Forty adults who were alienated
from a parent as a child participated in a qualitative research
study about their experience. A content analysis was conducted
on the transcripts and a comparison was undertaken to identify
similarities between alienating parents and cult leaders.
Results revealed that adults whose parents alienated them from
their other parent described the alienating parent much the way
former cult members describe cult leaders. The alienating
parents were described as narcissistic and requiring excessive
devotion and loyalty, especially at the expense of the targeted
parent. The alienating parents also were found to utilize many
of the same emotional manipulation and persuasion techniques
cult leaders use to heighten dependency on them. And, finally,
the alienating parents seemed to benefit from the alienation
much the way cult leaders benefit from the cult: they have
excessive control, power, and adulation. Likewise, the
participants reported many of the same negative outcomes that
former cult members experience such as low self-esteem, guilt,
depression, and lack of trust in themselves and others. These
findings can provide a useful framework for conceptualizing the
experience of parental alienation and should also be useful for
therapists who provide counseling and treatment to adults who
experienced alienation as a child.
Each year approximately one
million couples divorce. Many of these divorces involve
children. Research has consistently shown that children whose
parents divorce suffer emotionally and psychologically,
especially when the divorce is contentious and the children are
exposed to ongoing conflict between their parents (e.g., Amato,
1994; Johnston, 1994, Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1996; Wallerstein
& Lewis, 2004). Amato (1994), building on an earlier
meta-analysis of 92 studies, concluded that children who
experienced divorce, compared to samples of children in
continuously intact two-parent families, had higher rates of
negative outcomes including conduct problems, psychological
maladjustment, and poorer self-concepts. Using a qualitative
approach, Wallerstein and Lewis (2004) also found long-term
negative consequences of children’s experience of parental
divorce.
One subset of children of divorce
considered most at risk for negative outcomes are those
experiencing ongoing post-divorce conflict (Garrity & Baris,
1994, Turkat, 2002). The children in these families are at risk
of being subjected to some form of parental alienation in which
one parent turns the child against the other parent through
powerful emotional manipulation techniques designed to bind the
child to them at the exclusion of the other –targeted -- parent
(Darnall, 1998; Gardner, 1998; Garrity & Baris, 1994; Warshak,
2001). These alienating parents undermine the independent
thinking skills of their children and cultivate an unhealthy
dependency designed to satisfy the emotional needs of the adult
rather than the developmental needs of the child (Warshak,
2001).
According to
According to West and Langone
(1986) a cult (1) is a hierarchical social group in which there
is a leader who requires excessive devotion, (2) has a leader
who uses emotional manipulation and persuasion techniques to
heighten dependency on him or her, and (3) furthers the aims of
the leader at the expense of its members as well as others.[1]
Utilizing this definition provides a useful basis for comparing
cults to the characteristics of families in which parental
alienation occurs.
Of course, most families in
western cultures are hierarchical social groups. Power is not
evenly distributed among the members of the family. Parents have
legal, physical, moral, and psychological control over their
children. Even parents who respect their children’s
individuality and aim to promote competence and autonomy retain
some authority over their children. In some families, however,
parents exploit their inherent authority in order to alienate
the child from the other parent. The focus of the current study
was to determine whether these alienating parents resemble cult
leaders; that is, do they (1) require excessive devotion, (2)
use emotional manipulation techniques to heighten dependency,
and (3) garner psychological benefits at the expense of the well
being of the child. This analysis was accomplished through the
current study of interviews with adult who – when they were
children – were turned against one parent by the other.
A qualitative retrospective study
was conducted in the Fall of 2004. Guidelines for conducting
qualitative research developed by Berg (1998) were utilized
throughout the study. Subjects were recruited from word of mouth
and from postings on the internet. People who responded were
asked to briefly describe their situation in order to ensure
that the alienation was at least in part due to the behaviors
and attitudes of the other parent. Appointments were made with
people who met this criterion. At the beginning of each
appointment it was explained that the interview was voluntary,
for research purposes, and could be stopped at any time. It was
also explained that although I am a psychologist I am not a
clinician and would not be able to provide counseling. Informed
consent was obtained and the audiotape was turned on. Only one
person declined to participate after the study was explained.
The recruitment flyer called for people who had been turned
against one parent as a child due to the attitudes and behaviors
of the other parent. In this way, only people who were aware
that the alienation was engineered by the other parent were
included in the study. This allowed for an examination of the
process by which the individual became aware that he or she had
been manipulated to become alienated, which was one important
focus of the study.
Forty-two adults participated in
the interview process (2 were subsequently removed from data
analysis because of faulty tapes). An additional two people
agreed to participate but did not follow-up. Thus, data for 40
participants are presented. Participants were between 19 and 67
years of age (M=40.4, SD=11.4); 15 were male and 25 were female.
For three fourths (n=30) the parents divorced during the
participant’s childhood and in all but six cases the alienating
parent was the mother. Basic information about the 40
participants is provided in Table 1.
