Dr. Jennifer Jill Harmon, PhD. Discusses Parental Alienation In And Out Of The Courtroom

     Slam the Gavel welcomes Dr. Jennifer Jill Harmon, PhD. to the show. Dr. Harmon is the author of, "Parents Acting Badly," which does an excellent job of identifying the dynamics of alienation.
     Identifying with many of the same issues as Dr. C. Childress, Dr. Jennifer Harmon also goes into great detail about some of the larger issues that cause and perpetuate alienation to begin with. She shows not only how we as individuals are affected, but the importance of addressing alienation on a larger level.
     Dr. Harmon has conducted and continues to conduct research into this subject to garner a greater legitimacy in the psychological community around this subject. She is currently looking to further substantiate the idea that alienation is another form of aggression and that it has the same roots as any other form of abuse.
    Jennifer Jill Harman, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University in the Applied Social & Health Psychology program.
     She received her doctorate in Social Psychology from the University of Connecticut in 2005, and specializes in the study of intimate relationships. She also has two masters degrees from Teacher's College, Columbia University in psychological counseling, and served as a family and substance abuse counselor for several years prior to her entry into academia. She is currently an associate professor of psychology at Colorado State University.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:19

Good evening and welcome to Slam to Gavel, the show that tells it all regarding family court, other court issues, as well as CPS. I'm your host, Marianne Petri. There's a non-denominational retreat weekend at the Resolution Center of Jacksonville, Florida. This will be a time of support and renewal for parents and grandparents on the journey of parental alienation. Standing strong in resilience, paving the way for good health and a great future. This will take place April 22nd through the 24th at the Resolution Center, Jacksonville, Florida. I will have everything in the podcast notes. Right now, I have a brand new guest. I'm honored to have Dr. Jennifer Jill Harmon onto the show. She's the author of Parents Acting Badly. She does a superb job of identifying dynamics of alienation. She identifies many of the same issues as Dr. Childress, but also goes into great great detail about some of the larger issues that cause and perpetuate alienation in the first place. She points to not only how we as individuals are affected by the importance of addressing this on a larger level, she has conducted and continues to conduct research into the subject to garner greater legitimacy in the psychological community around the subject. She is currently looking to further substantiate the idea that alienation is another form of aggression and that it has the same roots as any other form of abuse. I welcome you to the show, Dr. Jennifer Harmon. How are you?

SPEAKER_04: 1:54

Thank you. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me today.

SPEAKER_00: 1:58

Oh, I'm honored to have you on. I know this is parental alienation month as well.

SPEAKER_04: 2:05

Yes. Yeah, the awareness day is on the Monday, the 25th.

SPEAKER_00: 2:12

And you've done extensive research into all of this. And um, you know, there's people that are saying this is junk science, this is, you know, a purple unicorn. And you know, how is we as alienated parents answer that?

SPEAKER_04: 2:33

Well, sometimes it comes up when I'm testifying in court and I just have to kind of laugh at it because I publish in some of the top scientific journals in the field. If it's not scientific, how is it that my research is published in APA journals, you know, the Market Psychological Association journals or the top journals of the Association for Psychological Science? It's just a smoke screen. People yell it out, and people, the audience isn't critical of it, and they accept it as truth when there's no basis for it at all.

SPEAKER_00: 3:08

Well, when you testify in court, you know, have you heard attorneys just call it out and say, well, that parent is practicing parental alienation on this child? Have you heard that come across your plate?

SPEAKER_04: 3:24

Um, you mean in terms of uh one the blaming the alienated parent? Is that what you're asking? Or about the other person?

SPEAKER_00: 3:34

Uh well, say say an opposing attorney says um she's she or he is uh uh using parental alienation and the judge buys it. And there's no there's no therapist to say, wait a minute, have you ever been in that situation?

SPEAKER_04: 3:56

Um usually when I get pulled onto a case, it's pretty severe alienation. Um sadly, you know, I'm not usually I've been on a few cases where it hasn't gotten really bad, but usually when I've been brought onto a case, it's not just somebody alleging it. You know, usually there's just a lot of evidence to indicate it's happened. That's not to say it doesn't happen, right? You know, I mean I I published a paper in uh I published a few papers looking at um allegations of parental alienation versus actual findings. Um and we do find that there's a lot of parents who believe they're being alienated and they're not. And there's a lot who claim they're being alienated and they're not. Um, but we find the same for other kinds of violence. You know, there's a lot of people who claim to have been physically abused and they weren't, or claim to that their children were being abused and they weren't. So sadly, you know, there's there is a lot of false or um false allegations going always, right? Or both ways, you know. They're um, I think anytime you have an abusive person in general, they will use whatever they can to get an advantage. And so if it means going to court and claiming abuse, whether it's parental alienation or child abuse or domestic violence, they'll do it, right? Um and so that that's where it falls to court professionals and you know, mental health professionals who work with the courts to really carefully um identify specifically what is parental alienation and what isn't.

SPEAKER_00: 5:45

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 5:46

Um and what is a uh a true allegation of abuse, like what counts as substantiation of an abuse claim, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 5:53

So it's probably I don't know, uh hard to decipher when you're talking to a parent or a child. You know, I is it hard to see the truth or to see if they were coached?

