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Protection Recast As Alienation · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, and we're continuing the series entitled When a Child Says No to Contact.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: In the last episode, I looked at some of the different reasons why a child may become reluctant, resistant, or completely unwilling to see a parent.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I talked about the importance of understanding precisely what the child is refusing, what's happened within the relationship, and what the refusal might be trying to tell us, what it might be trying to communicate.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to turn to the position of the parent who believes that the child might be unsafe.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because that parent can find themselves in an extraordinarily difficult position.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: They may be hearing things from their child which cause them considerable concern.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they may have observed changes in that child's behavior before or after contact, and they may believe that continuing with the existing arrangement will expose the child to further harm, even though the evidence of harm and the quantifying of it may be very hard to do.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: But then if they attempt to limit or suspend contact, they may then be accused of parental alienation.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the very action they regard as necessary to protect the child can be presented as evidence that they are harming them.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now I've called this episode protection recast as alienation.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's really important to begin by acknowledging that a parent describing themselves as protective does not by itself establish that their concerns are correct.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: A parent may misunderstand what the child is communicating, their own history with the other parent may influence the way they interpret something, and they may be extremely anxious.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that anxiety may affect both the child and the decisions that are made.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there will also be circumstances in which a parent describes their behaviour as protective when they are, consciously or otherwise, attempting to restrict the child's relationship with the other parent for reasons which are not principally about the child's safety.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And my experience, this is quite rare, although I'm reminded of somebody who openly said words to the effect of if he messes around with money, then I won't let him see the children.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a very clear example of somebody who was consciously and intentionally using the children as a means of gaining more.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that kind of comment, which although may have been said in the heat of the moment, although in context rather fitted that person's general attitudes.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But that kind of comment is I I think it's not so much about alienation, I think it's more about punishing the other the other parent and using the children's the children as as a method.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't common, do have to say that.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we do have to see that in context.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've really, rarely encountered it.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to consider all of the possibilities, but exactly the same standard.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's got to be applied to the allegation of alienation.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a parent saying that they've been alienated does not establish that this is what is has happened.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think both positions require investigation.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the difficulty is that the parent who believes they're protecting the child may find themselves trapped between two potentially serious consequences.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So if they continue to facilitate contact and the child is harmed, they may be criticized for failing to act.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if they intervene and the court later decide that the concern has not been established, their intervention may be described as obstructive.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we need to understand what living inside that position can be like.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something I see every week.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine that your child returns from contact and something about them seems different.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: They may be quiet, angry, clingy, they may complain of feeling unwell or begin having sleep difficulties.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps they say something happened but their account is incomplete or changes as they try to explain it.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't know what it means.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we're not talking about a one-off, we're talking about an emerging pattern.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you ask yourself, am I overreacting?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: You may wonder whether the child is responding to the separation or to difficulties at school or to something entirely unrelated.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: But you're also aware that ignoring it could be dangerous, so you seek help.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps instead of being met with curiosity about what's changed for the child, you may find that the first question is whether you are encouraging the child's reluctance.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not describing a particular case, I'm describing a pattern which can arise when the meaning of parental behavior is decided before the concern itself has been adequately explored.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a protective action cannot be understood in isolation from the thing the parent believes the child needs protection from.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: What happened before that decision?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: What did the child say or display?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: What advice was sought?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a history which makes the concern more understandable?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And is the parent trying to stop the relationship altogether or asking for it to continue in a form which they believe is safer?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Those questions matter because very different motivations can produce behavior which looks similar from the outside.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Family Justice Council's guidance makes a clear distinction between alienating behavior and protective behaviour.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it describes protective behavior as action taken to protect a child from exposure to abuse or from suffering further harm as a consequence of abuse, whatever form that abuse occurs in.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it states that genuinely protective behavior cannot amount to alienating behavior.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are times in my experience when I encounter emotional abuse, sometimes other types of abuse when the child is with the other parent.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, from my point of view, that does not automatically mean that there should be an immediate conclusion.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: What it says is this has got to be investigated.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because I take what children say very seriously, and I have to decide whether or not what they are telling me is representative of an incident or something that doesn't have to do with harm but has to do with something else.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll approach that as well, probably with both parents, to try and help them.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or does it tell me that there is something that's happening which is injurious to the child?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, if I decide that that is the case, then I want to pass it to people whose responsibility responsibility it is to quantify and exactly identify what's going on.