Loyalty Conflict and Parental Alienation in Children with Divorced Parents

Abstract

A divorce can have painful consequences, especially for the children, as they can develop loyalty conflicts or parental alienation. The custody problem increases the rate of disagreements between parents and the smallest decisions can become opportunities for physical, moral or judiciary confrontation. Conflicts can be accompanied by the formation of an alliance between one parent and the children, in order to disqualify and denigrate the other parent. According to R. A. Gardner, extreme conflicts can lead to the development of a so-called Parental alienation syndrome, the painful cases in which the children, after a divorce, refuse to see a parent due to a combination of indoctrination fueled by the alienating parent and the child’s own contributions towards the denigration of the targeted parent. This syndrome still is a topic of debate for researchers, some of them agreeing with its existence while others argue that it lacks scientific value.