SPEAKER_04: 6:13

Right. Well, children, it's usually, I mean, I've seen in a lot of the research, especially uh reports from CPS and other places and and police officers, a lot of them have training to tell that, right? They have a lot of training and they could tell immediately, or after some questioning of the children that they believe the child's been coached to believe or say certain things because there'll be a lot of inconsistencies or they'll flat out deny that it happened, you know. Um fact a lot of allegations in a study that I'm looking at out of Canada or I'm I'm working on right now. I mean, there's a significant proportion of cases where the kids tell the police that their mom or dad told them to say it and it didn't happen. So um I think, you know, I don't think that all adults are being duped by, you know, like by people lying. You know, I think they can sometimes figure it out. Um and when they do figure it out, it doesn't mean that they're getting it wrong. It means that they've looked at the evidence and that it's clear that there's, you know, somebody trying to manipulate the system, right? Um now parental alienation, I mean, there's so much that's been published over the last few years that really help has helped us to really identify when that's happening versus when other kinds of family conflict are happening. And so, I mean, I've been asked to testify in cases where I don't think the attorneys maybe did all their research um and really learning what alienation is, and where I've testified because I don't testify on um specifics of the case. Like I don't I don't read people's, you know, stories and talk about, I just go in and try to educate the court and just let them know what the research is to help them make good decisions. And so there's been cases like where I've gone in and I've described how you how you differentiate these cases from other kinds of cases, and I go through the research and whatnot. And there was one case it was pretty clear that what I was describing with the hypotheticals was actually the the parent that had hired me. Their lawyer didn't really realize that their client was the alienating parent because everything I said matched exactly what the the other parent was experiencing. And so, and and it's you know, I can't, I don't know who hires, you know, I just I I go to um behalf of just try to be a neutral party for the court to try to help them. I don't advocate for one parent or another. Um, so if it is an alienation case and I'm describing the factors that you look at to determine if it is, it should match that case exactly. Like, I mean, the the examples, the you know, the the illustrations of kind of what the parents do, what how the children act, um, the quality of their resistance to the parent. I mean, all of that should match very well if it's a clear case for alienation.

SPEAKER_00: 9:13

So do you find that um parents are using a fear tactic more than you know the degradation of the parents or you know, um I'm trying to think of the other ones that they can think of to use, but it seems like the parents I talk to, they're saying fear to be afraid of the uh to be afraid of them.

SPEAKER_04: 9:38

I think it depends whatever is most effective. I mean, so what we're talking, I mean, parental alienation, I don't care what you call it, you don't have to call it that. You can call it whatever you're I'm a scientist, so we have to call it something that's um that is something that could be a common language that we use, but terminology can change just like you know, any like there's so many disorders in the DSM that change. Like post-traumatic stress disorder was not always called post-traumatic stress disorder. It used to be called battle fatigue, it used to be called, you know, all sorts of things. Um, and even the definition of it has changed a lot in every edition of the DSM. And so parental alienation, the terminology right now, it's kind of gotten a lot more refined. It doesn't mean that we disagree with previous terms or whatnot, it just means that we have a lot more science today that has helped to refine the terminology, right? So we've kind of gotten more clarity on what we're talking about. And what my research is indicating is, you know, this and what I've been kind of talking a lot about in my in my research is that parental alienation is just the consequence of a child who's been weaponized by an abusive parent. And there's lots of different types of abuse that have been identified in the research. Um, but the one that parental alienation is most commonly tied to is coercively controlling abuse. And so this is like intimate terrorism or battery. It doesn't have to have the physical abuse, but there's the psychological controlling power issue that's going on in the family. And it's a power imbalance in the family, and we don't find gender differences and who does this. And so the one strategy that domestic violence research has consistently reported is the use of the children as a weapon or as a tool against another parent. But what a lot of domestic violence research falls short on is they don't study what happens. How does that parent weaponize the child? How do you get a child to do the things that the parent's getting them to do, like spy on the other parent or get them to align with them?

SPEAKER_02: 11:57

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 11:58

And so that's what we study, you know, that that's what my colleagues and I study is what strategies does it take to do that to a kid? And then what strat what happens to the child's attitudes in that process towards the parent. So we're talking about the same thing that domestic violence people are talking about. All we're doing is adding in this feature of what happens to the kid in that in that circumstance. That's completely ignored in a lot of the domestic violence research, other than they look at like long-term impacts of observing violence or you know, witnessing it. You know, but not the what happens when the kid is pulled into that and turned against the parent. And that's what we study. We just happen to call it parental alienation because what happens is then the child will be led to believe that the other parent, the way that they weaponize them is to make the kid believe the other parent never loved them is unfit or they're unsafe. So what you're getting at with your question is fear tactics, right? To make the kid afraid of the parent. But that's just one of several tactics. And the parent might use many, they might use all of them, um, but but they use whatever is most effective and kind of most matches the narrative of the family, right? The story of the family. If the parent maybe, you know, has a like I've seen like it just depends. Like if a parent, for example, was in the military, I've seen this for some military uh parents, then the other parent will say, look, they're violent, they're aggressive, you need to be afraid of them. Even though somewhere like, you know, top military special forces had to be in complete control of their, you know, they weren't out of control. Like if they had any problems with their anger or emotions, they wouldn't have had that job, right? Um, and so so anyway, so parents, I think, will just abusive people will use whatever strategy they can to, and so sometimes it could be fear, other times it'll be, you know, being told that the other parent is, you know, crazy or unfit, or you know, they're a narcissist and oh, you can't trust them, they lie all the time. I mean, so it it it instills just distrust in the in the child towards the parent, right? So they may not be afraid of them. It just makes them hate them, right?