Table 1: Sample Description
|
ID |
Gender |
Age
at Interview |
Age
at Separation |
Custodial Parent |
Alienating
Parent |
|
1 |
Female |
40 |
3 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
2 |
Female |
47 |
NA |
Both |
Mother |
|
3 |
Female |
35 |
12 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
4 |
Female |
44 |
NA |
Both |
Mother |
|
5 |
Female |
30 |
13 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
6 |
Female |
30 |
Birth |
Mother |
Mother |
|
7 |
Male |
40 |
9 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
8 |
Female |
33 |
3 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
9 |
Male |
38 |
5 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
10 |
Female |
32 |
2 |
Father |
Father |
|
11 |
Male |
43 |
NA |
Both |
Mother |
|
12 |
Female |
50 |
NA |
Both |
Mother |
|
13 |
Female |
33 |
NA |
Both |
Mother |
|
14 |
Female |
36 |
2 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
15 |
Male |
67 |
NA |
Both |
Father |
|
16 |
Male |
43 |
5 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
17 |
Male |
28 |
11 |
Father |
Father |
|
18 |
Female |
26 |
2 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
19 |
Female |
51 |
NA |
Both |
Mother |
|
20 |
Male |
48 |
12 |
Mother |
Father |
|
21 |
Female |
44 |
12 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
22 |
Male |
39 |
NA |
Both |
Mother |
|
23 |
Female |
28 |
3 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
24 |
Male |
32 |
NA |
Both |
Mother |
|
25 |
Female |
43 |
12 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
26 |
Male |
57 |
2 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
27 |
Female |
19 |
8 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
28 |
Female |
32 |
NA |
Both |
Father |
|
29 |
Male |
63 |
NA |
Both |
Mother |
|
30 |
Male |
39 |
2 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
31 |
Female |
60 |
Birth |
Mother |
Mother |
|
32 |
Female |
50 |
11 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
33 |
Female |
21 |
2 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
34 |
Male |
39 |
4 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
35 |
Female |
19 |
1 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
36 |
Female |
41 |
3 |
Mother |
Father |
|
37 |
Male |
52 |
8 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
38 |
Male |
46 |
2 |
Mother |
Mother |
|
39 |
Female |
37 |
Birth |
Mother |
Mother |
|
40 |
Female |
50 |
5 |
Mother |
Mother |
Interviews followed a
semi-structured protocol which ensured that the same information
was obtained from all participants while allowing each person to
“tell their story” in full. The interview schedule was developed
in order to capture the 12 aspects of the qualitative research
interview as outlined in Kvale (1996, p. 27). That is, the
interview aimed to understand in a
focused way the
subject’s every day life world
as it related to parental alienation and the
meaning of the
alienation for them, in a
qualitative rather than quantitative form, with an
emphasis on description
of specific
experiences. This information was obtained through a sensitively
conducted interpersonal
exchange that because of the
deliberate naiveté
of the interviewer allowed the subject to express
ambiguous statements
and come to new and/or
changed understandings. The interview was conducted
in such a manner as to produce a
positive experience
for the participant.
The interview had five major
sections. The first section of the interview obtained basic
demographic information including age, gender, place of birth,
and so forth. Section two focused on memories of the marriage,
the participant’s relationship to each parent up until the time
of the separation/divorce, how the participant was told about
the separation, who moved out of the house and a description of
the custody/visitation schedule through the age of 18.[2]
The third section of the interview focused on the alienation,
beginning with which parent was the alienating parent and which
was the targeted parent. Participants were asked to list all of
the different strategies used by the alienating parent and to
provide examples of each. The participant was asked to describe
his/her relationship to the targeted parent and how that changed
over time, as well as the participant’s relationship to the
alienating parent during this period. This section ended with a
discussion of how the targeted parent tried to counter the
alienation, whether the participant knew about these attempts at
the time, and the perceived motivation of the alienating parent.
In the fourth section of the interview, the participants were
asked about when his or her thinking eventually changed about
the targeted parent. They were queried about when they began to
realize that their feelings and thoughts about the targeted
parent were induced by the alienating parent rather than based
wholly in reality. Whether or not the alienating parent was ever
confronted, whether the targeted parent was told about the
realization, and what, if anything, could the targeted parent
have done to mitigate the alienation were discussed. Any
reunification with the targeted parent was described in full
including who initiated it and what happened. The final section
of the interview entailed a conversation about the person’s life
at the present, including what kind of relationship he or she
had with each parent and what the impact of the alienation has
been. At the end of the interview a checklist was reviewed in
order to ensure consistency of data across participants.
Audiotapes were transcribed
verbatim. Transcripts were then submitted to a content analysis
in which each unique unit of thought was separated from the
transcript and taped onto an index card. Content analysis was
guided by an inductive grounded theory approach (Berg, 1998;
Straus, 1987) in which the texts were read in order to identify
the major themes. Cards were then coded according to its
essential idea (i.e., relationship with targeted parent prior to
the alienation, strategies utilized by the alienating parent,
impact of the alienation). In all there were 11 major categories
including a category on the strategies utilized by the
alienating parent. These “strategy” cards were further coded
into sub-categories that produced the major findings presented
in the current paper. This paper also draws on the data
collected pertaining to their relationship with the alienating
parent. All quotes are attributed to the participant number so
that the reader can determine the age and gender of the speaker
as well as whether his or her parents separated/divorced, age of
that event, and who the custodial parent was.
