Here is an ever-growing annotated bibliography of studies on parental withholding, parental alienation, and parental abduction and the effects of parental withholding, parental alienation, and parental abduction on children.
Are you looking for information on parental abandonment? Sadly, our family has both and these are often unacknowledged sides of the same coin. Go here for abandonment research.
Alienation
Harman, J., Leder-Elder, S., & Biringen, Z. (2016). Evidence of parental alienation drawn from a representative poll. Children and Youth Services Review 66, 62-66.
A poll of adults to find prevalence, not effects. 610 total adults surveyed. They found 13.4% of parents claim to have been alienated from their children (based on adult children’s reporting). This includes unintentional distancing of a child from their parent. Targeted parents were more likely in African American and Native American families, as well as those with low education. They call the issue “important and pervasive” because of the high prevalence. Their introductory, cursory lit review cites previous research noting alienation is abuse and comes with a range of mental health and trauma outcomes for kiddos. They argue that it is a form of ongoing DV against the alienated parent (isn’t abusing a parent on an ongoing basis also child abuse on its own merits?).
I’m highly bothered by the methodology of this study — a random digit dialing sample conducted entirely in North Carolina, USA. 40% of the sample claimed to have never heard the term before, but 66% claimed to have known someone alienated from their children. Half the parents who said they were being alienated rated the alienation as moderate-severe.
The authors conclude with a call to action as the issue is common. I would add that it’s likely swept under the rug because many forms are considered “normal” behavior for parents to their children. We often get former friends, saying, “Well, that was sad. Your daughter seems happy, though.” There is a lack of understanding when abuse is so prevalent and normalized; this study is good for demonstrating that high prevalence.
Bernet, W. Important Updates Regarding Parental Alienation. Blurb available here.
The goal is to synthesize and summarize quantitative studies on alienation. He reviews 3 different themes in alienation: 1. methods for determining what “counts” as alienation and measuring severity 2. Assessing the long-term effects on victims and 3. Treatment programs.
Psychologists have their questionnaires and this one is called PARQ (Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire) which addresses “splitting” alienated children do in categorizing an alienating parent as heroic and a victim parent as bad. There’s a Symptom checklist to assess long-term side effects, which Bernet says many, many studies have corroborated. Hint: long-term outcomes aren’t super awesome. This is not a harmless behavior.
Finally, Bernet suggests studies confirm that removal from the alienating parent is far more successful in the immediate aftermath of alienation than pursuing parenting time with both parents. These studies aren’t cited in the blurb.
Bernet, W. (2017). Parental Alienation: A Specific Example of Child Psychological Abuse. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 56(10): S1112.
However, Bernet redeems his phantom blurb with a longer piece (and qualitative at that!)
Baker, A. B. & Eichler, A. (2016). The linkage between parental alienation behaviors and child alienation. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 57(7): 475-484.
One of the more logical “Ask my students to fill out this questionnaire” studies, two Amys find that students who have been alienated continue to display eight behavioral hallmarks of the alienated child — in other words, they buy the alienating parents’ years of discourse.
The Baker Strategy Questionnaire is used, detailing specific behaviors related to alienation.
A Psychological Maltreatment Measure is used to identify parental behaviors consistent with psychological abuse.
Basically, kids who reported that a parent tried to alienate them from the other parent nevertheless exhibited behavior consistent with that abuse (in other words, I know my mom did it, and it still sunk in). There’s a conclusion here about self-awareness of adults about past abuse and how it lingers to create family relationships these kids never deserved and know exists, but they still perpetuate as adults.
This is both an obvious (kids learn to hate after years of being told to do so? Quelle surprise!) and depressing study. We are so attached to our ideas of the person who tends to our most basic of needs, that even when we know they’re hurting us, we let them. The authors talk about this in terms of social learning theory but I’d propose there needs to be much, more more research on how we can help more adult kids escape harmful behaviors borne of years of alienation abuse.
Verrocchio, M. C., Marchetti, D., Carrozzino, D., Compare, A., & Fulcheri, M. (2019). Depression and quality of life in adults perceiving exposure to parental alienation behaviors. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 17: 14.
