Pressure put on the children to conform to their parents’ wishes can be crude or subtle, but its effectiveness depends on the child’s insistent desire to be loved and protected.
—John Bowlby, On Knowing What You Are Not Supposed to Know and Feeling What You Are Not Supposed to Feel
SOME STRATEGIES WERE MENTIONED BY MANY OF THE ADULT children of PAS, while others were mentioned by just a few, or by only one (see Chapter 3). The lens through which these strategies are examined is attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969). That is, the strategies are viewed as effective tools for interfering with the developing or existing attachment relationship between the adult child of PAS (as a child) and the targeted parent.
According to Bowlby (1969), infants develop strong emotional ties with their parents, the purpose of which is to ensure their safety by inducing them to seek proximity to a caretaking adult when signals of danger are present. Certain biologically determined experiences activate the infant’s need for comfort and proximity to the attachment figure. For infants and young children, these experiences include illness, darkness, being alone, being in an unfamiliar environment, and the presence of strangers. When these signals of danger are present, the attachment system is activated and the infant seeks proximity and comfort from the attachment figure. If the attachment figure is contingently responsive to the infant’s comfort-seeking behaviors, the infant learns to trust that adult and continues to seek comfort from him or her in the future.
TABLE 3.1
STRATEGIES USED TO ALIENATE CHILDREN FROM THEIR TARGETED PARENT
Frequency Distribution of the Strategies Reported by the Sample
Bad-mouthing, general (n=39, 97.5%)
Limiting contact (n=27, 67.5%)
Withdrawing love/getting angry (n=24, 60.0%)
Telling child targeted parent doesn’t love him or her (n=21, 52.5%)
Forcing child to choose/express loyalty (n=21, 52.5%)
Bad-mouthing to create impression targeted parent is dangerous (n = 17, 42.5%)
Confiding in child about adult relationship (n = 16, 40.0%)
Limiting mention and photos of targeted parent (n = 15, 37.5%)
Forcing child to reject targeted parent (n = 13, 32.5%)
Limiting contact with extended family (n = 10, 25.0%)
Belittling targeted parent in front of child (n = 09, 22.5%)
Creating conflict between child and targeted parent (n = 08, 20.0%)
Cultivating dependency on alienating parent (n = 06, 15.0%)
Throwing out gifts and letters from targeted parent (n = 06, 15.0%)
Interrogating child after visits with targeted parent (n = 04, 10.0%)
Making child feel guilty about positive relationship with targeted parent (n = 03, 07.5%)
Having child spy on targeted parent (n = 03, 07.5%)
Telling targeted parent child doesn’t love him or her (n = 02, 05.0%)
Monitoring letters and phone calls with targeted parent (n = 02, 05.0%)
Child calling targeted parent by first name (n = 02, 05.0%)
Having child refer to some someone else as “mom” or “dad” (n = 02, 05.0%)
Not letting child be alone with targeted parent (n = 02, 05.0%)
Telling child someone else is his or her father/mother (n = 01, 02.5%)
Telling child he or she can’t visit targeted parent, siblings have to stay together (n = 01, 02.5%)
Not allowing child to bring gifts from targeted parent into home (n = 01, 02.5%)
Threatening to take child away from targeted parent (n = 01, 02.5%)
Not letting extended family talk about targeted parent (n = 01, 02.5%)
Having secret signals and means of communication with child (n = 01, 02.5%)
Having child keep secrets from targeted parent (n = 01, 02.5%)
Beating targeted parent in front of child (n = 01, 02.5%)
Changing child’s name (n = 01, 02.5%)
Accusing child of being too close with targeted parent (n = 01, 02.5%)
Making it appear as if the targeted parent is rejecting participant (n = 01, 02.5%).
Research conducted by Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) demonstrated that when the attachment figure is not consistently available in emotional and physical terms, the infant either becomes preoccupied with gaining comfort from that parent (if the parent is unpredictably available) or learns that the parent is not available and ceases seeking comfort from him or her (if the parent is predictably unavailable). Thus, in order for infants to desire comfort from and closeness to the caretaking adult, they have to develop a belief over time that the adult is predictably emotionally and physically available. Cicchetti, Cummings, Greenberg, and Marvin (1990) postulated that as children develop and mature, the types of situations that activate the need for comfort and proximity change, but the underlying function of the relationship remains the same.