Cults are organized around a
leader, typically described as a charismatic individual who
maintains ultimate power and authority over the group. Within
the cult the leader is designated as worthy of devotion and awe
because of his or her superior capacity to comprehend the true
nature of reality. Due to this supposed unique and valuable
knowledge, leaders are presented as able to understand members
better than they understand themselves. It is held that through
great personal sacrifice, cult leaders are willing to share this
knowledge on behalf of the members who require the wisdom and
the guidance of the leader in order to function. In return,
members are expected to reserve their love and devotion
exclusively for the leader, who has earned an elevated place at
the center of their emotional lives. Cult leaders have been
compared to both psychopaths (Tobias & Lalich, 1994) and
narcissists (Shaw, 2003) because of their lack of humility in
presenting themselves as superior to others and because of their
willingness to use their charm and persuasion skills in order to
exploit and unduly influence others.
The adult children who
participated in the interviews described the alienating parent
in similar terms. In particular, they perceived the alienating
parent as needing to be the center of attention at all times and
insisting on being the center of the child’s emotional life.
“She was the center and everything revolved around her.” (31)
Another participant said, “Mainly I think she always wants to be
your everything. She wants to be your center of attention. And
so she liked the fact that by making me hate him all I had was
her.” (27) In fact, many of the interview subjects described
their parents as narcissistic, either using that label or using
precise descriptors that called that term to mind.
In cults, it is not enough to feel
devotion to the leader; members are expected to demonstrate
their devotion on a regular basis. Expressions of devotion
include putting the needs of the leader first, never questioning
the authority of the leader, confessing imperfections, allowing
the leader to make all important decisions, and making public
declarations of faith and love. These actions reassure the
leader that the member is fully indoctrinated and further
solidify the member’s commitment to the cult (Lifton, 1989). In
many cases the expressions of devotion are public, with the aim
of turning a public declaration of devotion into an inner desire
to be loyal to the leader. By requiring such public assertions
of faith and trust in the leader, cult leaders are exploiting
the natural tendency in people to want their beliefs to be
consistent with their actions (e.g. Festinger, 1957). In this
way saying becomes believing.[3]
This process also occurred in the
families of alienation. The participants reported feeling
pressured to show their devotion to the alienating parent. Many
described their relationship with the alienating parent as one
in which their parent’s needs were felt as more real and urgent
to them than their own. They recalled staying home from social
activities to tend to their parent, to keep them company, to
take care of younger siblings, or to perform household duties.
“I did what I could do to make her life easier because her life
was so hard because of my father. That was my mantra, mom’s life
is hard. I have to try to help her. (40)” They chose friends,
hobbies, and eventually careers and spouses to please their
parent. Others reported that they grew up believing that it was
their job to satisfy the needs of their parent, exemplified in
the statement, “I was there to help her. It would make me want
to try harder to please her. I learned how to be amusing at a
very young age. “ (27) In general, they experienced themselves
as extensions of their parent, their primary function in life
being to take care of, please, admire, reassure, and be devoted
to them.
A particularly important
expression of devotion was an allegiance to and preference for
the alienating parent over the targeted parent. Some of the
participants recalled being asked to spy on the targeted parent
and keep secrets from him or her. Many participants said that
they had made negative reports to the alienating parent about
the targeted parent such as saying that they did not have a good
time during visits, exaggerating small infractions or hurts, and
making false claims of harm. Joining the alienating parent in
the belittling of the targeted parent was another means of
showing devotion. A few participants recalled mocking the
targeted parent, and one told of being encouraged to spit, hit,
and sexually humiliate his mother at the behest of his father.
Devotion also took the form of making accusations against the
targeted parent for real and fabricated allegations, including
stealing the child’s personal items and shirking financial
obligations such as child support payments.
As with cults, loyalty and
devotion in alienating families was extracted either through
sweet seduction or through wrathful commands (and usually an
alternating sequence of both). An example of the former was
provided by a woman who described her mother and stepfather as
being “nicer than nice,” doing everything for her until she
eventually believed, “that they were the only ones we could rely
on, that we had to be with them. (1)” In her family,
demonstrations of loyalty took the form of hiding from her
father when he came to visit and being rude to people in the
neighborhood that her mother and stepfather singled out as being
worthy of contempt. Another woman recalled her mother saying,
“Don’t you want to stay here with me and your sister? Your
sister understands that to go over there is to go with people
who don’t like me. I am your mother don’t you want to like me?
(33)” Through a combination of rhetorical skill and guilt
inducement this mother compelled her daughter to reject her
father.
At the other end of the spectrum
of strategies for extracting loyalty was a young man who grew up
with a raging drunken father. He explained that, “There was a
constant ritual everyday. He would come in my room in the middle
of the night and make me profess my faith to him and if I didn’t
and if I didn’t stay away from everybody else that he was going
to kill himself. He would do this and I would have nobody.” (17)
And one woman reported that her father wanted her to profess her
exclusive love for him, and would beat her until she did so.
