A THERAPIST'S VIEW OF PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME

• Author: Mary Lund
• Date: 01 July 1995
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.1995.tb00373.x
• Published date: 01 July 1995

A THERAPIST’S VIEW

OF

PARENTAL ALIENATION

SYNDROME

Mary

Lund

Cases in which a child is resisting contact with

a

parent may or

may

not fit Gardner

’s

theory

of

Parental Alienation Syndmme, which emphasizes the psychopathology

of

the “alienating”

parent. Explanations may also include the child‘s coping with intense co@ict and the “rejected”

parent$

skill

with the child Whatever the cause, improvement usually involves legal

and

therapeutic intervention.

Richard Gardner made

a

very important contribution to the field of family

law with the theory of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS).’ He alerted the

legal system that children’s statements about rejecting one parent

may

result

from overt or covert manipulation by the other parent. He gave clear and

specific recommendations about a combination

of

legal and therapeutic

interventions, the most important of which was the need for a court order for

continued contact between parent and child. The underlying message is that

problems between parent and child should be addressed head on, not avoided

by cutting off the relationship. Despite the important contribution of PAS,

there are still questions about how much it applies in cases when a child

rejects a parent and how to help these families who are difficult to treat in

psychotherapy and repeatedly show up in the courts because of their relation-

ship problems.

Perhaps one of the problems with the usefulness of PAS,

as

described by

Gardner,

is

that few cases

fit

neatly into

this

syndrome.

As

it

is described by

Gardner, the “loved parent” is unable to tolerate separation from the child,

programs the child, and uses the child to meet the loved parent’s own

emotional needs. The loved parent is looked at

as

emotionally disturbed and

keeping the child from arelationship with a potentially healthier parent.

This

framework of looking for a disturbed versus healthier parent fits the win-lose

situation of the court contest. Often there are charges of abuse by one side

and countercharges of parental alienation by the other side, which then must

be looked at in an evaluation. Parents who have suffered the terrible hurt

of

Author’s

Note:

This article originally appeared in the

Child

Custody

Compendium,

16th

Annual

Child Custody Colloquium, February

5,

1994.

Sponsored by Family

Law

Sertion-Los Angeies

County Bar Association, and

Los

Angeles Superior Court.

FAMILY

AND

CONCILIATION

COURTS

REVIEW,

Vol.

33

No.

3,

July

1995

308-316

0

1995

Sage

Publications,

Inc.

308