My near 30 years in practice have shown me that without a doubt, there are parents of both sexes who do or say things that have a negative impact on their children and which turn them away from a parent they either previously loved or at least tolerated. Sometimes that behaviour is calculated and malicious, sometimes it is a reflection of a huge amount of emotional pain and a genuine, if unreasonable, narrative that the child must be ‘protected’ from the other parent. Both men and women do this but it does seem from my experience at least, the most typical dynamic is a child in the primary care of a mother who makes allegations of abusive behaviour against a father who in turn asserts his child is being influenced against him.
The shorthand term for this kind of dynamic was ‘parental alienation’, now ‘alienating behaviour’ and regardless of what term you use, it continues to provoke increasingly polarised reactions from a male/female divide. Some fathers argue that ‘parental alienation’ is routinely practised by mothers and courts either deliberately fail to get to grips with it or are wholly ineffectual, leading to ‘good dads’ being frozen out. Some mothers assert that it’s a fictional concept, weaponised by abusive men to hide their harmful behaviours and make everything the mother’s fault.
We have moved on from the efforts to establish it as a ‘syndrome’ which has never been a helpful lens through which to examine bad behaviour. The issue is not whether a parent is suffering from some diagnosable psychiatric condition but the facts of what they have done and why, and what is the impact on the children. Of course, if a parent has been abusive then a child has a very good reason not to want to spend time with them. When abuse is established or admitted, it is unlikely to be a case of ‘parental alienation’ and its unlikely to be in the child’s best interests to strive to establish direct contact.
But the cases that cause the most trouble are when the allegations of abuse are not accepted and not proved. The ‘domestic abuse’ complex has grown significantly from my beginnings as a baby barrister in 1998, still 2 years away from the seminal judgment in re L 2000.
The family courts did need to take action to understand domestic abuse and deal with it better. But as the Court of Appeal confirmed in Re H-N (Children) (Domestic Abuse: Findings of Fact Hearings) [2021] EWCA Civ 448 it is not now correct to say that Judges have no or little understanding of abuse and its consequences. The Court of Appeal confirmed that Practice Direction 12J is fit for purpose.
But there are many groups determined to push an opposite narrative – their livelihoods and expensive training programmes depend on it – and the concept of ‘parental alienation’ has thus become more and more of a football to be kicked around opposing camps.
The danger of this is obvious. Those with hammers see nails everywhere they turn. Each camp has developed its own narratives and ‘expertise’ has grown up in each camp which has risked becoming less an objective investigation into the facts of alienating behaviour and more about adherence to a pet theory. The court has to be always alert that it is not getting drawn into any narrative or theory, over and above the proof of necessary facts.
How should we approach cases of ‘parental alienation’?
A good example of where it went wrong, and details of the ‘modern approach’ to parental alienation, can be found in the recent case of Y (Experts and Alienating Behaviour: The Modern Approach), Re [2026] EWFC 38.
Background
This case involved separated parents; the father wanted the children to live with him. Both parents alleged abuse from the other. The court heard evidence from a psychologist in 2019 and on that account alone made findings that the mother had alienated the children. The children, a daughter aged 12 and a son aged 9 were removed to their father’s care and had no contact at all with their mother for the next 6 years.
The son when aged 15 travelled to his mother’s home but was removed into foster care. The mother attempted to challenge the court decision in 2025 under Part 18 of the Family Procedure Rules.
The expert psychologist was not registered with the Health and Care Professions Council and had no clinical or therapeutic practice. There was no trace of any formal application to instruct her.
The original judge concluded that the matter had been set down for a combined finding of fact and welfare hearing and therefore he would consider the expert evidence first. The psychologist applied ‘Attachment Science’ and found ‘significant psychopathology’ in the mother’s profile which impacted the way she organised her relationships with others. She had ‘directly influenced’ the children to hate their father and if they continued to live with her they would be at ‘significant psychological risk’. It did not matter if the mother’s allegations against the father were found or not as the problem was the mother’s ‘hatred’.
