Parental Alienation - is the Family Justice System, itself, creating the problem - Part 1.

Richard Gregorian, Principal of Gregorian Emerson Family Law Solicitors, a firm with a unique legal-psychological approach to family law responds to the Law Society Gazette article of Hannah Summers in the 24 October 2025 edition [reference is at the end of this article]

Although the Law Society Gazette does not generate the same excitement for me, as it once did, when, as a junior solicitor, a hardcopy landed on my desk, confirming my professional status, I did spot an interesting article about parental alienation in the 24 October 2025 edition.

As I do with client work, rather than responding directly to the points in it, thereby, risking limiting my narrative or response to the analysis of the reporter (or, indeed, the lawyers involved in the underlying cases, which are the subject of the article), I start this 4 part article on Parental Alienation by discussing the issue from the perspective of my own experience and tripartite skill set of law, conflict resolution and mental health, which my firm utilises for all its clients and before I have read either the article or the cases.  That almost guarantees I will see the issues very differently, than if I simply considered them through the prism of the mere facts, alone.  We will see.  In doing so, I guard against confirmation bias by relying upon truisms, not opinions, with supporting facts, which is the preferred (indeed, only available) approach of the family justice system.

I am confident that my analysis will be different because the family justice system is completely blind to the other prisms through which parents in conflict can be understood and supported.  With the complexity of human beings, their emotions, psychology, coping mechanisms and their difficulties around resolving conflicts, seeking to understand and conclude litigation, on the basis of facts and blame, is the least intelligent way to do so.  At the very heart of family law, including parental alienation, are human beings, their relationships and how they fall into and resolve conflict, against a background of, largely, negative, emotions, such as, fear, trauma, anxiety and upset.  Although the factual matrix of every case may change, very rarely do the facts provide the necessary insight and understanding required to provide a fair, supportive and insightful outcome for the family. 

That is unless you think that, particularly, where an individual is subjected to the high stress, trauma, and anxiety of family breakdown, as exacerbated by the adversarial legal system, what you see on the surface, in terms of their behaviour, is reflective of an underlying intent.  

It is not. That would be like believing that a controlling individual is not, in fact, controlling because they feel out of control.  That would be like believing that an abusive individual is not, simply, behaving in a way to meet their needs from a “one down” position but chooses such a self-destructive way of interacting with others.  That is like believing that parents in conflict and litigation, sit down and, intentionally, decide upon a litigation strategy, which will always involve extreme stress, financial cost and in respect of which they are not even in control because that is in the hands of complete strangers i.e. judges, Cafcass and court-appointed experts.  There are no James Bond baddies, stroking white cats, in family litigation, intending to alienate the other parent or create conflict, in a complete vacuum from their former spouse/partner and feelings generated by the parental conflict with them.

A few principles and a couple of case histories, by way of illustration:

• Labelling any type of human behaviour e.g. parental alienation syndrome or narcissism, is very limiting in terms of analysing the problem between the parents. It implies that one of the parents is suffering from a clinical mental health problem in complete isolation from the conflict with the other parent. I should make it clear that I believe that parental alienation (and narcissism i.e. NPD) exists, but it is the impact of these problems which is important, which is the result of an individual’s behaviour, rather than giving it a label. After all, such labels are only for mental health professionals to determine a suitable care plan. 

• Whilst the general consensus, in the family justice system, is that parental alienation should not be seen as a mental health problem, including, through the reluctance to refer to it as a syndrome, rather than the relevant behaviour being seen through the prism of other, more appropriate, skill sets (principally, (the psychology of) communication and conflict resolution)), the family justice system sees the behaviour, only, through the prism of (the proving of) facts. That is the result of their sole skill set of applying the law to the facts, which has little, if anything to do with understanding the “psychology” of individuals and of the conflict between them.

• Indeed, parental alienation is inherent in every family law dispute. Every family law dispute involves one parent seeking to limit the parental contact and/or parental responsibility of the other and in the context of their negative opinions and belief systems about that other parent. So what is it that makes a family dispute one where it is characterised, not as parental conflict (the usual “go to” with the attitude of a plague upon both of the parents’ houses) but, rather, parental alienation (where it is a plague upon one parent’s house).  Invariably, the answer is the legal system itself.  I would be very interested to know how close to 100%, parental alienation cases involve prior court litigation, or the prior reports of Cafcass or court-appointed experts, with which the “alienator” disagrees.  Then, the “establishment” has no option but to push back harder, to weaponise blame on the person resisting the system.  After all, if the legal system does not know better, even in respect of those with more suitable skill sets, they are out of a job.  But I return to the point, that it is almost delusional to believe that legal training (involving applying law to the superficial facts) is the best skill set to understand the complexity of human beings and conflict between them.  I can hear the cries of “yes, but that is what court-appointed experts are for”, which only engages another truism of “rubbish in, rubbish out”.  In other words, lawyers, who do not have an understanding of conflict resolution, cannot properly instruct the court-appointed expert (whether it be psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist or independent social worker) who may have that knowledge.  In fact, there is the further difficulty that they rarely do.  Mental health professionals will, necessarily, see through the prism of their clinical or therapeutic training, independent social workers may have no mental health training, and none of them, typically, have any training in (the psychology of) conflict resolution. 

