Parental alienation is when one parent needlessly programs a child to reject the other parent, and often other members of the family. Alienation can happen in any family, very quickly and without warning, severely disrupting children's development and their lifelong mental health. Children subjected to these specific forms of pathological parenting and psychological control can become brainwashed, induced with delusions and so enmeshed with an alienator that only protective separation will enable them to quickly regain a normal mental health profile.
Effective interventions are, however, denied by professionals and courts. Instead, parents, grandparents and wider family members can be legitimately ostracised from children overnight by alienators, often with the active collaboration of several agencies of state, not least social workers and family judges.
Stuart Hontree (a pseudonym) details the risks involved with private family courts and how they often ruin or sever biological and family connections. He collates the principles of psychology and medical experts with how family courts deal with, and contribute to, the growing problem of parental alienation. The literature of leading clinical, forensic and psychotherapeutic experts who form the foundations for best practice is then compared to the normal practices of the UK family courts that 'deal' with parental alienation. The results are shocking.
The neurology of the human attachment system that drives us to form intimate bonds is explained, and how its disruption and manipulation by alienators destroys childhoods and wider families. The book is full of advice on how to spot the warning signs, typical alienation strategies, and how to try to insulate children against the risky effects. There are survival tips for targeted parents and a crash-course in the relevant law.
Attachment science is, however, ignored by the court's child professionals, enabling their construction of an alternative reality where anything and everything goes, producing inconsistent perspectives and decisions regardless of the law, case facts, science or the likely outcome for a child. Any professionals' ill-informed or morally disengaged opinion, mistake, abuse or obscenity can be retrospectively smoothed over in a secret court, simply by manipulating language and 'judging' it was done 'in a child's best interests.'
Dozens of real cases and judgments are analysed through a clinical and forensic lens. The conduct and reasoning of family court professionals in secret courts is scrutinised. The institutions and behaviours of the family court, judiciary, social and legal professions, and the civil service, are evaluated within the models of organisational and corruption research. The conclusion drawn from the consistent evidence from the cases monitored is that, instead of using or developing informed processes and reasoning, these institutions abuse the secrecy of the courts to engage in covert political and corporate activism, failing in their duty to protect children, often misusing their authority and veil from public view to inflict and cover up the damage of inadequate, inimical and sometimes wholly corrupt processes on families.
The book also shows how sincere attempts by Parliament to reform family courts are persistently scuppered by the civil service, court agencies and the judiciary, so no positive changes designed to help vulnerable or alienated children are ever implemented.
About the Author: Stuart Hontree is a BSc Psychology researcher, advisor to two UK charities and targeted parent who has successfully coached and assisted dozens of parents in family law courts.
