Healthy parents teach their children independence and self-reliance. But alienating parents foster dependency and vulnerability in their children. Alienators need to be needed.

Healthy parents love their children more than they need their children. But alienators need their children more than they love their children. In younger children alienators sow seeds of fear. In older children they sow seeds of hatred. This ensures the child's undivided love.

Healthy parents teach a child that the world is full of imperfect people who sometimes make mistakes and sometimes disappoint us. But alienators teach a child to see the world in black and white; people are either all-good or all-bad. Any real mistakes an "all-bad" person makes become the entirety of who they are.

Alienators are masters of manipulation, and there are two main subtypes.

Alienators with narcissistic traits (mostly men) are control freaks. They see themselves as perfect and anyone who dares to oppose them as inferior. They speak with charisma and conviction.

Alienators with borderline traits (mostly women) are sympathy freaks. They see themselves as victims and anyone who dares to oppose them as abusers. They speak with passion and drama.

Regardless of the subtype, alienators are very convincing. Most people are duped. And by most people I mean friends, family members, teachers, coaches, counselors, custody evaluators, guardians ad litem, and, of course, their own children.

The end result of all this manipulation is that the child aligns themself almost completely with the alienating parent. There are many reasons for this, and comparisons have been made to Stockholm syndrome/trauma bonding, but I believe a better analogy is that of cults. Whenever the child agrees with, or sympathizes with, or shows devotion to the alienator, then the alienator lavishes them with affection and makes them feel like a million dollars. But if the child ever falters in their devotion, then the alienator responds with the opposite extreme. This is exactly how cult leaders are able to manipulate adults over a period of months. Now imagine a vulnerable child, who has no escape, being conditioned like this their entire life.

The psychopathology underlying parental alienation has been referred to as pathological enmeshment, since the child's personality is basically subsumed by that of the alienator. It has also been called the gatekeeper phenomenon, since the alienator becomes the gatekeeper of the child's heart and mind. Whatever the alienator likes, the child reflexively likes; whatever the alienator hates, the child reflexively hates.

All of this happens long before the divorce, long before the actual alienation. And then, at the time of divorce, when the alienator feels rejected by their spouse, and the alienator fears they might lose the undivided devotion of their children, the actual alienation takes place surprisingly quickly. The gatekeeper simply closes the gate.

This is also why the mental health and legal professionals often get parental alienation cases wrong. They cannot imagine why a child would suddenly reject a normal, loving parent. They fail to recognize that what looks like a warm, close relationship between the child and the favored parent is actually a longstanding form of co-dependency. It's a folie à deux. It's emotional incest.

"Just listen to my child!" the alienator cries to the court. "They'll tell you how inferior/abusive the other parent is!" But it is no longer the child who speaks.

Alienated children grow up hating half of who they are. They are prone to a host of psychosocial problems later in life.

This is why Parental Alienation is NOT a child custody issue.

It's a child PROTECTION issue.

Video and audio of this public hearing was acquired by ABC news.
Full length video available on Speechlessmn channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRfUv2Mq--k