Documentación

It has been our honor and privilege to collaborate with all of the contributors and the student editors to pull together this special issue of Family Court Review (FCR) on the complex and challenging problem of alienated children in divorce and separation. Alienation can be defined as a child’s strong resistance or rejection of a…

This article provides a detailed explanation of the use of clinical interventions, such as the Multi-Modal Family Intervention (MMFI), in situations where a child resists or refuses contact with a parent. Geared toward a multidisciplinary audience of judicial officers, family law attorneys, and mental health practitioners, the authors guide the reader through the concept…

Two hundred fifty-three adults working in a New York child welfare agency agreed to complete anonymous research packets containing, among other measures, 6 existing scales of psychological maltreatment and a single item about exposure to parental alienation as a child. Results revealed that one fourth of the full sample reported some exposure to parental alienation,…

Parental alienation is an important phenomenon that mental health professionals should know about and thoroughly understand, especially those who work with children, adolescents, divorced adults, and adults whose parents divorced when they were children. We define parental alienation as a mental condition in which a child—usually one whose parents are engaged in a highco…

Families characterized by parental alienation present problems that are extremely difficult to resolve through conventional methods of family therapy. Court appointed parenting coordinators (P.C.) are in the very best position to make effective interventions in these cases. The authors use genograms to illustrate the difficulties of establishing normal visitation and re-…

Desde que a mediados de los años ochenta el psiquiatra estadounidense Richard Gardner definiera el Síndrome de Alienación Parental muchas han sido las controversias sociales, científicas y jurídicas surgidas entorno a él. Entendiendo que dicha fenomenología tiene en el contexto judicial su principal ámbito de expresión, en el presente artículo se propone un abordaje de…

Aux termes des dispositions de l’article 373-2 du Code civil la séparation des parents est sans incidence sur les règles de dévolution de l’exercice de l’autorité parentale. Chacun des père et mère doit maintenir des relations personnelles avec l’enfant et respecter les liens de celui-ci avec l’autre parent. Le principe est donc qu’au-delà du divorce,…

This article examines the assertions, made by two main groups of critics, about Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) and parental alienation (PA). Among the topics discussed are: role of the alienating parent; structural interventions such as custodial transfer; relationship between PAS and allegations of sex abuse; and controversy over use of the term syndrome.

When caregivers conflict, systemic alliances shift and healthy parent-child roles can be corrupted. The present paper describes three forms of role corruption which can occur within the enmeshed dyad and as the common complement of alienation and estrangement. These include the child who is prematurely promoted to serve as a parent’s ally and partner, the…