Parental Alienation: The Innocent Eyes of a Custody Storm

Stories of parental alienation in child custody disputes that leave one parent in the dark and an innocent child with irreversible repercussions may sound like faraway scenarios from shows like 20/20 and Dateline, but according to renowned psychologist Amy J. L. Baker, these tragic tales hold real-life truths. “When I interviewed 40 adults who gave up one parent in order to please the other, they talked about very profound negative effects,” says the author of Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome: Breaking the Ties that Bind. “It’s a form of emotional abuse to manipulate a child to reject a parent who does not deserve to be rejected,” says Baker. There’s no question in my mind,” she adds.

Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) was coined in the 1980s by psychiatrist Richard A. Gardner, and is now under consideration for the next revision of The Diagnostic Statistical Read more