Parental Alienation: Support the Research!

We all know about how some parents can use their children to, post-divorce/separation, get back at their exes. From feeding their child(ren) poisonous messages about an otherwise loving mother/father to attempts at replacing them as a parental figure, from undermining their authority to encouraging a betrayal of their trust, and, even, the deliberate sabotaging of contacts, such toxic co-parenting involves a wild array of behaviours which are, beyond frustrating and angering, seriously damaging both for the targeted parent and the child(ren) involved.

Sadly, in its most extreme forms, what such form of post-separation abuse relying on the psychological manipulation of a child succeeds, at times, to do, is to lead to full-blown parental alienation that is, when the child has become so estranged from an otherwise safe and loving mother/father that they show fear and/or hostility, despite their relationship with said parent having never entailed any safeguarding concerns before.

Parental alienation, of course, is a hellish ordeal to go through for any parent, children, and concerned family members. For those interested, I had, in fact, blogged in the past about ‘The Invisible Parent’, a first-hand testimony from a father having gone through it all.

Sadly too, within a campaigning sector completely sold out hook, line and sinker to bogus gendered ideologies, parental alienation remains badly misunderstood, and subjected to so much falsehood and myths that, in the UK at least, the existence of such a phenomenon is actually denied (you've read that right) at political and institutional levels, with whole swath of victims (mothers, fathers, extended families, and, most importantly, children) being re-victimised by a system which blatantly refuses to reckon with the issue.

Debunking falsehoods and myths, then, matters; and it matters a great deal.

To that effect, if you want/ can support the research, then I urge you to buy the ‘Survival Guide to Parental Alienation’, published by the Good Egg Safety Group and available through Parental Alienation UK.

This will do more than supporting an otherwise brilliant organisation campaigning to raise awareness on the problem. It will, also, contribute to finance a research project, led by Professor Ben Hine (Professor of Applied Psychology at the University of West London, co-founder of the Men and Boys Coalition, leader of the Evidence-Based Domestic Abuse Research Network -EBDARN, and researcher & speaker on a variety of gendered issues) in collaboration with Dr Elizabeth A. Bates (senior lecturer in psychology, focusing on male victims of female perpetrated Intimate Partner Violence) and their American colleague Dr Jennifer Jill Harman (Associate Professor at Colorado State University) to shed further light on such denied and unacknowledged form of abuse.

Here's the call launched by Professor Hine:

So... What are you waiting for?! Don't delay! Get your copy. Share. Share widely! And, if you are a victim: do NOT despair. You will not be silenced.

Sapere aude.