Attachment Based Parental Alienation

 A Scientifically Based Model of "Parental Alienation"  

Understanding the Pathology  Role-Reversal Relationship  

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A role-reversal relationship is one in which the child is used to meet the parent’s emotional and psychological needs. In normal and healthy parent-child relationships, the child uses the  parent to meet the child’s emotional and psychological needs. In a normal and healthy parent-child relationship, the parent is said to act as a “regulatory object” for the child.
 

In a normal and healthy parent-child relationship, when the child  becomes upset and distressed (dysregulated), the parent acts in soothing  and structuring ways to bring the child back into an emotionally and  behaviorally organized and regulated state.  The parent acts as a  “regulatory object” – also called a “regulatory other” – for the child. This is normal and healthy.  The child is using the parent to meet  the child’s needs.  The parent is an external “regulatory other” for the  child. 

In a role-reversal relationship, however, this normal and healthy  parent-child relationship is turned upside down.  In a role-reversal  relationship, the parent uses the child to meet the parent’s emotional  and psychological needs. In a role-reversal relationship, the parent uses the child as a “regulatory object” to stabilize the parent’s emotional and psychological state.   

When the parent is upset and distressed, the child responds in ways  that soothe the parent, keeping the parent in an organized and regulated  state.  The child becomes an external “regulatory object” for the  parent. A role-reversal relationship is extremely pathological and damaging  to the healthy emotional and psychological development of the child.  It  robs the child of self-authenticity and damages self-structure  development. Instead, in a role-reversal relationship, the child continually  monitors the parent’s emotional and psychological state and must become  who the unstable parent needs the child to be in order to keep the  parent in an emotionally and psychologically organized and regulated  state.  

In clinical and developmental psychology, a role-reversal  relationship is considered a psychological “boundary violation” that  violates the child’s psychological integrity.  At its more  extreme, a role-reversal relationship is essentially a form of  psychological incest in which the parent psychologically violates and  intrudes into the psychological integrity of the child so that the  parent can meet the parent’s own emotional and psychological needs by  using the child as a “regulatory object” for the parent’s fragile and  damaged emotional and psychological state.

A role-reversal relationship is extremely pathological.  

Inverted Family Hierarchy

In a healthy and normal-range family, parents occupy positions of executive leadership within the family hierarchy.  Parents have more knowledge than children.  Parents have more experience than children. Parents have better judgement than children.  Parents therefore healthy-hierarchy occupy positions of executive leadership within the family.  

 That is a healthy family hierarchy.

In a healthy and normal-range family, children cooperate with the  executive leadership provided by parents.  Children express wants and  desires, but children also cooperatively defer to the executive  leadership of parents.  This represents a healthy family hierarchy. 

In a healthy family hierarchy, parents judge children’s behavior as  appropriate or inappropriate, and parents deliver consequences (rewards  and punishments) based on parental judgements of children’s behavior.   This reflects a normal and healthy family hierarchy. 

An inverted family hierarchy, however, flips the normal and healthy  family hierarchy upside down, so that children become empowered into  positions of executive judgement OVER parents. In an inverted hierarchy, children are empowered to judge parents’  behavior as appropriate or inappropriate, and children are empowered to  then deliver inverted-hierarchy“punishments” to parents based on  child-judgments of the parent.  The normal and healthy family hierarchy  is flipped upside down.  

An inverted hierarchy is caused by either of two possibilities:
1.)  Parental Abdication of Power:  The judged  parent is not exercising appropriate parental authority and executive  leadership and the parent has instead abdicated parental authority and  position in the hierarchy to the child.
2.)  Cross-Generational Coalition:  The child is  drawing power to judge a parent from a hidden cross-generational  coalition in the family that the child has formed with an allied parent  against the other parent.  Through the covert and hidden alliance with  the supposedly “favored” parent, the allied parent is empowering the  child in the family hierarchy to an elevated position above the other  parent, in which the child feels “entitled” to judge the adequacy of the  parent.

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A cross-generational coalition represents a child being  “triangulated” into the inter-spousal conflict by the allied (and  supposedly “favored” parent), thereby turning a two-person  (spouse-spouse) marital conflict into a three-person  (spouse-child-spouse) triangulated conflict in which the child is caught  in the middle of the spousal conflict, a pawn in the inter-spousal  conflict. 

In the general popular culture, the construct of “triangulation” is  called “putting the child in the middle” of the spousal conflict – which  generally involves one parent (the allied and supposedly “favored”  parent) manipulating the child into “choosing sides” in the  inter-spousal conflict. 