Many participants reported having to constantly reassure their
alienating parents that they loved them best of all, and that
they did not in fact have positive feelings for the targeted
parent. “She’d start crying and say we didn’t love her and
that’s just how she is.” (36)
The ultimate sign of devotion and
loyalty to a cult leader entails renouncing all other sources of
influence. Just as cult leaders require an exclusive place in
the hearts and minds of the members, these alienating parents
seemed to want to have sole claim on their children. Allegiance
to the other parent was not allowed in these families and the
participants understood that there was to be an exclusive and
all encompassing relationship with only one parent. They were
made to feel that any contact with the targeted parent was a
betrayal of the worst kind. One man said of his mother, “If I
talked about my dad it was like sticking a knife in her back.”
(9) Another said he felt like a traitor when he came back from a
visit. Ultimately, many of the participants were encouraged if
not coerced to renounce their relationship with the targeted
parent. Loving both parents would have been unthinkable, just as
belonging to two cults at the same time is not possible. And in
this way, many of the participants felt that they had to make a
choice between their parents. Naturally, they chose the parent
whom they believed really loved them and was able to take care
of them, the one who had been telling them all along that the
other parent was unsafe, worthy of contempt, and did not even
love them in return (see section beginning on page 14 below). In
time, most of the participants were turned against the targeted
parent completely, withdrawing their love and natural affection
for them. More than one made a comment such as, “I remember
thinking he should go ahead and die. I wish he’d just go get in
a car accident. I wish he’d die. I didn’t want him to come
home.” (22) Another said, “I did believe her that he was a
terrible rotten person who beat my mother and thank god she
divorced him.” (16) The intensity of these and other similar
statements reflect the utter lack of ambivalence, (one parent is
all good while the other is all bad), which is a hallmark of
parental alienation syndrome (
Thus, in these families, the
normal love and respect that children naturally feel for a
parent appeared to be insufficient to satisfy the narcissistic
demands of the alienating parent. What they seemed to want from
their children was a level of adulation and exclusivity
typically reserved for cult leaders. They seemed to garner that
level of devotion in much the same way that cult leaders do:
through a range of emotional manipulation and persuasion
techniques. The strategies employed by the alienating parents –
as described by their adult children -- are described below.
The second characteristic of cults
is that leaders manipulate the thoughts and feelings of its
members in order to promote a sense of dependency on them (e.g.,
Hassan, 1988; Lifton, 1989; Singer, 1996). This too was borne
out in the interviews of adults who as children were alienated
from a parent due to the actions and behaviors of the other
parent. There were five primary mechanisms for manipulating the
thoughts and feelings of the children: (1) relentless bad
mouthing of the character of the other parent in order to reduce
their importance and value (2) creating the impression that the
targeted parent was dangerous and planned to hurt the child in
order to instill fear in and rejection of that parent (3)
deceiving children about the targeted parent’s feelings for them
in order to create hurt, resentment, and psychological distance
(4) withdrawing love if the child indicated affection or
positive regard for the targeted parent in order to heighten the
need to please the alienating parent and (5) erasing the other
parent from the life and mind of the child through minimizing
actual and symbolic contact. Each of these is discussed in turn.
When participants were asked about
what the alienating parent did to try to turn them against the
other parent, the first and most frequently mentioned strategy
was badmouthing. It may have featured so prominently in their
minds because it was an overt and not particularly subtle
behavior and because it was so pervasive. Most participants
remarked on the constant litany of negative comments made about
the targeted parent to the child and to others in front of the
child. Many of the comments were general statements about the
lack of worth of the person as a whole such as being a piss poor
dad, a whore and a slut, not the man you think he is, a good for
nothing drunk probably in jail right now.
Common complaints were that the person was a cheat, an
alcoholic, and someone who did not care about his or her family.
One woman recalled her step-mother complaining about how lazy
her mother was because she used instant oatmeal in the mornings.
The alienating parent seemed to operate under the assumption
that if an individual is told something enough times it becomes
true in their minds, and that did seem to be the case. When
asked if they believed the badmouthing, they responded, “Oh
absolutely! At no time did I ever think my mom wasn’t telling
the truth.” (38), “All of it. She was my mother. She was God.”
(34), “All of it! I believed her for a really long time.” (35),
“I became really angry at my father. I believed her.” (29) The
barrage of negative statements was noteworthy for its apparent
one-sidedness (nothing good was recalled being said about the
other parent to balance out the complaints) and its lack of
appropriateness. Even if true these things should probably not
be said to a child (although there might be certain
circumstances in which explaining negative aspects of the other
parent could be beneficial, Warshak, 2001). Participants
recalled that their alienating parents explained concepts and/or
used words such as abortion, womanizer, rape, alcoholic well
before the children knew or needed to knew what these concepts
meant.
Badmouthing of the other parent
seemed to serve the same function as bad mouthing the “outside
world” for cults: promotion of dependency (Kent, 2004; Lifton,
1989; Shaw, 2003). Badmouthing creates in cult members a belief
that the leader is the only person who truly cares and can be
trusted; everyone else is contemptible and/or dangerous. The
alienating parents -- through badmouthing – seemed to convey to
their children that they were the only parent who loved and
cared for them, who could be trusted. Many of the participants
recalled their parents explicitly inducing dependency with
comments such as, “I did everything for you and he did nothing.”
