Male Psychology Conference...Male Psychology Conference 24th June 2017 Dr Sue Whitcombe, Chartered Psychologist, AFPBsS HCPC registered counselling psychologist Overview • Mental

Parental alienation: Psychological distress and mental health

Male Psychology Conference24th June 2017

Dr Sue Whitcombe, Chartered Psychologist, AFPBsSHCPC registered counselling psychologist

Overview

• Mental Health and ACEs

• Parental alienation

• a child welfare issue, prevalence and outcomes

• key signs, symptoms, behaviours

• contributory factors

• Evidence from practise

• Parental alienation in the UK

Mental health and ACEs

• Mental health problems are one of the main causes of the overall disease burden worldwide

• 10% of children and young people (aged 5-16 years) have a clinically diagnosable mental health problem

• 70% of children and adolescents who experience mental health problems have not had appropriate early intervention

• 50% of mental health problems are established by age 14 and 75% by age 24

Mental health and ACEs

• Adverse Childhood Experiences include experiencing all types of abuse; living in a home where there is parental conflict, domestic violence, alcohol or drug abuse; parental separation

• Number of ACEs strongly associated with adult high-risk health behaviours - smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, promiscuity and severe obesity, and correlated with ill-health including depression, heart disease, cancer and shortened lifespan

• ACE score above six is associated with a 30-fold increase in attempted suicide

• Implacable hostility

• Hostile Aggressive Parenting (HAP)

• Intractable contact dispute

• Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS)

• Resist/refuse dynamic

• Pathogenic parenting

• Attachment Based-Parental Alienation (AB-PA)

What is parental alienation?

Unjustified or unwarranted rejection of a parent where there was previously a normal range, loving, good enough relationship

Intentional or unintentional actions by a parent (usually PWC) to turn their child against the other parent (usually a NRP)


Family system under stress: the child feels a loyalty conflict, unwittingly co-opted into an unhealthy cross-generational coalition with one parent, or empowered or elevated to the role of decision maker in perverse triangulation, parentification or adultification processes


Over time, the child becomes hostile, vitriolic and abusive, before usually rejecting the parent and refusing contact


What is parental alienation?Rejecting a parent

• Children are wired to attach to their parents and caregivers – even if they are neglectful or abusive

• Children who have experienced neglect or abuse still crave a relationship with their parent or caregiver

• It is unusual for a child, particularly a pre-adolescent, to actively reject a parent or caregiver

• Rejection is a sign of underlying psychological distress, most likely a sign of alienation

What is parental alienation?Defence mechanism:

• Children unable to deal with hostility and conflict between parents, experience cognitive dissonance and psychological distress

• Feel forced (usually unconsciously) to choose between parents, minimise distress by rejecting the least vulnerable or least fearsome parent

• Splitting defence - one parent is all good, and the other is all bad, unable to manage the reality that there is good and bad in both


Child Psychological Abuse 995.51

“nonaccidental verbal or symbolic acts by a child’s parent or caregiver that result, or have the potential to result, in significant psychological harm to the child. Examples include […] harming/abandoning – or indicating that the offender will harm/abandon – people or things that the child cares about”

• Parental alienation is not a child arrangements issue

• Parental alienation is a child welfare issue

• Alienated children experience ACEs – parental conflict, parental separation, exposure to DV, emotional and psychological abuse

• Parental alienation results in psychological distress and emotional harm


Parental alienation - outcomesShort-term children may appear to function reasonably well in their day to day lives.

However:

• There can be a restricted number of personal relationships and friendships

• Cognitive functioning can be impaired –reality testing, critical evaluation and black and white thinking

• Suppressed and repressed memories, feelings and experiences can lead to anxiety, anger, aggression, social withdrawal

Parental alienation - outcomesLife-long effects include depression, substance abuse, damaged self-esteem, personality and identity issues, enduring relationship issues

(Baker, 2005; Ben Ami & Baker, 2012; Bernet, Baker & Verrocchio, 2015 )

Later recognition that they excluded a loving, caring parent from their life may cause irreversible damage to relationship with the alienating parent

Parental alienation - prevalence• Data variable- issues with samples and definitions

• 10-15% in community samples 20-40% in high conflict samples

• Most common in high conflict separated families though does occur in intact families

• Gender of children not significant

• (N=610) randomly selected population of adults in USA. 13.4% of parents have been alienated from one or more of their children; much higher than previous estimates. Findings show evidence of parental alienation across all socio-economic and demographic indicators (Harman, Leder-Elder &

Biringen, 2016)

Parental alienation - prevalence

July 2016, Sarah Parsons, Principal Social Worker and Assistant Director of Cafcass, stated that “parental alienation is responsible for around 80% of the most intransigent cases that come before the family courts”.

??? How many intransigent cases?

