Destructive Divorce in the Family Life Cycle and its Implications: Criticisms of Parental Alienation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Some difficulties may arise during the divorce process, taking the family into “destructive divorce”. In such cases, some authors can see the rising of Parental Alienation (PA). This article aims to criticize PA, reflecting about the Family Life Cycle and divorce. Regarding this, a qualitative study was conducted with legal actors (judges, prosecutors, psychologists, social workers, lawyers) on the issues of divorce and PA and the results were built using the conceptions of Zones of Sense by Gonzalez Rey. The summary results are: (a) PA does not contextualize the conflict; (b) it does not consider the history of the relationships; (c) it pathologizes, medicates and criminalizes the phenomena of post-divorce and (d) PA underestimates the child in the conflict.

Keywords

• parental alienation
• divorce
• family life course
• custody case