(40) “Basically everything good that happened was because of
her.” (29) One participant explained that after a long litany of
complaints were spewed about the targeted parent the alienating
parent would then comfort the child by telling her, “I shouldn’t
be too upset because I had her.” (39) Another participant
explained that, “He told me he was the only one who cared about
me, the only one who wanted me, that no one else cared about me
over and over and over again.” (17) Another participant said of
her mother, “In my mind she was everything. She was all I had.”
(27) The constant badmouthing created in the child the belief
that the targeted parent was not worthy of love and respect,
much the way cult leaders aim to diminish all other authority
figures in the eyes of members.
Sometimes the badmouthing took on
a decidedly darker tone and the child was led to believe that
the targeted parent was capable of inflicting great harm to
them. Participants were told that the targeted parent had beaten
them, wanted to abort them, planned on throwing them in the
river, were reckless with them when they were babies, didn’t
have their best interest at heart, and were intent on kidnapping
them. One participant remembered the first time she saw her
father and stepmother in five years, “Up to the point they drove
up into the driveway my mom was sitting there telling me, ‘You
better watch it because they are going to take you and they are
never going to bring you back. They are going to kidnap you.
That lady is from
Badmouthing in order to instill
fear of the targeted parent seemed to serve at least two
purposes. Because the interviews were conducted with the adult
children and not the parents themselves, the motivations of the
alienating parents cannot really be known. However, based on the
participants’ descriptions of their experiences with the
alienating parent, the following analysis is offered. First,
badmouthing seemed to make the child want to avoid the targeted
parent and thus furthered the alienating parent’s goal of
severing that relationship. In addition, it seemed to heighten
the child’s need for a protector, a role the alienating parent
was probably only too willing to play. In this way the bond
between the alienating parent and the child was further
strengthened and reinforced. As attachment theorists have found
(Bowlby 1969, Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978), when a
child senses fear (real or imagined) his or her desire to be
near and comforted by the attachment figure/caretaker is
activated. This is a biologically determined protective
mechanism designed to ensure the safety of the vulnerable within
any species. Alienating parents exploited this innate mechanism
in order to artificially induce their child’s desire to be near
them.
Creating fear in order to activate
dependency needs is a strategy that has also been used in cults.
False scenarios of doomsday and threat from external forces have
been fabricated in order to heighten members’ dependency on the
leader. Jonestown, Branch Davidians, and Heaven’s Gate are just
a few examples of cults that have propagated a sense of imminent
danger and, therefore, a belief that the end was near (either
from natural or social forces) in order to further a dependency
on the leader. Muster (2004) reports that in the International
Society for Krishna Consciousness the leaders announced that a
nuclear war was impending, which resulted in a reorganization of
the members into a crisis mode of dependency and fear. In this
sense cult leaders behave like insensitive parents who instill
fear and dependency rather than encourage independence and
competence.
Many of the participants were told
that the targeted parent did not love them or want them. “She
said he didn’t love nobody but himself. He didn’t care about
us.” (36) Another participant said, “That’s another thing my
mother told me was that my dad didn’t want anything to do with
us boys. He just walked away from us.” (34) One woman said “She
told me that my father wasn’t my friend at all, that he had
contempt for ‘a lout like you.’” (12) Another was told, “I was
not important to him. His other kids came first. I was last on
his list.” (39) In many cases the alienating parent actually
engineered situations to make it appear as if the targeted
parent did not care and then used that very situation to
convince the child that the parent did not love them. For
example, one mother threw away letters the father was sending
and then asked her daughter to explain how her father could love
her if he did not even bother to write. Other parents refused to
accept phone calls, moved away without providing contact
information, and told the targeted parent that the child did not
want to see them. Because the alienating parents eliminated
communication with the targeted parent and controlled all
information, the participants had no means with which to
question the veracity of what they were being told. Eventually,
they capitulated under the weight of the “evidence” and
concluded that the targeted parent did not love them after all,
further fueling their hurt and resentment. In addition, once
they accepted this as “fact,” the alienating parent became even
more important to them as their sole source of parental love,
support, and care. In cults the use of black/white and us/them
thinking promotes the belief that anyone outside the cult is
necessarily wrong and/or does not really love or care for them
(Tobias & Lalich, 1994).
A classic cult technique is to
create a sense of psychological imbalance and anxiety in members
so that they are preoccupied with winning back the praise and
acceptance of the leader. Sometimes this is accomplished through
the unpredictable use of rewards and punishments (Goldberg &
Goldberg, 1988). One particularly potent form of punishment is
for leaders to withdraw their love and acceptance of a member in
order to create a sense of insecurity. Panic ensues as the
member scrambles to get back in the leader’s good graces. Almost
everything else becomes secondary to regaining approval and
equilibrium and considerable effort is expended figuring out how
to avoid expulsion from the leader’s realm of acceptance.
