Parental
Alienation in Light of Attachment Theory:
Consideration of the Broader Implications for Child Development,
Clinical Practice, and Forensic Process
Abstract
Few ideas
have captured the attention and charged the emotions of the public, of mental
health and legal professionals as thoroughly as the concept of parental alienation
and Gardner’s (1987) Parental Alienation Syndrome. For all of this controversy,
the alienation concept stands outside developmental theory and without firm
empirical support. The present paper explores alienation and its conceptual
counterpart, alignment, as the necessary and natural tools of child-caregiver
attachment (Ainsworth & Wittig, 1969; Bowlby, 1969) and of family system
cohesion. This conceptual foundation offers developmentalists, clinicians,
and family law professionals alike a common language and valuable instruments
with which to understand those relatively infrequent but highly charged circumstances
in which these tools are used as weapons, particularly in the context of
contested custody litigation. The need to establish baseline measures, child-centered
interventions, and legal remedies anchored in the attachment model is discussed.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Keywords:
Alienation, attachment, forensic, development, PAS, alignment, custody, divorce
The concept
of the alienated child, Parental Alienation (PA), and Parental Alienation
Syndrome (PAS) has sparked a firestorm of controversy among mental health
and family law professionals concerned with the welfare of the children of
divorce, often enough polarizing these professionals no less than the bitterly
conflicted co-parents whose children’s futures are at stake.
The construct’s original presentation as “pathological alignment” (Wallerstein
& Kelly, 1980) and its recent reformulation focusing on the alienated
child (Kelly & Johnston, 2001) both seek to describe a family system dynamic
wherein one parent (actor) exposes a child to words and/or actions that malign
another parent (object), such that the child comes to resist or refuse contact
with the latter for reasons that are disproportionate to the child’s direct
knowledge of that (object) parent’s behavior. This relatively uncommon family
drama may well have remained an obscure footnote in the study of child development
and family systems were it not for its impact on contested custody litigation
and the work of Richard Gardner.
Gardner’s (1987, 1992a, 1992b, 1998, 2002) provocative introduction of PAS
dramatically shifted the focus on this construct from that of a clinically
useful, dynamic description to that of a pathological syndrome diagnosable
among the children of divorce. In Gardner’s view, PAS is a disorder most usually
induced by divorcing mothers for the purpose of winning a child’s custody
as evident in the child’s otherwise unwarranted campaign of denigration against
the father. As such, PAS has been alternately lauded by groups representing
fathers and vilified by groups representing mothers, effectively shifting
the private process of family relationships and the gut-wrenching issues of
contested custody out of the home and the courtroom and into the spotlight
of national politics.
© 2004 B.D. Garber, Ph.D. ° Not for duplication
or distribution
Fueled by the emotions inherent to these issues, the construct of alienation
persists in our courtrooms and clinics independent of developmental theory
and despite a paucity of sound empirical research. Those few who purport to
study the matter fail to describe their methods and measures (Clawar &
Rivlin, 1991), assume the existence of the construct in the course of seeking
to validate it (Dunne & Hedrick, 1994), and/or take too narrow a view
within the larger family dynamic (Lampel, 1996).
Johnston’s recent reports (2003; Johnston, Gans Walters
& Oleson, in press) are perhaps the first to empirically examine children’s
post-divorce visitation resistance and refusal as these might substantiate
the existence of alienation. She concludes that relatively few of the children
studied evidence the extremely polarized alignment with one parent and rejection
of the other that are characteristic of severe PA. Among these few, multiple
systemic factors2 including the rejected parent’s own lack of empathy, support,
and parenting skills, even more so than the aligned parent’s denigration,
accounted for the child’s polarized position.
The present paper seeks to anchor these findings and the larger controversy
concerning PA in the context of normal development and family system functioning
consistent with Rybicki’s (2001) charge that, “PAS and other forms of alienation
are part of a larger set of … family system dynamics that may become pronounced
in times of marital conflict, separation, or divorce” (p. 2). By grounding
the concept of alienation in developmental theory, the present goal is to
offer mental health and legal professionals a common foundation upon which
to build a constructive understanding of child-caregiver relationships and
with which to begin to generate developmentally informed clinical interventions,
judicial remedies, and public policy.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
In the Context of Attachment Theory
Any discussion
of alienation presupposes the existence of an emotional bond between a child
and each of her3 caregivers. Attachment theory (e.g., Ainsworth, Bell, &
Stayton, 1974; Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters & Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1969,
1973; Sroufe, Waters, & Matas, 1974) describes the development and vicissitudes
of precisely these bonds.4 In general, the quality of a child’s attachment
to a particular caregiver refers to the child’s willingness and ability to
use the caregiver as a “secure base” from which to draw emotional comfort.
Because attachment describes a dynamic and adaptive relationship specific
to each caregiver-child pair, it should not be confused with dependency (Sroufe,
Fox, & Pancake, 1983), bonding (Klaus & Kennell, 1976) or imprinting
(Bowlby, 1969). Attachment has yet to be completely understood in relation
to temperament (Vaughn & Bost, 1999; Vaughn et al., 1992) or psychopathology
(Sroufe, Duggal, Weinfeld, & Carlson, 2000).
