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

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.

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.