Parental Alienation: A Violent and Potentially Lethal Social and Psychological Phenomenon

Coercive-Controlling Behaviours That Kill Parents and Children

Dangerousness and Lethality Indicators

Little research has been done into how violent, coercive-controlling parental alienating behaviours (by the favoured parent) and parental alienation (the behavioural signs in the child) may lead to murder and suicide where alienated children kill their targeted parents and sometimes themselves. Emerging research suggests it is also a social and discursive phenomenon, which helps to understand extreme and lethal forms of parental alienation.

Parental Alienation Narratives and Behaviours That Kill

This study examined publicly documented cases of murder and suicide of alienating or alienated parents, extended family, and alienated children. The aim was to identify violent behaviours and narratives consistent with parental alienation theory featuring psychological and social markers of potential lethality.

Parental Alienation Dangerousness and Lethality Indicators

The research suggests that practitioners should conduct a risk analysis in parental alienation cases. Practitioners would already be familiar with general risk factors such as intense anger toward a partner, reversal of parental care and responsibility to the targeted-alienated parent and an extreme sense of desperation and hopelessness. This study suggests practitioners should extend their risk analysis to include the potential precursors to violent action.

These suggested precursors may be indicative of potentially extreme cases of violent parental alienation behaviours that could lead to fatal outcomes:

• A firmly held false belief that the targeted- alienated parent is unsafe or dangerous. E.g., False allegations of family violence or abuse.
  
  
• An intense, pervasive level of discursive violence where vilification and stigmatisation occur together with contempt for the targeted-alienated parent. E.g., Contempt, a campaign of denigration with unsafe, violent, dangerousness themes.
  

• Social deviancy expressed as violent narratives and induction into violent action normalised with little or no moral regard for the child or the targeted-alienated parent. E.g., Guiltless disregard, violent, suicidal narratives normalised in family relationships.

Citation

Korosi, S., Bernet, W., Graham, S. P., & Ross, D. (2023). Parental Alienation: A Violent and Potentially Lethal Social and Psychological Phenomenon. European Journal of Parental Alienation Practice ISSN:2990-8094, 1(1). https://journal.parentalalienation.eu 

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