Many of the study participants
described this same experience. They recalled experiencing
withdrawal of love by the alienating parent if they indicated
any positive regard for the targeted parent. They learned to
pretend they had a poor visit with the targeted parent in order
to avoid rejection upon return home. “She was always in a bit of
a mood or temper when we came back.” (5) Many spoke of getting
the cold shoulder, of being emotionally cut off from their
parent. “She’d shut me out. It would be just silence.” (31)
There was an emotional price to pay if they had contact with the
targeted parent. “She would make life rotten for us.” (2) “She
couldn’t stand to see me actually get on with my father. She’d
make her disapproval evident if I so much as spoke to him in a
civilized way. This disapproval was in the form of throwing sour
looks my way, and then turning her back and ignoring me.” (12)
Another participant said, “She’d treat me like the enemy.” (37)
Some mothers accused their children of not loving them if they
went to visit the other parent, some threatened to abandon their
children, and one woman recalled her mother pointedly serving
her an inferior portion of food upon returning from a visit.
When asked what it was like to come home from a visit to his
father, one participant responded, “Oh it was very cold. She
would give me the cold shoulder.” (10) Several said their
alienating parent would not speak to them for several hours or
the rest of the evening following returning from a visit.
Because of the child’s profound dependency on the alienating
parent, participants found it very hard to tolerate their
disapproval and subsequent withdrawal of love. “I was scared to
disagree with my mother. Any disagreement on my part would cause
her to either turn her venom against me or threaten that ‘things
would never be the same again after an argument like that’,
which left me heartbroken and devastated.” (12) When imagining
what it would feel like to experience the disapproval of the
alienating parents, others spoke of feeling “lost,” “terrified,”
and “all alone.” Many said that when the alienating parent
withdrew their love, they became preoccupied with winning that
parent back. “It was scary. It made me want to try harder.” (40)
Thus, fear of withdrawal of love was a powerful threat that was
used by the alienating parents to control their children and
reduce their affection towards and relationship with the
targeted parent.
Cults tend to be exclusive social
environments in which members are surrounded by like-minded
people. Lifton (1989) described the totalistic nature of cults
as milieu control. The likelihood of contact with alternate
viewpoints and perspectives is almost nonexistent. The leader
controls the reality of the members by controlling the flow of
information in and out of the cult. There is little opportunity
for countervailing opinions and points of view to be expressed
to members. There is only one shared reality, which must be
accepted in order to be a member of the cult. All other ideas
are excluded. Newspapers are not read, television is not viewed,
contact with outsiders who might question or introduce members
to other ways of thinking and believing is strictly forbidden
(e.g., Muster, 2004).
The alienating parents of the
study participants were described as operating the family in
much the same way, particularly as it related to the targeted
parent. Participants were forbidden to have contact with anyone
who might speak well of the targeted parent, especially extended
family members. Most importantly, contact with the targeted
parent was minimized or eliminated all together. In this way,
the child did not have any independent experiences of the
targeted parent and the parent him/herself had no opportunity to
explain his/her side or counter the campaign of lies. Few of the
participants had pictures of the targeted parent, and none were
allowed to talk about him or her. Any mention of the targeted
parent was felt to be taboo, something to be avoided at all
costs in order to keep the peace in the family. “My mother would
get so mad she’d almost start shaking if the subject of my
father came up.” (18) One woman was shoved down the stairs when
she mentioned her father; and a young man recalled, “Every time
I mention my dad all hell breaks loose. It was almost as if I
knew if I mentioned that I wanted to go see my dad I would be
brow beaten into submission.” (9) Another study participant
recalled that when she said she wanted to see her father her
mother jumped up from the dinner table and went into her room
crying. A few moments later her stepfather informed her that she
would be thrown out of the house if she mentioned her father
again. One woman recalled not being allowed to bring home gifts
received during visits with her mother because, “It wasn’t fair
to the other kids. I wasn’t allowed to talk about it.” (10) In
all these ways, the presence of the targeted parent was
minimized and their place in the hearts and minds of the
children was diminished.
Through these five strategies, the
alienating parents elevated themselves into an esteemed place in
their children’s eyes and cultivated in their children a
profound dependency on their approval and acceptance. The third
characteristic of cults – the ways in which this dependency
benefits the leader and harms the members – is explored next.
The third feature of cults is that
they operate for the benefit of the leader and at the expense of
its members. While they claim to exist for the benefit of the
members -- who are in need of the wisdom and guidance of the
leader -- the reality is just the opposite: The leader benefits
from the experience much more than the members. The benefits of
cults to their leaders are both financial and psychological.
Leaders of cults have unlimited access to the money and assets
accumulated, and often spend disproportionately on themselves,
justifying such expenses as the minimum compensation for all
their sacrifice and hard work on behalf of the members (Singer,
1996). The psychological rewards of cult leadership are also
plentiful. Leaders become all-powerful, all-knowing, worshipped
individuals who can exercise control and authority at their
whim.