SPEAKER_00: 14:30

And you would also call this Stockholm syndrome.

SPEAKER_04: 14:33

Yeah, Stockholm, yeah, some people have called it that. Yeah, um, people have been using a lot of terms to describe it, but I don't think they fully encompass what none of the terms really fully encompass what's going on. Like even some people have tried to say this is domestic abuse by proxy. And in some ways it is, but it still doesn't fully capture every piece of this, right? Um, it's like child abuse. You can't just describe like child physical abuse. There's no one theory that explains that. I always laugh when people say, well, parental alienation theory says there is no theory. There's there's multiple theories that explain many features of what's happening. There's no one theory, but yet that's what a lot of the critics of parental alienation say to try to discredit the work. And sadly, I I believe, in my opinion, they're protecting abusive parents by doing that.

SPEAKER_00: 15:37

Because I'm hearing from you know a lot of mothers that you know they'll go into a courtroom and say, I'm sorry, they've been abused, and then right away their children are taken away from them saying that it was parental alienation on their part.

SPEAKER_04: 15:57

Well, I don't know how that would necessarily happen unless you knew all the details, because nobody does that. If in fact, in the research I've seen on trial level as well as appellate cases, allegations of abuse are investigated very carefully. Many of them are. Most of them are. Maybe in a handful of cases, anecdotally has happened, but it's not like courts just say, eh, you know, you're lying, and they take them away. That's not what I find at all. In fact, in many cases, allegations of abuse, everything stops. Like all court proceedings stop until there's an investigation. It'll be referred to CPS, it'll be referred to the police. Sometimes there's multiple parties, and then a decision is made, right? Um, so if it's if they the child, if there's an allegation of abuse, you know, uh, you know, you have to wonder what else happened, right? You know, what other things were going on? It's not to say that that doesn't happen, but it's say I'm saying that when I look at the larger number of studies or a larger number of cases across the country, that doesn't seem to be reflecting of what's happening at the national level when you combine everything. Now, if an allegation of abuse is made and there's not it's not substantiated, and the parents doing a lot of other things, like bad mouthing the other parent, you know, doing all sorts of other alienating behaviors, then that allegation itself is can be a form of parental alienating behaviors because they're making false allegations of abuse about the other parent to make them appear as if they're dangerous.

SPEAKER_02: 17:36

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 17:37

And in that case, if the parent is doing all of those things and the child is weaponized against the other parent, and the other parent actually did not actually do anything, right? And they're a good enough fit parent. And all five factors, there's a there's a five-factor model that's used to really rule out parental alienation versus estrangement. That's when you would say, all right, this allegation of abuse is wrong. And they're not usually going to take the child away right away. In fact, usually it's really hard to prove alienation in court. Very hard. I've testified in these cases. They don't just say, hey, I've been alienated, and they take the kids away. It's very, very difficult to argue a parental alienation case. And when you do, it has to be really like an allegation of abuse has to be really tied to a lot of other things that are happening in the family. And even then, taking children away from a parent is usually the last resort. Usually there's many, many other things that have tried before that, like individual counseling, family therapy, psychoeducation, usually be years of that that have been highly unsuccessful before a child is finally taken away. And it's usually when the parent, it's it's it's pretty clear to the court that the parent is not gonna stop, no matter what they do. You know, they find them in contempt, you know, for violating parenting plans. They do also, they find them, you know, but yet they still keep doing it. It's I mean, I'm sure there's some cases where that hasn't happened. I do, I have an assistant where that happened to her where she was being abused. But she also had she also had some other issues, right? Um, you know, she had some substance abuse issues where there were some legitimate things. But once once the person's able to address those, then you should be able to repair the relationship, unless you have an alienating parent. But those are what we call the hybrid cases. You know, those are those are a little bit more complicated cases.

SPEAKER_00: 19:41

It's it's just very sad for these these kids going through this. Um, you know, I've heard it said that, you know, sometimes they'll come back, or we don't know if they will come back. And of course, other parents say, well, just wait till they're 18, they'll come back, and there's no guarantee. And then I've heard it said that it could take 40 years for them to actually wake up and see what has happened and then try to come back.