The Quality of Child-Caregiver Attachment
Bowlby’s
(1969, 1973) effort in developing attachment theory was to describe the child’s
learned ability to experience security in the presence of a specific caregiver.
The caregiver is considered the child’s emotional anchor or “secure base.”
An attachment relationship is deemed “secure” to the extent that an otherwise
healthy child successfully uses the caregiver’s presence and cues to manifest
mature and adaptive cognitive, social, and emotional skills (e.g., exploring
an unfamiliar environment, returning to the caregiver to be emotionally “refueled”
and comforted when stressed).
By contrast, an insecure “resistant” attachment relationship describes a
child who clings to her caregiver, apparently unable to separate in order
to explore and play in a healthy and mature manner. An insecure “avoidant”
attachment relationship describes a child who remains apart or aloof and unable
or unwilling to seek comfort from her caregiver. A fourth category of attachment
behavior describing a distinct minority, “disorganized,” describes children
who appear fearful, dissociative, and/or disturbed in the caregiver’s presence
(Main & Solomon, 1986; Solomon & George, 1999a).
Recent work (Cummings, 2003, Fraley & Spieker, 2003a, 2003b; Sroufe,
2003) has begun to discuss the intuitively appealing idea that the quality
of infant attachment exists along a continuum rather than as one of three
or four distinct categories, a distinction that may come to have a significant
impact on our understanding of how specific child-caregiver attachments evolve
over time and how researchers and clinicians alike assess these changes and
their causes.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Assessing the Quality of Attachment
The quality
of a toddler’s attachment to a specific caregiver at a specific time can
be reliably distinguished in Ainsworth’s Strange Situation (Ainsworth et
al., 1974, 1978; Ainsworth & Wittig, 1969), and in older children, teens,
and adults using a variety of less well known self- and observer-report tools
(e.g., Ainsworth, 1989; Armsden & Greenberg, 1987; Cassidy, 1990; Collins
& Read, 1990; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1996; Kearns, Tomich, Aspelmeier,
& Contreras, 2000; Waters & Deane, 1985).
The Strange Situation is a research-based observational paradigm that reliably
assesses the quality of attachment between toddlers of 12-18 months of age
and their caregivers. Seven sequential 3-minute epochs of parent-child interaction
are videotaped across a series of scripted separations and reunions5 and subsequently
analyzed in detail by trained observers.
Waters and colleagues (Ainsworth et al, 1978; Vaughn & Waters, 1990;
Waters, 1987, 2002; Waters & Deane, 1985) has developed and validated
(van Ijzendoorn, Vereijken, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Riksen-Walraven, in
press) a more ecologically valid and economical tool intended to assess the
quality of child-caregiver attachment across a broader age range under more
practical and naturalistic conditions. The Attachment Q-sort yields an assessment
of attachment security that, “…can produce valid indexes of attachment security
for infants and for older children, even when mothers, rather than trained
observers, provide the Q-sort descriptions” (Vaughn et al., 1992, p. 463).
According to Waters (personal communication, July 14, 2004), an observer
rated Q-sort of caregiver and child in a naturalistic setting is an entirely
appropriate and valid means of assessing the child’s attachment with that
caregiver.6
A number of other self- and observer-report instruments have been developed
for the purpose of assessing attachment security for specific age groups and
settings. Among these are a self-report questionnaire appropriate for late
adolescence (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy,
1985), the Adult Attachment Interview (Main & Goldwyn, 1985-1994 [as cited
in Main, 1996]), the Inventory of Adolescent Attachments (Greenberg, Siegel,
& Leitch, 1983), and the Parental Attachment Questionnaire (Kenny, 1987).
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Stability of the Quality of Attachment
A great
deal has been written about the stability and predictive validity of the
quality of toddler-caregiver attachment (Bar-Haim, Sutton, & Fox, 2000;
Connell, 1976; Erikson, Sroufe, & Egeland, 1985; Main & Weston, 1981;
Rutter, 1995; Waters, 1978; but see, e.g., Belsky, Campbell, Cohn, &
Moore, 1996; Touris, Kromelow, & Harding, 1995). Arguments have been
made suggesting that the quality of attachment as young as twelve months
old reliably predicts later cognitive skills (Bretheringon, 1985), confidence
(Laible, Gustavo, & Raffaelli, 2000), leadership skills (Deason &
Randolph, 1998), peer relationships (Barnett, Butler, & Vondra, 1999;
Schneider, Atkinson, & Tardif, 2001), anxiety (Thompson, 2000), psychopathology
(Belsky & Cassidy, 1994), family dynamics (Cook, 2000) and intergenerational
security (Broberg, 2000).
In fact, the quality of a child’s attachment security is, by definition,
flexible and adaptive. A child’s attachment security develops unique to each
caregiver within time (Howes, 1999; Main & Weston, 1981) and to a single
caregiver across time as a function of experience (Lewis, Feiring, & Rosenthal,
2000; Waters et al., 2000). Thompson (2000) is quite explicit in stating
that, “…early attachment does not predict later behavior when intervening
changes occur in the quality of parental care. A secure attachment does not
predict more positive psychosocial functioning when, for example, the mothers
of initially secure infants are later observed to behave intrusively and
insensitively” (p. 146). Broberg (2000) describes the flip side of the same
coin, noting that therapeutic interventions intended to improve the sensitivity
of caregiving “may be effective in enhancing infant attachment security….”
