Family and Supreme Court judges are often confronted with deciding what to do when it is evident that a subject child is alienated from a parent. The alienated child typically refuses to see or have any contact with the rejected parent. In contrast with an estranged child who has good personal experiential reason to avoid the parent (e.g. history of physical or sexual abuse; witness to horrific domestic violence), the alienated child’s position is based significantly upon the thoughts, feelings, and position of the favored parent. Although there may be some objective, first hand reasons for resisting contact, it is the words, actions and perceived wishes of the favored parent which make alienation happen.
So what’s a judge to do? Even in the absence of compelling evidence of inept parenting by the rejected parent, the most common solution is to order Therapeutic Visitation. Like it or not, the child is required to visit with the rejected parent in a series of visits or sessions conducted by a licensed mental health professional, with the goals of improving parent-child interactions and repairing the parent - child bond. In my almost five decades of professional involvement with families and children, I’ve never been successful in forcing an alienated child to have a positive relationship with his or her rejected parent. Therapeutic visits usually limit the involvement of the favored parent to having a transportation role. The usual enmity between rejected parent and favored parent precludes the latter’s direct participation in the process. The child grudgingly participates, knowing that he or she is in lockstep with the favored parent, just a few feet away in the waiting room.
Therapeutic Visitation for alienated children doesn’t work for several reasons.
Therapeutic Visitation is a useful tool for improving interactions between parent and child. It works when all parties are sufficiently motivated to see improvement in parent-child interactions. It doesn’t often, if ever, work with an alienated child, who has no conscious desire to have the rejected parent in his or her life. The child’s angry dismissal of the rejected parent will predictably fester as long as (s)he remains enmeshed with a favored parent who embodies equally negative sentiments and prejudices. These sentiments and prejudices are products of an adverse family history, often pre-dating the birth of the subject child. Such history often features significant conflict, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and/or abandonment. Therapeutic Visitation is not designed to address the dynamics of damaged, intra-familial relationships, but Child Alienation-Focused Family Treatment is.
The case of 10year-old Michelle is illustrative. Living alone with her mother, Michelle had not seen her father in over 3 years, and was fully opposed to having any contact with him. She had memories of how he had been insensitive to her, particularly when she requested to call her mother, and vaguely recalled being inappropriately touched by him. The latter triggered an investigation which concluded the allegations of sexual abuse were unfounded, much to the dismay of mother, who was quite certain that Michelle had been abused by him. Her certainty derived from her prior experiences of having been physically and psychologically mistreated by Michelle’s father. Her extremely low regard for him managed to worsen once allegations of Michelle’s victimization came to light. During the ensuing years, with father out of the picture, the image of him as a demon became entrenched. Mother’s total rejection of him became Michelle’s total rejection.
In Family Court proceedings, a forensic evaluator concluded that given the significant level of disturbance in intra-familial relationships, featuring the child’s alienation from father, and mother’s tacit support for daughter’s total rejection of father, father-daughter visits were not indicated. Instead, the evaluator recommended individual and dyadic therapeutic interventions eventually leading to visits. The judge did not heed the recommendations. Instead he ordered the immediate commencement of Therapeutic Visitation. The Order seemed to prioritize the preservation of father’s legal rights to see his daughter, without considering evidence for the efficacy of such approach in this kind of situation. It seemed to ignore the underlying family dynamics which led to and sustained child alienation. Nothing in the Order addressed the need for Michelle to individuate from mother so that she might be free to reach her own conclusions about father, based only upon actual interactions with him. Nothing in the Order addressed the need for mother to overcome past victimization by father, so that she might be liberated from an existence of chronic anxiety, pain and anger. Finally, the Order did not address the need for father to fully understand the impact of his past behaviors on both mother and daughter, and to offer expressions of genuine contrition. Much healing was necessary for all members of the family.
Child Alienation-Focused Family Treatment (CA-FFT) can provide the forum for such healing to occur. It is based upon the assumption that all family members, each parent and child, are significantly affected by child alienation, and all must therefore participate in eradicating it. Through individual sessions, the favored parent needs to learn about the insidious short and long-term effects that alienation has on a child’s individuated self-identity, self-worth, ability to empathize, critical thinking ability, and interpersonal capacity. He or she needs to understand that the alienated child is at high risk for social isolation, depression, and/or substance abuse in adulthood. In some instances, the favored parent needs to process his or her own trauma history enabling insights to be derived about how past experiences may be influencing current feelings to the extent that the other parent is viewed with total disdain. The rejected parent requires individual sessions to understand the dynamics of child alienation so that the profound hurt that is naturally experienced is not transformed into anger towards the child. The rejected parent may otherwise exacerbate alienation by openly manifesting resentment towards the other parent as well as the child. Conversely, the rejected parent may require assistance in learning how to respond assertively, yet compassionately to the unfair treatment he or she is receiving.