SPEAKER_04: 20:09

Yeah, I saw somebody on Twitter say that. Well, my experience, you know, I came to realize what my dad was doing, and I, you know, when I was finally in my 20s, I said, no, kids will figure it out. No, not all kids figure it out. I have, I can't tell you how many parents I work with who are being alienated from their children, and when they realize that they were, it all sudden became clear to them that they had been alienated when they were a child. So now they're in their 40s and they've replayed their parents' relationship. So they didn't even realize that they had been alienated until they had that experience happen to them again. So they had to live through the trauma twice. And I even have like some, you know, I've had some grandparents email me and say, well, my dad was just a jerk, and uh, you know, and I was like, well, how do you, you know, and there's no way for them to verify any of it because their parents are dead, you know, their parent is no longer alive to go and talk and clarify what actually might have happened. And so, you know, and I I know that's happened to a number of adults who are alienated as children, you know, when they finally I have a good friend from Iceland where this happened, and she it took her years to figure out that she actually had been alienated. Like, I mean, she was in her late 40s when she finally figured it out after therapy and counseling and failed relationships. And when she finally came to realize what had happened, and she tried to reach out to her father, he had already passed away. Um, and she was just devastated because he had tried to reach out to her and she just totally rejected him, even as an adult, because she was so angry. It just triggered a lot of old feelings that she hadn't resolved, and so she reacted very strongly to it and was like, How dare you? Reach out to me, you know, because it's a lot of buried grief and and hurt that these children carry with them through adulthood. Um, and if it kind of gets uncovered, it's very painful. Um, and she regrets, you know, having been so harsh with him in her last interaction, you know. And so now she's really kind of made it her mission to try to help other alienated um children, you know, so that they don't have to experience what she did. Um, but yeah, so I mean, and that's that's you know, I don't think that that's uncommon. You know, I don't think it's very uncommon. So it's not, oh, I don't think it's true at all that these kids will just figure it out. Some do, but a lot don't.

SPEAKER_00: 22:47

Yeah. Now, do you think, you know, sometimes when there are people are going through custody disputes and whatnot, they will take a child to a family therapist and somehow they might exclude the other parent who doesn't know this is going on or taking place. So you how educated should these therapists when you go to pick one, or if one is picked for you, they have to be adept into these um tactics.

SPEAKER_04: 23:21

Yeah, most of the professionals I know or people I know who specialize in parental alienation, or at least understand it, when they sense a child's being alienated, they will stop individual, like if they're doing individual counseling with them, they immediately stop treatment and say, I can't go forward with this until the larger family dynamic is fixed. Because we do know there's a lot of research indicating that individual therapy for children when they're being alienated has the opposite effect. Because what alienating parents do is they shop around until they find a therapist who's sympathetic to their position and doesn't do their due diligence and talk to the other parent. You know, they hear one side or they and or they're very poisoned, like the well becomes poisoned right away by the parent, and then the therapist starts to believe a lot of the things that the children say. I've seen parents get the therapy notes from the therapist and then go over them with the children and tell them what they did wrong, critique what they said, tell them what they have to go and say the next time. Um, I've I've seen parent a therapist who, and then the therapist, when they come to learn about this, they try to get the court to say, you can't release this information. But unfortunately, that stuff can be subpoenaed and it, you know, because it's useful to the court. But the poor children are then stuck having to use that therapy time as a tool and a weapon against a parent. And once the therapist becomes savvy to it, the therapy alienating parent will then go find somebody else, right? They'll fire them and move to somebody who's more sympathetic and they'll keep doing that until they find somebody. I've seen this happen at CPS, you know, where they'll keep calling, calling, calling until they find some naive social worker who believes it and doesn't do their due diligence and go and talk to the other parent. Um you know, they file an emergency motion and then you know, then the rest goes downhill from there until an investigation happens, and then the court's like, you didn't even talk to the other parents. And then it finally, you know, it gets thrown out, and I've seen CPS get fined for that kind of stuff. Oh. Um, so you know, alienating parents will find anybody. So a family therapist is the same thing. They'll find a family therapist who maybe doesn't understand the dynamic um that's happening, they don't do their do, you know, what they're supposed to do and talk to everybody in the family. Um now what's yeah, if the if it's selected by an alienating parent and the other parent gets pulled in, um, you know, usually the the the well has been poisoned. And in that case, you really need to have a good attorney who can argue against that and say that the therapist needs to be picked by both, right? And it's hard because if one parent has decision making on that and the other one doesn't, the other parent is pretty powerless to do anything about who's selected, right? And I've even seen parents who've had to petition the court and ask to have their own therapist with them and the child, and those that those files be protected so that the other parent doesn't get them. So that because if they want to repair the relationship with the child on their own and the other parent gets those notes, then they can use that against them, right? You know, and and you know, and so I've had I've seen the court have to, but you usually have to prove that that's what the parents have been doing, right? That that's that you know, that this is why you can't trust that parent, right? Um, so it does require, sadly, I mean, in in really severe cases of parental alienation, it therapists don't have a lot of power. Like they don't. People think that they do. I mean, the courts listen to what they have to say and like what what they're what they've observed, but they don't have authority to enforce things, they don't have authority to make recommendations to the court. As a therapist, they cannot make custody recommendations. In fact, if they do, it's unethical. They cannot do that. They can't say, I think this child should be with dad. And maybe they've never even met that, right? Right, right. I've seen a lot of therapists do that. Oh, I've talked to mom, I've talked to the kids, but you know, I don't think that they should live with dad. Or the individual therapist of an alienating parent will say, Oh my god, I've I've heard that mom is crazy, there's no way the kids can live. And yet they never talk to the mom, and they're willing to go into court and say that. That happens a lot, and it's very unethical. That's a dual role. Um, it violates their professional standards. So this is why when I go to court, I never make recommendations. I can't. I'm not a clinician, I've never met the parties. I say I cannot make recommendations. I've I've never done that ever. Despite, you know, some people say I do, but I've never done that. Ever. You can pull every transcript I've ever testified, I've never made a recommendation. But I can say, here's what's best practices, you know, here's what we know from the science about what you should do in these cases. Um, you know, and if it's not done, then that would be an indication that maybe the wrong treatment was provided. And um, but yeah, a therapist should not be making custody evaluations um or custody recommendations. It needs to be a neutral party, somebody who's, you know, usually appointed by the court or somebody who's looked at the whole case, every side, um, all the information that's been provided. So so unfortunately, alienating parents, though, they'll try to find a therapist who's willing to do that, and then it'll hurt the other parent. So um, and and traditional reunification doesn't, I mean, so traditional reunification therapy was designed to work in estranged families or families where there's been abuse or legitimate problems with a child and a parent. Or maybe the parent was away for a long time or in prison or um, you know, worked you know overseas or was in the military for a long time. So reunification really is designed to help kind of rebuild those relationships, right? So it seems intuitive that a lot of reunification therapists are like, well, we could do that for alienated children. But it's based on this model that the child has legitimate grievances with the parent. With alienated children, they don't have legitimate reasons, like they've been, they've been fabricated, they've been exaggerated, they've been, and so I've seen time and again, you know, parents will go to these family therapists for reunification, and the therapist will say, All right, um, you know, Johnny, you know, the kid, you know, make a list of all the things that upset you about your father or your mother, and then we'll talk about it. And then they encourage the parent to apologize for those things. And that's fair to do in a case where the parent actually did stuff, right? You know, like let's say they had a substance abuse problem and they were drunk, and so now they have to apologize and say, I'm really sorry. I know it hurt you. That's a okay, it works in those cases, right? Not an alienation. Like here, these parents are having to apologize because, you know, they had to work when the kid had a football game, or you know, they're having to apologize for things that like, you know, oh, I'm sorry I painted your room blue when you wanted it gray. You know, it's just like ridiculous things, or you know, or things that were totally made up. And they're like, so I've seen parents say, go to the therapist and go, I can't do this. Like, all it does is disempower them. You know, already their authority is undermined as part of the alienation process because that's part of the abuse, right? They they take away power of the parent. And so the parent already has no power or authority. The child's been taught that they are unfit, they're unworthy of their love and respect. And then you're having them apologize for things that they didn't do. Like, so that it makes it worse, you know, it makes the child feel like, oh, look, yeah, I was right. Look how bad this parent is. And then if the parent quits and says, No, I can't do this, then they go to court and say they're not complying with therapy. And this is the problem when you diagnose it wrong. Like if it's not, if you're treating it as estrangement, it's gonna make it worse because it's not estrangement. It's parental alienation. You're treating the wrong person, the wrong perpetrator of the abuse, or they got the wrong perpetrator of the abuse. It's the other parent. And as long as that kid's in therapy with that that parent is not gonna go, or with the alienated parent and the alienating parent is not stopped, you're never gonna make progress. Make one step forward, three steps back every time, you know, there's because the the alienating parent is too threatened by any change. They don't want the other parent to get any, you know, contact with the child or repair it. And so if they sense that, they will undermine it completely or discontinue any family therapist that starts to figure out what's going on and then move it to a new one. Or they will all sudden not make it to the the appointments, they will stop showing up or oh, they're sick, or you know, they'll start making up excuses as to why they can't go. So because they come to realize that it's working.