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in a sense, it it's the capacity to say, let's take this seriously, let's not make any assumptions, but let's look into it.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Almost every time I find that one parent will be very concerned about what they're experiencing, and that might be why they've come to see me.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And almost every time the other parent will minimize what is happening and will say that it is representative of a larger picture where the child is being used to punish the parent.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: So immediately we we walk straight into the very likely history of acrimony between the parents, which I've spoken about a very great deal in previous podcasts, how this is internalized by children, and how this then escalates into claim and counterclaim.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And a parent who's experienced coercive control may appear anxious, hyper-vigilant, confused, angry, or overwhelmed.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they may provide too much information because they're desperate to make the pattern visible.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they may move backwards and forwards through the chronology, they may focus upon details which seem unimportant to somebody who has not lived within the relationship.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if we respond principally to the way the information is presented, we may fail to examine what the information actually contains.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, a calm presentation is not proof of safety, and distress is not proof, a proof that somebody is unreliable.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Both have to be understood in context.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: So here I'm talking about uh the presentation of parents, and of course, the presentation of the child, all of these things are relevant, but we cannot make assumptions based on how someone presents.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is particularly relevant where coercive control is concerned, because coercive control is not normally contained within one dramatic event.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it develops, as I say so often, as a pattern.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there may be intimidation, surveillance, financial control, degradation, threats, manipulation, and so on.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Individual incidents can appear relatively minor, you know, when they're separated from that pattern.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: A good example, a message may look merely unpleasant.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: An integration, sorry, an interruption during a handover or terms offered about uh the way in which a handover occurs may look like ordinary parental disagreement.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, a demand for information may appear reasonable.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: But when these things are understood alongside the history of the relationship, they mean something rather different.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that this is one of the challenges for a parent trying to explain why they are concerned.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I I hear this an awful lot.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I see messages, I'm given accounts of these seemingly seemingly harmless episodes, but in fact they form a pattern, and that tells me a great deal.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that the professionals sometimes receiving this information may only see the individual parts, and this doesn't mean that the parents' interpretation must be accepted without examination, it means the examination has to include the pattern rather than reducing everything to isolated events.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: But children can also respond to patterns which adults around them have failed to recognize.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: They may know from the sound of a parent's voice that something is about to happen.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: They may monitor facial expressions, movements, or changes in the emotional atmosphere.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: They may become extremely compliant because compliance has become a way of keeping themselves safe.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And because they're children, they won't have the language to explain any of this.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: They may simply say, I don't want to go.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: The parent to whom they say it then has to decide what to do with that information.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there can be a tendency to expect the protective parent to behave as though they know less than they do, while simultaneously expecting them to take responsibility if something goes wrong.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: They may be told that they must discourage contact positively.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: They may understand that to mean that they should conceal their own anxiety, reassure the child that everything will be fine, and insist that the arrangements continue.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if they do not believe everything will be fine, then what?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: What can they honestly say to the child?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't a simple question.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want a parent communicating fear to a child in a way which increases the child's distress, but neither do we want the child to learn that the adult they trust will deny or minimize what they're trying to communicate.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a difference between saying you must not go because your father is dangerous and saying, I can see that you're frightened, and I think it'd be a good idea if the adults could understand why.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: The second really recognizes the child's experience while leaving room for it to be explored.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: But we also have to be capable of recognizing uh the the gendered context in which domestic abuse and coercive control frequently occur.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the particular difficulties faced by mothers whose accounts are interpreted through assumptions about hostility, anxiety, or emotional instability.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've had experiences where a father or fathers may have said, well, the thing is they're suffering from this disorder or that disorder, and so I also say, When were they diagnosed?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And of course they haven't been.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm then likely to say, so this is your this is your interpretation of of what you're seeing.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like you're saying, because you think that she suffers with depression or anxiety that she's somehow pouring that into the child, so to speak.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And those discussions tend to be quite short, but I think the point is you know, that these are very easy hooks to hang things on.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, you know, of course, mothers might be anxious, they might be depressed, they might be experiencing all manner of things because they've probably been through the mill and back again.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean they're alienating, it means they're suffering.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And they're also trying to protect their children.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we we and we see changes.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the child might become dysregulated after contact.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: They may begin wetting the bed, suffering stomach aches, becoming aggressive, withdrawn, or refusing to sleep alone.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these aren't these aren't fanciful ideas, they really happen.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And none of these things prove that a parent has harmed the child.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: There are many possible explanations for each of them, but neither are they meaningless.