Through dyadic sessions, family members are given the opportunity to gain an understanding of each other, including identification of emotional scars which have been obstacles to relationship building. Family members require opportunities to explain how past actions by others in the family have hurt them; there must be opportunities for apology and forgiveness. Treatment may initially not have to involve the child’s meeting with father without mother present, yet in practice, it often facilitates that eventuality, as it did in the case in question.
Full family sessions provide opportunities for the child to witness a thaw in the relationship between parents, in the form of respectful interactions in the absence of the total rejection of the past. Family sessions are where the child receives tacit or explicit permission to re-new contacts with the rejected parent. This paves the way for the initiation of regular visits between the now formerly rejected parent and child. Therapeutic Visitation may be needed for a while if inept parenting is a factor. Otherwise, the transition to unsupervised visits, day visits, overnight visits, and weekend visits can occur fairly rapidly.
That mother and father become friends again is not an essential goal of CA-FFT. Rather, a goal is for mother to extinguish her demonization of the father of her daughter as she gains awareness of his improved social-emotional status, and accepts the contrition he shows. Another goal is for father to learn how to maximize sensitivity to the needs and wishes of his daughter by containing and compartmentalizing, if necessary, his personal emotional needs to be addressed outside of the father-daughter relationship. In the case in question, the Court ultimately supported implementation of the Child Alienation-Focused Family Treatment approach, rather than ordering Therapeutic Visitation. There was recognition that the path towards eliminating alienation and restoring a meaningful relationship between a child and her formerly rejected father involves the processing of family dynamics rather than the singular imposition of visitation. Therapeutic Visitation is appropriate for helping an inept parent learn and implement positive parenting practices. Family Treatment can be extremely helpful in building self-awareness, and self-acceptance, as well as awareness of others and acceptance of them. It can promote the restoration of positive dyadic relationships, unfettered by the feelings and possible biases of third parties.
Work is needed in educating all players in the family court and supreme court systems who are involved with alienated children. Law Guardians, attorneys for parents, forensic evaluators, visitation service agencies, treating therapists and judges should become well versed in factors which must be considered before Therapeutic Visitation or Family Treatment is recommended or ordered. Other remedies for eliminating child alienation, such as partial or full change in custody should preferably be considered only after attempts at resolution via family treatment are made without success. These remedies require full discussion elsewhere. Ideally, decisions should be informed by whatever has been shown to be efficacious. More studies are needed in this regard.
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D. DABPS
Psychologist, Executive Director, IEH
January 19, 2018
So what’s a judge to do? Even in the absence of compelling evidence of inept parenting by the rejected parent, the most common solution is to order Therapeutic Visitation. Like it or not, the child is required to visit with the rejected parent in a series of visits or sessions conducted by a licensed mental health professional, with the goals of improving parent-child interactions and repairing the parent - child bond. In my almost five decades of professional involvement with families and children, I’ve never been successful in forcing an alienated child to have a positive relationship with his or her rejected parent. Therapeutic visits usually limit the involvement of the favored parent to having a transportation role. The usual enmity between rejected parent and favored parent precludes the latter’s direct participation in the process. The child grudgingly participates, knowing that he or she is in lockstep with the favored parent, just a few feet away in the waiting room.
Therapeutic Visitation for alienated children doesn’t work for several reasons.
- It is designed to help modify dysfunctional parenting behaviors, such as paying insufficient attention, disregarding the child’s efforts, castigating the child, using inappropriate language, and responding insensitively to the child’s overt or implicit wishes.
- It is based upon the assumption that a faulty or weak bond already exists, which is not the case with an alienated child who feels no connection whatsoever with the rejected parent.
- It is based upon the assumption that the rejected parent manifests inept parenting practices.
- It ignores the elephant in the room, the favored parent’s dislike, dismissal of or hostility towards the rejected parent, and the considerable impact of the favored parent’s words, actions and subtle cues on the child.
Therapeutic Visitation is a useful tool for improving interactions between parent and child. It works when all parties are sufficiently motivated to see improvement in parent-child interactions. It doesn’t often, if ever, work with an alienated child, who has no conscious desire to have the rejected parent in his or her life. The child’s angry dismissal of the rejected parent will predictably fester as long as (s)he remains enmeshed with a favored parent who embodies equally negative sentiments and prejudices. These sentiments and prejudices are products of an adverse family history, often pre-dating the birth of the subject child. Such history often features significant conflict, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and/or abandonment. Therapeutic Visitation is not designed to address the dynamics of damaged, intra-familial relationships, but Child Alienation-Focused Family Treatment is.
The case of 10year-old Michelle is illustrative. Living alone with her mother, Michelle had not seen her father in over 3 years, and was fully opposed to having any contact with him. She had memories of how he had been insensitive to her, particularly when she requested to call her mother, and vaguely recalled being inappropriately touched by him. The latter triggered an investigation which concluded the allegations of sexual abuse were unfounded, much to the dismay of mother, who was quite certain that Michelle had been abused by him. Her certainty derived from her prior experiences of having been physically and psychologically mistreated by Michelle’s father. Her extremely low regard for him managed to worsen once allegations of Michelle’s victimization came to light. During the ensuing years, with father out of the picture, the image of him as a demon became entrenched. Mother’s total rejection of him became Michelle’s total rejection.
