Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

A human being becomes whole not in virtue of a relation to himself [only] but rather in virtue of an authentic relation to another human being(s). Martin Buber

Alienation is, I would argue, exactly the word we need to use when we describe what is happening to some children when they are triangulated into parental responses to divorce and separation. Alienation from the self, which is conceptualised in contemporary trauma literature as an ‘alien self’, is introduced by Fonagy and colleagues to describe the experience of desires and elements of personal experience that disturb self-representations (1). What is seen to occur in clinical work with children who are triangulated into adult feelings in divorce and separation, is that psychological overwhelm creates a defensive structure in the child’s internal working model of self, which is enmeshed with the feelings and responses of a caregiver who is unpredictable and often very frightening.

The academic debate about the label and theory of alienation (parental vs alienated child), has a long history. In the early eighties, when the impact on families caused by divorce and separation was a relatively new concern, the recognition of an unholy alliance between children and a wronged parent, established the potential for harm to be caused to children who were exposed to adult feelings (2). Whilst Gardner (3), introduced the concept of parental alienation, Kelly and Johnston shifted the focus to the alienated child (4). Currently, there are several ways of conceptualising the problem, although most of these are located within the family court system and focused upon legal management. PA theorists (5), consider the problem to be about the contact a child has with parents, the interruption of which is caused by high conflict, AFCC adherents speak of ‘resist/refuse’ dynamics or ‘complex divorce.’

These formulations are all focused upon the problem as one which is rooted in the breach of the relationship between child and one of their parents, none are focused upon with the manner in which the child is exposed to life changing dynamics during key developmental stages and how these shape the trajectory of the child’s life, sometimes in perpetuity.

Childress describes the problem as that of factitious illness imposed upon another, or encapsulated persecutory delusions and that is a presentation seen in many of the severe cases of alienation that I have worked with. This still however, distances us from understanding how to treat the problem in a way which is replicable and which engages the parent in the rejected position as the core healing force in the child’s life. Diagnosis is one thing, treatment is another and until we are able to replicate treatment routes that do not depend upon untrained and unaware professionals (who often make things worse rather than better), children will be left in the care of abusive parents without the help they need to heal from the harm they are suffering.

Alienation is a serious form of child abuse, stripping the child of their right to a safe and secure upbringing, this is readily seen when working with alienated children because it is absolutely clear that their internal working model of self has been interfered with. An internal working model of self is a mental framework which is developed from early experiences with caregivers, it creates a cognitive representation of self and others and the relational world. When a child is triangulated into adult feelings at a time of crisis such as divorce, the child, who is entirely helpless to resist, may collapse their own sense of self in favour of upholding the wellbeing of a caregiver upon whom they are dependent. The environmental factors which influence whether this occurs or not, are all located within the family system with which we, as clinicians, work.

If we begin this work from the point of recognition that the child is alienated from an authentic sense of who they are and disconnected from their regulatory feelings of guilt and shame due to an internal defensive structure, we can begin to understand how to approach resolution. The child is ground zero in terms of our formulation and the harm they are suffering, due to the interference with their developmental processes, creates the urgency for intervention.

This is not about contact with the parent who is being rejected, it is not about conflict between parents and it is not about complex divorce. In fact it is not about the adult experience at all, it is about the manner in which the child’s sovereign right to an independent sense of self is being violated. Violation by an adult of interpersonal boundaries with a child, is abusive and that is true whether that violation is physical, emotional or psychological.

The Crown Prosecution Service in the UK is clear about child abuse in its section on child cruelty (see below), which makes it clear that psychological injury is considered to be an offence. In my clinical experience, all of the children with whom I have worked in the family courts since 2009, were victims of child abuse which met the threshold for serious harm and it was on that basis that most of them were removed from the abusive parent.

Child cruelty, neglect and violence

Section 1(1) Children and Young Persons Act 1933 was amended on 3 May 2015, by Part 5 Section 66 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 to update and modernise some of the language. The amended version provides that the offence is made out if:

• a person who has attained the age of sixteen years;
• who has responsibility for any child or young person under that age;
  willfully (i.e. intentionally or recklessly – see R v Turbill and Broadway [2013] EWCA Crim 1422);
• assaults, ill-treats (whether physically or otherwise), neglects, abandons or exposes him, or causes or procures him to be assaulted, ill-treated (whether physically or otherwise), neglected, abandoned, or exposed;
• in a manner likely to cause him unnecessary suffering or injury to health (whether the suffering or injury is of a physical or a psychological nature).