SPEAKER_00: 33:02

So well, you you know, talk about instilling fear. You know, some parents will take in court orders or transcripts and read them to the child in front of the counselor and think this is okay. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 33:18

Oh yeah. Yeah, I was on a case recently where a parent, after the kids turned 18, they started reading to them because they thought it would be okay now because they're adults. And they started reading so that they would know the truth. No, even if they're an adult, they don't need to know all your dirty laundry. This is between you and the other parent. Why are you doing that? Like, what are you trying to do accomplish by telling the kid the truth? You're trying to turn them against the other parent. Children can make their own minds, right? They can make up their own minds about the parent, let them have their own relationship with them. If you know they it they they'll have their own opinion. You don't need to influence it. Ugh, it's it's it's so bad. Yeah, I mean, it's these parents, it's you know, I mean, I mean, it's not surprising because I mean it is surprising when you it's shocking when you hear things like that, but it's not surprising because abusive parents don't really have any thought about the impact of what they're doing, right? They don't understand that by doing that, what what it does to the child, even a young adult, you know, um, they don't they don't see what you know what it does to them and the you know that because they're doing it for their own purposes, right? They're doing it to justify what they've done or to explain, you know, or hide their own abuse that they've done as they they cast blame on everybody else, and they want the children to be part of that and to help them with that. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:07

Do you see a lot of uh third-party interference?

