A study of reunification after parental alienation identifies six key themes that either helped or hindered reestablishing a relationship.
is when a child strongly aligns with one parent and rejects the other parent for unwarranted reasons. In practice, the alienating parent relies on parental alienating behaviors with the goal of undermining the child’s relationship with the target parent. For example, they might interrupt time with the targeted parent or portray them in a negative light. Consequently, the alienated child adopts a denigrative view of the target parent, and both are denied the opportunity to develop a relationship.
One participant said,"I think the time I went to my father and I hugged him was when I gave myself permission to love him. I think that’s what reunification is… It’s that permission, that feeling of, ‘I’m allowed to love you.’"The participants identified that divorce and alienation from their children led them to reflect on their own childhoods. It stirred questions about their behavior and curiosity about their experience of alienation from the point of view of a target parent.
Some women said that their alienating parent intentionally interfered with reunification with the target parent, which included reinforcing negative beliefs about or frustrations with the target parent.In some cases, siblings, stepparents, extended family, and friends interfered with reunification. On the flip side, family members who were not under the influence of the alienating parent were supportive of reunification.
A participant reflected,"I think that human beings being as complicated and complex as they are, nothing is clear cut and this concept that you describe as reunification, you know, it’s kind of like—doesn’t happen easily. It’s something that has to have considered thought and energy put into it. Like all relationships.Four of the women had trouble with trust in the reunification process, largely because of the fallout of parental alienation and parental alienating behaviors.
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