Extrapolating from overseas studies – parental alienation is likely to be a feature in a minimum of 9,000 family proceeding applications per annum involving more than 18,000 children

1. A campaign of denigration / or extreme anxiety

2. Weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for the criticism

3. Lack of ambivalence

4. The "independent-thinker" phenomenon

5. Reflexive support of the alienating parent

6. Absence of guilt over cruelty to the alienated parent

7. The presence of borrowed scenarios

8. Spread of the animosity to the friends and/or extended family of the alienated parent

Signs and symptoms in the child

A campaign of denigration or extreme anxiety

• Hostile and abusive

• Physically resisting contact

• Rejecting phone calls, letters, emails and gifts and expressing hatred

A campaign of denigration or extreme anxiety

Helen’s expressed fear of her father is a key feature of her narrative.

She has not seen her father for three years, yet he lives within half a

mile of her home. Helen expresses hypervigilance and hyperarousal,

avoiding normal activities and adjusting her life to minimise the

likelihood of encountering her father. Helen’s fear and anxiety seem

disproportionate to the actual risk her father poses to her.

Both Helen and her mother referred to Helen and Liam being so

frightened that their teeth chattered.

Weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for the criticism

Lack of ambivalence - cannot acknowledge any good aspects of the rejected parent “all bad” – black and white thinking

I asked Jack to tell me all the things that he liked about mum. […] He

wrote kind then nice. I asked Jack what he meant by nice and he wrote

hugs me; she always bes nice.

I asked Jack to tell me what he liked about his father. He was unable to

say anything at all positive.

I asked Jack what he didn’t like about his mother and he said nothing.

When I asked Jack what he didn’t like about his father he wrote

everything. Child aged 7, no contact for 3 years

The "independent-thinker" phenomenon

I asked Molly to tell me the best bits about daddy. Her response

is “When we don’t have to see him. Cos I don’t like seeing him

and I always find a way to get out of seeing him.” I asked how

Molly got out of seeing her father. “By pretending to be sick. I

am actually sick sometimes.”

Reflexive support of the alienating parent Child and parent are enmeshed – an overly dependent relationship, best friends, child can see no fault in parent

Absence of guilt over cruelty to the alienated parent

“Now, I definitely don’t want to see him at all. There is no emotion

or purpose in his letters, they make me bored. It is pointless him

sending them in the first place. He needs a job; he never has any

money. Arfan said that his father had “squandered his chances” and he

“had given up on him.”

The presence of borrowed scenarios

Molly told me that mammy gets upset because of what happened when

they were little. I asked what had happened when she was little. Molly

told me that she was three, and didn’t really remember what had

happened. She then became quite animated, almost excited. “He threw

me down the stairs, that’s what I remember. I was asleep. He carried

me onto the landing and threw me down the stairs. I woke up when I

was rolling down the stairs, doing a roly poly. I did a cartwheel.”

Molly age 8, no unsupervised contact with father since aged 2½, minimal direct contact for 5 years, no indirect contact

Spread of the animosity to the friends and/or extended family of the alienated parent

I showed Jamie a photo of him with his

Bampi (Andy’s father, Jim) together in

Andy’s van. I asked who it was. Jamie

responded “me with a dick.”

Alienating behaviours

Bernet, W., Baker, A. J. L. & Verrocchio, M. C. (2015). Symptom

Checklist-90-Revised Scores in Adult Children Exposed to

Alienating Behaviors: An Italian Sample. Journal of Forensic

Sciences, 60(2), 357-362.

Harman, J. J., Biringen, Z., Ratajack, E. M., Outland, P. L., & Kraus, A.

(2016). Parents behaving badly : gender biases in the perception of

parental alienating behaviors. Journal of Family Psychology, 30(7),

866–874.

The Baker Strategy Questionnaire - BSQ


Eradicating

Adultification / emotional

manipulation

Gatekeeping


• Frustrates, prevents or interferes with time

with other parent

• Blocks phone messages or doesn’t pass on

letters, cards or gifts

• Made it difficult for child and parent to

communicate – text, telephone, Skype

• Makes child feel bad about spending time

with other parent’s family or stops them from

doing so


• Seems unhappy or annoyed when child speaks about

or asks for photographs

• Talks to child about the court case, family finances,

adult relationships or other “adult” issues

• Makes negative comments or rarely makes positive

ones

• Becomes upset, annoyed or ignores child when show

affection for parent or speaks positively about them

• Says or suggests parents don’t love child


• Tries to make child choose between them

• Says or suggests parent is dangerous or unsafe

• Asks child to “spy” on parent or find out

information and report back

• Creates situations which would likely make child

feel angry or upset with parent

• Tries to turn child against dad/mum


• Asks child to keep “secrets” – such as plans for

holidays, parties, school events

• Calls dad/mum by their first name and expects

child to do so also

• Refers to new partner as “dad” or “mum” and

expects child to do so

• Encourages child to value their opinion and rely

on them above everyone else

• Encourages child to ignore other parent’s rules,

values or authority

Parental alienationFalse allegations

Q Methodology study

(n=54; M=47, F=7)

• 94% family proceedings• 70% former partner repeatedly broke orders• 78% currently had no direct contact• 56% had not seen child in the last year

Parental alienation and false allegations

Parental alienation and false allegations

Have you been subject to false allegations of DV against your partner?