SPEAKER_04: 35:13

Oh, yeah, there's a lot. In fact, um, we're wrapping up a study right now where we looked at cases in Canada where alienation was found to have happened. Um, and a lot of them we looked at, we try to see who else was mentioned as participating in the alienation. A lot of them are grandparents, they're often the primary so far. We're seeing that's a lot, a lot of the grandparents, some stepparents, um, which makes sense because they're closer, you know, involved with the family. But yeah, lots and lots of grandparents. Sometimes it'll be pastors of the church, sometimes it'll be, you know, older siblings who have from another marriage who are kind of contributing and helping, or other extended family. Sometimes it'll be a therapist that has become an advocate for the parent, which is unethical as well. You know, a therapist should not ever advocate for their client. They should always be neutral and just be, you know, if they have to testify in a court case related to what the parents are doing, it's usually just report facts. You can't give, you can't go and say, here's my what I think should happen, right? You know, but they shouldn't, you know, but a lot of these parents if therapists do, and they and they contribute to, or doctors even, uh, doctors will be fooled or and pulled into it. But it's a way for alienating parents or abusive parents to consolidate power, right? It's by when you have allies against the other parent. I mean, their goal is to socially isolate and disempower the other person. And it's more effective to do that when you have a coalition of people on your side. Right. Do that. Even a school district. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've seen entire church congregations. Uh, I worked with a family once in a small town where it was a Mormon community and the whole Mormon church had been turned against the parent. Um I mean, and that was the whole town. I mean, so it's I mean, and what do you do? Yeah, and when the court finally figured out what was going on and they were gonna move the children with the alienated parent, um, the church, all the church got together and had a big prayer circle around the kids to protect them during the time that they would be with the other parent. And what message does that send to the kids? Like, oh my God, it's gonna be the most horrifying trial. And once it's over, then we can come back and we'll have survived. And you know, the the the prayer around it was just like get God to protect these children, but because they're going with this horrible person. I mean, you know, what chance is there of fixing that relationship? I mean, it's a miracle that they were able to salvage something out of that, and and they were because the court was very firm in their orders, thank goodness. But but now that the kids are older, you know, who knows what's gonna happen. They could easily be pulled back in, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 38:21

I'm sure that happens a lot too, more than we know, maybe.

SPEAKER_04: 38:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it's funny, it well, not funny, but it's it's kind of not coincidental that adult, like so, even if the the re the relationship has been repaired, I've been working on a number of cases recently where there was successful reunification and repair of the relationship, but the abusive parent doesn't do what they're supposed to do to stop. You know, they're usually ordered to get counseling, just like a any other abuser, you know, like a person who abuses child abuse or sexual abuse, they have to do certain things in order to show that they won't do it again, right? You know, there's there's there's certain types of therapies and certain certain types of education and um things that they have to check off to show that they've done them before they can even have contact with their children again. But in these a lot of the cases now, there's parents there where the children have successfully reunified with the alienated parent, and the alienating parent now wants to see them, but yet they haven't done anything to comply with any treatment plan. And so when the kids get old enough, and then if the other parent is not reformed, the kids easily slip back into being alienated and they reject the parent again. So they're re-traumatized, and it's it's awful, it's very tragic when that happens.

SPEAKER_00: 39:51

Do you find that the child will take on the I hate to say personality disorder of the alienating parent?

SPEAKER_04: 40:00

Well, the yeah, part of the consequence of a negative consequence of of being abused in this way is that it's not necessarily that they adopt their their personality disorder, it's that they form their own because of the trauma that they're experiencing, right? And they're seeing how behaviors are modeled, obviously. I mean, the trauma itself is the indicator, right, or the precipitator. And then the way it's manifested, could sometimes, you know, we could see it could happen, you know, if like, for example, the children have what we call lack of ambivalence towards the parents, you know, so one parent's all bad, one's all good, and then that translates to other things. In fact, my graduate student, his master's thesis, that he's um in his master's thesis, he found that these children who have this lack of ambivalence, you know, I mean, you know, where there's good or you're either good or bad, there's no gray. He finds that this also kind of carries over into some cognitive thinking um deficiencies. So what these children develop is what we call a need for closure, where they they can't tolerate uncertainty and they will quickly jump to conclusions without fully examining the facts. And we found that alienated children have are more likely to be like that than kids who've not been alienated. Um, so we we're starting to find that the impact that it has on even just how they think about the world is very um significant. And that's not even the that doesn't even get at the personality disorders, but we do find that a lot of these children do develop them.

SPEAKER_00: 41:46

So in not just personality disorders, they could also develop mental illness.

SPEAKER_04: 41:53

Yes, um, you know, a lot of the kind of long-term consequences for some of these children is they can develop um, you know, like depression and anxiety and other issues that um that we see just like with other kids who've been abused in other ways. So the long-term consequences are no different because it is it's child abuse, you know, it's psychological abuse. Um, we have a paper we're about to submit for um publication um this week, uh, where we found that um the alienating parent is actually the most likely one to have findings of abuse, other kinds of abuse, child abuse, sex abuse, psychological abuse that's not alienation, um, child maltreatment, neglect. So those parents are actually more likely to have a finding of abuse, which is it confirms what we have been talking about, is this is a coercively controlling abuse, right? And a lot of times abuse co-occurs with other kinds of abuse. So if you have a parent, for example, who's got a finding of domestic violence against another parent, chances are they're also likely abusing the child. And that's what we found. And so, and so often they like to point the finger at the alienated parent and say that they're the abusive one. That's why the kids don't want to see them. But when you turn the tables and actually look at the data from the trial level records and the uh appellate level records of these cases where they've reviewed all the evidence and they talk about both sides, they find it's the alienating parent that is the abusive parent. And which makes you wonder like, well, why are they casting blame on the other person? Well, it makes sense. That's what abusive people do, right? They they point blame, they they try to deflect away from their own behavior by throwing shade everywhere else. Right. Right. Right. Oh, look, look, look. And then they have to go and investigate, and then no one's looking at them.

