What we are looking at when we work with families where children are strongly aligned with a parent and rejecting of the other, especially when there are heightened narcissistic behaviour such as omnipotence, grandiosity, arrogance and contempt for the parent who is being rejected, is a child who is suffering serious attachment maladaptation due to the need to regulate a parent who is frightening and unpredictable. When we see it, we should systemically act to protect the child, just as we would if a child was being sexually abused but we don’t. What we do instead is argue about whether a problem which is labelled ‘parental alienation’ exists or not or, as in the case of the Family Justice Council in England and Wales, we make up labels such as RRR and AAA, which are meaningless in scientific terms, but which placate campaigners who want to hide the fact that parents can and do abuse their children in divorce and separation.
When children are triangulated into a parent’s un-contained feelings, or when they are being controlled by a frightening parent or when one parent is dominating and the other has a fragile sense of self, they are at the mercy of the family dynamic and as a result they are frightened. Their fear and anxiety is demonstrated by the way that they hyper align with the parent who is unpredictable, becoming almost robotic in their attendance to that parent’s shifting moods and demands. The behavioural display in the child, which is the way that attachment disruption can be observed, is the only way the child has to show that they are under psychological pressure. The way that an influencing parent exposes them to their feelings but ensures that their actions are hidden from outside view, is grooming behaviour. Children are rewarded for their silence about what is happening at home and the only way we can know what is going on, is through the attachment maladaptations that a child makes.
The rejection of a parent outright, in circumstances where there is no evidence of harm being caused by their parent, where the rejection is sudden and unexplained, vehement and persistent and where it is accompanied by allegations which are proven to be false, is highly likely to be evidence that a child is being abused by the parent they are aligned to. Closer scrutiny of the relationship between the parent the child is aligned to, will show the evidence of that abuse, which is demonstrated by the child’s often anxious and watchful demeanour whilst in the care of that parent and their striking vehemence in terms of their determination to protect that relationship. This is not the behaviour of a child who is not wanting to see a parent because of their age or changes in their development, it is the behaviour of a child under extreme psychological pressure.
The systems which are set up to protect children should be able to grasp the rudiments of this attachment trauma, after all, being trauma informed is a thing claimed by everyone, everywhere these days. The problem is that hidden harm at home in divorce and separation as a children’s mental health issue, is sabotaged by parents rights activists over and over again, dragging the dialogue into the he said/she said arena and obfuscating the real issue which is that abuse of children is being hidden behind their alignment and rejection behaviour.
The evidence of hidden harm at home
A recent retrospective study of residence reversal in cases where alienation was found, demonstrates the reality of this hidden harm at home. The outcomes of the interviews with children who had been moved to live with a parent they had rejected, correlate entirely with my experience in working in the most severe cases where children align and reject – ie; the rejection is not the issue, the alignment is and it is behind the idealisation of an abusive parent that harm is found.
“The children and young adults reported a range of reasons for not seeing the rejected parent prior to the court decision about alienation and custody reversal.Most of the youth reported that they did not feel safe telling the alienating parent that they wanted to see the rejected parent. Two children reported that they were physically mistreated by the favoured parent (e.g., beaten, or inappropriately fed or bathed) and were threatened to not disclose their abuse to anyone. Some of these children observed siblings being controlled by the favoured parent and noticed that it was starting to happen to them. One child reported that they wanted to see the rejected parent, but the favoured parent prevented access by not taking them to the visits, misinforming the rejected parent about plans for visits, or requiring the rejected parent to provide financial payment in exchange for access to the child.”
Psychopathology and the sabotage of systems
When children reject a parent and especially when they lack compassion and empathy for that parent and anyone associated with them, they should be protected from harm whilst investigations are under-taken. Unfortunately, due to the lack of awareness that the child’s behaviour is a red flag for hidden harm at home, most are simply left with the abusing parent whilst investigations, if they are undertaken at all, drag on. As this time lapse in attending to protection of the child occurs, the attachment maladaptation they are suffering, interweaves itself with the child’s developmental processes, it leads to distortions in the child’s view of self, trust in others and capacity to build a healthy relational experience of the world. Too many children are failed by the failure of the systems which should protect them, to understand and grapple with the ability of psychologically unwell people to sabotage understanding and intervention with these children. This failure is heightened by the lack of understanding of professionals of what they are actually dealing with when children display attachment maladaptations, as well as the constant creation of controversy around what is really, quite a simple thing to understand which is that –
Some children are caused developmental harm by parents with a psychopathology which comes to light in divorce and separation. This harm is signalled by the child’s alignment and rejection behaviour, which could and should alert us to the need to protect. These children are being groomed to remain silent about their abuse, they are fearful of retribution and the unpredictable nature of their attachment to an abusive parent. They cannot speak about that harm, even when, or should I say, especially when, they are asked about it directly because they are entirely dependent upon the parent who is harming them, cognisant only of that parent’s control and therefore helpless to do or say anything which will counter that parent’s narrative.
