Contributing factors in parental alienation
Parental alienation is today defined as the disorder of a child who strongly allies with one parent while unjustifiably rejecting the other. For too long it has been maintained that its sole cause resides in the malignancy of the allied parent who “instrumentalizes” the child in order to affect the other parent. Although in some cases this may be a contributing factor, a parent who exerts alienating influences only rarely acts in bad faith. Moreover, in a number of cases we can identify other, more important sources such as psychological or even temperamental characteristics of the child itself. Other factors are also discussed in this article, like some specific aspects of the legal and clinical interventions that, instead of resolving the trouble, may result in its intensification.