B.M. Scott
19 August 2025
Parental Alienation: A Philosophical Reflection on Abuse, Agency, and the Ethics of Responsibility
Although I have seen many things in human services - parental alienation stands as one of the most insidious legacies of relationship breakdown, particularly in high-conflict divorces or separations. It describes a process wherein one parent (intentionally or unconsciously) manipulates a child to reject, fear, or misconstrue the other parent in a hostile manner—often without reasonable justification. To encounter the lived realities of alienation is to enter a domain marked by emotional pain, fractured loyalties, and the silent transmission of psychological wounds from one generation to the next. Notably, the phenomenon is far from rare - in the United States, over 25 million adults have been targets of parental alienation behaviors, while more than 4 million children are estimated to be moderately to severely alienated from a parent. Philosophical reflection allows us to see that the origins and implications of parental alienation reach far deeper than legal strategy or familial dysfunction - they implicate our understandings of agency, manipulation, and the ethics of the relationship itself. At its root, parental alienation is rarely a discrete event, but the outgrowth of patterns established in the original relationship between the parents. Often, the abusive parent—whether overtly or through more subtle psychological maneuvering—reproduces dynamics of control, blame, and emotional coercion that existed within the marital or intimate partnership. The move from spouse to co-parent does not erase the architecture of prior abuse; rather, it repurposes it, shifting the locus of psychological aggression from partner to child’s perception. Here, the child becomes an unwitting participant in a moral drama, caught in the crossfire of loyalty conflicts and compelled - sometimes subtly but always powerfully - to internalize the abusive parent’s narrative.
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory is instructive here, making clear that the child is not merely swayed in the immediate microsystem of their primary caregivers but is influenced across interconnected layers of context. Within the microsystem, the parent-child relationship becomes a laboratory for modeling communication, affection, and boundary-setting. In cases of alienation, a child whose daily experience is one of emotional triangulation may learn to distrust not only the alienated parent but also their own perceptions. The mesosystem complicates matters when schools, extended family, or therapists either unwittingly reinforce the alienating narrative or are themselves manipulated by the abusive parent’s projection of victimhood. Even the exosystem and macrosystem—the wider culture, community norms, and legal frameworks—play a role when, for example, professionals miss signs of manipulation or societal scripts privilege a particular parent’s version of events. The result is a web of influence that can make disentangling truth and fostering healing all the more difficult. The impact of such alienation is broad and severe. Recent studies indicate that 15% of parents and their children have been victims of parental alienation behaviors, nearly half of these cases being severe.
The psychological toll is profound - 25% of alienated parents reveal documented suicide attempts - with many experiencing depression, anxiety, PTSD-like symptoms, social and financial isolation. Children are also deeply affected, often suffering from depression, anxiety, trust issues, poor self-esteem, and self-defeating behaviors. The widespread and global nature of these harms demonstrates the urgency of both philosophical and practical intervention. Sartre’s reflections in Nausea deepen our understanding of the psychological costs of parental alienation, particularly the heightened rates of suicidality observed among those affected. In this existential novel, Sartre explores the profound sense of disorientation and meaninglessness that arises when familiar relationships and certainties dissolve, leaving the individual radically alone and confronted with the overwhelming burden of self-authorship. This existential isolation mirrors the emotional devastation experienced by parents and children alienated from one another—who find the structure and support of relational life violently severed. Sartre’s narrative suggests that such alienation is not merely social but ontological - viz., to lose the consolations of recognition and shared history is to risk spiraling into despair, where the construction of meaning itself becomes an intolerable task. Thus, the increased rates of depression and suicidality documented among alienated parents and children are not only clinical facts, but philosophical phenomena—manifestations of the human need for relationship, dignity, and belonging. Sartre’s work reminds us that the adversity of alienation threatens more than mental health; it assaults the foundational project of finding meaning in existence itself.
The manipulation at the heart of parental alienation raises acute questions about autonomy and the integrity of the developing self. If agency consists in maintaining governance over one’s own judgments and affections, what becomes of this ideal when a child—whose psyche is still in formation—is persistently subjected to one parent’s campaign of denigration or estrangement? The child’s reasoning faculties are commandeered; affection, once spontaneous, becomes charged with suspicion; and the very narrative of one’s history is rewritten in service to the abusive parent’s unresolved grievances. The threat, then, is not only to the relationship with the alienated parent, but to the child’s emerging sense of truth, trust, and independence of mind. Moreover, the ethics of such alienating behavior are sharply condemnable. The parent who engages in these tactics does more than merely “win” the child’s loyalty; they enlist the child as a partisan in their own unresolved struggle for vindication or vengeance. Emmanuel Levinas famously posited that our primary ethical vocation is to recognize the face and freedom of the "Other." To instrumentalize a child’s love—to condition it by denigration, distortion, or fear—is to violate that vocation at the most intimate level, turning the child from an agent into a tool, and love from a gift into a weapon. In such cases, the abusive parent’s inability to accept loss, ambiguity, or shared truth begets a cycle of harm far more enduring than the original adult conflict.