• After all, one does not need to have a PhD in psychology to understand that parents who are upset and in escalating conflict with each other are going to convey that to their child/ren, whether explicitly (through words) or implicitly through their behaviours, in a way which undermines the other parent. That does not make it a syndrome or deserving of a label, the purpose of which is to blame, rather than understand. Rather, it is a natural product of the parents being caught by the conflict, which then places the child/ren in the middle of that conflict in a way which forces the child to align with the differing views of each parent, when with them, and to attempt to manage the dispute between them.  That is the received wisdom of the family justice system around the impact of parental conflict on the family and yet it is discounted because in parental alienation, it is inconsistent with blaming one parent.  For example, if a child has to hug their father, behind a hedge, prior to handover or appears to be reluctant to return to the mother, that can be very easily understood as a product of joint parental conflict, not parental alienation by one parent.

• Another layer of misunderstanding by the family justice system, is that if one parent is regarded as a parental alienator (due to ignoring the existence of the impact on them of parental conflict), then the solution is therapeutic. Yet, that therapy is being undertaken, involuntarily (in breach of one of the maxims of therapeutic intervention) and against the ongoing existence of parental conflict, which makes many of these negative feelings completely appropriate. Accordingly, as that therapeutic treatment is directed at one parent only, it will, naturally, fail to address the parental conflict and the impact on coparenting which, therefore, will remain a completely untouched welfare concern for the child.  So we now have an incorrect analysis of the problem, leading to incorrect treatment, leading to unresolved welfare concerns for the child. 

• So the correct skill set to apply is that of conflict resolution, involving a detailed understanding of the parental conflict and supporting the parents by improving their therapeutic and educative understanding of the reasons for parental conflict and how it can be improved. Each parent will have a share of responsibility (very different from blame) for the conflict. That might even be as limited as never having been taught healthy ways of resolving conflict (e.g. avoidance)-like the rest of society.  But what we do know is that neither parent intends to act in this way, whether due to the impact of conflict resolution or mental health on them, or a combination of both.  After all, if a parent does not have a mental health problem prior to protracted, adversarial litigation, they certainly will, after.  Rather, parents are caught by conflict within an environment of subjectivity, reactivity, fear, anxiety, trauma (and other negative emotions) and devoid of any knowledge of the educative and therapeutic aspects of that conflict.   

• I stress again that it is the impact of parental behaviour, on the child, which is important but if that behaviour is only looked at superficially, it is bound to fail to give the courts the necessary understanding and insight required to help the family. Ask any mental health professional whether they believe the best way to understand an individual is to concentrate on the facts alone (as opposed to the causes of the behaviour), challenge them as to the truth of those facts in a highly antagonistic, blaming, undermining way, and within a stressful environment and see what they say. In fact, we know what they say.  They will say that the family justice system harms individuals more than it helps.  After all, ask yourselves a few basic questions if you believe that proving the veracity of the truth of superficial behaviour is reliable where, for example:

- If I threaten to take your child away through a legal application for sole residence, which, in itself, may be motivated by the impact of conflict on me, what wouldn’t you, the “alienating parent”, do in terms of trying to prevent that from happening (where there is already existing fear, anxiety and trauma)? 

- If because of a lack of conflict resolution/mental health awareness, you believe that the other parent is a “narcissist”, what wouldn’t you do to prevent contact between that parent and the child.  After all, it places the parent, who believes their coparent is narcissistic or abusive, in a double bind i.e. if they do anything negative, it is further reinforcement of their abusiveness and anything positive is simple manipulation. 

- If I have no understanding of conflict resolution and the accompanying emotions, and I feel upset with my former spouse, but do not know why and do not have the insight to understand that, I will not acknowledge and address these feelings in myself but rather look for reasons externally (I am, of course, talking about cognitive dissonance).  In those circumstances, I will blame the other parent for my upset and believe that I am victim of their abuse.

-  If a parent is supported by a bunch of lawyers, domestic violence charities and friends who all blame the other parent, rather than stress the importance of understanding the parental conflict, more objectively, does that empower or create more fear in that parent, only adding to their feelings of disempowerment and victimhood.  Domestic abuse charities and “helpful” counsellors have a lot to answer for, through, inadvertently, creating fear in parents by diagnosing the other parent as being abusive or narcissistic, without even having met them.  In the same vein, the police must be sick and tired of dealing with allegations of coercive control, which, frequently, is really parental conflict, seen “halfway through” the conflict.

