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214 Harman et al.
letting the child choose whether to visit with the targeted
parent, and making false allegations of abuse (Baker &
Darnall, 2006; Harman, Biringen, Ratajck, Outland, &
Kraus, 2016; Harman et al., 2018).
Obviously, no parent is perfect; an occasional nega-
tive comment or discrete action is not considered a
parental alienating behavior. It is the use of clusters of
behaviors over an extended period of time, commonly
used with the intent to harm the relationship between
the child and the other parental figure (or just the other
parent because of his or her relationship with the child),
that characterizes an action as a parental alienating
behavior (Harman et al., 2018). Whereas the repetition
of one or more behaviors over time is important for
creating or cementing the child’s negative and rejecting
view of a parent, the nature and content of those behav-
iors (e.g., suggestions to the child that he or she has
been sexually abused by the targeted parent or that the
targeted parent has attempted to kill the child) will
impact the rapidity of rejection and alienation.
More than 22 million American adults are estimated
as having experienced alienating behaviors by the
other parent, with over half reporting this experience
as being severe (Harman, Leder-Elder, & Biringen,
2016). Fortunately, parental alienating behaviors do not
always lead to the ultimate alienation of a child from
a parent. Alienating behaviors (the actions of the alien-
ating parent) are very common and can have very
negative consequences for the child; parental alien-
ation (the child’s refusal to have a relationship with
the targeted parent) is much less common. There may
be many reasons for this discrepancy, such as the
amount of parenting time the targeted parent has with
the child; the quality of the parent–child relationship
prior to the initiation of parental alienating behaviors;
the severity and longevity of the alienating behaviors;
the child’s temperament, age, and birth order; the
extent to which other people reinforce or counter
alienating influences; and the social sanctioning of the
parental alienating behaviors.
How Are Parents Who Alienate Their
Children Enabled To Act This Way?
Families exist within communities, societies, and cul-
tures that can promote or deter parental alienation.
Research does not yet provide support for there being
gender differences in who alienates their children;
mothers and fathers appear similarly likely to be per-
petrators (Harman, Leder-Elder, & Biringen, 2016), but
they may use different types of behaviors (e.g., mothers
may use more indirect and fathers more direct forms
of aggression; López, Iglesias, & García, 2014). Gender
differences do arise in how parental alienating behaviors
are perceived and addressed by third parties. For exam-
ple, mothers who use parental alienating behaviors are
not perceived as negatively as when a father or a
gender-neutral “parent” uses them (Harman, Biringen,
et al., 2016). Arguably, gender biases may have influ-
enced how parental alienation has been handled in
social institutions such as family court (Lorandos, 2017),
indicating that perceptions of mental health, legal, and
law-enforcement professionals; financial resources; estab-
lished distribution of custody practices; and other factors
can generate great disparities in terms of who is more
affected by parental alienating behaviors. Therefore, gen-
der biases, outmoded institutional practices, and other
social factors play an important role in the promotion
and deterrance of parental alienation.
What Impact Do Parental Alienating
Behaviors Have?
The impact of parental alienation on children, the tar-
geted parent, and the entire family system is substantial.
Ongoing and unresolved conflict between parents may
be associated with posttraumatic stress symptoms
(Basile-Palleschi, 2002) and other negative conse-
quences in children (Cummings & Davies, 2010). How-
ever, alienated children experience more psychosocial
adjustment disorders (e.g., internalizing and external-
izing problems) than children who have not been alien-
ated ( Johnston, Lee, Oleson, & Walters, 2005). Alienated
children are often separated from the targeted parent
for long periods of time; this separation paired with
parental alienating behaviors is associated with poor
psychological adjustment among children (e.g., Seijo,
Fariňa, Corras, Novo, & Arce, 2016). Adults who were
alienated as children report severe long-term effects of
this abuse (Baker, 2005; Baker & Verrocchio, 2013): low
levels of self-esteem and high levels of self-hatred, inse-
cure attachment, substance abuse disorders, guilt, anxi-
ety, and depression. These individuals also develop
fears and phobias, experience attachment difficulties,
have problems communicating with their children as
adults (Aloia & Strutzenberg, 2019), and develop a lack
of trust in others or themselves (see Harman et  al.,
2018).
Perhaps more is known about the impact of parental
alienating behaviors on targeted parents because they
are most easily accessed for research purposes. For tar-
geted parents, the outcomes of parental alienation
appear to be similar to other forms of intimate-partner
violence; targeted parents report experiencing depression
(Taylor-Potter, 2015), anxiety, and high levels of suicid-
ality (Baker & Verrocchio, 2015; Balmer, Matthewson,
& Haines, 2018). In addition, targeted parents live with
unresolved grief and ambiguous loss (Boss, 2016) and
Parental Alienation 213
the arguing and fighting (Warshak, 2015b). When parents
reciprocate conflictual behavior, they often have similar
levels of power—in such cases, the outcome for the child
is a loyalty conflict rather than parental alienation
(Bernet, Wamboldt, & Narrow, 2016). Although parental
alienation can occur or begin in intact families, it most
commonly occurs after the parental relationship ends.
