Parental Abduction and Alienation: A Discussion with Psychiatrist Nick Child

A few weeks ago, I spoke to a gathering of a group of parentally alienated mothers and fathers in Waltham, Massachusetts. Parental alienation is a phenomenon where children are turned against one of their parents (either mother or father) by the other parent, usually when there is a divorce, without good reason. In some cases, children are physically and psychologically isolated for years and they are programmed against the non-custodial parent. Of course, negative programming is done all the time in cult groups, when a parent decides they want to exit the cult. What I have learned is that this problem happens in non-cult situations quite frequently. So I decided to set up an interview with a friend and colleague from Scotland Dr. Nick Child, BSc MB ChB MRCPsych, MPhil. He is a retired child psychiatrist and family therapist who has focused a lot of his energy on the problem of parental abduction and alienation.