To locate the origins of parental alienation in earlier patterns of emotional and psychological abuse is not merely to trace causality, but to foreground the continuity of domination and trauma across relational boundaries. The abusive partner - unable or unwilling to cede control - when the romantic relationship collapses, turns to the domain where their power remains unchallenged; the child’s world of affection and meaning. Here, the injuries of the former relationship find new life in the shaping of the next—an ethical failure condemnable as both an injustice to the child and a distortion of parental authority. Perhaps the deepest philosophical challenge of parental alienation lies in the notion of loyalty. Genuine loyalty - as Aristotle mentioned - is rooted in virtue and the free association of affections. It cannot be commanded or manufactured through threat, reward, or manipulation. What is subverted in alienation is precisely this space for the child to love—and wrestle with the complexities of loving—both parents, without fear of reprisal or guilt. In so doing, the alienating parent trespasses against the moral autonomy of the child and commits a subtle but profound violence against the possibility of authentic relationship.
To confront parental alienation, then, is not simply a matter of correcting legal misunderstandings, important as those may be. It requires, at its core, a reckoning with the wounds and abuses of the prior adult relationship - an honest address of the patterns of control, fear, and blame that are so readily handed down. In Bronfenbrenner’s language, it also requires coordinated action across all layers of the child’s environment - caregivers, family members, schools, legal professionals, and the wider community must be equipped to recognize and resist the pull of false narratives and to support authentic relationships wherever it is safe and possible. Philosophy cannot substitute for practical intervention, but it can clarify what is at stake - viz., the very terms of agency, truth, and love that remain foundational to human development. In contesting parental alienation, we are not only defending a parent’s right to relationship, but a child’s right to become a person—capable (eventually) of loving in freedom, discerning with clarity, and carrying forward a story that is truly and fully their own.
Invitation for Reflection
The foregoing analysis raises troubling questions—not only concerning the prevalence and consequences of parental alienation, but also regarding the responsibilities we bear, as individuals and as a society, in response. Readers are invited to consider the following:
- In what ways have you observed, in your professional or personal life, the subtle or overt shaping of a child’s loyalty by parental influence? How might early intervention make a meaningful difference?
- What habits, narratives, or beliefs within families and communities may unwittingly reinforce patterns of alienation or make them harder to detect?
- Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory points to the role that schools, extended families, and legal systems play in either perpetuating or alleviating parental alienation. Where do you see opportunities for better recognition and support in these contexts?
- Do you notice, in yourself or others, a tendency to excuse controlling behavior as “justified” pain from a prior relationship, rather than recognize it as damaging to children’s autonomy and psychological health?
- The prevalence of depression, anxiety, and suicidality among those affected demands urgent attention. What can be done, within mental health services and society at large, to ensure that these risks are not overlooked?
- How might our ethical frameworks—whether rooted in philosophy, law, or personal conscience—better guide us in distinguishing genuine loyalty from the kind manufactured by manipulation or fear?
- Finally, what concrete practices or policies would you advocate to protect children’s rights to a loving and truthful relationship with both parents, wherever it is safe and possible?
Further Reading
Arditti, Joyce, and Rebecca Madden-Derdich. “Parental Alienation: Pathological
Divorce and its Impact on Children.” Family Court Review, vol. 47, no. 3, 2009, pp. 544-562.
Board of Behavioral Sciences, California. “Parental Alienation Is Real.” BBS Public Notice, 2022.
Bronfenbrenner, Urie. The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments
by Nature and Design. Harvard UP, 1979.
Harman, Jennifer J., et al. “Prevalence of adults who are the targets of parental alienating
behaviors and their impact.” Children and Youth Services Review, vol. 106, 2019, Article 104471.
Levinas, Emmanuel. Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo. Duquesne UP, 1985.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Nausea. Translated by Lloyd Alexander, New Directions, 1964.
Stewarts Law. “New Research Highlights Prevalence and Impact of Parental
Alienating Behaviours.” Stewarts Law, 2025.
Warshak, Richard A. “Social Science and Parental Alienation: Examining the Disputes and the Evidence.”
Family Court Review, vol. 52, no. 2, 2014, pp. 163-177.
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