The strategies used by the alienating parents suggest that they (intuitively) understood that the way to effectuate PAS was to foster the belief that the targeted parent was emotionally and physically unavailable so that the children would cease seeking comfort from and contact with him or her. To do this, the alienating parents conveyed the message that the targeted parent was not a predictably safe, available, and comforting adult, but unworthy, unsafe, and unavailable. This process is consistent with Garber’s (2004) and Thompson’s (2000) observations that as children’s cognitive and language skills mature, their internal working models of relationships are based not just on direct experience but can be influenced by “verbally mediated” material as well. The targeted parents had restricted opportunities to provide comfort to their children, to take care of them when they were ill, and to be with them as the primary caretaking parent. Thus, there were reduced opportunities for the targeted parents to be experienced as attachment figures. Further, the alienating parents led the children to believe that their primary attachment figure (in most cases the custodial alienating parent) would be less emotionally and physically available if they did have a positive relationship with the targeted parent. This created a sense of insecurity vis-à-vis that relationship, which could only be reduced by pleasing the alienating parent and turning against the targeted parent. Thus, a double message was conveyed: (1) the targeted parent was not safe and available and (2) pursuing that relationship would entail the loss of the primary attachment figure. These two messages powerfully combined to effectively alienate the child from the targeted parent. These messages were conveyed through a combination of strategies.
BAD-MOUTHING
Consistent with Gardner’s (1998) original conceptualization, general bad-mouthing was a commonly used strategy. Derogatory statements about the targeted parent encouraged the child to feel negatively toward and unsafe with him or her and undermined the development of a secure attachment. Examples of bad-mouthing included saying that the targeted parent was a rapist, a bum, a womanizer, lazy, irresponsible, a deadbeat, a cheat, a gambler, a whore, a slut, an abuser, worthless, an alcoholic, and as Amelia explained, “Basically he was a very bad person.”
It is possible that bad-mouthing was recalled so frequently because it was not particularly subtle and because it was relatively constant. Many of the adult children of PAS experienced bad-mouthing as a continuous presence in their lives. Comments by Bonnie, Mark, Iris, and Hannah are typical, “Everything she had to say about him was negative and bad” “There was the constant bad-mouthing. What a monster he was” “She kept telling us how bad he was. She kept telling me over and over he was a child molester” and “It was so frequent I couldn’t begin to say a specific time.” Renee said, “She never said anything good about him. She said he was worthless. He was an alcoholic.”
The bad-mouthing was relatively effective in creating a negative impression of the targeted parent because the children believed much of what they heard. For the most part they did not have a reason to doubt what their alienating parent was telling them. This was so for at least three reasons. First, as M. Scott Peck (1983) and others have noted, in general children believe what their parents tell them because it is too threatening to entertain the notion that the person on whom they are dependent is not trustworthy or reliable. This sentiment is illustrated by Robin’s exclamation, “I believed all of it. She was God!” Second, the statements were made with considerable conviction on the part of the alienating parent, and thus were particularly believable and compelling. Tracey described her mother as “very convincing, crying, sobbing.” Third, in many cases the targeted parents had limited opportunity to counter what was being said or chose not to counter because, mistakenly, they believed that it was wrong to speak ill of the other parent. For these reasons, the children were exposed to a one-sided campaign of denigration of the targeted parent. They grew up with negative images of the targeted parent that contributed to the idea that he or she was an unsafe person who was unworthy of their love and devotion. Carl’s image growing up was, “of my father lying in a ditch.”
LIMITING CONTACT
Preventing contact with the targeted parent reduced his or her ability to serve as a comforting attachment figure in times of illness, distress, or need. Several of the alienating mothers did not allow their children to spend time alone with the targeted father during scheduled visitation, and all contact included both parents. Nancy explained that her mother “was always around. I didn’t spend quality time with him.” Joanne, too “never had parental time alone with him.” In other cases, the alienating parent simply did not comply with the scheduled visitation, saying the child was ill or had too much studying to do. In Kate’s family, “It was supposed to be every Wednesday night for dinner but my mother kind of started going off that.” Oliver’s mother used grades as an excuse to limit contact: “You need to stay home more and study.” Yet another scenario involved alienating parents who relocated thereby reducing the amount of contact that was possible with the targeted parent. Iris’s mother moved the children from California to Oklahoma and Iris did not see her father for two years, “We were not allowed to.” Others had memories of their targeted parent coming for visitation and being turned away by the alienating parent, such as in Tracey’s case, “My mom and dad got into a fight because my mom wouldn’t let him see us. I guess he had initiated to come see us and she wouldn’t let him.” Veronica’s mother and stepfather, “put notes on the front door saying we were out so he would know we were not in and we would have to hide.”
