Check me out on Speak Free Radio

I debate the question, 'is parental alienation like orange unicorns'

Over the weekend, I appeared on Speak Free Radio to talk about court reforms and to debate the validity of the term, parental alienation.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had this debate, as in the second half of the video below.

My arguments on this topic have remained largely the same, but it’s worthwhile to go over again.

As I’ve said, the biggest problem with parental alienation is that it is whatever each person wants it to be.

It’s a broad and nebulous term, which everyone seems to apply to their own situation.

One case I cited in the interview is Julie Goffstein; she was accused of parental alienation because she and her children stayed orthodox Jewish while her ex-husband became a Christian.

Peter Goffstein argued that his ex-wife’s religious choice was alienating him: “In so doing, Mr. Goffstein cited as reasons for the change in custody Mrs. Goffstein’s religious practices and the extent to which she imposed those religious practices on the children, which he claimed alienated the children from him,” a lawsuit filed by Julie Goffstein noted.

The host, Alex Baker, agreed that it’s broad, but so are most psychological phenomena.

Not nearly as broad as parental alienation.

He said it can be defined: when a child rejects a parent for no good reason.

This is similar to what Dr. Bill Bernet told me for Julie’s article.

Parental alienation “refers to a mental condition in which a child, whose parents are engaged in a high-conflict divorce, allies strongly with one parent (the preferred parent or alienating parent) and refuses to have a relationship with the other parent (with rejected parent or alienated parent) without a good reason,” according to Bill Bernet, a professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Vanderbilt University.

In that case, toddlers could never be alienated, as they are too young to hate, but that’s exactly what happened to Alyssa Karsagi.

Arredondo diagnosed Alyssa not only with parental alienation but Munchhausen by proxy.

“Aryel had been diagnosed with autistic disorder on 3-2-18. Aryel was not old to be tested formally on the Autistic Diagnostic Observational Scale so the diagnosis was influenced greatly by the information provided by Alyssa as the primary caretaker.” Arredondo said in the affidavit.

Parental alienation, “refers to a mental condition in which a child, whose parents are engaged in a high-conflict divorce, allies strongly with one parent (the preferred parent or alienating parent) and refuses to have a relationship with the other parent (with rejected parent or alienated parent) without a good reason,” according to Bill Bernet, a professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Vanderbilt University.

By this definition, accusing Alyssa of parental alienation sounds absurd. Her kids were two and one at the time of the divorce; neither was old enough to reject a parent, let alone reject them for no good reason.

The first problem is the ridiculous application of the term, but even if we removed all these ridiculous applications, the term is still hopelessly messy.

For instance, it’s nice to say that a child rejects a parent without a good reason, but how is it determined that there isn’t a good reason?

Teenagers reject their parents all the time, for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason at all: if that’s the standard, most teenagers are victims of parental alienation. As I said on the show, that would make James Dean’s character in Rebel Without a Cause a victim.

Dean felt alienated from both parents because they didn’t get him.

Did either parent deserve to be rejected? They bought him a bicycle, as his father said.

His mother domineered over his father; Dean rejected both: one for domineering and the other for not standing up for himself.

Is that parental alienation? Who determines a distinction between normal dysfunction in families from parental alienation? The same people propagating and profiting from it.

Finally, Alex Baker cited his own case where his ex-wife got a restraining order, kept the kids away, while telling their children he had abandoned them.

Is that parental alienation? Is it? Is that it? If parental alienation is that, and only that, then it’s real because that sort of thing happens.

Except, parental alienation is a basket far bigger than that.

Even if we isolate parental alienation to a small basket of behaviors, then we don’t need to label it anything.

All we have to do is describe the behavior.

People don’t want to do that. They don’t simply want to tell an appropriate person what happened; they are desperate to have a label.

That’s not real. That’s purple unicorns. That’s a label which anyone can apply to anything.