- How would you feel and react if, due to a completely inappropriate skill set, you felt that the legal system did not understand “your truth” but simply took the facts and sought to “out blame” the other side, only for them to reciprocate and then for the court and others to blame both parents for the parental conflict.  Then, you felt that you were not provided with any support at all, beyond some type of general online parenting program or parenting app. Contrary to popular belief, in the family justice system, the mere act of separation does not suddenly cure the problem of parental conflict but rather exacerbates it.  Yet there is no one there to support the parents prior to them entering into litigation which places the underlying negative belief systems and, unresolved emotions into suspended animation, so that neither parent can move on.  Would such a parent not be tempted to “speak louder” in order to be heard, thereby, incurring the risk of being accused of being “the problem”, the parental alienator.    

So I leave part 1 of this article with 2 case histories involving “parental alienation” but which, was, in fact misunderstood parental conflict.

1.       I acted for a mother in a contact dispute.  Father worked out of the country.  The mother succeeded in her child arrangements case but the judge believed that the father’s contact should be, entirely, a matter of agreement between the parents, because his availability was unpredictable.  In other words, take two parents, in conflict, who have proven they cannot communicate or resolve disputes properly and expect them to reach agreements.  It does not take much of an intellect to see that that would be a recipe for disaster.  And of course it was.  Mother continued to feel that father was abusive (which he was, no doubt because he believed that the mother was alienating him) and, so, avoided communication with him.  Cue the father, his solicitor and barrister, the Guardian, her solicitor and barrister, the judge and the court-appointed psychologist bandying together to accuse the mother of parental alienation and “show her who is boss” by beginning the process of taking the child away from her.  I become re-involved and ran the entire case through the prism of communication and conflict resolution, which showed that the mother was avoidant of the conflict with her former partner, not alienating the child.  What did that lead to:

• A psychologist, so embarrassed by his blindness to the conflict resolution dimension of the mother’s actions, that he agreed with me but did not stick around long enough to charge for answering my written questions which had brought this other “alternative reality” to his attention;

• A judge who screamed and shouted at me in court because her expected outcome (dependent on her limited understanding of the parental relationship) was frustrated. However, because of the psychologist’s report, that judge had no choice but to give the mother more contact and place the father into a domestic violence perpetrators programme. To align her cognitive dissonance and resultant confirmation bias, her only option was to believe that, on the facts, the 8-year-old child must have manipulating the psychologist or he had been bullied by me.  You see, there just has to be someone to blame in the family justice system. 

• A rather arrogant barrister for the father, seeking to attack certain of my written questions to the expert psychologist, which completely reframed the case, in a way that she did not understand, only for me to point out that those questions were, in fact, supportive of her own client’s position in terms of why he was acting in an abusive way. She faded away into the background, clearly feeling “outgunned”.

So a mother nearly lost her child through a misunderstanding of parental alienation (based on the facts) versus conflict resolution (based on a completely non-legal skill set).

2.       Alternatively, the mother who, prior to my involvement, made false physical and sexual abuse allegations against the father, resulting in her going from primary carer to having supervised contact, as she was seen by the judge as a parental alienator.  When she came to me, after years of supervised contact, it was clear that a very different answer to this family’s difficulties was possible, if one viewed them through the prism of conflict resolution, particularly the impact of conflict on both parties.  That led to a very difficult cultural battle between me and the father’s legal team, who renewed and turbocharged the blame against the mother, to show that she had not been rehabilitated.  Numerous judges, also lacking conflict resolution training, joined in the blame game, seeking to show that she was still the parental alienator she had been found to be.  That was until a more child centric professional was instructed as an expert.  After encouragement from me, they understood that the parents were equally traumatised by the other and all that had happened was that the mother had acted first, in preventing contact, thereby becoming an easy target.  She recommended and the court adopted, my solution which was to return unsupervised contact to the mother but in a way which also managed the impact of the parental conflict on both the parents, which had been there from the very beginning and which had been completely ignored by the legal system for several years.    

Conclusion

Alleging parental alienation, based on the facts, is a very precarious way to approach the matter.  The impact of parental alienation is what has to be addressed, rather than pathologising it.  However, in both understanding the alienating behaviour and addressing it, it is not fact or law which is important but rather more appropriate non-legal skill sets, particularly those of conflict resolution and family therapy.  Seeking to understand these dynamics through establishing the facts or looking at an individual’s behaviour are very simplistic and, indeed, inappropriate prisms.  That is why I am yet to come across a case where one parent, completely unaffected by any parental conflict, is accused of being a parental alienator. 

Further, and diabolically so, I suspect the vast majority of parental alienation cases become reframed in this way only after the court and its officers have become involved as a way of explaining why one parent is resisting their prior opinions on the matter.  The answer is because those conclusions were reached without the proper skill set and/or the parents have not received any support in the intervening period to address the ongoing parental conflict.

See you in part 2 of the article when we look at the Hannah Summers article and can become more specific in light of recent decision of O v C [2025] EWFC 334, which referred to an earlier judgement in those proceedings Re C (Parental Alienation: Instruction of Expert) [2023] EWHC 345.

The Law Society Gazette article can be found at https://edition.pagesuite.com/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=445c50f3-d319-492e-85c4-cdfde5a2be6b&pnum=8&utm_source=gazette_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Gazette+weekly+edition+24+Oct+2025_10%2f24%2f2025