In Family Court proceedings, a forensic evaluator concluded that given the significant level of disturbance in intra-familial relationships, featuring the child’s alienation from father, and mother’s tacit support for daughter’s total rejection of father, father-daughter visits were not indicated. Instead, the evaluator recommended individual and dyadic therapeutic interventions eventually leading to visits. The judge did not heed the recommendations. Instead he ordered the immediate commencement of Therapeutic Visitation. The Order seemed to prioritize the preservation of father’s legal rights to see his daughter, without considering evidence for the efficacy of such approach in this kind of situation. It seemed to ignore the underlying family dynamics which led to and sustained child alienation. Nothing in the Order addressed the need for Michelle to individuate from mother so that she might be free to reach her own conclusions about father, based only upon actual interactions with him. Nothing in the Order addressed the need for mother to overcome past victimization by father, so that she might be liberated from an existence of chronic anxiety, pain and anger. Finally, the Order did not address the need for father to fully understand the impact of his past behaviors on both mother and daughter, and to offer expressions of genuine contrition. Much healing was necessary for all members of the family.
Child Alienation-Focused Family Treatment (CA-FFT) can provide the forum for such healing to occur. It is based upon the assumption that all family members, each parent and child, are significantly affected by child alienation, and all must therefore participate in eradicating it. Through individual sessions, the favored parent needs to learn about the insidious short and long-term effects that alienation has on a child’s individuated self-identity, self-worth, ability to empathize, critical thinking ability, and interpersonal capacity. He or she needs to understand that the alienated child is at high risk for social isolation, depression, and/or substance abuse in adulthood. In some instances, the favored parent needs to process his or her own trauma history enabling insights to be derived about how past experiences may be influencing current feelings to the extent that the other parent is viewed with total disdain. The rejected parent requires individual sessions to understand the dynamics of child alienation so that the profound hurt that is naturally experienced is not transformed into anger towards the child. The rejected parent may otherwise exacerbate alienation by openly manifesting resentment towards the other parent as well as the child. Conversely, the rejected parent may require assistance in learning how to respond assertively, yet compassionately to the unfair treatment he or she is receiving.
Through dyadic sessions, family members are given the opportunity to gain an understanding of each other, including identification of emotional scars which have been obstacles to relationship building. Family members require opportunities to explain how past actions by others in the family have hurt them; there must be opportunities for apology and forgiveness. Treatment may initially not have to involve the child’s meeting with father without mother present, yet in practice, it often facilitates that eventuality, as it did in the case in question.
Full family sessions provide opportunities for the child to witness a thaw in the relationship between parents, in the form of respectful interactions in the absence of the total rejection of the past. Family sessions are where the child receives tacit or explicit permission to re-new contacts with the rejected parent. This paves the way for the initiation of regular visits between the now formerly rejected parent and child. Therapeutic Visitation may be needed for a while if inept parenting is a factor. Otherwise, the transition to unsupervised visits, day visits, overnight visits, and weekend visits can occur fairly rapidly.
That mother and father become friends again is not an essential goal of CA-FFT. Rather, a goal is for mother to extinguish her demonization of the father of her daughter as she gains awareness of his improved social-emotional status, and accepts the contrition he shows. Another goal is for father to learn how to maximize sensitivity to the needs and wishes of his daughter by containing and compartmentalizing, if necessary, his personal emotional needs to be addressed outside of the father-daughter relationship. In the case in question, the Court ultimately supported implementation of the Child Alienation-Focused Family Treatment approach, rather than ordering Therapeutic Visitation. There was recognition that the path towards eliminating alienation and restoring a meaningful relationship between a child and her formerly rejected father involves the processing of family dynamics rather than the singular imposition of visitation. Therapeutic Visitation is appropriate for helping an inept parent learn and implement positive parenting practices. Family Treatment can be extremely helpful in building self-awareness, and self-acceptance, as well as awareness of others and acceptance of them. It can promote the restoration of positive dyadic relationships, unfettered by the feelings and possible biases of third parties.
Work is needed in educating all players in the family court and supreme court systems who are involved with alienated children. Law Guardians, attorneys for parents, forensic evaluators, visitation service agencies, treating therapists and judges should become well versed in factors which must be considered before Therapeutic Visitation or Family Treatment is recommended or ordered. Other remedies for eliminating child alienation, such as partial or full change in custody should preferably be considered only after attempts at resolution via family treatment are made without success. These remedies require full discussion elsewhere. Ideally, decisions should be informed by whatever has been shown to be efficacious. More studies are needed in this regard.
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D. DABPS
Psychologist, Executive Director, IEH
January 19, 2018
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