The function of the cross-generational coalition is to allow the  allied and supposedly “favored” parent to divert spousal anger at the  other spouse through cutoff from the child.  The child is being used by the  allied parent to meet the allied parent’s own emotional and  psychological needs in the inter-spousal conflict with the other spouse. 

The renowned family systems therapist, Jay Haley, refers to a  cross-generational coalition as a “perverse triangle” because the  formation of a cross-generational coalition represents a “boundary  violation” involving a “role-reversal relationship” in which the parent  is using the child to meet the parent’s emotional and psychological  needs. 

Empowering the Child 

In the psychologically incestuous relationship of a parent’s  “boundary violation” of the child’s psychological integrity, the parent  first manipulates the child into a “perverse” cross-generational  coalition, and then empowers the child in the family hierarchy, creating  the inverted family hierarchy in which the child is empowered to judge  the adequacy of the other parent. 

The tell-tale signs of the “perverse triangle” of the  cross-generational coalition by an emotionally needy parent using the  child to meet the parent’s needs, are: 

1.)  A role-reversal relationship in which the child is being  “triangulated” into the inter-spousal conflict in order to allow one  parent to divert this parent’s spousal anger toward the other spouse  through the child. 

2.)  An inverted family hierarchy in which the child is empowered  into an elevated position in the family of judging the adequacy of a  parent. 

3.)  The empowerment of the child by the allied and supposedly  “favored parent” who is using the child in the “perverse”  cross-generational coalition to meet the parent’s emotional and  psychological needs.

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The psychologically incestuous relationship created by the “boundary  violation” of the cross-generational coalition is typically offered in  the refrain: “We need to listen to the child.” 

In a normal and healthy family, parents occupy positions of executive  leadership.  Parents are responsible for their children’s behavior.  If  the child is disrespectful to a teacher at school, the teacher sends a  note home to the parent who punishes the child because the parent takes  responsibility for not teaching the child appropriate social behavior. 

In a normal and healthy family, parents take responsibility.  Parents  are in the role of executive leadership, parents accept the role of  executive leadership, and parents exercise the role of executive  leadership within the family. 

In the perverse relationship of the cross-generational coalition, the  allied parent is psychologically manipulating and controlling the child  to meet the parent’s own emotional and psychological needs. In the perverse relationship of a cross-generational coalition, the  allied parent abdicates the role of parental executive leadership,  elevating the child into this parental role, while the allied parent  denies normal-range parental responsibility and alleges parental  incompetence in altering the child’s behavior, typically in the refrain  of: “What can I do?  I can’t force the child to…” 

Normal-range and healthy parents exercise parental executive leadership and do not abdicate parental leadership to the child.  Normal and healthy parents are expected to show parental guidance and  leadership to teach their children not to disrespect teachers at  school, not to bully other children, and to develop appropriate  responsibility for homework and chores around the house.  

This is is not  called “forcing the child” to be respectful, to not bully other  children, to do homework and chores – this is called “parenting.”   Normal-range and expected parenting. 

The abdication of “parental responsibility” by pleading selective  parental incompetence is disingenuous – and ALL healthy and normal  parents see this clearly – because we are normal and healthy parents. The ONLY people who do not see this are people who do not understand parenting –  who have their own agenda in working through their own childhood family  relationship issues.  

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Every single normal and healthy parent  understands the expected role of normal and healthy parental executive  leadership in the family. It is our job as parents to teach our children to be respectful,  kind, and cooperative with authority.  This is not called “forcing our  children” – this is called “parenting” our children. Every normal and healthy parent understands this. Boundary Violations A role-reversal relationship, in which the child is being used to  meet the parent’s emotional and psychological needs, represents a  psychological boundary violation of the child’s psychological integrity –  and a boundary violation of the child’s psychological integrity is a  form of psychologically incestuous parent-child relationship.  

That’s  why Jay Haley refers to the cross-generational coalition as a “perverse  triangle.” The pathology of incest festers and is allowed to grow in the dark  recesses of hidden secrecy within the family.  No one sees into the  darkness of the family secret to identify the extremely pathological and  repulsive parental pathology that is dominating and damaging the  child’s psychological core-self integrity. 

The treatment of incest begins with exposing it from its secrecy;  exposing it from its hiding.  This is true for the reprehensible  pathology of physical incest, and this is true for the reprehensible  pathology of psychological incest, the “perverse” role-reversal  relationship of the cross-generational coalition in which the parent  violates the child’s core psychological integrity in order to use the  child to meet the parent’s own emotional and psychological needs. 

