Cognitive mechanisms, attitude change, parental alienation, and reunification therapies: Posited events, missing evidence

The term parental alienation describes situations in which children reject or avoid one of their divorced parents and do so because a preferred parent has encouraged this attitude. Authors discussing this phenomenon have proposed cognitive mechanisms involved in changing the children’s attitudes from positive to negative. This paper examines three possible cognitive mechanisms, “brainwashing”, cognitive dissonance, and issues of critical thinking. It is concluded that none of these provides an explanation either for the posited positive to negative attitude change, or for the negative to positive change claimed for reunification therapies. Potential impacts of misunderstandings of cognitive mechanisms are discussed. If family court decisions are influenced by ill-supported claims about cognitive mechanisms, the results may not be in the best interests of children.