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be so much better if people could exercise some curiosity about what the behaviors might be telling us.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because quite often the behaviors, as I say, probably in pretty much every podcast, the behaviors are seen as the problem.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: They are not.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: They are a problem, but they are communication.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to we we have to begin to explore this gently.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what does uh what what does the child say?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens when the you know the contact arrangements change as a consequence?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And these are the kinds of questions which can help us move from assertion towards understanding.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: But if the parent who reports the symptoms is immediately regarded as the source of them, the direction of the assessment changes.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the child is anxious because the parent's anxious, the child refuses because the parent doesn't support contact.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: The parent repeatedly reports concerns because they are hostile.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then each part of the situation is used to explain the next.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this can create a closed circle in which the allegation of alienation becomes very difficult to challenge.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked in uh some very difficult cases where, under court order, there might be an overriding allegation that one parent is alienating the other, and I have never found through, and this is through forensic examination over a period of time, I have never found a case where that that is true.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've found uh I have found other things, but they have nothing to do with alienation.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think I think it's important not to assume that every protective parent is right.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is to ensure that the their behavior isn't interpreted without examining the circumstances which may have produced it.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And this is important because the domestic abuse commissioner welcomed the Family Justice Council's recognition that allegations of alienating behaviour can be used to minimize domestic abuse.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's another form of control, avoid accountability, you know, or continue abuse after separation, and that occurs.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the commissioner also emphasized the importance of understanding the wider context of abuse within the family domestic situation, and this was reported by the commissioner.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the words after separation are particularly important.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's a kind of assumption, well, the relationship is over, the people don't live together anymore, etc.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: But separation may remove many of the ordinary methods through which control was previously exercised.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: The former partner may no longer have access to the home, the finances, or the person's daily life.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: The children, communication about the children, the legal proceedings may then become the remaining points of contact.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that doesn't mean that every disagreement about children is an extension of abuse, nor does it mean that a parent who applies to court is behaving abusively.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: People are entitled to seek decisions about their children.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And a parent who has been wrongly excluded from a child's life may have little alternative but to use the legal process.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: But the issue is the pattern in which the proceedings occur.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we have to ask a fundamental question.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: A child refuses to see or a parent interrupts or does not allow the child to see another parent or the other parent.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, taken as a simple headline, then uh it it it may very well trigger the response.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, children should see uh their the the other parent, and the other parent has rights.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd like to reframe that headline and say what is going on?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: What what's the story beneath this headline?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: What what is happening?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And quite often what I'll find is that the allegedly alienated parent will present themselves as victims, they will also present themselves as good parents, they will villainize the other parent, and they will very often present sometimes quite compelling stories and accounts, and I'm always there thinking, but what about the child?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is this is about you.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: What about the child?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And however you are feeling about what has happened or is happening, I can understand it, but I'm afraid I have to come back to what about the child, because that's my job.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it is not my job to pacify parents, it is my job to safeguard children, to treat children, and to look at every situation through a clinical and forensic lens.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what I would want listeners to try and take on is the idea that it is all too easy to listen to and believe the headline, but what's the story?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not gender specific.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that although it is frequently men who talk about parental alienation, and it is frequently women who talk about protecting their children, it can be the other way around.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, in my experience, that's extremely rare, but it does happen.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the question is this are we looking at the story?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And are we believing what we're being told?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Are we are we allowing ourselves to consider here is a person who is giving us several accounts of incidents which form a picture?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if that is the case, what is the effect upon the child or the children?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's important for people to be believed from the point of view of that is their truth.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not our job, certainly as clinicians, to decide the truth, but it is to listen to the other persons.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Women in particular who are caught in these situations really suffer.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Very often they will have been encouraging the child to see the other parent.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: They will have been working with the distress, trying to manage the distress that the child might experience before going or on their return.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And very often they will say things like, I feel really bad that I'm sending my child to the other parent, knowing that they're suffering.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these are not made-up accounts, I've heard too many of them for that to be so.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: So this is, as you can clearly tell by now, quite a quite a complex uh subject.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: But in the next episode, I'm gonna look more more closely at the counter-allegation and what happens when a claim of parental alienation appears after allegations of domestic abuse, coercive control, sexual harm, or frightening parenting have been raised.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna consider how an allegation which appears to answer the child's refusal can sometimes divert attention away from the very circumstances that might explain it.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be back today.