Yes= 36 (67%) No=18 (33%)

Have you been subject to false allegations of child abuse?

Yes= 44 (81%) No=10 (19%)

Parental alienation – contributory factors• Duration of no parent-child contact

• Geographical distance

• Involvement of the legal profession and mental health professionals who have insufficient knowledge

• Engagement with therapeutic support and agencies who hold one-sided, subjective, background information (collusion)

• Co-existent domestic violence

Parental alienation – evidence from practice

• Failure to recognise when alienation may be a factor –lack of knowledge in law, health, social care and education

• Assumptions that child behaviours indicate exposure to abuse or violence

• Laissez faire and short termism – when a child appears to be functioning well

Parental alienation – evidence from practice

• Lack of consistency between Courts, Cafcass practitioners and Children’s Services

• Delays in the Court process

• Lack of training in parental alienation

• Lack of available interventions in the UK

• Gender bias – DV, parenting, Children’s Services, Cafcass, Courts

Parental alienation – the UK

My daughter is only 13 months old. CAFCASS initially said that she was too young to experience any emotional/psychological problems, including parental alienation, and contact with her father (me) was not important until the age of 4. This was essentially overturned in court and there is now a suggestion that my daughter has suffered harm through either poor contact quality and lack of contact.

Research participant

Parental alienation in the UK• July 2016, Sarah Parsons, Principal Social Worker and Assistant

Director of Cafcass, stated that “parental alienation is responsible for around 80% of the most intransigent cases that come before the family courts”.

• February 2017 Cafcass CEO, Sir Anthony Douglas, determined that parental alienation is “undoubtedly a form of neglect or child abuse”.

• Both have asserted, as have the Welsh Government, that all front-line practitioners are trained to recognise the issue and its impact on the child.

Parental alienation in the UK• More awareness, particularly among some Court appointed

Guardians and family solicitors.

• Still far, far away from a universal recognition and understanding

• Need for policies that recognise a child has two parents and require inclusion of both parents

• Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division, March 2017, lack of headway in dealing with cases involving parental alienation since he commented on the same back in 2004 ([2004] EWHC 727 (Fam))

• Research, analysis of cases non-existent

Mental health, ACEs and parental alienation• Children experience ACEs

• Do not meet threshold for diagnosis or involvement of Local Authority YET

• Use of a maladaptive coping strategy fails to prevent symptoms surfacing in medium-long term and likely contributes to a difficult personality presentation and a repeating transgenerational problem

• Failure to offer early intervention leads to mental illness and distress

Parental alienation – screening

• Signs and symptoms in the child

• Adult behaviours

• “False” allegations

• Maintain direct contact• Reduce opportunities for inter-parental conflict• Minimise transitions• Psycho education for parents• Strategy and resilience building for children• Enforce court orders, swiftly• Share objective information, court orders and

judgements with education and health service

Parental alienation - Early interventions

Parental alienation – AssessmentWhat are we assessing?

The child’s apparent rejection of a parent

Is it alienation or justified rejection/estrangement?If alienation, is it:

mild, moderate, severehybrid or pureconscious or unconscious

Is there any underlying psychopathology?Is the child experiencing (or at risk of) significant harm?

• Clinical interview• Observation• Discussions with agencies,

services and practitioners• Discussion with key family

members• Family history• Use of photographs and videos

• Chronology – subjective and independent

• Psychometrics • Projective techniques• Medical records• Police records• Social services records• Court paperwork

Parental alienation - assessment

Parental alienation - interventions

There is no one size fits all, off the shelf,magic solution!!

Essential that therapist is fully understanding of alienation and has sight of assessment and psychological reports.

Essential that intervention is based on a holistic assessment and addresses the underlying causes and current presentation.

• Family systems approach• Structural, functional and strategic family therapy• Brief solution focused therapy• Narrative therapy• CBT• Parent-child interactive therapy• Psychoeducation

Parental alienationTherapeutic modalities and strategies

Parental alienationSpecific interventions, protocols and approaches (Fidler, Bala &

Saini, 2012; Baker & Sauber, 2013)

• Cognitive Behavior Desensitization using a one-way mirror (Weitzman, 2004)

• Model for Reconnection (Freeman, 2008)

• Family Restructuring Therapy (Carter, Haave & Vandersteen, 2006)

• Multi-Modal Family Intervention (MMFI) (Friedlander & Walters, 2010)

• Overcoming Barriers (Sullivan, Ward & Deutsch, 2008)

• Family Bridges (Warshak, 2008)

• Family Reflections (Reay, 2015)

• UK – Dejong & Davies (2013); mentalisation approaches; IFT; SSoPA

Parental alienationNo intervention

• Paramountcy principle• Therapeutic letter• Therapy and support for alienated parents• Therapy with adult alienated children

Thank you for listening

www.familypsychologysolutions.org

Dr Sue Whitcombe, Chartered Psychologist

[email protected]

Documents

Male Psychology Conference...Male Psychology Conference 24th June 2017 Dr Sue Whitcombe, Chartered Psychologist, AFPBsS HCPC registered counselling psychologist Overview • Mental