Alienating Behaviours: The Family Court Has It Right — It’s Time to End the Denial
- Falsely Accused Network
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
By Michael Thompson – Founder, Falsely Accused Network
Parental alienation or, as the courts now prefer to call it, alienating behaviours is one of the most divisive issues in modern family law. Yet amid all the political noise, one truth remains clear: alienating behaviours are real, harmful, and recognised by the courts of England and Wales.
At the Falsely Accused Network, we are not in denial. We fully accept that alienating behaviours do occur. We see them daily in the cases of men and sometimes women who are cut out of their children’s lives through manipulation, control, and emotional coercion. What we reject is the political distortion of this reality by those who seek to erase or minimise it for ideological reasons.
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What Are Alienating Behaviours?
Alienating behaviours happen when one parent, consciously or otherwise, turns a child against the other parent without genuine justification. The techniques are varied but the pattern is familiar: bad-mouthing, blocking contact, rewriting history, using false allegations, or rewarding rejection of the other parent.
The result is devastating. The child internalises fear, anger, and confusion; the targeted parent becomes emotionally broken and socially isolated; and the court system is left to pick up the pieces of something that never should have been allowed to happen in the first place.
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The Old Debate: “Parental Alienation Syndrome”
In the 1980s, American psychiatrist Richard Gardner coined the term Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), describing it as a psychological disorder in children caught in custody disputes. While Gardner’s intention was to highlight a genuine pattern, the language of syndrome created more problems than it solved.
PAS has never been recognised in the DSM-5 or the World Health Organization’s ICD-11, meaning it has no formal medical status. The problem with calling alienation a syndrome is that it medicalises what is really a pattern of adult behaviour, not a mental illness in a child. This allowed critics particularly within the feminist movement to attack the concept as “junk science,” conveniently dismissing the underlying reality that many children are being psychologically manipulated against loving parents.
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The Modern Legal Position: Alienating Behaviours
Thankfully, the Family Court in England and Wales has evolved beyond that outdated terminology. Judges no longer require a psychological diagnosis. Instead, they examine the behaviours — what parents do and how it impacts the child.
Cases such as Re C (Parental Alienation: Instruction of Expert) [2023] EWHC 345 (Fam) and Re A (Parental Alienation) [2019] EWFC 9 make it clear that courts are not interested in pseudo-medical labels. What matters is evidence: who is manipulating, who is obstructing, and how it is harming the child’s welfare under section 1 of the Children Act 1989.
This shift is crucial. It keeps the discussion rooted in observable fact and removes the ideological fog that has too often clouded genuine cases of family breakdown and abuse of process.
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The Feminist Denial Problem
One of the most damaging developments in recent years has been the ideological resistance largely from certain feminist activists and lobbying groups to even acknowledge that alienating behaviours exist. Some go so far as to claim it is a “male myth” invented to silence women’s allegations of abuse.
This narrative is not only false it is dangerous. It silences the experiences of thousands of men (and mothers, too) who have lost their children through deliberate manipulation. It undermines balanced discussion, polarises debate, and ultimately harms the very children the system is meant to protect.
Denying alienation is no different from denying domestic abuse: both are forms of emotional cruelty, both cause long-term psychological harm, and both must be addressed without political bias.
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Dr. Melanie Gill and the Fight for Truth
We want to express our full support for Dr. Melanie Gill, a respected clinical psychologist who has been unfairly vilified in parts of the media for her work highlighting alienating behaviours and their effects on children.
Dr. Gill has consistently stood for truth, evidence, and child welfare — not ideology. Her stance is courageous because it challenges entrenched political narratives that prefer to deny the problem rather than confront it.
Those who criticise her do not do so on the basis of data or science they do it because her findings make them uncomfortable. We stand firmly with her and with every professional who has the integrity to speak up for alienated parents and damaged children, regardless of gender.
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A Reality We Must Confront
If one parent manipulates a child to reject the other, that is child abuse. The terminology may vary —“parental alienation” or “alienating behaviours” but the human impact is identical. Children grow up with distorted attachments, fear, and guilt. Parents are left traumatised. Grandparents are cut off. And the legal system, often paralysed by political correctness, fails to act swiftly enough.
We must stop pretending this is an ideological debate. It is a human one.
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Conclusion
Alienating behaviours are not a syndrome. They are not a political construct. They are a set of deliberate actions that inflict emotional harm on children and destroy families.
The Family Court has rightly rejected the pseudo-medical framing and now focuses on the evidence — on behaviour, intent, and impact. That’s the correct approach, and it must be strengthened, not diluted.
To those who minimise or deny that alienation happens including certain feminist activists and commentators it’s time to face the facts. Denial does not protect children; truth does.
The Falsely Accused Network will continue to stand with the psychologists, parents, and professionals who are brave enough to say what so many already know: alienating behaviours are real, they are abusive, and they must be stopped.
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Michael Thompson
Founder – Falsely Accused Network
📞 0204 538 8788
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