When Love Isn’t Enough – Understanding Parental Alienation

There’s a kind of heartbreak that has no name.

It’s not a breakup. It’s not a death. It’s something quieter and harder to explain: being rejected by your own child while the world assumes you must have done something to deserve it.

This is the reality of parental alienation—a deeply painful and often misunderstood phenomenon that leaves loving, devoted parents erased from their child’s life without warning, closure, or explanation.

If you're wondering, Why won’t my child talk to me? or What did I do wrong?—you’re not alone. And you may be dealing with something no one warned you about.

What Is Parental Alienation?

Parental alienation occurs when a child becomes estranged from one parent not because of abuse or neglect, but due to the psychological manipulation or influence of another parent (or adult). It’s often seen in high-conflict divorces, but can happen in intact families or after separation.

This manipulation can be subtle:

• Encouraging the child to see one parent as “all good” and the other as “all bad”

• Undermining or badmouthing the targeted parent

• Limiting contact or emotionally punishing the child for showing affection toward the alienated parent

• Rewriting history or planting doubts

Over time, the child internalizes the alienating parent's viewpoint and begins to reject the other parent completely—without clear justification.

Why It’s So Hard to Recognize

Parental alienation often looks like a child “making their own decision,” which makes it easy to dismiss or misinterpret. It gets misdiagnosed as normal teenage rebellion, boundary-setting, or a justified response to “bad parenting.”

But what makes alienation different is:

• The rejection is disproportionate to any actual harm

• The child may use language or reasoning that sounds coached or rehearsed

• The alienated parent is shut out, no matter what they do to repair the relationship

• The child often shows black-and-white thinking, idealizing one parent and vilifying the other

Even experienced therapists can miss these signs—and sometimes, unintentionally make things worse by validating the alienation rather than identifying its roots.

The Emotional Toll on Targeted Parents

Being alienated by your child is a trauma that few people understand unless they’ve lived it. It’s isolating, bewildering, and full of shame. You might find yourself:

• Obsessing over what went wrong

• Feeling hopeless or powerless to repair the relationship

• Questioning your own memory, parenting, or reality

• Losing connection not just with one child, but with other family members too

There’s no roadmap for this kind of grief. And without the right support, many parents suffer in silence, feeling judged, misunderstood, or dismissed.

The Mental Health Field Is Behind

As a profession, we are still in the dark ages when it comes to recognizing and treating parental alienation. Many clinicians are unfamiliar with the signs. Others may unintentionally reinforce the dynamic by:

• Assuming both parents are equally to blame

• Supporting a child’s “right to choose” without exploring why that choice is being made

• Ignoring the possibility of emotional manipulation or loyalty conflicts

The legal system is often no better—frequently reducing everything to custody and financial issues, while emotional harm goes unaddressed.

This lack of awareness leads to tragic consequences: alienated parents are blamed, alienated children lose access to safe and loving relationships, and families are torn apart under the guise of justice or neutrality.

You Are Not Alone

If you are a parent experiencing alienation or estrangement, please know this: You are not alone. You are not crazy. And you are not the monster you may have been made out to be.

Healing is possible. Clarity is possible. And even if reconciliation feels out of reach right now, peace and self-restoration are within your grasp.

This blog series will continue to explore:

• What parental alienation is and isn’t

• The red flags therapists and parents need to know

• The difference between alienation and justified estrangement

• What makes therapy helpful—or harmful

• Steps to begin healing and reclaim your life

If this resonates with you, subscribe to receive future blogs or reach out for support. You don’t have to keep carrying this pain in silence. There is a path forward.