I am reminded when I read the views of the children who were interviewed for this recent study, of the silenced voices of so many children whose needs were ignored, reframed as something else or who were blamed for being the cause of their own abuse. Children who were regarded as not worthy of intervention, as in the grooming gangs in the UK or children who were regarded as being the architects of their own sexual abuse for being seductive.
The deliberate manipulation and sabotage of systems
Even as I write this, there are campaigners who are working hard on both sides of the Atlantic to keep the distorted belief alive that children are being handed to abusive fathers rather than being protected from harm from their abusing mothers. A myth which is so clearly demonstrated by this recent article, as a tactic to put the needs and rights of mothers above the safety and wellbeing of children.
We fail children when we fail to understand how psychopathology acts to sabotage the systems which should be protecting them. When individual bias is interwoven with power over parents, someone with a psychopathology can so easily manipulate that dynamic. The charming father who is so co-operative, when juxtaposed with the frantic and frightened mother who is losing her children. The helpful and attendant mother who is involved in the micro management of every aspect of her children’s lives, who threatens professionals with complaint and who triangulates professionals to strengthen her position and the father who is eradicated and eviscerated by having been subjected to this for years. The internal bias of professionals who believe that what they see is the whole of what is happening and who spend their time trying to fix the parent who is being rejected just enough to get the children to shift their position. The inter-personal terrorism tactics used by campaigners who support parents found to have abused their children. And the systems, which should be robust enough to resist the campaigning and the staged horror stories told by journalists, but which instead, sway one way or the other, influenced by threat, coercion and manipulation which are all designed to hide this abuse of children. When those who speak and write about this issue find themselves on the pages of popular newspapers and the threat of public outrage based upon distorted narratives is never far away, the system conforms to demands of psychopathology and shuts down scrutiny.
At the Family Separation Clinic, where we treat the problem of emotional and psychological abuse of children in divorce and separation, we continue to do whatever is possible to raise awareness of the plight of these children, whilst we wait for the rest of the world to catch up. In our work with parents, we show how to manage the systems which are so easily manipulated by psychopathology. One of the ways we do this is to teach clinical and legal literacy, preparing you to avoid the traps which are laid when parents with personality disorders manipulate and sabotage systems. When you understand this, you can set yourself free from the sabotage and make the system work the way it should to protect you and your children. Until the day comes when this attachment trauma is properly understood as the abusive, developmental diversion it really is, this is the best way to ensure that the harm which is being caused is minimised. It is not what we want, but for now it is the best we can do, for children whose voices are being silenced by the psychopathology we should be protecting them from.
Summer courses and groups
Our new courses and groups are now open for booking. These are designed to support parents through the journey the alienated child takes to recovery and to skill you in responding to the changing needs of children with disorganised attachment behaviour.
This summer we have our Higher Level Understanding Course running for those who have completed our Holding up a Healthy Mirror Course, a new group for alienated mothers which teaches clinical & legal literacy and assertiveness skills and our Lighthouse Keeping Group for all those parents who want additional support continues.
We also have an our first in person workshop for parents since the Pandemic which will be held in Utrecht, I will write more about what you can expect if you attend that in the coming weeks. As I approach the final edits of our first new books, I am excited to get back to working with healthy parents in the rejected position, to support your developmental journey as your child’s best therapist when the time comes.
Our watch on demand series is being recorded now, this will work well for parents in the Southern Hemisphere, for whom I will deliver more live sessions later in the year.
Until then, here is a link to booking on all of our available courses and groups and I will look forward to working with you very soon.
Karen Woodall - Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer 
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