(p. 41).
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
The
Child’s Internal Working Model (IWM)
Recognition
that the quality of attachment security is not fixed but is, instead, adaptive
and dynamic, raises questions about the cognitive structures underlying the
relationship. In his original formulation, Bowlby (1969) postulated that
the child maintains an “internal working model” of each attachment figure,
a mental representation that assimilates or accommodates to new information
and experience specific to a caregiving figure (e.g., Bretherington &
Mulholland, 1999; Creasey, 2002; Main et al., 1985, Sroufe, Carlson, Levy,
& Egeland, 1999).
As the child matures and develops higher order cognitive capacities, the
information that informs the IWM begins to reach beyond the individual caregiver’s
direct sensitivity and reciprocity to incorporate increasingly language-based
knowledge. “The working models associated with secure or insecure attachments
likely have their origins … not only in the child’s direct representations
of the sensitivity of parental care, but in the secondary representations
of their experience mediated through parental discourse” (Thompson, 2000,
p. 150; see also Cook, 2000.)
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Alienation and Alignment:
The Mechanisms of Accommodation of Attachment Security:
If the
security of a child’s attachment to each caregiver is mediated by the child’s
internal working model of that caregiver, and if that internal working model
is adaptive to the extent that it accommodates to new information, then it
is not only possible to put the phenomenon of alienation in context, but
it also becomes possible to examine its conceptual variants and alternatives.
Specifically, a child’s perception of new information (“message”) about a
specific attachment figure will be perceived either as consistent or inconsistent
with the existing IWM of that caregiver. A message that is consistent with
a child’s existing IWM of a specific caregiver presumably reinforces the child’s
experience of relative security in that relationship. To the extent that
such a message is perceived as discrepant or inconsistent, it will either
be assimilated into the existing IWM (that is, ignored) or the child may be
prompted to accommodate her IWM in order to more accurately reflect the new
information. The mechanisms of assimilation and accommodation are familiar
to cognitive scientists (e.g., Block, 1982) and are commonly credited among
the tools of personality development (e.g., Liben & Signorella, 1993;
Ying, 2002).
Whether a given child assimilates or accommodates a message about a caregiver
will be multiply determined by numerous systemic factors. These may include
the child’s cognitive, social, and emotional maturity, the quality of her
relationship with the caregiver, the context in which the message occurs,
and the perceived content and emotional valence of the new information.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
When new information is accommodated into the child’s IWM such that the child
becomes more secure in that relationship, the new information can be said
to be aligning, that is, as enabling greater security. When the result moves
the child toward lesser security, the new information can be said to be alienating.
In this frame, alienation and alignment can be recognized among the common
tools family systems use to help children feel safe and function maturely.
They serve to define intra-familial cohesion and inter-familial differentiation;
that is, they communicate to the child who belongs within the family group
and who does not. Unfortunately, these ordinarily adaptive tools can
sometimes be used as weapons.
Applying these broad theoretical strokes to the reality of children’s ever-changing
relationships prompts distinctions among the actors and objects. of these
messages The actor is the individual (or, more broadly, the source) from whom
the message is perceived. The object is the individual (or, more broadly,
the affiliation) about whom the message is perceived to be directed. Using
these terms, it is possible to define eight unique cases by specifying the
dynamic (alienation or alignment) and the object of that dynamic. These cases
are identified in Table 1 and discussed below.
<<Insert Table 1 about here>>
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
1. When Actor and Object Are the Same (Caregiver) Individual
Much of our contemporary thinking about children’s relationships
is based upon clinical experience and/or empirical research within dyads.
The attachment literature, for example, has almost exclusively examined the
quality of the relationship between one parent (most usually the mother) and
one child. Within the dyad, the caregiver is both actor and object affecting
the quality of the child’s attachment security. The child distills the caregiver’s
words and actions in the form of an IWM that represents that caregiver’s sensitivity
and responsiveness and behaves in that caregiver’s presence accordingly. This
suggests that the concepts of alignment and alienation can each be used reflexively,
as when a caregiver’s words and actions serve to increase or decrease the
child’s security. Thompson (2000) and Broberg (2000) each suggest this dynamic
in describing the impact of parents’ caregiving changes on the child’s attachment
security within the dyad. Johnston (2003) speaks of this same reflexive quality,
commenting that, “[r]ejected parents, whether father or mother, appear to
be the more influential architect of their own alienation, in that deficits
in their parenting capacity are … consistently and most strongly linked to
their rejection by the child” (p. 169).
In reality, however, “[t]here is a need both to consider dyadic relationships
in terms that go beyond attachment concepts, and to consider social systems
that extend beyond dyads” (Rutter, 1995, p. 556). Coincident events and relationships
surround and collide with the attachment dyad, contributing to the child’s
experience in a way that is entirely familiar to each of us in our day-to-day
lives, but which tend to overwhelm empirical description and statistical analysis.