Trans-Generational Transmission of Trauma 

The attachment-related pathology of AB-PA represents the  trans-generational transmission of attachment trauma from the childhood  of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent to the current family  relationships, mediated by the personality disorder pathology of the  parent, that is itself a product of this parent’s childhood attachment  trauma. 

The current symptoms of a child rejecting a parent are the echo – a  reflection from earlier times – of an attachment-related trauma that  entered the inter-generational attachment system of the family a  generation or two prior to its current manifestation in the “perverse”  cross-generational coalition evidenced in “parental alienation.” 

The pathology of “parental alienation” is a ripple of trauma from  generations gone by, yet carrying the same trauma-themes of the original  trauma experience a generation or two earlier – the role-reversal use  of the child to meet the parent’s needs – the boundary violation – the  betrayal and abuse of the child’s love for a parent. 

Themes of childhood trauma echoing across the generations, twisted  into the current themes of “listening to the child” and “forcing the  child” to do things against the child’s will – that were once accurate,  but are now simply twisted echos of the childhood trauma from  generations ago.  An echo of inter-generational childhood trauma. 

The trauma pathogen of damaged information structures that are locked  into the inter-generational attachment networks seeks to remain hidden  from view, so it can enact its vile malevolence – punish the parent –  the parent deserves to be punished. Echoes from the past, traveling across generations, damaging love and  bonding.  Creating the pathology of the narcissistic and borderline  personality, creating the pathology of “parental alienation” – lost  bonds of love and affection. 

The pathology of the cross-generational coalition seeks to remain a  hidden family pathology – weaving a false story of the other parent’s  supposed “badness” that justifies the child’s rejection.  A hidden  psychological abuse of the child in a “perverse triangle.” 

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I see the pathogen.  I know what it is.  I’ve seen it before – when I  worked in the foster care system.  Then, I looked into the abyss of the  childhood trauma.  Now, I see its echo, a dark and malevolent echo of  childhood trauma from generations past. This type of trauma pathogen seeks to remain hidden.  It derives all  of its malevolent power to inflict its terrible psychological damage  onto the child by remaining a hidden family pathology – a family  secret.  

No.  This stops.  It must remain hidden no more.  We are exposing it –  so we can protect the current children from the “perverse”  role-reversal relationship and psychological boundary violation of their  manipulative use by parents to meet their parent’s own damaged  emotional and psychological needs. To the allies of the pathogen, to the flying monkeys who seek to  prevent us from exposing this pathogen to the light – consider carefully  what you are doing, because you’re furthering the echo transmission of a  very malevolent and destructive child attachment pathogen. 

Wake up.   You are NOT protecting children, you are collaborating in the  continuing abuse of children in a ripple of childhood trauma across  generations.  You are hearing the echo of trauma, and your own  attachment trauma networks are responding in psychological resonance to  the echo, thinking that the echo is real.  It’s not.  It is a ripple of  trauma from generations past. The source trauma that is creating the devastating family pathology  of “parental alienation” – in which families are torn apart and loving  parent-child relationships are destroyed – is from a generation or two  earlier.  

The current manifestation is not real, it is an echo of the  earlier trauma.  It is time to heal the children.  It is time to heal  the trauma that is traveling across time, embedded in the family’s  inter-generational attachment networks, a trauma being passed across  generations of love and bonding. It is time to bring this nightmare family tragedy – this  inter-generational nightmare – to an end.  The current manifestation of  this inter-generational attachment trauma is a false story – a false  drama.  An echo. It is time to heal this inter-generational echo of trauma.  It is  time return to the beautiful and wonderful children a normal and healthy  childhood of loving and healthy attachment bonds to both parents. 

It  is time to heal. 

Craig Childress, Psy.D. Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857 

Citations: Haley, J. (1977). Toward a theory of pathological systems. 

In P.  Watzlawick & J. Weakland (Eds.), The interactional view (pp. 31-48).  New York: Norton. “The people responding to each other in the triangle are not peers,  but one of them is of a different generation from the other two… In the  process of their interaction together, the person of one generation  forms a coalition with the person of the other generation against his  peer.  By ‘coalition’ is meant a process of joint action which is  against the third person… The coalition between the two persons is  denied.  That is, there is certain behavior which indicates a coalition  which, when it is queried, will be denied as a coalition… In essence,  the perverse triangle is one in which the separation of generations is  breached in a covert way.  When this occurs as a repetitive pattern, the  system will be pathological.” (p. 37) Kerig, P.K. (2005). 

