Parental alienation: a case of perversion of motherhood

Abstract

Parental alienation, a controversial concept used in high-conflict parental disputes, is defined as the child's unjustifiable rejection of one of the parents. The child is affected by the adverse feelings one parent has for the other, causing the child to be strongly aligned with the alienating parent. The alienated parent is then excluded. Although parental alienation can be characterised by different interpersonal dynamics, in this article this highly emotive phenomenon is addressed in the context of Estela V. Welldon's concept of perversion of motherhood. Whereas male perversion is mostly focused on people, parts of people, or things (fetishism) outside the man, female perversion is defined as a focus on the body, and that what belongs in the body, and in the womb, that is the foetus, infant, child. The child becomes a part-object of the mother, leading the mother to have full control over the child in her dispute with the father. The consequences for the child are the severance of the child's relationship with the father and a thwarted sense of reality under a veil of narcissism. This article urges professionals to intervene and understand the underlying dynamics.