Limiting contact was very effective at turning the children against the targeted parent because it reduced both the intensity of the emotional tie as well as prevented that parent from countering the bad-mouthing specifically and the alienation campaign in general.
WITHDRAWAL OF LOVE AND ANGER
Withdrawal of love and anger was particularly noticeable following visitation with the targeted parent. Kate said of her mother, “It would make her angry if I was close with him.” Others shared similar experiences: Nancy, “She would shut me out. It would be just silence.” Larissa, “When we returned home my mother gave a sour look. She couldn’t stand to actually see me get on with my father.” Melinda, “Oh it was very cold. She would give me the cold shoulder.” Serita: “When I did see him she was horrible to me. When I came back from visits she wouldn’t talk to me.” Ron: “My mother would get really angry if, for example, my brother or I displayed any affection for my father.”
Thus, there was an emotional price to pay for having a relationship with the targeted parent. It was clear that the alienating parents did not want their children to have a relationship with the targeted parents and conveyed the message that it was not possible to express love for both parents. Expressing love for the targeted parents involved a threat of losing the love and approval of the alienating parents who were also (in all but a few instances) the custodial parents. In this way, the alienating parents activated the child’s attachment to them and increased their importance to the child, eclipsing the role of the targeted parents. The adult children of PAS recalled how anxious they felt when the alienating parent withdrew his or her love. It made them want to try harder to please that parent. The focus of their attention became the alienating parent not the targeted parent and this further worked to effectuate the alienation.
TELLING CHILD TARGETED PARENT DOES NOT LOVE HIM OR HER
Some alienating parents told their children that the targeted parent did not love them. Robin said, “My mother told me that my dad didn’t want anything to do with us boys, he just walked away from us.” And Amelia commented, “She said he didn’t love nobody but himself.” While Nicole shared, “She’d say you were so misbehaved, such a bad child, look he doesn’t even want to be around you.” And Larissa commented, “She told me my father wasn’t my friend at all.” Carrie’s mother told her and her brother, “that Dad left us, abandoned us. He’s a bastard, he never wanted you.”
This is a very specific form of bad-mouthing designed to attenuate the child’s attachment to the targeted parent and to create hurt and anger toward that parent. This strategy also served to heighten the regard for and dependency on the alienating parent who was presented as the good parent who did love and take care of the child. Julia explained that after an extensive list of criticisms about her father, her mother would then reassure her by telling her, “I shouldn’t be too upset because I had her.”
FORCING CHILD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN PARENTS
It was also necessary for the children to express loyalty to the alienating parent, as a preference over the targeted parent. Roberta shared, “I always felt like there was pressure to be on her side.” As noted in Chapter 2, Kate’s mother put it to her this way, “‘Don’t you want to be here with me and your sister? Your sister understands that to go over there is to be with people who don’t like me. I am your mother don’t you want to like me?” Peter’s mother responded negatively to his relationship with his father even when Peter was an adult. “Any time I would tell her that I talked to him on the phone it was always the same response, ‘Why? I am the one who took care of you. I’m the one who raised you and fed you. Why are you calling him?’ That was her attitude.” Likewise, even as an adult Tracey felt pressure to choose her mother over her father. “To this day I show favoritism to my mom.” And Serita, too, felt guilty about having a relationship with her targeted parent, “I did seem a bit of a traitor and I felt as though I had to choose in the end.”