Similarly, the alienating parents
seemed to benefit from the lofty place they held in their
children’s lives and from the elimination of the targeted
parent. First, they appeared to have benefited by not having to
share parenting time, by avoiding the complications of
coordinating schedules, and by not having to deal with the
cooperation and compromise entailed in sharing a child with
someone they no longer lived with or loved. As
As the benefits to the cult
leaders are many, so too are the costs to cult members. Much has
been written about the loss of identity, the loss of time with
family, and the loss of dreams that result from extended
participation in cults (Langone, 1993; McKibben, Lynn, &
Malinoski, 2002; Singer, 1996; Tobias & Lalich, 1994). The costs
of cult participation are many, both psychological and
financial. Many cults require hefty membership fees while others
encourage if not require members to turn over all their assets
and belongings to the leader or produce economic dependency on
the cult. In addition to the financial costs associated with
cult membership, former members describe the emotional harm done
to them as the worst part of the experience (Singer, 1996). The
emotional costs include (1) diminished self-esteem from
excessive dependence (2) guilt from having hurt friends and
family, (3) depression and sadness over time lost with friends
and family, and (4) difficulties trusting self and other (Tobias
& Lalich, 1994). The participants in the study experienced each
of these negative emotional outcomes as a result of being
alienated from one parent due to the actions and behaviors of
the other.[4]
Former cult members report low
self-esteem and shame from having been duped and manipulated by
the leader. They feel foolish for having believed the lies and
half-truths and for not questioning what was told to them. They
also suffer from low self-esteem due to the cultivation of
excessive dependence on the leader. They were led to believe
that they could not function outside the authoritarian confines
of the cult, and that they were incapable of knowing what is in
their own best interest.
Adults whose parents alienated
them from the other parent also reported problems with
self-esteem. Some expressed the belief that they should have
questioned more what they were being told about the targeted
parent, while others recognized that as a child they really had
no reason to doubt what their parents were telling them. “Of
course I believed my mother. She was god.” (34) This was not the
primary source of their reduced self-esteem. For them, it came
from the internalization of the hatred of the targeted parent.
When the alienating parent denigrated the targeted parent to the
child, the child assumed that he too was bad and worthy of
contempt because that person was at least in part inside him
(genetically and from an early relationship)
Self-esteem problems in former
cult members also results from leaders fostering a belief that
parents, friends, and family did not really love and care for
them. Only the cult leader loves the person the way they deserve
to be loved. This experience was also seen in adults whose
parents alienated them from their other parent. Many recalled
being told that the targeted parent did not really love or want
them. Over and over it was explained that the targeted person
left them, did not care about them, did not really love them.
This too resulted in diminished self-esteem because the child
assumed that if the targeted parent did not love them, they must
be unworthy of love. When parental love is lacking the child
will naturally assume himself rather than the parent to be the
cause, resulting in an unrealistically negative self-image. It
is much too frightening to think that the parent is at fault
(e.g., Golomb, 1992; Peck, 1983). Thus, the study participants
believed themselves to be unlovable because they were told that
their parent did not love them.
Former cult members often feel
guilty about the harm their cult involvement has caused to their
loved ones. Once they realize that they have squandered their
money and assets and that they have treated badly those who
really love them, they feel ashamed that they were capable of
behaving so callously towards people who did not deserve it.
Former cult members recall the times that they were rude or
belittling or rejecting of their friends and family and feel
embarrassed at their own behavior.
Participants in the study also
experienced guilt at having betrayed the targeted parent. One
man who was made to verbally abuse his father on the telephone
worried about what impact that had on his father, “I don’t know
if he believed we really felt that way or not because we were
saying these things to him. I am hoping in my heart that he knew
but it must have hurt like hell anyway.” (7) He described his
own feeling at the time as being like “slicing his wrists.”
Another woman said she was a “horrible horrible person” (19) for
joining her mother against her father.
Depression is a common experience
for former cult members. They feel saddened about the time they
lost with their friends and family on the outside and for the
fact that they gave up their personal life dreams, aspirations
and goals. Depression was also prevalent in the adults
interviewed for this study. Like former cult members, they too
felt badly about the time they lost. “I missed many years with
my father. Many wonderful years I could have had with him.” (31)
explained one participant. One man who did not find his father
until much later in life said he fully expected to meet him for
the first time standing over his grave.” (38) The participants
expressed the belief that their depression was also due to
feeling rejected by the targeted parent, in addition to the time
they lost with them. An older woman whose mother died when she
was just two-months-old provided a particularly poignant example
of this. At the time of the mother’s death, her father was
having difficulty caring for five children while holding down a
full-time job that required him to be away from the home on
alternating weeks. For this reason, he agreed to let his sister
raise the baby. This aunt, whom the participant called mommy,
subsequently alienated her from her father. She prevented
visitation, denigrated him to her, and let it be known that any
preference for the father would be disloyal, hurtful, and not
tolerated. Thus, the participant only saw her father a few times
a year despite the fact that he lived less than an hour away.
Not only did she lose her mother from an early death but she
lost her father as well. Because the loss of her father was
unnecessary, she was particularly bitter. “You lose your mother
and you lose your father and you’re alone. I always felt alone.”
