Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

For the past fifteen years I have worked with children said to be alienated in family separation and in doing so, I have come to understand that this pathological presentation of alignment and rejection by the child, heralds several distinct markers within the family system.

1. The presence of a psychopathology in one of the parents (or sometimes (not often) both.
2. A child with a weak and fragile ego (sense of self), due to the impact of parental psychopathology in the family system.
3. The potential for unresolved attachment trauma in one or both parents and often, their own parents.
4. The presence of primitive defences of denial, splitting and projection and the narcissistic defences of repression, distortion, triangulation and the over use of projective identification.

These are family systems which are haunted by the psychopathology which has been introduced into them via the lack of insight and self awareness of the parent who is in control of the child. Protecting the child who aligns and rejects from harm therefore, requires an understanding of why children align and reject when they are triangulated into adult dynamics.

Why children align and reject

Most children feel an affinity with one parent or the other during different times in their lives, however affinity and pathological alignment are two very different things as the diagram below shows. Children who strongly align with a parent who is abusing them are doing so because they are trying to regulate that parent’s unpredictable behaviour and in those circumstances, the child with a weak ego (sense of self), will automatically try to manage the parent who is overwhelming them either with anxiety or control behaviours. Therefore, when the child is showing strong alignment and a concurrent rejection of a parent which is accompanied by contempt, disdain or an omnipotent presentation, there are dynamics in the system which are causing this which are not natural and which are over time, harmful to the child.

When Narcissism meets the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)

I have always been curious about the manner in which people who supposedly understand child protection, often fail to see the abuse that children in these circumstances are suffering. In my work with parents and the people who work with them, especially those who support them, I have come to recognise the following dynamics.

In the wider system in which such families exist, there are two further dynamics which underpin this family attachment trauma –

1. Power and coercion and how many people lack understanding of how this operates in the lives of children of divorce and family separation.
2. Subjective bias within the professionals working with these families, especially the kind of bias which causes behaviours such as the Fundamental Attribution Error, a powerful problem in this particular scenario because alienated children and their behaviours, often trigger narcissistic defences in those who work with them, which is particularly problematic when it comes to the FAE.

The FAE is a cognitive bias that causes people to overemphasise a person’s character or personality whilst underestimating the role of situational factors when explaining their behaviour. The FAE is present strongly in this field, where people without psychological expertise, qualifications or personal psychological insight, are inserting themselves into family cases. When this occurs, the risk of harm to children increases and in many cases, the work being done by child protection professionals is undermined.

Lacking insight into your own behaviour is a strong indicator of the presence of narcissistic defences, meaning that you are more likely to fall in the FAE, for example by claiming that everything that children say (even in circumstances where they are trauma bonded), must be believed. It is the lack of personal insight which leads to the inability to understand behaviours in the situation in which they arise. What this means in practice, is that subjective belief overwhelms objective reality and so what one feels to be true becomes fact in the mind of the person lacking insight. It is one of the problems seen in parents who influence their children and it is clearly present in some of those seen to be interfering with family court cases on both sides of the Atlantic.

It is a fundamental attribution error to believe that children who are trauma bonded are behaving in ways that reflect their authentic feelings. In the family court setting, where there is a requirement to analyse the child’s expression of feeling in the context in which this arises, alongside their age and capacity to understand, this is called their ‘ascertainable wishes and feelings.’ Understanding children’s ascertainable wishes and feelings ensures that the family court takes responsibility for understanding the child’s behaviour against the backdrop in which it is seen. This protects the child who is trauma bonded by ensuring that their expression of love and alignment to a parent who is seen to be causing them harm, is understood in the context of that harm. It is a safeguarding mechanism which provides the assurance that abused children who cannot speak about the harm they are suffering, are understood and protected.

Narcissistic abuse of children of divorce and separation by parents and professionals

Narcissistic defences cause some parents to harm their children in divorce and separation and some academics and activists believe everything these parents (usually mothers but not always) tell them. This leads to further abuse of children who are suffering from harm, through the active intereference in their protection by people who profess to be child centred when they are really driven by their own defences. There are increasing numbers of cases around the world, in which children who have been emotionally and psychological abused by a parent are removed for their own protection by the family courts, only to have supporters of abusive parents, interefere with the decision of the court.

The curious case of Maya and Sebastian

One such case is that of Maya and Sebastian Laing in the USA, who were removed from their father due to the harm he had caused them, only to be returned to live with him after an extensive period of intereference by campaigners who believed they knew better than the Court. Ironically these campaigners purport to be supporters of abused women and yet their condemnation of the mother of these two children was vicious and prolonged.

Prior to the children being moved to live with her, Jessica Laing had suffered from a long period of post separation abuse, and her children were trauma bonded to their father and rejecting her. The children accused their mother of abuse but there were no findings of harm made against her, instead the children were removed from their father for their own protection and their case hit the headlines when activists against the label and theory of parental alienation, involved themselves in the removal process, filming it and putting it online. Whilst the child were moved to live with their mother and things settled, eventually campaigners encouraged the children to run away again and after further court involvement, the children were returned to live with the father who had been found to have abused them. This case is not unlike those that I have worked in, where children have been forced by their abusive parent, supported by activists, academics and legal people to try and breach the order of the Court.

US campaigners in the Maya and Sebastian Laing case are supported in the UK by the research group SHERA, who also publicly support the children’s abusive father, calling him a safe parent and denounce their mother, saying that the children had accused her of abuse . On their website they say the following about the video which was filmed and posted online by US campaigners.

The following video shows footage of a child being taken away violently by force of the state, based upon this harmful pseudoscience belief system ‘Parental Alienation’ to go to ‘Parental Alienation’ ‘Reunification Therapy’, with a view to forcibly reunited the child, against their wishes, with a parent the child states has been abusing them and who they do not wish to see:

SHERA are well known for their support of mothers found to have caused their children serious emotional and psychological harm and it would seem that this support extends not only to abusive mothers but abusive fathers as well based on the belief that all children should be believed without question. And as I wrote last week, the use of DARVO (which is their made up term for the narcissistic defences of denial, splitting and projection) is applied liberally in the mental gymnastics deployed to keep their belief system intact.

It is a tough environment for those who work in child protection at the moment, which means that those of us who recognise this risk must continue to articulate the harm children are suffering and the impossible nature of the trauma bond they are suffering from so that the outside world can understands the pernicious nature of this serious form of child abuse and the way in which it is hidden from view by those with narcissistic defence structures.

Because just like the children exposed to their mother’s abuse in the recent documentary My Wife, My Abuser, like Josh, like Alex, like so many of the hideously abused children I have worked with, those of us who understand how this harm is transmitted and how it is rendered invisible by the efforts of campaigners lacking insight, must take responsibility for standing up to the trauma ridden ghosts of children past, in order to protect the children of the present.

Readers please note that the case of Maya and Sebastian Laing is written up from the details which are publicly available on the internet. I have however, reached out to the children’s mother Jessica Laing, with a request to interview her so that I can further explore the way in which the vicious campaign against her, which was waged by campaigners in the US, supported by some in the UK, was based upon a falsehood which placed these children back with the father who had been found to have caused them harm.

Next week -Epistemic mistrust enters the family courts: Academics as expert witnesses.