CREATING THE IMPRESSION THAT THE TARGETED PARENT IS DANGEROUS
Sometimes the bad-mouthing was designed to create the impression that the targeted parent posed a danger to the child: that the targeted parent planned to kidnap them or telling stories of how the targeted parent tried to or did hurt them when they were young. Bonnie’s mother frightened her by suggesting that her stepmother and father, whom she had not seen in several years, would not return her after the upcoming reinstalled visitation. “She was telling me they were going to kidnap me and never bring me back. Up to the point they drove up into the driveway my mom was sitting there telling me, ‘You better watch it because they are going to take you away and they are never going to bring you back. That lady is from Ohio. Do you know anybody in Ohio? Do you know how to get back home?”’ Likewise, Mark’s mother told him, “how mean and angry he was.” For Carl, “Sometimes there were stories about my father and when I was young he said, ‘Can you wrap him up I want to take him out for a bit?’ My mother said she thought he was going to throw me in the river.” Two alienating parents claimed to have actually saved their child from an intended abortion (Felicity’s father described the procedure in vivid detail and provided graphic illustrations of aborted fetuses).
From an attachment perspective, this strategy is one of the most damning things that can be said about a parent, that he or she is dangerous to the child. This is the antithesis of the function of the attachment relationship: promoting a sense of safety and security in the child through the presence of the caretaking adult. Many of the adult children recalled that this was an effective strategy in that they did become afraid of the targeted parent. Mark said, “I was scared of him, like a landmine.”
CONFIDING IN CHILD
The alienating parent shared with their children personal details about the marital relationship, in order to solidify their relationship at the expense of the relationship with the targeted parent. These children knew things about the targeted parent that the targeted parent did not know they knew and therefore had no opportunity to correct the misrepresentation or tell his or her side of the story. The children were left with a one-sided understanding of the adult relationship, which was designed to make the targeted parent appear unworthy in their eyes. In addition, these confidences served to enhance the intimacy with the alienating parent and further bind the children to that parent. Further, these confidences often led the children to feel sorry for the alienating parent and be angry with the targeted parent for their supposed misdeeds and failings. This was particularly true for Sarah. “I believe it started when she took me into her confidence. She complained to me about how she felt he didn’t care for her. I felt like I was supposed to do something, to provide her with answers and help her sort it out.” Larissa, too, was the recipient of her mother’s inside perspective on the marriage and family. “She made several announcements to me that she was going to be seeking a divorce and she told me how marvelous life would be once the divorce went through. I was so happy about that. I suppose I felt as though she saw me as a friend and I hoped I was worthy of her liking me.”
Roberta was made aware of her mother’s fears about the marriage, “She felt insecure regarding other women and I had knowledge of so many things and that was something I was really too young to know about.” Similarly, Ron was exposed to more adult content and feelings than he felt able to process, “My mother would get into more of her personal life with my father, which was really not any of our business as children and in some way it had a negative effect.” A particularly vivid story was recounted by Josh, who, when he was 5 years old, was told by his mother that she could not cope with the demands of her three stepdaughters and that she planned to take him and leave the rest of the family. “She was upset and she was sharing that with me. The predominant impression was incredible intensity and excitement and horror.”
For Alix the confidence took the form of being told at the age of 4 by her mother that her father raped her mother and that was how she was conceived, while for Serita it entailed being taken to the lawyer’s office to translate for her mother a discussion about divorce, unbeknownst to the rest of the family. Elaine explained, “It was us against him kind of thing. She was treating me as a peer or a friend rather than a child in the household.” And Jonah remembered, “My father coming into my room and basically telling me that he had seen a psychologist and he wanted my opinion as to whether my father and mother should stay together.” Roberta’s mother, too, relied on her daughter in this way. “Our mother definitely used us as confidants. She really didn’t turn outside the family much for help or things like that so we were pretty much her sounding board and her support system.” As these quotes illustrate, the alienating parent drew the children into his or her perspective and created a special intimate bond, an enmeshed relationship that excluded the targeted parent, and was designed to induce anger and resentment toward the targeted parent, again diminishing the quality of the attachment relationship.
