Parental Alienation

This book provides a comprehensive overview of established evidence-based interventions for the problems inherent in parental alienation. The book focuses on helping families and ensuring the needs of the child are met. Increasing attention has been given to the subject of parental alienation in recent years, as divorce rates have increased and more children are being brought up in the context of ongoing parental conflict, risking significant emotional harm. Chapters point to the application of numerous evidence-based interventions that are already available and detail how to identify, assess and intervene effectively with families where parental alienation has been identified. This text will be of interest to those working in the family courts, particularly expert witnesses, clinical psychologists, therapists, social workers, guardians and other legal professionals, in addition to researchers with an interest in parental alienation.

Denise McCartan, PhD, DClinPsych, is an HCPC Registered Clinical Psychologist, who also has a research doctorate and has published her work in peer-reviewed journals. She is an Associate Fellow of The British Psychological Society (BPS), Chartered Psychologist and Chartered Scientist. As a Court Expert Witness, she has assessed hundreds of families in the family courts.

1- Understanding Parental Alienation; 2 - Why is it important and what does it look like?; 3 - Mild, Moderate and Severe Parental Alienation; 4 - Fallacies, Hybrid Cases and Justifiable Estrangement; 5 - The alienating parent; 6 - Targeted parent; 7 - The Alienated child; 8 - 'Typical Cases and Insights from Clinical Experience; 9 - The Assessment; 10 - Existing Approaches to Intervention; 11 - What Other Psychological Interventions May be Helpful in Parental Alienation?; 12 - What did we learn?