SPEAKER_00: 43:51

No one's looking closely at them. And you've probably seen multiple calls into CPS for accusations and I mean, which is a waste of taxpayer dollars, but it's out of control.

SPEAKER_04: 44:05

Oh yeah. There's a case in Canada that we looked at. I think the winner so far, I haven't looked at all the cases yet, but so far, from what our data entry of what these cases have, I think the winner has like 120 false allegations, and they were all false allegations. And they were made not just a CPS. I mean, so these were investigated by many, many times, especially early on. They were closely investigated, you know, police, special victims units, you know, CPS, um, lots and lots of people. And then over time, you know, after like the 60th, 70th call, finally people started looking at the person making the allegations. And then they started finding that actually they were being abusive, you know, like like the like there was neglect and there were other things that the alienated tid parent didn't even know about, right? Because they don't, you know, they don't even like aren't often alerted to it. Um so I think sometimes, you know, as painful as it is, sometimes there is a danger because sometimes eventually people start to figure out like, wait a minute, why are all these calls coming in? Um, and the sad thing is there's people who are domestic violence advocates who look at that and they say, Oh, they're just not believing the mother, which is usually sadly the person, but there's there's a lot of dads who do this too. Um, they'll they'll usually try to call in cases of neglect, you know. Um, or they'll call in cases against the step parent, you know. So they may not attack directly against the alienated parent, but they'll attack the people close to them as a way to try to hurt them. Um, that's another paper we're gonna start working on pretty soon. Is we've only looked at the parents themselves, like the the alienating parents, but we know for a fact that a lot of stepparents get involved and they may not attack the alienated parent themselves, but they'll say, Oh, well, the stepdad's abusive, so that's why the kids can't come over. And so then they have to investigate that, and you know.

SPEAKER_00: 46:07

So do you find also that you know, women um that are the stepmothers, they are going after the mother, the biological mother, for uh you know, just anything. Maybe they don't like their spouse having to pay her child support, or or or maybe they couldn't have kids of their own, so they're going after this other parent.

SPEAKER_04: 46:33

We see it going both ways. I mean, stepdad's like, oh, is he raised the other dad? I'm dad now, you know. Um so it goes both ways. Um you know, I have seen some research, you know, and I've seen some interesting research that hasn't looked at parental alienation directly, but has been trying to understand some of the reasons why women aggress against each other, right? And because a lot of research has really looked at um male-on-male aggression, you know, like so for men who fight against other men, it's usually competition for mates, or um, they feel like their reputation is being threatened, or things like that, or their status, or they've looked at aggression between gender, right? So, like, you know, males against females, or vice versa. But there hasn't been a lot of focus on female on female aggression, which is interesting because it happens a lot. And I mean, God, you just look at kids, you know, bullies, like in the way that women aggress is different than men for a number of reasons. Um, but the only kind of you know, theoretical thing I've actually seen really tested is mostly competition for mates, which it can explain, you know, you know, for you know, maybe a new stepmom feels threatened by the other mom. Um, but not a lot of research is really focused on wind mothers maybe who are trying to protect their children, um, or fathers who might be but trying to protect offspring. I mean, we've seen that research like with animals, but no, it's like not it with humans. And it's harder with humans. I mean, just because obviously these relationships are a lot more complex than what we can see with the animal kingdom and lions and other animals. But but um, we can look to primates as good examples of because they're kind of closer to us and their relationships are more complex and interdependent with each other, like humans are. But um, but yeah, I mean, there's a lot we don't know about why parents do this other than um power and control is really kind of the closest we can get, but I'm sure there's some other underlying reasons why um that kind of drives some of this, but we haven't gotten there yet in the research.

SPEAKER_00: 48:52

So we're getting there. How about if you add jealousy and greed?