The manifestations of parental alienation in the child
consist of (but are not limited to) the following: a cam-
paign of denigration against the targeted parent; weak,
frivolous, or absurd rationalizations for the deprecation;
a lack of ambivalence; an “independent-thinker” phe-
nomenon in which the child denies being influenced
to feel negatively about the targeted parent; an appar-
ent absence of guilt for actions and attitudes toward
the targeted parent; borrowed scenarios about past
events; and the spread of animosity to other people
associated with the rejected parent (e.g., extended fam-
ily members; Gardner, 1992). Of these outcomes, those
most strongly associated with parental alienation are
the first two: the child’s campaign of denigration against
the rejected parent and the child’s frivolous rationaliza-
tions for the denigration. Outcomes that are readily
identified objectively and measured quantitatively are
the child’s rejection of the parent (Huff, Anderson,
Adamsons, & Tambling, 2017) and the child’s lack of
ambivalence toward the parents, namely, one parent is
all good, the other is all bad (otherwise known as split-
ting; Bernet, Gregory, Reay, & Rohner, 2018).
Parental alienation outcomes are classified in the
fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders as a mental condition under the
diagnosis “child affected by parental relationship dis-
tress” (CAPRD; Bernet et  al., 2016). This condition
appears in the same chapter as child sexual abuse,
parent–child relational problems, and other forms of
domestic violence (“other conditions that may be a
focus of clinical attention”), and CAPRD can be diag-
nosed independently or as a modifier of a mental dis-
order (e.g., major depressive disorder). Estimating the
prevalence of parental alienation among children is
challenging because a psychological assessment is typi-
cally needed to determine whether and to what extent
a child has been alienated. If we extrapolate from pub-
lished research and use deductive methods, we find
that an estimated 1% of all children in the United States
are alienated from a parent (Bernet, 2010; Warshak,
2015a). Another estimate, albeit one based on a rela-
tively small sample, suggests that around 29% of chil-
dren from divorced homes experience alienating
behaviors from a parent (Hands & Warshak, 2011).
What Parental Alienation Is Not
It is important to distinguish parental alienation from
parental estrangement (Kelly & Johnston, 2001), as the
terminology used in this context is slightly different
than definitions in most dictionaries, in which alien-
ation is described as an emotional detachment and
estrangement adds an element of physical disconnec-
tion (Warshak, 2010). In this article, estrangement refers
to problems with a parent–child relationship that are
due to issues within the relationship itself. For example,
a parent may have poor parenting skills and engage in
physically or emotionally abusive behaviors that make
the quality of the parent–child relationship poor. Hence,
the child is explicably and realistically estranged from
a parent on the basis of and in reaction to the child’s
lived experience. In contrast to estrangement, the cause
of the parent–child problem in cases of parental alien-
ation lies primarily with the alienating parent. Through
words and actions, the alienating parent influences the
child to such a degree that the child begins to reject a
relationship with the targeted parent. The child’s rejec-
tion is not typically due to the actions of the targeted
parent; if it is, then it is grossly exaggerated and out of
proportion to his or her actual experience with the
parent. Indeed, the child’s rejection of the targeted par-
ent can be irreconcilable with and contradicted by the
child’s lived experience of the targeted parent. When
allegations of abuse are raised during custody disputes,
this distinction between estrangement and parental
alienation becomes important. If there is a substantiated
history of domestic violence or child abuse over the
course of the relationship, the accuser’s and child’s
behaviors are explicable; if the accusation is manufac-
tured as a strategy to gain the upper hand in a custody
dispute, then the accusation is a parental alienating
behavior.
How Do Parents Alienate Their Children?
Parental alienating behaviors have recently been con-
sidered a form of family violence, which has generally
been understood as behaviors that coerce, control, and
generate fear in the child. This behavior makes it child
abuse for children as victims and intimate-partner vio-
lence for the targeted parent as the victim. Parental
alienation is the result of an alienating parent’s coer-
cion, control, and generation of fear in the child toward
the targeted parent, making this a very complex form
of family violence (Clawar & Rivlin, 2013; Harman et al.,
2018). Hundreds of parental alienating behaviors have
been documented by researchers, including badmouth-
ing the targeted parent and his or her extended family,
engaging in coercive controlling behaviors to force an
alliance with the child and to reject the targeted parent,
saying the targeted parent does not love the child,
confiding in the child about adult matters, limiting the
child’s contact with the other parent, violating court
orders regarding parenting time and communication,
undermining the targeted parent’s authority with the child,
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FORELDRAÚTILOKUN: VITUNDARVAKNING Á RANNSÓKNARSVIÐINU JENNIFER J. HARMAN O.FL.