Much as an individual’s own words and actions may be accommodated within
a child’s attachment IWM, so too must the child’s ever expanding world play
a growing role in how the child experiences security. Thus, our understanding
of a child’s relationships must begin to account for the contributions of
the larger family system (e.g., Cowan, 1997), that is, how the social and
emotional context bears on a child’s relationship with each of her caregivers.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
2. When the Actor Is a Caregiver and the Object Is Not a Caregiver
A second dynamic is in force when a caregiver provides new
information that impacts a child’s relative security in a relationship outside
of the caregiving dyad. For example, parents commonly act and speak in such
a way as to intentionally build a child’s feeling of security in select others
(alignment), as when a child is anxious about a new teacher. By the same token,
parents intentionally instruct their children to avoid select others (alienation),
as when a neighbor acts suspiciously. Garber (in press) illustrates this
latter dynamic in discussing therapist alienation, that instance in which
a caregiver speaks or acts so as to corrupt a child’s security with her psychotherapist.
3. When the Actor Is Not A Caregiver and the Object Is A Caregiver
In the third instance, a child accommodates her IWM of a caregiver
to a third party’s words or actions such that the child becomes more or less
secure with that caregiver. When movement is toward lesser security, parental
alienation is in force. This describes the dynamic typically in force at work
in cases of stereotype induction, brainwashing, cult, and implanted memories
(e.g., Ceci & Bruck, 1995; Clawar & Rivlin, 1991; Gold-Biken, 1991;
Warshak, 2001a). In Dymek v. Nyquist (1984), for example, a father claimed
that his son’s psychotherapist had brainwashed the child in an effort to
ruin the father-son relationship. In contrast, when the effect of the third
party’s words or actions is to move the child toward greater security with
the caregiver, parental alignment is at work. Such is the case in successful
reunification therapies following extended parental absence (Freeman, Abel,
Cowper-Smith, & Stein, 2004).
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
4. When both Actor and Object Are Caregivers (Co-Parents)
In contemporary usage, the alienated child, PAS, and PA are
all intended to describe the instance in which one caregiver’s words or actions
(actor) cause a child to become less secure with a second caregiver or co-parent
(object), resulting in the child’s resistance to or refusal of contact with
the latter.7 This is co-parental alienation, the more emotionally evocative
and politically charged dynamic due to the insidious, intrafamilial nature
of the act. Co-parental alienation does not imply that the act is mutual or
reciprocal among parents.
In contrast, co-parental alignment describes the presumably healthy, appropriate,
and mutually supportive dynamic in effect when one caregiver’s words or actions
serve to increase the child’s security with a second caregiver. Co-parental
alignment is a useful tool, for example, when a child resists visits with
a caregiver due to simple separation anxiety. In this instance, one caregiver’s
explicit endorsement of another can serve to reinforce the child’s security
in the latter and help to overcome anxiety that is not associated with that
caregiver, per se.
The terms co-parental alienation and co-parental alignment are useful to
extent that the intra-familial dynamics inherent in this description are distinguished
from those instances in which an extra-familial actor’s words and/or actions
impact the child’s IWM of a caregiver (parental alienation or co-parental
alignment). These terms are more precise than Johnston and Kelly’s (2001)
reference to the “aligned parent” and the “target parent” to the extent that
they allow clear discussion of those instances in which the parties involved
in the dynamic are not co-parents. Given the distinctions of the present
model, an “aligned parent” can impact a child’s IWM in any relationship as
in the case of therapist alienation (Garber, in press) just as a “target
parent” can be the object of the words and/or actions of any party, including
but not only a co-parent (actor).
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Beyond the Dyad: Accommodation
and the Accuracy of the Message
Within
the insulated confines of the dyad where actor and object are one-in-the-same
and alienation and alignment are reflexive by definition, the messages the
child receives about the caregiver’s sensitivity are always accurate. In
this constricted and artificial world, a child’s security of attachment to
a particular caregiver is effectively that caregiver’s résumé
of sensitivity. The child has distilled an IWM exclusively from the caregiver
him- or herself and behaves in that caregiver’s presence accordingly.
As the child grows and her cognitive, emotional, and sensory capacities develop,
the world begins to expand beyond the dyad. The information that informs her
cognitive models is perceived from a wider range of sources and through a
growing repertoire of means. Where the child’s working model of security in
a particular relationship was formerly informed only by that caregiver’s behavior,
now other sources of direct and indirect experiential and verbal information
can begin to be accommodated. In general, this is adaptive. Like the clinician
conducting an evaluation, the child is implicitly aware that an aggregate
of information is more reliable than information from a single source. Like
the clinician, as well, the child is now vulnerable to endorsing information
that is inaccurate.
Table 2 presents the four outcomes possible when a child accommodates her
IWM to third party messages about a caregiver.
<<Insert Table 2 about here>>
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
When a child accommodates third party extra-dyadic information about a caregiver
that is accurate, two outcomes are possible. In the first, that new information
moves the child toward lesser security in the relationship. This describes
what Drozd and Olesen (2004) and Kelly and Johnston (2001) refer to as estrangement
so as to avoid confusion with the term alienation. Estrangement is the dynamic
in force, for example, when a victimized mother seeks to protect a child from
an abusive father.
In the second case, the message is accurate and moves the child toward greater
security (alignment). This is the case, for example, when a therapist or a
co-parent works to facilitate a child’s security with a parent who has newly
entered the child’s life (Freeman et al., 2004) or who is believed to have
become a more sensitive and responsive caregiver.
