This week I have been working in Wales where it is said by some that parental alienation is not recognised. Far from not being recognised, my experience of working with families affected by the problem in Wales, is that in some courts the problem is acknowledged far more readily than in parts of England. Just like in England and now Northern Ireland and in small incremental steps, Scotland too, change in Wales is coming in patches. Having done a lot of work in Wales in 2014/15, including residence transfer, I found that understanding of parental alienation in CAFCASS Cymru was far ahead of its English counterpart. Fortunately England is catching up now and hopefully, with some more work, we will see a more uniform understanding emerging across the UK.
As I move around the UK and now Europe, it is very clear that where we are successful in our interventions, we are also educating the court system on the effectiveness of the internationally recognised standards of intervention in parental alienation cases. This increases the importance as well as the power of an association like the European Association of Parental Alienation Practitioners and makes it all the more necessary to focus on getting the standards, training, supervision, membership and accreditation elements of this right. As our working group comes together, this is what we are focused on right now.
And it is vital that we are focused because there are still those who believe that all cases of parental alienation are caused in the main by either high conflict or two parents contributing to the dynamic. Reading and responding to comments on a great blog by one of the participants at the meeting in Prague last week, I am ever more aware that the problem of understanding parental alienation in terms of effective practice, is wide reaching.
Fortunately there are some people who are long established in this field who know the truth of how to deal with problem. Reading this blog this week, about how traditional therapy will not work in cases of parental alienation sharpened my understanding of the mental health and legal interlock which is necessary to create rapid and effective change. This is what our work with EAPAP is focused on and what the work of the Family Separation Clinic has always been about.
The greatest danger to alienated children is, in my view, the belief that parental alienation can be treated via therapeutic means and that both parents contribute to the problems seen. Nothing could be further from the truth in my view and the two year timescale given in some services to successfully treat a case of parental alienation is appalling. Two years in a child’s life is too long to wait for restoration of a relationship and the often used approach of placating the alienating parent by attempting to fix the rejected parent is harmful to the child and parent concerned. As we develop EAPAP we will be working on awareness campaigns and providing information and guidance on the internationally recognised standards in working with children and families affected by parental alienation, to drive up standards and protect families from being subjected to this kind of practice.
As part of this work, The Family Separation Clinic in conjunction with the European Association of Parental Alienation Practitioners will be holding a major conference in London on 30/31st August 2018 with Amy J. L. Baker and many other key figures in the field of parental alienation. The conference will be held at the Royal Society of Medicine in Wimpole Street, London which is central and very easily accessible from all over Europe. The conference is for legal and mental health professionals and will provide a unique learning opportunity, offering access to the most up to date research in the field and a chance to hear key people speaking about their work. Discussion seminars and education workshops will be available and attendance will attract CPD points. We will additionally, stream parts of the conference around the world for parents and practitioners who are unable to attend in person. We will be announcing the full programme of events in August and you will be able to book places at early bird prices from August 30th 2017. We are incredibly grateful to a key supporter of our work for his financial investment in this conference which we see as a game changer in terms of understanding and treatment of parental alienation in Europe.
Great news arrived this week on top of plans for the conference. The book is now entering the printing process which means that we are now very close to seeing it published. As soon as we get news that it is available from Amazon we will alert you. Those of you who pre-ordered it will now finally receive your package directly. Thank you for your patience, I know that the wait has been too long for some. Unfortunately we have had to work on this during holidays and other spare moments as we cannot stop our other work in order to write and so it has taken longer than we hoped. We also had to reduce the word count from 110,000 to 90,000, to make it financially viable. This process of reducing words took almost as long as writing the original 110,000! At least though we have a good start on the next book with 30,000 words already down on paper.
As we enter into the busiest phase of development work we have ever seen at the Family Separation Clinic I am conscious always that driving change in understanding and practice around parental alienation is key to changing the lives of parents and children affected by it. With many people now coming together around the internationally recognised standards of practice which we know make the difference, it is time to change gear into fast forward. Getting more successful outcomes to more families is our goal, bringing in a new generation of expert practitioners to assist in doing that is our methodology. We are scaling up the efforts and using all of our expertise and our evidence base of successful outcomes to increase the pressure.
We are working towards a tomorrow where parental alienation is both universally understood and helped to heal so that it no longer has to be coped with by anyone.
Understanding Parental Alienation: Learning to Cope, Helping to Heal will shortly be available, published 2017 by Charles C Thomas Illinois.
Karen Woodall - Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer 
All great to hear. Thanks for the update.
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what are the best references for shiwing what treatment methods work and whuch do not? has anyone actually follwed people around and dicumented anf counted kuds who who were presribed reunification therapy that did not work because the child was never “ready”? and all the failres coming by failing to fix the erasrd parent? and sll the other normal failuressuch as the alienator not bringing the child to therapy or sabatoging it?
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There is curated evidence of what works in the research Howie. We are currently preparing a paper on the international research as part of the EAPAP project. In my view what works for severe alienation (encapsulated delusional disorder plus transgenerational transmission of trauma plus pathological mourning), is a protective separation from the alienating parent of up to 90 days with intervention to reconfigure the child’s perceptions of reality. That’s the same as the High Road protocol, Family Bridges and other reunication programmes. Hybrid is different. ~Too many people think hybrid is about both parents though and use standard therapy that again won’t work. Friedlander and Walters are the key people for hybrid cases. It’s all there, it needs curating, codifying and demonstrating repeatedly. Which is what we doing doing in Europe. At some point soon, Doc C and Dorcy and we are going to converge at the pincer point, it’s stunning how the reflections of what is emerging on both sides of the Atlantic are so similar, right down to the geometric shapes being described. This is the right thing for the right time in the right way. I have no doubt whatsoever we will overcome this.
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Reblogged this on Parental Alienation.
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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Even when its recognized now, what will happen to all the cases of children where especially UK High Court Judges have excluded one parent – mainly the fathers – from their childrens life?
Has Munby and his colleagues ever corrected a previous wrong decision? Who has been looking in the cases of UK High Court Judge Alison Russell and her rootcutter Karl Michael (Eia) Asen from Anna Freud Institute? There are more High Court Judges and more of these psychologists and psychiatrists.
Who will look into the decisions of Appeal Judges like Ryder and McFarlane where they even rejected the permission to appeal? Cases where they just blocked any justice in saying ‘as being completely out of merits’ and not allowing any legal remedy against such a decision?
Are parents now able to take such a decision in easily going back to court and get it corrected? Maybe yes but then again it will be big money for the lawyers. And why should parents, who often ended up near poverty, trust? Will alienating parents – in fear of their previous crimes – explain and send their child now to the child to the alienated parent? None of this will happen.
Instead of naming it Patental Alienation it would be better to call it Hostile Aggressive Parenting. And to look at the detailed checklist of HAP. I am not aware that a UK court ever did this.
Who is looking at the parental rootcutting business or better parental rootcutting industry where they start to exclude one parent from childs life? And when needed to exclude the second parent to get the children for UK forced adoptions? Getting children for same sex couples where nowadays not 8 but 10 or 12% of the children end up. The only good, these children know for sure that they have been excluded from one natural parent.
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