REJOINDER TO GARDNER'S “COMMENTARY ON KELLY AND JOHNSTON'S ‘THE ALIENATED CHILD: A REFORMULATION OF PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME’”

• Author: Janet R. Johnston,Joan B. Kelly
• Date: 01 October 2004
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.2004.tb01328.x
• Published date: 01 October 2004

REJOINDER TO GARDNER’S “COMMENTARY ON KELLY AND

JOHNSTON’S ‘THE ALIENATED CHILD: A REFORMULATION

OF PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME”’

Janet

R.

Johnston and Joan

B.

Kelly

In this reply to Richard Gardner, we outline our points of disagreement with his formulation of parental alienation

syndrome

(PAS),

showing that his focus on the alienating parent

as

the primary cause of children’s negative attitudes

and rejecting behavior toward the other parent is overly simplistic and not supported by findings from recent empiri-

cal research.

It

follows that we strongly object to Gardner’s recommendations for legal and mental health interven-

tions with alienated children as well as the use

of

the term

PAS

when referring to this problem.

Keywords:

higk-conflict divorce; child custody: purenttrl dienution

.syndromc~

In his commentary on our “Reformulation

of

Parental Alienation Syndrome” (Kelly

&

Johnston, 200

l),

Gardner has underestimated the nature and extent

of

our disagreement with

him. We appreciate the opportunity to respond to his commentary and regret that he is no lon-

ger with us to continue this important debate. The fact that a small percentage of children

develop strong negative attitudes and reject one of their parents after divorce is agreed upon.

What factors motivate their rejection and to what extent their negative feelings and behaviors

are in response

to

their parents’ behaviors are in dispute. How to intervene legally and to treat

these children in therapy is even more strongly disputed, and whether to call the phenomena

a syndrome and grant it status as a DSM diagnostic category is rejected outright. Each of

these points will be elaborated.

Over the past three decades, beginning with Wallerstein and Kelly (1976) who first

described these children, a large number

of

clinical researchers and mental health and legal

professionals have observed, commented upon, and struggled with the problem of children

of divorce who are reluctant or refuse to visit a parent (Bruch, 2001

;

Clawar

&

Rivlin, 199

1

;

Dunne

&

Hedrick, 1994; Gardner, 1992,1998a; Johnston

&

Roseby, 1997; Kopetski, 1998a,

1998b; Lampel, 1996; Lund, 1995; Rand, 1997a, 1997b; Waldron

&

Joanes, 1996; Walker,

Brantley,

&

Rigsbee, 2004; Wallerstein

&

Kelly, 1980; Walsh

&

Bone, 1997; Warshak,

2003; Williams, 2001; Wood, 1994). To the best of our knowledge, there are only a few

nonprobability samples from which to estimate the extent

of

the problem, and these studies

are plagued with different definitions and measures. In community samples

of

divorcing

families, 11% to

15%

of children were found

to

be aligned with one parent and rejected or

resisted contact with the other (Johnston, 2003; Wallerstein

&

Kelly,

1980).

Among

custody-litigating families, the estimates are higher-20% to 27% (Johnston, 1993, 2003;

Kopetski, 1998a, 1998b). In general, boys and girls are equally likely to take this stance,

with the problem becoming more pronounced in preadolescent and adolescent children.

Whereas fathers apparently were more likely to be rejected in the past, more recent data

appear

to

indicate that both mothers and fathers are likely

to

be rejected (Wallerstein

&

Kelly,

Authors’ Note:

The reseurch reported in this Commentup was mudepossible

by

a grunt

to

thefirst authorfrom the

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Study

($Affects.

FAMILY COURT

REVIEW, Vol.

42

No

4,

October

2004

622-628

DOI:

10.1

177/1531244504268658

0

2004

Association

of

Family and Conciliation

Courts

622