It is a very different situation for the child and for the larger family
system when the child accommodates inaccurate information about a caregiver.
In one case, the child becomes less secure despite the fact that the caregiver
is appropriately sensitive and responsive. This is (co-) parental alienation.
In another case, the child becomes more secure despite the fact that the caregiver
is relatively insensitive and unresponsive. This is (co-)parental misalignment.
The distinction between estrangement and alienation, on the one hand, and
between alignment and misalignment, on the other, rests on an objective assessment
of the (object) caregiver’s sensitivity, where sensitivity is defined as,
“the contingency, appropriateness, and flexibility” (Biringen, 1990, p. 281)
of the caregiver’s response to the child’s signals. Caregiver sensitivity
has been operationalized and quantified by both clinical (e.g., Johnston,
2003) and attachment researchers (e.g., Ainsworth et al. 1978; Black &
Teti, 1997; Braungart-Rieker, Courtney, & Garwood, 1999; Caldwell &
Bradley, 1984; Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979) using very economical and
readily available measures.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Attachment, Co-Parental Conflict, and Divorce
When co-parents
are mutually supportive, cooperative, and respectful (regardless of marital
status), children are more likely to encounter consistent messages about
each caregiver across time and settings. As co-parental conflict increases,
so too does the likelihood that the child will be exposed to information
about one or both caregivers that is discrepant from what she has previously
experienced. Mom calls Dad names in the heat of anger. Dad curses Mom on
his cell phone, thinking that his their daughter is asleep in her car seat.
Either parent’s narcissism, immaturity, or rage (Siegel & Langforth,
1998) prompts maligning words or actions about the co-parent within earshot
of or directly to the child.
Bowlby (1969) recognized that parental separation and divorce are among those
events likely to prompt a child to accommodate her IWM of one or both caregivers
and thereby to disrupt the continuity of the child’s attachment security in
either or both caregiving relationships. Contemporary researchers and clinicians
alike have begun to examine children’s attachment security in the context
of marital conflict (Davies & Cummings, 1994; Frosch, Mangelsdorf, &
McHale, 2000; Owen & Cox, 1997) and divorce (e.g., Beckwith, Cohen, &
Hamilton, 1999; Clarke-Stewart, Vandell, McCartney, Owen, & Booth, 2000;
Olesen & Drozd, 2004), effectively confirming Bowlby’s beliefs thesis.
Solomon and George (1999b), for example, document the strong association between
highly conflicted post-divorce parental communications and insecure infant
attachments. Beckwith et al. (1999) further specify that, “insecurity based
in the marital dyad tends to increase a sense of insecurity in the child,
over and above the specific parent–child relationship” (p. 698).
In recognition of this effect, Kelly and Lamb (2000), Solomon and Biringen
(2001), and Lamb and Kelly (2001) have sought to recommend the conditions
of post-separation custody that might be least likely to disrupt the young
child’s attachment security “…when parent communication is high and parents
are able to work flexibly together…” (Solomon & Biringen, 2001, p. 361).
Even under these optimal conditions, the authors were unable to reach consensus.
Unfortunately, it is in the absence of such constructive, child-centered,
co-parental cooperation that children are at the highest risk (Amato, 2001).
In the extreme, one (actor) caregiver’s denigrating and inaccurate
messages can prompt a child to accommodate her IWM of another (object) caregiver
such that her subjective experience of security with that caregiver has little
or no relationship to his or her actual sensitivity and responsiveness. In
effect, the child’s security with the (object) caregiver has been corrupted
or distorted. In this relatively rare scenario (Johnston, 2003), the child
speaks of her caregivers in the extreme and inflexible terms of good versus
evil. She resists or refuses contact with the (object) caregiver and appears
over-involved with the actor. This is severe co-parental alienation, magnification
and misdirection of an otherwise adaptive family systems process.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Practical Implications of This Model
As a theoretical
construct, alienation can now be understood as a family systems tool with
which a child’s security and family membership are normally crafted. Healthy
family systems routinely and spontaneously communicate aligning messages
in the process defining who is “in” and alienating messages in the process
of defining who is “out.” These dynamics famiy membership of exchange alienating
and aligning information for the purpose of enhance ing mutual safety and
security and lay the foundation for a child’s growing identity. within their
shared relationships. Like any tool, however, both alienation and alignment
can be turned into weapons.
Understanding alienation and alignment within the context of attachment security
generates valuable direction for developmental research, clinical and forensic
assessment and intervention, legal process, and public policy. Some of these
directions require little more than improved exchange of existing concepts,
data, and procedures between developmentalists, therapists, and forensic experts.
Much of this direction, however, will require collaborative endeavors among
these professionals in search of answers to a number of critical and compelling
questions.
Developmental Research
Attachment theory has proven to be a robust framework for understanding
many areas of development. Among the challenges facing this research in the
near future will be further definition of the continuity by degrees of attachment
security (Cummings, 2003; Fraley & Spieker, 2003a, 2003b; Sroufe, 2003)
and a broader understanding of how the attachment dyad exists within and
is influenced by the scaffolding of the family system.
