You're Not Crazy: Overcoming Parent/Child Alienation

by Lynn Steinberg

“Alienating parents tend to present well: targeted parents tend to present poorly. As a rule, alienating parents present with the Four C’s. They are cool, calm, charming, and convincing. That is because effective alienators tend to be master manipulators . . . In contrast, the targeted parent tends to present with the Four A’s. They are anxious, agitated, angry, and afraid. That is because they are trauma victims. They are attempting to manage a horrific family crisis, usually without success, often while being attacked by professionals who fail to recognize the counterintuitive issues. Indeed, non-specialists often get these cases backwards.”1

Children learn subliminally that the narcissistic parent gets what they want from bullying, lying, stealing, and pushing others’ boundaries. The alienator shows the children the other parent is “weak”, and urges them to hurt the other parent by behaving in a malicious manner toward him or her. There could be nothing more hurtful to a parent than complete rejection by their children. The child will then align themselves with the alienator to protect themselves from similar aggression.

Alienated children have been manipulated into believing they should reject a parent they love in order to maintain favor with the alienating parent.

Alienating parents seek revenge on their ex-spouse more intensely than they love their children.

“My dad always said my mom raised me to hate him. But my mom raised me to hate myself, and he’s just part of me.” She went on to say, “I hate myself for how I treated him.”