LIMITING MENTION AND PHOTOGRAPHS OF TARGETED PARENTS
Photographs of the targeted parents were forbidden, as was mention of their names in the presence of the alienating parents. When asked how his mother would respond if he asked about his father, Walter responded, “That obviously never happened.” Although Patricia’s parents remained married, she was exposed to a particularly vitriolic form of parental alienation. During a period when her parents were separated, she recounted, “He would burn her things including pictures of her.” Betty’s mother, too, was adamant that no mention of the father be made, “My mother would get so mad she’d almost be shaking when the subject of my father came up.” Renee explained, “We weren’t really allowed to talk about him. I brought up his name one time and she shoved me down the stairs.” And David said, “Every time I talk[ed] about my dad all hell breaks loose.” Veronica’s mother became involved with another man shortly after the divorce and together the two of them banned any mention of Veronica’s father. “I remember being about 5 and saying at the table that I wanted to see him and she went into her room crying.” Serita, who lived with her mother, felt that she was forbidden to express positive feelings for her father, “I wasn’t allowed to say I missed my father.” Alix’s mother was also violently opposed to any mention of the targeted parent, “I knew better than to start something like that (ask about the targeted parent). She would probably beat the crap out of me.” Melinda lived with her father and visited her mother on weekends. When she returned from visitation, she said, she did not feel that she should talk about what she did or even say her mother’s name, “I wasn’t allowed to talk about what I did with my mom.” Peter’s mother conveyed to him nonverbally that discussion of his father was not permitted, “She would avoid talking about him and if you mentioned his name she would bristle.”
Prohibiting talking about, thinking about, looking at pictures of the targeted parent comprised a direct attempt to disrupt the attachment with the targeted parent. From an attachment perspective, these activities (seeing pictures and talking about the person) function to keep the relationship alive in the absence of the parent. Early research on children separated from their parents demonstrated that how children make sense of a separation and how they cope with it can affect the quality of the relationship once they are reunited with their parent (Bowlby, 1969). This is because the child has inside his or her mind an “internal working model” of the attachment relationship, the sum total of the experiences with that parent organized into a belief system about whether the parent is emotionally and physically responsive (Bretherton, 1985; Bretherton, Ridgeway, Cassidy, 1990). Separations from the parent and what they mean to the child become incorporated into the internal working model, which in turn shapes the child’s interactions and responses to the parent once reunited. In general, children who are allowed to think about, talk about, and have pictures of the absent parent are better able to cope with separations and are more receptive to the parent upon reunion. In this way, prohibiting the child’s ability to maintain the idea of the attachment relationship with the targeted parent during separations (through talking about and looking at pictures of him or her) interfered with the actual relationship.
FORCING CHILD TO REJECT TARGETED PARENT
Some adult children of PAS were placed in situations as children in which the alienating parent forced them to reject the targeted parent. Julia’s mother was particularly creative in this respect. She wrote skits that Julia was expected to perform during visits with her father. In each there was a moment when Julia was scripted to verbally attack her father by telling him that she hated him, which was followed by a dramatic exit from the room. “She would write these little plays and he would come over and I was supposed to come into the living room and scream at him and tell him what a horrible father he was and run out of the room and cry hysterically.” At the age of 9 Ron was made to telephone his father under the watchful supervision of his mother and curse at him in explicit detail about his failings. He was also forced to cancel visits. “My dad was supposed to come see us and visit and these times were supposedly prearranged with her and when the time came for these visits she would sometimes have me and my brother phone and say we didn’t want him to come.” Nicole was encouraged to yell at her father, repeating to him the negative statements that her mother had just rehearsed with her. Mitch recalled having the telephone put to his ear as he was told to say that he never wanted to see his father again. To this day he is not sure who was on the other end of the phone. Jonah was encouraged to call his mother from Florida where his father had taken him and tell her she did not care about him, “Basically to humiliate her.” As a teenager Jonah went to the police station at the urging of his father and reported that his mother had abandoned him.
These demonstrations of rejection served at least two purposes. First, they were designed to create enormous ill will between the targeted parent and the child. Hurt, resentment, and insecurity were created in the heart and mind of the targeted parents, many of whom seemed to doubt their rightful place in the lives of their own children. Second, by requiring assertions of anger and hatred toward the targeted parent, the alienating parents were exploiting the natural tendency in people to want their beliefs to be consistent with their actions—described as cognitive dissonance by Festinger (1957). That is, the alienating parents were hoping that if they made their children behave a certain way, they would adjust their beliefs accordingly, to be in line with their behavior. In this way they aimed to make what the children said become what they believed.
