Parental alienation and the pain of custody battles in the the family courts | Letters

Readers respond to an article about a mother who feels let down by the family courts

Hannah Summers’ article raises disturbing concerns about the misuse of parental alienation allegations in family courts (‘Just like that, I lost my girls’: the mother who feels betrayed by the family courts, 29 September). However, I believe that it would benefit from a clearer distinction between the discredited theory of “parental alienation syndrome” (PAS) and genuine, demonstrable alienating behaviour.

PAS proposed that a child’s unjustified rejection of a parent could be identified as a distinct syndrome. It is no longer an accepted clinical diagnosis, since a child’s rejection of a parent cannot itself establish manipulation, therefore treating it as diagnostic risks overlooking abuse or other legitimate reasons for the child’s feelings.