As in the study of any developmental process, the first step
must be to establish baseline measures of these behaviors. How common are
alienating and aligning messages as a function of family constellation (e.g.,
intact, two-parent; divorced single-parent), culture, socio-economic status,
and/or language? Are children differentially vulnerable to accommodate these
messages as a function of cognitive ability, social and emotional maturity,
temperament, gender, or birth order?8 What quality of the message contributes
to its impact? Are more frequent, more strident, and/or more direct words
and actions more likely to be accommodated?
Most intriguing, perhaps, are the interactions among these many variables.
How does the quality of a child’s attachment to the actor and to the object
mediate the impact of the message?9, 10 Is there a self-righting tendency
for secure relationships to remain secure and insecure relationships to move
toward greater security? become more so? Or does a child’s early history create
a longstanding predisposition as Sroufe et al. (1999) might suggest: “Individuals
also interpret new and ambiguous situations in ways that are consistent with
earlier experience” (p. 6).
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Clinical and Forensic Assessment
Clinicians are often faced with the challenge of understanding
the quality of a child’s relationship with one or more caregivers but often
lack reliable and valid instruments, proceeding instead on the basis of a
dangerous combination of subjective impressions and invalid measures (Bow
& Quinnell, 2001; Hagan & Castagna, 2001; Horvath, Logan, & Walker,
2002). Attachment research has generated and validated the measures. It is
time to apply these measures for the benefit of the children we all serve.
The Strange Situation (Ainsworth & Wittig, 1969) is certainly the most
familiar among the many attachment assessment instruments available. However,
the time required for training raters and for subsequent scoring, and the
requisite physical space and technical resources make this instrument awkward
at least and, for many clinicians, simply prohibitive. Still, a handful of
clinician/researchers are using attachment theory in general and this paradigm
quite successfully in addressing custody and placement issues (Boris, Fueyo,
& Zeanah, 1996, Dyer, 2004). Most noteworthy, perhaps, is the University
of Virginia’s Ainsworth Child-Parent Attachment Clinic.11
The promise for integration of attachment measures into clinical and forensic
work more likely lies in the economical, valid, and readily available observer-,
caregiver-, and self-report attachment and parental sensitivity measures,
reviewed above. Most prominently, Waters’ Q-sort (van Ijzendoorn et al., in
press; Vaughn & Waters, 1990; Waters, 1987, 2002; Waters & Deane,
1985) offers one standardized method for assessing the quality of a child-caregiver
relationship in the child’s natural environment.
Integration of attachment-based tools will be of great value in any number
of areas of psychological treatment (Broberg, 2000; Lieberman & Zeanah,
1999) and forensic assessment. Above and beyond the structure of the intervention
(Garber, 2004a, 2004b), parent-child conflicts might best be assessed in therapies
that are informed by the variety of well-documented interventions intended
to improve the quality of children’s attachments (that is, parental alignment;
Bakermans-Kranenburg, Ijzendoorf, & Juffer, 2003; Travis, Binder, Bliwise,
& Horne-Moyer, 2001).
One promising prototype of such an intervention is described
by Marvin, Cooper, Hoffman, and Powell (2002). Their “Circle of Security”
group intervention for parents provides, “a theory- and evidence-based intervention
protocol that can be used in a partnership between professionals trained in
scientifically based attachment procedures and appropriately trained community
based practitioners” (p. 108).
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Legal Process: Custody and Visitation Decisions
Family law courts across the country are typically overburdened
and poorly equipped to deal with the complex developmental and family systems
issues inherent in contested custody litigation. When allegations of alienation
arise, jurists are increasingly divided in matters of custody and visitation
(Sullivan & Kelly, 2001; Williams, 2001). To the extent that viewing alienation
through the lens of attachment theory helps to establish baselines, reliable
and valid assessment measures, and successful intervention strategies, some
of the courts’ burdens may be eased. For one, the admissibility of any discussion
of alienation, heretofore questionable under Daubert v. Merrill Dow Pharmaceuticals
(1993; Poliacoff, Greene, & Smith, 1999; Zirogiannis, 2001) may be resolved.
Further, when forensic experts working within an attachment model determine
that (co-) parental alienation (or misalignment) has occurred, courts can
order attachment-based and child-centered remedies. Unfortunately, those remedies
currently available to the courts (e.g., Ward & Harvey, 1993), including
Gardner’s hotly contested recommendation (1992a) that children exposed to
severe alienation should be taken out of the home of the alienating parent
(actor) and placed in the home of the alienated parent (object), are presently
lacking both empirical and clinical support.12
Ultimately, the best clinical and legal remedies will be determined
on the bases of rigorous research guided by an overarching effort to preserve
the security of a child’s relationship with each of her caregivers (e.g.,
Lamb & Kelly, 2001; but see Johnston & Kelly, this issue). In advance
of these empirical data, the present model suggests that great caution be
taken in concluding that a child’s resistance to or avoidance of one caregiver
is necessarily the result of another caregiver’s (that is, co-parental) alienation.
A thorough systems evaluation will be necessary (Cowan, 1997; Lee & Olesen,
2001), making every effort to rule out environmental and social factors (Garber,
1996), mindful of the potential role of parties other than the parents in
shaping the child’s relative security in a particular relationship and of
evidence that much alienation is a reflection on the alienated caregiver him-
or herself (Johnston, 2003).