LIMITING CONTACT WITH/BELITTLING EXTENDED FAMILY
Alienating parents also limited contact with grandparents and other members of the targeted parent’s family. This is consistent with what Warshak (2001a) referred to as tribal warfare and one of Gardner’s eight primary manifestations of PAS. The alienating parent adopted a warlike mentality in which they and their family were on one side of the conflict and the targeted parent and his or her family were perceived to be in the enemy camp. The negative statements made by the alienating parent often extended to the family of the targeted parent, as if there was something inherently unworthy, disgusting, or unacceptable about them simply through their association with the targeted parent. As Betty noted, “My mother wouldn’t let me have contact with even my father’s family members.” And Joanne’s mother disparaged the extended family, even though she was still married to Joanne’s father. “My mother was very adamant when I was a child that my (paternal) grandmother was a very bad person.” Likewise, although Patricia’s parents did not divorce, she recalled her father openly demeaning her mother’s family. “My father never attended family holidays (with mother’s family) and made us feel bad for wasting our time on ‘those people.’”
From a practical point of view, limiting contact with the extended family reduced the likelihood that the children would spend time with people who might defend the targeted parent or present another side to the situation. Thus, they were prevented from being in a position in which their negative views of the targeted parent would be challenged, questioned, or tempered. According to Warshak (2001a), one way to counteract alienation is to have grandparents and other trusted adults present a more balanced view of the targeted parent. This possibility was eliminated.
BELITTLING TARGETED PARENT IN FRONT OF CHILD
Belittling was another, subtler, form of bad-mouthing. The alienating parent belittled the targeted parent in front of their children. Patricia said: “He put her down, belittled her family, her job, her career achievements, her friends and anything that had to do with our mother.” Her father made “oinking” noises whenever her mother was near the refrigerator, indicating that she resembled a pig. He also had derogatory nicknames for everyone on the mother’s side of the family. A more extreme version was experienced by Frank, whose father not only verbally mocked his mother but also beat and kicked her in front of the children in order to demonstrate to them how worthless she was. Jason, too, told how his father derided his mother: “Rather than acknowledge her skills and energy and ingenuity he belittled her and put her down all the time.” Likewise, Elaine’s mother saw the worst in her father, constantly telling him in front of her, “Frank you were never a good father. Frank you never had any interest.” Again, these putdowns were designed to induce negative feelings and ideas about the targeted parent in the minds of the child in order to attenuate the attachment relationship.
INCITING CONFLICT BETWEEN CHILD AND TARGETED PARENT
Some alienating parents were able to create situations that induced conflict between their children and the targeted parent. Thus, when contact could not be fully eliminated the alienating parents found ways to poison the time spent with the targeted parent. This further created the impression that the targeted parent was not to be trusted. The more time spent with the targeted parent fighting and having negative experiences, the less time there was for the development of a positive relationship. This was especially true for Joanne: “We were always in conflict. She would basically do whatever she could to create conflict between us.” Some, like David, were made to look for the support check in the mail and report to the mother if it was late, a strategy designed to create the impression that the targeted parent was irresponsible and rejecting. These negative moments between the children and targeted parent become part of the fabric of their relationship, and thus affected how they felt about each other. It is easy to imagine that these moments of ill will between child and targeted parent created a strain in the relationship that contributed to the alienation. For example, when the targeted parent is irritable with the child in response to these provocations inspired by the alienating parent, the child is probably only aware of the targeted parent’s behavior and not of the invisible hand of the alienating parent, working behind the scenes to negatively influence the relationship. The child walks away with a negative feeling about the targeted parent. Because they were not aware that they were being manipulated, their anger felt authentic and justified to them. This is consistent with Gardner’s (1998) independent thinker phenomenon in which children experience ownership of the negative feelings that they have toward the targeted parent despite the fact that they appear to others to have been manipulated into having those feelings.