Revisiting the construct of boundary dissolution:  A multidimensional perspective. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 5, 5-42. “The breakdown of appropriate generational boundaries between parents  and children significantly increases the risk for emotional abuse.” (p.  6) “In the throes of their own insecurity, troubled parents may rely on  the child to meet the parent’s emotional needs, turning to the child to  provide the parent with support, nurturance, or comforting (Zeanah &  Klitzke, 1991). 

Ultimately, preoccupation with the parents’ needs  threatens to interfere with the child’s ability to develop autonomy,  initiative, self-reliance, and a secure internal working model of the  self and others (Carlson & Sroufe, 1995; Leon & Rudy, this  volume). (p. 6) “When parent-child boundaries are violated, the implications for  developmental psychopathology are significant (Cicchetti & Howes,  1991). 

Poor boundaries interfere with the child’s capacity to progress  through development which, as Anna Freud (1965) suggested, is the  defining feature of childhood psychopathology. (p. 7) “A theme that appears to be central to the conceptualization of  boundary dissolution is the failure to acknowledge the psychological  distinctiveness of the child.” (p. 8)

 “Examination of the theoretical and empirical literatures suggests  that there are four distinguishable dimensions to the phenomenon of  boundary dissolution: role reversal, intrusiveness, enmeshment, and  spousification.” (p. 8) “By binding the child in an overly close and dependent relationship,  the enmeshed parent creates a psychological unhealthy childrearing  environment that interferes with the child’s development of an  autonomous self.

” (p. 10) “Barber (2002) defines psychological control as comprising ‘parental  behaviors that are intrusive and manipulative of children’s thoughts,  feelings, and attachments to parents, and are associated with  disturbances in the boundaries between the child and the parent’ (p. 15)  (see also Bradford & Barber, this issue).” (p. 12) “As Ogden (1979) phrased it, ‘It is as if the parent says to the  child, if you are not what I need you to be, you do not exist for me’  (p. 16).” (p. 12) 

“Rather than telling the child directly what to do or think, as does  the behaviorally controlling parent, the psychologically controlling  parent uses indirect hints and responds with guilt induction or  withdrawal of love if the child refuses to comply.  In short, an  intrusive parent strives to manipulate the child’s thoughts and feelings  in such a way that the child’s psyche will conform to the parent’s  wishes. (p. 12)

 “In order to carve out an island of safety and responsivity in an  unpredictable, harsh, and depriving parent-child relationship, children  of highly maladaptive parents may become precocious caretakers who are  adept at reading the cues and meeting the needs of those around them.   The ensuing preoccupied attachment with the parent interferes with the  child’s development of important ego functions, such as self  organization, affect regulation, and emotional object constancy. (p. 14) 

“There is evidence for the intergenerational transmission of boundary  dissolution within the family.  Adults who experienced boundary  dissolution in their relationships with their own parents are more  likely to violate boundaries with their children (Hazen, Jacobvitz,  & McFarland, this volume; Shaffer & Sroufe, this volume).” (p.  22) Shaffer, A., & Sroufe, L. A. (2005). 

The Developmental and  adaptational implications of generational boundary dissolution: Findings  from a prospective, longitudinal study. Journal of Emotional Abuse.  5(2/3), 67-84. “Role reversals observed among children with disorganized attachment  histories, which may include both controlling/punitive and caregiving  behavior patterns, may be attempts at fear mastery and self-protection.”  (p. 72) 

“In this study the dissolution of generational boundaries was child-specific within the identified families.” (p. 75) “A maternal history of sexual exploitation has emerged as a significant predictor of boundary dissolution at 42 months.” (p. 75) 

“Mothers who tend to disregard generational boundaries in interacting  with their children are not simply more “warm” than other mothers, but  in fact show more conflict or hostility.” (p. 78) “Parent-initiated boundary dissolution in early childhood  instantiates a pattern of relationship disturbance in the child. Role  reversal is apparent by early adolescence and the available data suggest  links to psychopathology in later adolescence, particularly as a result  of sexualized behavior observed at age 13.” (p. 80) Beck, A.T., Freeman, A., Davis, D.D., & Associates (2004).  

Cognitive therapy of personality disorders. (2nd edition). New York:  Guilford. “Various studies have found that patients with BPD are characterized  by disorganized attachment representations (Fonagy et al., 1996; Patrick  et al, 1994).  Such attachment representations appear to be typical for  persons with unresolved childhood traumas, especially when parental  figures were involved, with direct, frightening behavior by the parent.  

 Disorganized attachment is considered to result from an unresolvable  situation for the child when ‘the parent is at the same time the source  of fright as well as the potential haven of safety’ (van IJzendoorn,  Schuengel, & Bakermans-Kranburg, 1999, p. 226).” (p. 191) 

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