Little Could Be More Damaging

One of the occupational hazards of the mental health professions is hearing horrendous, heartbreaking stories of man’s cruelty to his fellow man. And some of the most egregious examples are cases of parental alienation.

Parental alienation refers to the situation wherein one parent deliberately attempts to cause his or her children to become estranged from the other parent. Most often, this occurs during or following a contested, messy divorce. In some cases, it can take place even within intact families. Generally, perpetrators harbor intense hatred for their ex-spouses, which they justify with the irrational belief that any contact with the ex-spouse would be psychologically and emotionally damaging for the children. As a result, the perpetrators will use any and all means to manipulate support for their diabolical and, at times, demonic tactics.

Of course, whenever a parent is physically or emotionally abusive to their children, it is a matter of pikuach nefesh for the other parent to do whatever is necessary to protect the children. That is not called parental alienation. What makes parental alienation so complex and difficult to recognize, therefore, is that perpetrators often attempt to portray the other parent as abusive, when that is simply not the case.

Take the “Steins,” for example. Whenever the family was together, such as at the Shabbos table, Avi often made disparaging remarks about his wife, Gitty, to their children. He then would encourage the children to speak similarly to her and even purchased gifts and treats for them when they did so, literally rewarding them for disrespecting their mother.