you can do about it is extremely painful to live with

• I fear terribly for the psychological consequences to him – when he does realise what has actually happened here. I am very worried that his personal relationships will suffer because he’s been taught to hate women


• 5 years later the pain is still there and the real life dreams of reunion continue. I have learnt to live but a huge part of me died. I hold some hope that I will see him again one day based on research I have done but some days this feels like a pipe dream

• The kids have simply put up a wall. There is quite simply nothing left for me to try, and thus I have and am moving on with my life –with some regret but a lot of sadness


The resident parent has all the power to influence the children and if they are predisposed can and do block any contact

I believe the speed of the court process has made the situation

worse. The actions of the court to not act on the repeated

breach of court orders


I am a childcare professional who was employed by social services – I was accused of emotionally damaging my children as I’m a ‘control freak’ according to my ex, she also accused me of being a child molester yet nobody has contacted the police or my employer (I work with children) this was all to try stop contact with the kids


The only glimmer of hope you have is that the courts will help you. When in reality they do the opposite. Your treated as a monster not a person, someone who hates and not loves, someone who harms and not nurtures, a taker not a provider, someone who is evil not kind, someone who is violent and not gentle, a potential threat instead of a human being.


• The courts have to learn to recognise cases like this, where if they don’t intervene, things will be very bad

• My daughter is only 13 months old. CAFCASS initially said that she was too young to experience any emotional/psychological problems, including parental alienation, and contact with her father (me) was not important until the age of 4. This was essentially overturned in court and there is now a suggestion that my daughter has suffered harm through either poor contact quality and lack of contact.


• …the court infrastructure is set up to ensure that the child is “owned by”, or “the property of” the mother. Parenting is perceived only to be the responsibility of the mother, whilst the father is only expected to be the “ATM”

• From the first court hearing anything that is said fell on deaf ears but all that said and stated in court by mother was believed

• I've fought through a gravely inept and sexist judicial system to find that Mothers can lie about everything and court orders are meaningless to them. She even got my boys to lie to a Judge about me [ ] sadly nothing is done.....


• Moreover, Cafcass does not disclose the process and therefore it is virtually impossible to contest their decision

• I have been viewed and treated like a bad person, feel as if I am on trial. I have known criminals be treated better. I served 13 years in the police service and I am appalled by the 'system'. The fact that you do not have a voice and the court has shown no regard to me is damning


• The Courts just thought that time would heal. It doesn't, it just gives your ex the chance to alienate more

• I have been told by CAFCASS Guardian and also Contact Centre Manager "to forget my relationship and give up...walk away till the children are ready to see you, if they ever are”


• I have almost no hope for the future at all

• I do not know what the future holds, feeling in limbo is about the best I can put it

• Every Day is emotional torture. This has been by far the single worst experience of my life. I reside in a limbo, waiting for the day that my children are old enough to see the truth, whilst every day worrying about how this will affect them


• I had many thoughts of ending it all as social services were on a personal witch-hunt against me and documents proved it. I felt that I was fighting the world and could never win

• I attempted suicide by overdose twice, self-harmed by cutting myself for 2 years, suffered with depression and anxiety and had to stop working due to my mental health

Family Psychology Solutions CIC

1. Evidence informed interventions for parents, children and families

2. Training – for professionals and practitioners3. Consultancy – for individuals and organisations4. Expert witness assessments and reports

September 2014

• One size DOES NOT fit all • Finding like minded, flexible, creative, resilient,

accredited practitioners• Quality Assurance• The language barrier• There are only 168 hours in a week …..

Challenges

Further information

PASG – www.pasg.infowww.familypsychologysolutions.orgwww.tees.academia.edu/SueWhitcombe

http://www.pasg.info/

http://www.familypsychologysolutions.org/

http://www.tees.academia.edu/SueWhitcombe

Thank you for listening.Questions?Comments?

www.familypsychologysolutions.org

smoke without fire: the challenges of identifying and ... · immature, self-centred induces guilt...

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