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Public Policy
Given that the quality of a child’s attachments in childhood
are strongly related to the quality of their relationships and achievement
as adults (Barnett et al., 1999; Belsky & Cassidy, 1994; Bretheringon,
1985; Broberg, 2000; Cook, 2000; Deason & Randolph, 1998; Laible et al.,
2000; Schneider et al., 2001; Thompson, 2000), that a healthier and more successful
community is more productive and more likely to raise healthy children, we
share a responsibility to establish those structures which preserve the quality
of child-caregiver attachments.
In the first instance, this mandate calls for establishment and expansion
of family-centered education and primary prevention programs (Gross, Fogg,
Webster-Stratton, Garvey, Wrenetha, & Grady, 2003; Kumpfer & Alvarado,
2003; Marvin et al., 2002; Peterson, Tremblay, Ewigman, & Saldana, 2003)
and the incentives (e.g., child tax credits) to use them. More specifically,
the quality of our future may be improved by establishing co-parent (rather
than parent) training appropriate to developmental landmarks (e.g., pregnancy,
immunization, school enrollment, graduation) and emphasizing the family system
(regardless of legal status) and the powerful tools with which family comes
to be defined: alienation and estrangement, alignment and misalignment.
Secondarily, when education and prevention are insufficient, policies must
be developed that support child-centered response and intervention. Child
protection agency providers must be trained in recognition of alienation,
estrangement, alignment, and misalignment. Law makers must consider the value
of recognizing any dynamic that corrupts a child’s secure relationships as
a reportable act of abuse and establishing associated supportive and corrective
interventions.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Limitations of the Present Model
It is
unfortunate that some combination of political and practical matters have
historically caused developmental theory and clinical practice to remain
largely separate and distinct. In calling for application of the impressive
accumulation of theory and measurement in attachment research, the present
model is at once intuitively appealing and empirically weak.
The intuitive appeal lies in recognizing that, if alienation occurs at all,
it is unlikely to spring forth, fully developed, exclusively in the context
of contested custody litigation. Attachment theory provides a solid foundation
upon which to postulate the cognitive-emotional mechanisms which mediate the
relative impact of a given actor’s security-enhancing or security–diminishing
words and actions on a child’s relationship with a given caregiving object.
Still, the leap from clinical and forensic to developmental and back again
is yet to be bridged by data. The present model suggests that this empirical
bridge will be built by improved communication between these fields. Clinical-forensic-research
alliances will work to incorporate validated attachment measures into existing
assessment protocols and feed back the data from these applications to research
without compromising confidentiality and without risk of legal discovery for
the benefit of the empiricists, the clinicians, the courts and –most importantly-
the children.
Specifically, the present model will prove to be robust only to the extent
that attachment assessment instruments and attachment-based interventions
prove to be practical, reliable and valid in clinical and forensic settings.
This calls for clinical and forensic professionals to rethink their models
and to begin to integrate developmental theory into practice (e.g., Dyer,
2004). Where many forensic examiners address custody issues entirely within
the four walls of their own office, the introduction of attachment-based tools
may call for observation in the child’s natural setting. Where clinicians
may previously have referred to relationships as “secure” and “insecure” without
objective referents, these critically important terms may need to be relearned
and applied accordingly. Where jurists have accepted discussion of alienation
and experts’ recommendations as to remedies, the movement must be toward
empirically-tested, child-centered interventions.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Most specifically, the forensic custody evaluator is cautioned that attachment
assessment instruments, however promising and theoretically valuable, are
yet to be validated in their forensic application. The evaluator remains responsible
to first and foremost observe and report specific behaviors and only secondarily
to attempt to summarize such observations in an effort to inform the
court. To the extent that attachment methodology is yet to be validated in
its clinical and forensic applications, the evaluator would be premature
to apply these methods and related terminology at present.
The power of the present model is similarly restricted to the extent that
clinical and forensic data can usefully inform developmental theory and the
direction of future developmental research. For example, in recognizing that
third parties contribute to a child’s relationship security, a door has been
opened through which research can begin to examine attachment beyond the dyad.
Do intact family units (regardless of legal status or composition) spontaneously
communicate membership with aligning messages? Do distinct family units spontaneously
communicate their separateness through alienating messages? How do these
messages shift as families transition as when parents separate and divorce,
on the one hand, or when families merge (e.g., step-families), on the other?
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Discussion
Lacking
a foundation in developmental theory, the validation of a body of sound empirical
research and fueled by the powerful emotions understandably associated with
litigation and child custody decisions, the concept of alienation has run
amok. Parent rights organizations, child advocacy groups, child-centered
mental health professionals, and the court system each risk becoming polarized
in the debate over the reality and response to alienation, a dilemma that
leaves the child once again lost in the middle.
The present paper grounds the concepts of the alienated child, PA, and PAS
in the solid research and conceptual framework of attachment theory, describing
alienation as the complement of alignment and acknowledging that both dynamics
are among the necessary and natural tools with which children shape their
relationships, establish their security, and define their family. It is when
these constructive tools are used as weapons to divide families that children
are hurt.
