Authors: Jennifer Harman, Edward Kruk and Denise Hinds
Despite affecting millions of families around the world, parental alienation has been largely unacknowl-
edged or denied by legal and health professionals as a form of family violence. This complex form of
aggression entails a parental figure engaging in the long-term use of a variety of aggressive behaviors to
harm the relationship between their child and another parental figure, and/or to hurt the other parental
figure directly because of their relationship with their child. Like other forms of family violence, parental
alienation has serious and negative consequences for family members, yet victims are often blamed for
their experiences. In order to be recognized as a form of family violence and to secure protection for
victims under law and social policies, a formal review and comparison of parental alienating behaviors
and outcomes to child abuse and intimate partner violence has been sorely needed. The result of this
review highlights how the societal denial of parental alienation has been like the historical social and
political denial or other forms of abuse in many parts of the world (e.g., child abuse a century ago).
Reframing parental alienating behaviors as a form of family violence also serves as a desperate call to
action for social scientists to focus more theoretical and empirical attention to this topic.
Public Significance Statement
This article presents parental alienating behaviors as a form of family violence with serious
consequences for children and families. Professional recognition of parental alienation and the
alienating behaviors that cause it is a necessary first step toward stimulating much needed research
in this area and in the development and testing of effective clinical, educational, and legal interven-
tions to prevent and mitigate the damaging effects of this form of family violence.