A decent sample size of almost 500 (Italian) adults also found themselves tested on the Baker Strategy Scale and depression, health, and wellbeing inventories. Yes, former alienated kids had “significantly” different scores from their non-alienated counterparts, even in adulthood. They cite depression, abuse, substance abuse, and conduct disorders were all more common in alienated now-adults. They’re also depressed and anxious.
The authors say that the health problems that arise from mental health outcomes are also an issue — and all together — we need to start taking alienation more seriously because of the healthcare costs it engenders. They say the poor outcomes for adults from alienation is now “well established.”
Children need to be identified as victims and intervention needs to happen. That’s be ideal, my fine research friends!
Bernet, W., Verrocchio, M. C., & Korosi, S. (2015). Yes, children are susceptible to manipulation: Commentary on article by Clemente and Padilla-Racero. Children and Youth Services Review 56, 135-138.
It’s an all-star cast as Bernet teams up with the Italians. They get together not for a study, but to counter some dude who disagrees with the father of alienation research, Gardner, about whether alienation is real and a problem. Evidently some researchers named Clemente and Padilla-Racero said that parental alienation of children cannot be “empirically verified.”
They want to emphatically state that it too can be empirically verified, so there.
They use the researchers’ own numbers to state that 40% of those kids suffered suggestion from adult caregivers — and this suggestion can include false memories, statements, and beliefs about an alienated parent.
They’d like the article to be withdrawn, citing methodological flaws (wait, didn’t you just cite its numbers in your own case?)
While I do believe that the vast majority of studies I’ve downloaded have both data and conclusions in favor of the existence of alienation, I’m not a huge fan of their list of flaws for these other 2. They cite Hitchcock therefore it’s not real scholarship? They criticize a psychological scale? They discuss music and art?
Um, come on. Thou protesteth too much. Someone can dislike a psych tool and love Mozart and still come to legit conclusions. Pay more attention to their review of the literature, but be aware that Clemente and Padilla-Racero’s study may come up in your case (if your child has access to a court system) and you’ll need to pull out the 30 studies they do in order to corroborate what you see with your child.
The kids are not all right: Using the best interest standard to prevent parental alienation and a therapeutic intervention approach to provide relief.
The mere mention of tort law is a nice addition to my own journey. It’s nice to know that some remedy may be available to my child in the future to access therapy and the related medical needs cited in some of these studies.
But this article isn’t about suing one’s mom as an adult — it’s about those who can access family court for children while they’re young. In this article, written from a legal perspective, I get my first real taste of a scholarship in which some believe parental alienation does not exist at all, or is not harmful to children.
It argues that families are where alienation must be treated, and courts can help by removing children from an alienating parent in order to give them the best psychological outcomes as adults. They suggest a change in custody to avoid alienation, so disastrous are the effects of alienation.
It cites some custody transfers you might be able to read, citing that custody transfers in cases of alienation are in the child’s best interest.
I am heartened that some children do get this justice, but honestly, it’s just depressing when so many of our children can’t even get to the starting line, and so many courts abet their abuse.
Abduction
Greif, G. (2000). A parental report on the long-term consequences for children of abduction by the other parent. Child Psychiatry and Human Development 31(1): 59-78.
Grief has an interesting approach to abduction in that his surveys (no set psychological tool used in these questionnaires) included both parentally abducted children (presumably only by non-custodial parents against court orders) and abducted children abducted by non-parents. Children all stood a chance of being recovered and were returned to parents, but many abductions were short and others long. All of these circumstances make it difficult to draw conclusions.
That said, conclusions Greif draws are that a “significant minority” of the kids continued to report symptoms two years after being returned. Yet parents say 85% of their returned children are doing well in school. 48% did say their children found their abduction very upsetting. Even when abduction was a walk in the park according to the parent, 78% believed their kids continued to suffer negative effects. 35% of kids still had contact with an abductor 2 years later, and fears persisted about a second abduction.
In spite of the weird sample and bizarre findings (only 2/3 believed their children were permanently scarred by an abduction), Greif argues that these are at-risk kids long after abduction for both mental and physical illnesses. Like the parental alienation studies, the normalization of abduction or familiarity of the abductor may give victim parents a false sense of the wellbeing of their children.