Parental alienation is a family dynamic in which a child resists or rejects a parent for unjustified reasons. Children are not “hard wired” to reject a relationship with parent, including parents who have been abusive.  An abused child doesn’t want the abuse, but that child almost always wants a safe relationship with the parent. 

Dr. Alvarez reads and understands the scientific literature related to parental alienation and she has contributed scientifically to the field.

Parental alienation can be a factor in a high conflict family law matter in which custody is in dispute.  In this scenario, one parent usually alleges that the child justifiably rejects the other parent because that parent is psychologically disordered, or abusive, or both.  The other parent alleges that the child’s rejection is due to the influence of that parent on the child through the use of defined alienation tactics in a way that creates an alignment behind the parent engaging in the alienating behaviors.  The court is left with a “he said/she said” scenario and orders an evaluation in order to determine the cause of the child’s rejection. 

Dr. Alvarez is qualified to evaluate for parental alienation using the 5 Factor Model, which follows the science and research findings of parental alienation. 

Dr. Alvarez is qualified to therapeutically help repair a fractured parent-child relationship when alienation has been determined to be the cause and the severity of alienation has been determined to be mild or moderate.