Bringing Sense to Parental Alienation: The Disputes and the Evidence
This article, published in a prestigious law journal, is Dr. Warshak’s most thorough examination to date of different ideas about pathological alienation and its status in custody litigation. It examines a continuum of opinions about parental alienation with reference to relevant scientific literature and is an attempt to introduce rationality in an area that suffers from polemics and politics.
Professionals agree that children can become irrationally alienated from a parent but disagree about what to call this problem and about how to conceptualize it. Dr. Warshak proposes that a conceptualization that emphasizes the influence of the favored parent, such as Parental Alienation Syndrome, has intellectual and scientific roots in developmental and cognitive psychology, particularly research on children’s suggestibility. A conceptualization that emphasizes the role of multiple interrelated factors enjoys support in family systems theory that regards children’s problematic behavior as an expression of family-wide dysfunction.
The article reviews available studies and concludes that the current status of research supports the prevailing opinion among mental health professionals that the court’s authority is a key element in successful remedies of severe alienation. The article describes the possible advantages of the term “pathological alienation” and offers other suggestions for circumventing unproductive disputes and focusing on the welfare of families.
This article is essential for any parent, attorney, or mental health professional proposing or opposing evidence dealing with parental alienation. 29 journal pages.
This journal article is included in Dr. Warshak’s forthcoming book, The Psychology of Alienated Children: When Children Reject Parents, Volume 1 of the Collected Papers of Richard A. Warshak. The book will be available in January 2026 and links for purchase will be on warshak.com.
The Psychology of Alienated Children conveniently brings together, in one low-cost volume, 15 of my most important papers on parental alienation. For some time, I have been concerned about the high cost to parents and professionals who want copies of certain published articles and book chapters. One chapter in this book is available only from its legal publisher through the subscription price of $976. Another chapter is unavailable at any price. The remaining 13 chapters would cost $562 if acquired from the publishers of the original papers.
The publisher of The Psychology of Alienated Children agreed to keep the price below $50 to be accessible to those who need this material. I hope this will be a useful addition to your library.
Because the article is part of the forthcoming volume, I can no longer offer the manuscript for download. If you cannot purchase the book, the article is available for purchase directly from the publisher, or you can ask your local public library to add it to their collection.