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while the other is all bad), which is a hallmark of parental alienation syndrome (Gardner,
1998).
Thus, in these families, the normal love and respect that children naturally feel for a parent
appeared to be insufficient to satisfy the narcissistic demands of the alienating parent. What
they seemed to want from their children was a level of adulation and exclusivity typically
reserved for cult leaders. They seemed to garner that level of devotion in much the same
way that cult leaders do: through a range of emotional manipulation and persuasion
techniques. The strategies employed by the alienating parents – as described by their adult
children --are described below.
Use of Emotional Manipulation and Persuasion Techniques to Heighten
Dependency on the Leader
The second characteristic of cults is that leaders manipulate the thoughts and feelings of its
members in order to promote a sense of dependency on them (e.g., Hassan, 1988 Lifton,
1989 Singer, 1996). This too was borne out in the interviews of adults who as children
were alienated from a parent due to the actions and behaviors of the other parent. There
were five primary mechanisms for manipulating the thoughts and feelings of the children:
(1) relentless bad mouthing of the character of the other parent in order to reduce their
importance and value (2) creating the impression that the targeted parent was dangerous
and planned to hurt the child in order to instill fear in and rejection of that parent (3)
deceiving children about the targeted parent‘s feelings for them in order to create hurt,
resentment, and psychological distance (4) withdrawing love if the child indicated affection
or positive regard for the targeted parent in order to heighten the need to please the
alienating parent and (5) erasing the other parent from the life and mind of the child
through minimizing actual and symbolic contact. Each of these is discussed in turn.
Relentless Badmouthing of the Character of the Other Parent to Reduce Their
Importance and Value
When participants were asked about what the alienating parent did to try to turn them
against the other parent, the first and most frequently mentioned strategy was
badmouthing. It may have featured so prominently in their minds because it was an overt
and not particularly subtle behavior and because it was so pervasive. Most participants
remarked on the constant litany of negative comments made about the targeted parent to
the child and to others in front of the child. Many of the comments were general statements
about the lack of worth of the person as a whole such as being a piss poor dad, a whore and
a slut, not the man you think he is, a good for nothing drunk probably in jail right now.
Common complaints were that the person was a cheat, an alcoholic, and someone who did
not care about his or her family. One woman recalled her step-mother complaining about
how lazy her mother was because she used instant oatmeal in the mornings. The alienating
parent seemed to operate under the assumption that if an individual is told something
enough times it becomes true in their minds, and that did seem to be the case. When asked
if they believed the badmouthing, they responded, ―Oh absolutely! At no time did I ever
think my mom wasn‘t telling the truth.‖ (38), ―All of it. She was my mother. She was God.‖
(34), ―All of it! I believed her for a really long time.‖ (35), ―I became really angry at my
father. I believed her.‖ (29) The barrage of negative statements was noteworthy for its
apparent one-sidedness (nothing good was recalled being said about the other parent to
balance out the complaints) and its lack of appropriateness. Even if true these things should
probably not be said to a child (although there might be certain circumstances in which
explaining negative aspects of the other parent could be beneficial, Warshak, 2001).
Participants recalled that their alienating parents explained concepts and/or used words
such as abortion, womanizer, rape, alcoholic well before the children knew or needed to
knew what these concepts meant.

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2005, Page 11
Badmouthing of the other parent seemed to serve the same function as bad mouthing the
―outside world‖ for cults: promotion of dependency (Kent, 2004 Lifton, 1989 Shaw, 2003).
Badmouthing creates in cult members a belief that the leader is the only person who truly
cares and can be trusted everyone else is contemptible and/or dangerous. The alienating
parents --through badmouthing – seemed to convey to their children that they were the
only parent who loved and cared for them, who could be trusted. Many of the participants
recalled their parents explicitly inducing dependency with comments such as, ―I did
everything for you and he did nothing.‖ (40) ―Basically everything good that happened was
because of her.‖ (29) One participant explained that after a long litany of complaints were
spewed about the targeted parent the alienating parent would then comfort the child by
telling her, ―I shouldn‘t be too upset because I had her.‖ (39) Another participant explained
that, ―He told me he was the only one who cared about me, the only one who wanted me,
that no one else cared about me over and over and over again.‖ (17) Another participant
said of her mother, ―In my mind she was everything. She was all I had.‖ (27) The constant
badmouthing created in the child the belief that the targeted parent was not worthy of love
and respect, much the way cult leaders aim to diminish all other authority figures in the
eyes of members.
Creating the Impression that the Targeted Parent was Dangerous and Planned to
Hurt the Child in order to Instill Fear and Rejection of the Parent
Sometimes the badmouthing took on a decidedly darker tone and the child was led to
believe that the targeted parent was capable of inflicting great harm to them. Participants
were told that the targeted parent had beaten them, wanted to abort them, planned on
throwing them in the river, were reckless with them when they were babies, didn‘t have
their best interest at heart, and were intent on kidnapping them. One participant
remembered the first time she saw her father and stepmother in five years, ―Up to the point
they drove up into the driveway my mom was sitting there telling me, ‗You better watch it
because they are going to take you and they are never going to bring you back. They are
going to kidnap you. That lady is from Ohio. Do you know anybody in Ohio? Do you know
how to get back home?‘‖ (23) In all, the participants were made to feel unsafe at the
thought of contact with the targeted parent. ―I remember her always telling me how mean
and angry he was. If I needed help with homework she would say, ‗Don‘t ask your daddy,
he will yell at you.‘ I was scared of him. It was like a landmine.‖ As a boy he avoided being
in the same room with his father and lived in constant fear of being beaten by him, despite
the fact that this had never actually occurred. ―I felt like he was hitting me all the time in
my head. It was a constant barrage of how incompetent and how dangerous my father
was.‖ (22)
Badmouthing in order to instill fear of the targeted parent seemed to serve at least two
purposes. Because the interviews were conducted with the adult children and not the
parents themselves, the motivations of the alienating parents cannot really be known.
However, based on the participants‘ descriptions of their experiences with the alienating
parent, the following analysis is offered. First, badmouthing seemed to make the child want
to avoid the targeted parent and thus furthered the alienating parent‘s goal of severing that
relationship. In addition, it seemed to heighten the child‘s need for a protector, a role the
alienating parent was probably only too willing to play. In this way the bond between the
alienating parent and the child was further strengthened and reinforced. As attachment
theorists have found (Bowlby 1969, Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, &Wall, 1978), when a child
senses fear (real or imagined) his or her desire to be near and comforted by the attachment
figure/caretaker is activated. This is a biologically determined protective mechanism
designed to ensure the safety of the vulnerable within any species. Alienating parents
exploited this innate mechanism in order to artificially induce their child‘s desire to be near
them.