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CONTACT DIFFICULTIES
AND PARENTAL ALIENATION
A. OVERVIEW
This chapter reviews many of the issues relating to contact difficulties, which includes
parental alienation. The various types of contact difficulties are described here. This
chapter also describes the characteristics of the alienating parent, the target parent, and the
child. Recommendations are offered to the various professions on how to manage these
difficult cases more effectively.
The fact that many divorcing clients become alienated from their lawyers will also be
explored. This discussion will focus especially on lawyers and what they can do to
improve that situation. However, the court, child welfare workers, custody assessors,
psychotherapists, and other professionals will also be discussed. Some observations will
be made regarding the benefits of using a multi-disciplinary approach.
Contact difficulties and parental alienation are issues which have caused much
confusion and difficulty in the field of family law as well as for many custody assessors,
psychotherapists, and child protection agencies. A major concern in these matters is that
the child is scarred by these difficulties, and will carry these scars into adulthood. It is
very important for professionals who are involved with divorce to understand parental
alienation and the various aspects of contact difficulties. This will assist the professionals
to clarify whether allegations of abuse are valid in a particular case or whether there is an
issue relating to contact difficulties or parental alienation in any given case. However, it
may be difficult for the courts to gain a clear perspective in such situations unless the
abuse or alienating behaviour is out in the open and fairly intense, rather than hidden and
veiled as occurs in a great many cases.
Parental alienation is often defined as one parent purposely trying to destroy the
relationship between the child and the other parent, with the child taking the side of the
alienating parent. A more recent definition explores a broader range of alienation,
including that which is done out of occasional anger by a parent, and may even be
unintentional. Although many professionals believe parental alienation to be rare, this
broader range of alienation occurs in many cases which are fought out in court. A still
broader concept is that of contact difficulties, in which a child refuses contact with the
access parent for a broad range of reasons.
A sub-theme in this chapter is the relationship between the client and the professionals
involved in the case. Individuals going through the breakdown of a relationship are, in
the initial stages, very blaming of the other partner and often take little or no
responsibility for the difficulties. Also, when they are dissatisfied with their work with a
professional, such as a lawyer, they tend to act in the same way toward them as they do
toward their spouse: they blame the professional and take no responsibility for the
difficulties. They may become alienated from the lawyer, just as they became alienated
from their partner. This is not an uncommon difficulty. As noted earlier, research shows
that 50% of matrimonial clients become dissatisfied with their lawyers. I will discuss
potential causes for these difficulties, and make recommendations to help resolve them.
B. CONTACT DIFFICULTIES
Some of the literature states that the concept of “contact difficulties” is preferable to
“parental alienation syndrome” for a number of reasons although the idea of “parental
alienation” is acceptable in some of those cases. A recent review of the two concepts and
of the research literature in this area stated, “The term contact difficulties encompasses
more than just alienation and alienating behaviours; rather it represents any negative
change in the child-parent relationship following divorce.” (Kelly and Johnston, 2001).
The issues relating to contact difficulties are more complex than those considered by the
concept of parental alienation. The following areas need to be taken into consideration:
the child, the relationship between the parents, the parents’ personalities, extended family
difficulties, a new spouse or partner, financial issues, impact of litigation, etc.
Janet Johnston proposed that the child’s contribution to the family difficulties is also
very important to consider. Rather than viewing the issues as being personality or
behavioural difficulties, the idea is that the interactional patterns are also crucial
considerations (Johnston, 1993b: Kelly and Johnston, 2001).
Johnston identified six reasons why a child might refuse to visit a parent:
• The child may align with one parent to resolve painful loyalty conflicts which
results from the parents’ conflict
• The child may take sides as a form of defense in reaction to long-term conflict
between the parents
• Conscious and unconscious input from new partners, extended family and
professionals
These authors agree with the parental alienation concept that the alienating parent has
very negative views toward the target parent and that the child does not need to have
contact with that parent. The target parent is often viewed as being dangerous to the
child and as having had little positive interaction with the child in the past. Alienating
parents also state that the child should have the right to make the decisions regarding
contact with the target parent.
Kelly and Johnston also agree with the parental alienation view expressed earlier that
the target parent’s capacity to look after the child is in the normal range.
Stolz and Ney (2002) also focus on alienation although they prefer to focus on the
issue of resistance rather than on the individuals because that puts more emphasis on the
relationships. Their view is that if the divorce process were dealt with in a less
adversarial manner, there would be less resistance to visitation.
In terms of contact difficulties, the research strongly suggests that the courts should
impose a very clear parenting plan for families in which there is high conflict. Although
other models have been developed for parenting plans with high conflict families
(Brandt, 1998; Gilmour, 2004); Stewart (2001) has proposed the following
recommendations for these situations:
• The active alienator means well and believes the child should have a relationship
with the other parent but lashes out at the parent in front of the child.
• Parental alienation syndrome does not fit within DSMV (Diagnostic and Statistic
Manual) which is a list of psychological diagnoses.