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
Thirty-two different strategies were used to alienate the children from their targeted parent (see Chapter 3). Twelve of those strategies were described in detail above. These strategies can be understood in the context of attachment theory in that they contributed to the child believing that the targeted parent was unavailable and unsafe rather than an emotionally responsive and physically available attachment figure. The other strategies (mentioned by just a few of the adult children of PAS) included: cultivating dependency on the alienating parent; throwing out gifts and letters from the targeted parent; interrogating the child after visits with the targeted parent; encouraging the child to feel guilty about having a positive relationship with the targeted parent; asking the child to spy on the targeted parent; telling the targeted parent that the child does not love him or her; monitoring letters or phone calls from the targeted parent; calling the targeted parent by his or her first name; encouraging the child to refer to someone else as “mom” or “dad” not letting the child spend time alone with the targeted parent; telling the child that someone else is his or her father or mother; curtailing visits because a sibling does not want to visit; not allowing the child to bring gifts from the targeted parent into the home; threatening to take the child away from the targeted parent; not letting the alienating parent’s extended family talk about the targeted parent; having secret signals and means of communication with the child while with the targeted parent; having the child keep secrets from the targeted parent; beating the targeted parent in front of the child; changing the child’s name; accusing the child of being too close with the targeted parent; and making it appear as if the targeted parent is rejecting the child.
These alienating strategies worked together to give the child the following three-part message: (1) The alienating parent is the only parent who cares; (2) the alienating parent is needed in order for the child to feel safe and good about him-or herself; (3) the targeted parent—who is dangerous and does not love the child anyway—must be disavowed in order to maintain the love and approval of the alienating parent. Boldly stated this way, the message resembles the message cult leaders convey to cult members (as discussed in Chapter 2).
There appears to be a wide range of actions and behaviors that constitute parental alienation. No one behavior characterized the full sample and no alienating parent utilized just one strategy. Thus, parental alienation syndrome can be effectuated through many possible combinations of strategies and there is no one formula for doing so. This means that counteracting it will be difficult because the targeted parent may not even know all the strategies that the alienating parent is using. Most alienating parents probably participate in bad-mouthing, but bad-mouthing alone may not be sufficient to effectuate alienation and countering the bad-mouthing may not be enough to counter the alienation. Thus, parents who believe that they are the targets of parental alienation should assume that the alienating parent is utilizing an array of strategies. In the absence of tested interventions for parental alienation syndrome, it may be advisable for targeted parents (or parents who suspect they are being targeted) to address the underlying goal of the alienating parent rather than the specific behaviors (which may be unknown and/or may change over time). Thus, rather than saying to a child, “I think your mother/father may be saying bad things about me to you.” To which the child may accurately respond, “That is not true.” It may make sense to say, “I think that your mother/father wants to come between us or make you feel unsafe/uncomfortable with me or have you believe that you can only love one of us at a time.” If there is any chance that alienation is occurring, such a statement is more likely to reflect reality than any statement about a specific strategy. In order to avoid the appearance of bad-mouthing the alienating parent, which might backfire, a targeted parent might also want to consider saying to the child “I really want to be close with you and help you feel safe and good about yourself.” In this way, the targeted parent is aiming to fortify the attachment relationship without bringing the alienating parent into the picture at all. (Additional ideas for targeted parents are presented in Chapter 11.)
It is also important to bear in mind that the list of strategies generated by the adult children is limited by what can be remembered by the adult children of PAS and by what they understand to be the actions that led to the alienation. It is quite possible that some of the strategies used by the alienating parents were so subtle that they remain outside the awareness of the adult children. This line of thinking is supported by a study conducted by Baker and Darnall (2006) in which targeted parents were surveyed regarding the strategies that they believed the other parent was using in the service of parental alienation. While there was considerable overlap, there were also some strategies only known to the targeted parents, including letting the child choose when to visit, not letting the child see the targeted parent at targeted parent’s extended family’s home, calling or visiting during parenting time, early pick ups and drop offs, intercepting calls, not providing targeted parent with information, not providing others with information about the targeted parent, refusing to communicate, using child as messenger, rewarding children for rejecting targeted parent, bad-mouthing targeted parent to others, bad-mouthing targeted parent to authorities, having stepparents call themselves mom or dad to others, not allowing child to bring to targeted parent’s home items from alienating parent’s home, preventing targeted parent from attending parenting functions, and undermining targeted parent’s values and hobbies. These too seemed design to attenuate the attachment relationship between children and targeted parents and to enhance the child’s dependency on the alienating parent, although some strategies may be more salient for the adult children than for targeted parents. The ways in which these strategies and parental alienation syndrome in general constitute emotional abuse are explored in the next chapter.