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CR66 - Ten Parental Alienation Fallacies That Compromise Decisions in Court and in Therapy

The manuscript version of this journal article is available individually for immediate download from the Warshak e-LIBE by clicking here. The content of the manuscript is identical to the published version but lacks the journal’s typeset appearance and headers and is not the copy of record. To access the downloadable manuscript of this article, and to purchase and instantly download videos, and speeches by Dr. Warshak, visit the Warshak e-LIBE.

This article examines ten false beliefs about the genesis of parental alienation and about appropriate remedies that result in opinions and decisions that fail to meet children’s needs. The ten mistaken assumptions are:

(a) children never unreasonably reject the parent with whom they spend the most time,
(b) children never unreasonably reject mothers,
(c) each parent contributes equally to a child’s alienation,
(d) alienation is a child’s transient, short-lived response to the parents’ separation,
(e) rejecting a parent is a short-term healthy coping mechanism,
(f) young children living with an alienating parent need no intervention,
(g) alienated adolescents’ stated preferences should dominate custody decisions,
(h) children who appear to function well outside the family need no intervention,
(i) severely alienated children are best treated with traditional therapy techniques while living primarily with their favored parent, and
(j) separating children from an alienating parent is traumatic.

Reliance on false beliefs compromises investigations and undermines adequate consideration of alternative explanations for the causes of a child’s alienation. Most critical, fallacies about parental alienation shortchange children and parents by supporting outcomes that fail to provide effective relief to those who experience this problem.

The final published version of this article is available from the American Psychological Association journal website here.