Misinformation Regarding Parental Alienation

I recently received a comment from a viewer regarding a video that I had posted. The comment said that PA and PAS was junk science and that protective parents had been accused of alienating their children from the otherwise abusive spouse wrongly. Sadly, I am sure that this has happened. However, as is repeatedly made clear in the literature, Parental Alienation should never be considered when real abuse does in fact exist. This is one key method to ruling it out. It is only to be considered when the allegations of abuse are false. Let me repeat that: Parental Alienation should only be considered when the allegations of abuse are false. When real abuse exists, parental alienation does not.

Therefore, when this sort of criticism arises, it suggests that the phenomenon of one parent influencing a child to become alienated from the other parent is somehow bogus, as though this never occurs. I believe that it is important to state that virtually all legitimate published expert opinion which is based on a great deal of literature and research, clearly recognizes that the phenomenon of parental alienation does in fact exist. One parent, under the right circumstances, can indeed influence a child to think badly about and eventually even reject that other parent. No reputable source would disagree with this. Therefore because of the fact that allegations of parental alienation may be falsely and illegitimately made, is not justification for eliminating the entire argument. Such an argument would be tantamount to saying that because some children have been erroneously diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, that ADHD does not exist.