> Reclaiming Parent-Child Relationships: Outcomes of Family Bridges with Alienated Children
Richard A. Warshak, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Cente
Abstract
A sample of 83 severely alienated children and adolescents were enrolled with the parents whom they had rejected in a 4-day Family Bridges educational workshop. The program was conducted after court orders had placed the children in the custody of their rejected parent. The parents who participated with the children in the workshop, and the professional workshop leaders, reported large improvements in the children's alienated behavior, changes that reflected statistically significant and large effects. The children's contact refusal with the rejected parent dropped from a pre-workshop rate of 85% to a post-workshop rate of 6%. Depending on the outcome measure, between 75% and 96% of the children overcame their alienation. The parents and children credited the workshop with improving their relationships and teaching them better relationship skills. Despite the children's negative initial expectations, most children felt positively about their workshop experience, regarded the workshop more like education than counseling, and reported that the professionals who led the program treated them with kindness and respect. All the parent participants and two-thirds of the children rated the workshop as excellent or good, but 8% of children retained their initial negative attitudes about the workshop and rated the workshop as poor. In sum, a significant number of intractable and severely alienated children and adolescents who participated in the Family Bridges workshop repaired their damaged relationship with a parent whom they had previously rejected for an average of 3-4 years.
> Ten Parental Alienation Fallacies That Compromise Decisions in Court and in Therapy - August 2015, Professional Psychology Research and Practice
Richard A. Warshak, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Cente
Abstract
False beliefs about the genesis of parental alienation and about appropriate remedies shape opinions and decisions that fail to meet children's needs. This article examines 10 mistaken assumptions: (a) children never unreasonably reject the parent with whom they spend the most time, (b) children never unreasonably reject mothers, (c) each parent contributes equally to a child's alienation, (d) alienation is a child's transient, short-lived response to the parents' separation, (e) rejecting a parent is a short-term healthy coping mechanism, (f) young children living with an alienating parent need no intervention, (g) alienated adolescents' stated preferences should dominate custody decisions, (h) children who appear to function well outside the family need no intervention, (i) severely alienated children are best treated with traditional therapy techniques while living primarily with their favored parent, and (j) separating children from an alienating parent is traumatic. Reliance on false beliefs compromises investigations and undermines adequate consideration of alternative explanations for the causes of a child's alienation. Most critical, fallacies about parental alienation shortchange children and parents by supporting outcomes that fail to provide effective relief to those who experience this problem.
> Helping alienated children with family bridges: Practice, research, and the pursuit of humbition - January 2010, Family Court Review
Richard A. Warshak & Mark R. Otis, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Cente
Abstract
This article briefly summarizes and responds to feedback offered by Joan Kelly regarding Family Bridges: A Workshop for Troubled and Alienated Parent-Child Relationshipsâ„¢. We emphasize principles that promote an educational atmosphere, as opposed to a therapeutic one, and the court's role in contributing to successful interventions with severely alienated children. Among the considerations discussed are: working with favored parents, economic comparisons of Family Bridges with counseling approaches, modifying the program for use in prevention and with milder cases of alienation, and issues related to training additional team leaders and conducting outcome research.
> Alienating audiences from innovation: The perils of polemics, ideology, and innuendo - January 2010 Family Court Review 48
Richard A. Warshak, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Abstract
When judging innovative programs like Family Bridgesâ„¢, it is important to balance careful scrutiny with openness to new ideas. Judicial responses to children who reject a parent are best governed by a multifactor individualized approach. A presumption that allows children and one parent to regulate the other parent's access to the children is unsupported by research. A custody decision based solely on the severity of alienation leaves children vulnerable to intensification of efforts to poison their affections toward a parent. Concern with possible short-term distress for some children who are required to repair a damaged relationship should not blind us to the long-term trauma of doing nothing. Professionals are urged to minimize the infusion of polemics, rigid ideology, and rumors when offering opinions with inadequate information, particularly public statements that risk harming children.