SPEAKER_04: 48:58

Oh yeah, there's money, there's definitely money motivators there too. Yeah. Um, and just you know, I mean, I get it. It's not I mean these relationships are not easy, and sometimes people like managing blended families for some people, it's like I'm always jealous when I see when they can actually do it. And it's like wow, that's amazing. But you know, usually those are two healthy people, right? You know, who you know, have kind of decided to let things go and been able to move on. And but that's not what happens in these families. These, you know, in this case, you have a very usually a very pathological person, right? Who's got some real unresolved trauma that they're playing out, and and sometimes the alienated parent, you know, I've I've talked to a lot of alienated parents who take responsibility for picking people like that, you know, and and being a victim and and owning up to the fact that they not are not a victim. And when they stand up for themselves to not be one anymore, that's for this, you know, that's when their kids get taken away. But there is, you know, there is, you know, I think a recognition of saying, wait, why do I keep getting into these relationships where this person's very abusive? And I'm, you know, and this is among fathers and mothers that I've I've you know interviewed. Um, and so um, you know, and we we see this with battery too, right? You know, why does a parent keep going back to another parent? Why do they constantly kind of end you know, repeat relationships that are very abusive in the ways? And and it's and it's not just the perpetrator's fault, right? You know, I mean that case you'd say this person selected these relationships and they're staying in them, but you know, but it is more complicated than that, obviously, because there's dependencies that the it makes it hard for people to leave when they are when they do realize they're in these relationships. And but you know, there there is a an important, I think, thing that parents can do who've been alienated to address their own patterns about why didn't you select this person and how can you prevent this from happening again? And how can you empower yourself um against somebody who's very abusive, right? And so, you know, and that that's something that I know in a lot of successful interventions with parents um in these families is the therapist who is working with the alienated parent, is to, you know, identify ways in which that's happened, in which they've allowed themselves to be victimized by the alienating parent. Like sometimes they'll go out of their way to say, well, maybe if I give them this, they'll they'll be nice now. Or if I give them this, then you know they don't realize that they're being manipulated. Or they might know they're being manipulated, but they're optimistic that but no, like this is an abusive person. And why would you think that they're gonna change today when they have no motivation? They have no reason to do that, you know. So but I think you know, it's just because I think people are good hearted and they want to hop, you know. I think a lot of alienated parents just, you know, they're not the really unhealthy parent, you know, they're they're usually a good enough parent and nobody's perfect, but but unfortunately, a situation has been created where they're victimized, and it's it's uh it's important to kind of find ways to prevent that from continuing, right? And then, you know, I mean, I know people who've gotten they've been alienated from children across three different relationships. And then it's like, well, and they recognize why do I keep picking these people, right? You know, why do I keep picking these alienating people? Like, you know, I should have known better the first time or the second time and third time, and but you know, I mean, in that in that case, you know, you can say, well, both parents are responsible. Well, they're not responsible for the abuse per se, you know, the alienation of the child is still one parent doing it, but the other parent has to start recognizing also that you know, I need to set some boundaries, this has to stop, you know, I can't engage in this, you know. So that's where important skilled therapists who work together could help.

SPEAKER_00: 53:03

Oh yeah. You know, um, I don't want to keep you too much longer because I know you're real busy, but I'm so glad, you know, I've I've had you on. And you were also you also did a a TED talk on parental alienation that was excellent. Um and you you were wearing like a black and white dress with a red belt. And that was one of the first ones that I saw, and it's like everything she's saying has happened, you know. It was just I'm so I'm so grateful for that. Um, you know, do parents try to contact you?

SPEAKER_04: 53:40

Oh gosh, all the time.

unknown: 53:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 53:44

And I yeah, I have an assistant, you know, who I have helped me because I can't make, I mean, I'm a professor full-time. I I do research, I'm not a clinician, I don't do custody evaluations.

SPEAKER_03: 53:55

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 53:55

I sometimes help on cases, but I mean, I can't, I can't manage how many people need help, right? You know, there's just so much need for help. I spent a lot of time just referring them to play people. And fortunately, there's more and more people over the last few years I can refer people to. 10 years ago, I didn't know everybody, and I didn't, you know, I didn't, I don't think there was as much awareness of of among professionals about what to do and how to treat these cases. And we a lot of that has changed. I think things are definitely we're facing a lot of challenges still. It seems like the more advances we make, the more resistance we're getting. But um, I think we still keep pushing forward. I mean, the science still keeps moving forward. You know, there's still lots of new studies being published every year, and we're learning a lot, you know. In my in a paper I just um about to publish, I mean, we estimate about 40% of what we know today that's been published in the scientific peer-reviewed journals, has been published since 2016. So if you haven't read anything since 2016, you haven't read, you don't know alienation. Like you don't know it in my book, my book, Parents Acting Badly. I need to update it because that was published in 2016. We've learned a lot since then. And the the science has has really advanced, and we're testing theories and we're doing all sorts of really interesting, like lots of different methods and different things that are being used to study the problem. So a lot's changed, and and I think that that's hopeful. You know, I think that that's good. It's but what that means is you have other people screaming that it's not scientific enough.

SPEAKER_00: 55:37

Even though, even though it's gotta be taken seriously, you know, that they keep raising the bar, they keep raising the bar.

SPEAKER_04: 55:44

Oh, oh, here's some science. Oh, it's not enough. It's not enough. Oh no. And the standards that are being applied to trying to critique parental alienation research. I don't know why the same people don't apply the same criticisms or critiques to domestic violence research or child abuse research. The standard is different. What they're using. It's totally different. Um, and it's it's not fair. And it's it's is and I'm not saying that just to say, oh, we're being attacked. No, I mean, I'm saying it because it's there's some legit like some motivator for people to try to suppress this research and to try to undermine it. And which is that should be concerning to a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00: 56:31

I agree. Well, I'm so glad I had you on. Uh and someday I'll get you back on again because I know you're super busy. Someday.

SPEAKER_03: 56:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 56:45

Well, hey, uh uh, don't jump off. Slam the gavels a podcast to help the public understand what really goes on in these family courtrooms. I'm your host, Marianne Petrie, author of Dismantling Family Court Corruption, Why Taking the Kids Was Not Enough and Cry Out for Justice, Poems of Truth. Please join us again with uh Dr. Joel Jennifer Jennifer Harmon in the future and other exciting guests. Thank you so much, Dr. Jennifer.

SPEAKER_04: 57:08

Thank you. Bye.