(31) Another man explained his experience with depression, “I
feel like I have a hole in my soul. And it is not something you
can physically point to and say here it is but you know it is
there.” (38)
The impact of the loss of the
targeted parent was exacerbated by the fact they were not
allowed to openly mourn this loss. In general the participants
were discouraged from talking about and/or expressing interest
in their relationship with the targeted parent. Their loss was
not acknowledged and they received no emotional support in
dealing with it. In fact, quite the opposite message was
conveyed, that it was a positive event for the targeted parent
to be out of their lives, essentially a “good riddance to bad
rubbish” message. Inability to mourn a loss or significant life
change is believed to be associated with subsequent depression
(Bowlby, 1980; Kubler-Ross, 1997) and this was certainly borne
out in the lives of the participants.
Lack of trust in themselves and
others is a recurrent theme in interviews with former cult
members. They know that they were manipulated once and worry
that it can happen again. They realize that what they believed
about the cult and the leader was actually not the case, and
therefore, do not trust themselves to be good judges of other’s
motives and character. This theme was also common among the
study participants. They did not trust their own perceptions of
people because from a young age they were told by one parent
that the other parent (whom most had positive memories of) was
bad, dangerous, or in some other way worthy of fear or contempt.
Once they realized that they had been manipulated and that what
they been led to believe their whole lives about the targeted
parent was not the truth (or at least not the whole truth) they
became even more unsure of what to believe and whom to trust.
“Everything I believed is not so true.” (5) In addition, some
women who were alienated from their fathers reported not being
able to trust that men would be able to love them. They assumed
that if their father (their first male love) did not love them
enough to stay involved in their lives no man would find them
worthy of love and commitment. One woman continually created
conflict in her romantic relationships; she tested them to see
how much they could take before they eventually rejected her.
When they did finally leave, she concluded that of course that
would happen, all men eventually leave her as her father did.
The 40 adults who participated in
this study described their parents in much the same terms that
cult leaders are described. These parents required excessive
devotion and utilized a range of strategies in order to
cultivate their children’s dependence on them. The perceived
impact of the alienation as described by the participants
matched many of the outcomes associated with cult involvement.
These findings should provide a useful framework for adults who
were alienated from a parent as a child and for clinicians
working with this population.
Several methodological limitations
need to be noted. First, a retrospective design was utilized
which did not allow for a determination of causality. That is,
although the participants described the outcomes of the
alienation from their perspective, it cannot be known whether in
fact such associations exist. In particular, many of the
outcomes described (low self esteem, lack of trust) may be due
to the divorce per se rather than the alienation more
specifically. Without a comparison group of adult children of
divorce who did not experience parental alienation, it is not
possible to determine the alienation-specific outcomes. However,
to the extent that the study aims to describe the participants’
felt experience, the findings can be considered valid. Another
limitation is that the participants varied in their age at the
time of the interview. Thus, some had not had a chance yet to
experience all of the possible negative outcomes described
above. For example, a nineteen year-old participant had less
time to experience depression or guilt than say a 60-year-old
participant. In that respect, the findings may under-represent
the negative outcomes of parental alienation. Additionally, it
is quite likely that there are many adults who were alienated
from a parent and were not aware of the fact that they had been
manipulated by their parent. There is no way to ascertain the
outcomes for these adults. Thus, part of the outcomes described
above may be due to the awareness of the experience rather than
to the experience itself. And, finally, the motivations and
experiences of the alienating parent were not directly assessed.
The only source of data was the perceptions, beliefs, and
memories of the adult children. For example, it is possible that
the alienating parents suffered as well and that there may have
been some justification for the negative statements made about
the targeted parent.
Despite the limitations noted
above, the findings presented in this paper represent the first
glimpse at the felt experience of adults who experienced
parental alienation as children. To that extent they can be used
to develop hypotheses that can be tested in future research. In
particular, three directions for future research suggest
themselves. First, a longitudinal study of divorced families
would be very helpful for determining the proportion in which
alienation occurs. To date, there are no empirically-
In the meantime, these findings
may be useful to clinicians working with adults who experienced
parental alienation as a child. The participants in this study
seemed to believe that what they experienced was so unusual and
idiosyncratic as to defy classification or categorization. It is
possible that utilizing the heuristic of cults may provide them
with a framework for understanding their experience and their
response to it. A body of knowledge has been developed about
cult leaders and the strategies they use which may help the
adult children of parental alienation feel connected to a larger
group and may provide them with a way to think about their
parents and themselves that facilitates recovery and growth.
Parents who are currently losing a child to an alienating parent
may also find this framework useful for understanding the
changes they see in their children. For these reasons the
current findings should be used to spur future research and
could inform practice as deemed useful by clinicians currently
working with those affected by parental alienation.
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Submitted to Cultic Studies Review
December 23, 2004
Revised February 22, 2005
[1] Other definitions of cults exist
although none is definitive. See Langone (2004) and McKibben,
Lynn, and Malinoski, (2002) for a discussion of definitional
issues.
[2] This section was eliminated for the
participants whose parents never separated/divorced.
[3] Although Ofshe (1992) argues that the
beliefs adopted may be situationally based and discarded once
the person is removed from the environment.
[4] They also experienced other outcomes that may be unique to parental alienation (Baker, 2004).