Above from https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/child-abuse-non-sexual

The biggest problem we have in raising awareness of the harm which is caused to children when a parent breaches the inter-subjective boundary of the mind, is that it is not as well understood as it is when a parent breaches the inter-subjective boundary of the body. A child whose parent grooms them for sexual gratification is readily understood as an abuser, a parent who grooms their child for emotional or psychological gratification is often seen as an object of pity who should be supported. Some women’s rights campaigners, believe that children who are enmeshed are in loving healthy relationships. Currently for example, the myth that enmeshment and induced psychological splitting are not harmful to children, is being promulgated by women’s rights campaigners in the UK, (the same women who support mothers found to have abused their children). In fact both are forms of serious abuse which constitutes a violation of a child’s right to a sovereign sense of self and where these patterns of behaviour are present, there are often other forms of hidden harm at home present too. When children are groomed in this way to meet parental psychological and emotional needs, especially during the developmental stages in which they should be focused on peer relationships and development of their own sense of self, serious harm is caused.

These cases are not about contact or conflict or complex divorce, they are about hidden harm at homes where children are being seriously abused by a parent who lacks the interpersonal boundaries which are necessary to protect a child, a parent who is normalising the violation of those boundaries and teaching a child that being abused is what love feels like.

It is the lack of understanding of the internal world of the alienated child that leads to the scarcity of understanding in how to treat the problem as it exists, in the child. The word alienation is the right word for the problem but in my clinical experience the formulation of what we are working with is all wrong. When the problem is approached as conflict, the remedy is to try to get the parents to get on better, when the problem is approached as contact, the remedy is to try and re-establish the contact relationship and when the problem is approached as complex divorce, all manner of mental gymnastics and made up labels are deployed to try to resolve the issue.

When the issue is approach correctly as a problem of self alienation in the child and it is recognised that this is caused by parents who violate inter-subjective boundaries, the legacy of shame, confusion and relational harm which the child must contend with, can be properly recognised for what it is and spending the next ten years fighting the same nonsensical binary battle about what we call it can stop. The plain truth is that causing this to happen to a child is an act of child abuse.

Hopefully as we move forward, the fight over what this is called will fade into the background as the evidence from children themselves emerges and their lived experience demonstrates the reality of this abuse. And then, instead of academic arguments based upon self reports of parents, all of which traps us in an endless, circular, he said/she routine, a new era of understanding, treatment and resolution, will finally be here.

References

1. Duschinsky, Robbie, and Sarah Foster, Mentalizing and Epistemic Trust: The work of Peter Fonagy and colleagues at the Anna Freud Centre (Oxford, 2021; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 June 2021), https://doi.org/10.1093/med-psych/9780198871187.001.0001, accessed 7 Sept. 2025.
2. Wallerstein, J., & Kelly, J. (1992). Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce. New York: Basic Books.
3. Gardner, R. A. (1992). The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals. Creative Therapeutics
4. Kelly, Joan & Johnston, Janet. (2001). The alienated child: A reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Family Court Review. 39. 249 – 266. 10.1111/j.174-1617.2001.tb00609.x.
5. Bernet, William. (2015). Children of High-Conflict Divorce Face Many Challenges. Psychiatric Times. 32. 9, 12-15.

News from the Family Separation Clinic

The Clinic’s research programme with children who were removed from serious harm by the Family Courts in England and Wales between 2009 and 2020 will report in 2026.

The Clinic’s new books will shortly be in press and we will announce details here soon.

Courses and Resources

Our courses are designed to help you to build the skills to help your children to heal from this attachment trauma. When you shift from thinking about it in a binary way – one parent versus the other and start from the experience of your child, you take a big step towards releasing yourself from the projective entanglements which cause this problem. Projective entanglements are created by people who are psychological unwell and those who use primitive defensive behaviours such as gas- lighting and blaming/shaming and triangulation to control others. When you live free from these projections you can begin to mentalise the child’s experience more clearly and through that you can build the road back to your safety and protection. We have helped many parents to recover their relationship with their child this way, it is an approach which will last you a lifetime, engaging you and your child in changing patterns of healthy behaviour to protect from harm now and in the future.