Latest / Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour
When A Child Refuses Contact
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A child says “no” to contact and suddenly the adults are fighting over a single phrase: parental alienation. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I want to slow the rush to certainty. When we treat a child’s refusal as proof of manipulation, we can end up deciding the outcome before we’ve understood the story, and that can silence the one voice that most needs protection.
We dig into where the term “parental alienation” comes from, why the “syndrome” framing sounds more clinical than it actually is, and how that language can tilt professionals toward…
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