In order to discuss these dynamics constructively, each must be defined in
terms of actor and object. With this clarification, parental alienation and
alignment can be differentiated from co-parental alienation and alignment.
Baseline documentation and experimental manipulations borrowing the robust
measures currently underlying attachment research will generate a broad understanding
of the variables inherent in these dynamics, including an understanding of
the conditions that may make the quality of one child’s relationships more
malleable than that of another. This, then, will guide clinical process and
dictate the legal remedies best suited to help a given child maintain a healthy
and positive relationship with each of her caregivers.
Grounding the concept of alienation in attachment theory further suggests
that the tools that have been developed with which to assess attachment have
critical value in the clinical and forensic arenas. In a handful of settings,
these tools have already proven useful in the course of custody evaluation,
assessment of allegations of (co-)parental alienation, as process measures
valuable to the course of any intervention intended to re-align caregiver
and child and as landmark criteria on the basis of which courts might determine
the conditions and duration of contact between a parent and child. The present
paper calls for broad endorsement of attachment theory and methodology in
clinical and forensic work with the children of highly conflicted caregivers,
the development of programs intended to educate caregivers about the destructive
potential of these acts, and the establishment of public policies intended
to support healthy family systems and respond, as necessary, to the abuse
inherent in extreme forms of alienation.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
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© 2004 B.D. Garber,
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Table
1.
Illustration of the alienation and alignment of a child’s internal
working model (IWM) of the quality of attachment with a given object by a
parent’s (actor’s) words and actions.
(Tables are not available in this presentation)
Table 2.
Differentiating the impact of alienation and alignment on a
child’s attachment security as a function of accuracy and congruence.
(Tables are not available in this presentation)
Author Note
Acknowledgements.
The author is grateful to Drs. Everett Waters and William Whelan for their
respective time and insights, to Dr. Leslie Drozd for encouragement and guidance,
to Dr. Laura Landerman for invaluable support and to the hundreds of families
whose dramas have helped to shape this author’s internal working models.
Author Bio
Benjamin
D. Garber, Ph.D., provides clinical and forensic psychological services to
children and families in transition. His professional writing brings developmental
theory and practical, child-centered process to psychotherapy, clinical and
forensic assessment. Dr. Garber’s popular press articles and HealthyParent
books on topics in child and family development appear across the United
States, Australia and Canada. For more information, please visit www.healthyparent.com.
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
Footnotes
1 The
history of the controversy has been thoroughly reviewed by a number of authors,
most recently including Kelly and Johnston (2001), Faller (1998), Williams
(2001), Dallam (1998a, 1998b), Poliacoff and Greene (1999), and Rybicki (2001)
with rejoinders including Gardner (2001a, 2003).
2 Kelly and Johnston (2001) identify many factors including
the child’s age, temperament, and cognitive capacity, each parent’s personality,
the state of the litigation, and the relationship among the parents and between
each parent and the child as contributing the child’s observed visitation
resistance or refusal.
3 In order to simplify expression, children are referred to
in the feminine form throughout this paper. This is not to suggest, however,
that any part of this discussion is gender specific.
4 Willemsen and Marcel (1995) provide an excellent introductory
summary of attachment theory in the context of placement decisions.
5 These epochs are standardized as follows: (1) Caregiver and
child are alone in an unfamiliar room. (2) An unfamiliar woman enters, speaks
to the caregiver, and plays with the child. (3) The caregiver leaves the
child and the stranger together. (4) The caregiver returns and the stranger
leaves. (5) The caregiver says “bye-bye,” and leaves the child alone in the
room. (6) The stranger returns. (7) The caregiver returns and the stranger
leaves.
6 Waters (personal communication, July 14, 2004) emphasizes
the need to use the Q-sort in the child’s natural setting (e.g., on the playground,
at the shopping mall) as opposed to using this tool in the evaluator’s office.
He further notes that the research that might validate the use of attachment
assessment instruments in forensic (that is, custody) settings is absent largely
because of the confidentiality and discovery concerns associated with data
collection.
7 Noting that a child might resist or refuse contact with a
specific caregiver for many reasons entirely independent of the child’s IWM
of that caregiver (Garber, 1996; Johnston, 2003).
8 Stahl (1999), for example, observes that the children most
vulnerable to alienation are passive and dependent.
9 Cook (personal electronic communication, December 10, 2002)
suggests, “if the child is strongly attached to the denigrator and weakly
attached to the object, would not the effect of the denigration be greatest?
And yes, age, sex and developmental level of the child could also moderate
the denigration”
© 2004 B.D. Garber,
Ph.D. ° Not for duplication or distribution
10 Mikulincer and Arad (1999) observe that securely attached
adults maintain a more malleable or adaptive IWM of attachment figures: “[A]ttachment
working models appear to bias the way people cognitively process new information
about their relationship partner…. [A secure IWM] may allow people to tolerate
ambiguities and contradictions, to successfully cope with conflictual and
ambivalent situations” (p. 716-717).
11 Personal communication July 15, 2004, with William Whelan,
Ph.D. Further information is available at http://www.attachmentclinic.com
(retrieved July 11, 2004).
12 Johnston and Kelly (2004) refer to Gardner’s recommendations
as, “a license for tyranny” (p. xx)
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