She recommended the children were removed from the mother’s care. This lead the children’s guardian to recommend that the children’s wishes and feelings could not be given much weight, due the negative influence of the mother.
After the psychologists evidence, the Judge asked for submissions about whether other evidence was necessary. The mother’s barrister argued that there should have been a finding of fact before expert evidence was heard. The mother’s case was that she had experienced domestic abuse from the father and this puts her feelings towards him into a necessary context. The President commented that the barrister had been ‘entirely correct’ and her submissions fully in line with the guidance now given by the Family Justice Council. But the father and guardian’s barrister argued for no further evidence and the judge agreed.
He accepted the psychologist’s evidence and that a finding of fact hearing would not change her recommendations. He wanted to move straight on to a welfare hearing. The mother’s barrister sought permission to appeal; this was refused. At the final hearing the mother was criticised for not engaging in the therapy recommended and although the children wanted to see her, they could not until she had undertaken therapy. The Judge set out that the court accepting the psychologists conclusions and her findings stand as the court’s findings.
The mother tried again to challenge in 2021 and failed. She tried again in April 2025 and her application wended its way slowly to the High Court until finally in January 2026 the court ordered her son could return to her care. The mother also requested the original findings were set aside, relying on the approach to parental alienation now set out in Re C (Parental Alienation; Instruction of Expert) [2023] EWCH 345 and the December 2024 guidance of the FJC. The case and the guidance made it clear that unregulated experts should not be instructed in such cases and expert evidence should only be directed AFTER findings of fact.
The court considered the law on when a finding of fact should be reopened in family proceedings; this requires ‘solid grounds’ and the court must balance the public interest in finality of proceedings against the importance of establishing the truth and the significance of the findings. There must be genuine new information. The mother did not seek any relitigating of the parties allegations against each other as it would now be pointless; she wanted them set aside. She had never accepted she needed therapy. The father did not want to participate in the court proceedings but asserted that the psychologist’s views had been shared by CAFCASS and LA social workers. The child supported his mother’s application for the previous findings to be set aside.
The President found that the approach adopted in this case had been ‘fundamentally flawed’ and must be set aside (para 83). This case was not about the particular psychologist but the ‘failure of the whole process; which was unsound. He determined that ‘every agency’ involved in these proceedings had failed – CAFCASS, the children’s solicitor, the local authority and the court.
The modern approach
The court sets out the ‘modern approach’ from para 40. The starting point is the Family Justice Council Guidance issued in December 2024, on how to respond to a child’s ‘unexplained reluctance, resistance or refusal to spend time with a parent and allegations of alienating behaviour’. The court must determine any relevant allegation of domestic abuse before deciding if a parent has exhibited ‘alienating behaviour’. Alienating behaviours will not be found in cases where findings of domestic abuse are made which have resulted in a child’s ‘appropriate justified rejection’.
The key point is that the factual matrix around allegations of alienating behaviour is a matter for the court alone; it is not a matter for expert psychological evidence (para 45). A summary of the approach is set out at para 75.
Experts may be necessary to inform the welfare outcome once facts are found, but need to be scrutinised with regard to their regulation, qualifications and access to psychological tests. The guidance from the British Psychological Society (BSP) is that only HCPC registered psychologists have the relevant clinical experience and training to conduct psychological assessments. One problem is that the loose but formal sounding title ‘psychologist’ is not a ‘protected’ title for the purposes of regulation with the HCPC. This covers ‘clinical psychologist’, ‘educational psychologist’ etc. Thus this area is ripe for confusion about who is claiming what.
The President had warned in the earlier case of Re C (Parental Alienation: Instruction of Expert) [2023] EWHC 345 that court must keep its eyes ‘wide open’ with regard to clarity over claimed expertise in this field but the court would not prohibit the instruction of an unregulated psychologist. It would however require caution.
From para 57 the President referred to other cases where the psychologist had offered expert opinion. In 2023 the court was critical of her approach, which was based primarily on her assessment process of ‘attachment based interviews’ rather than a holistic overview of all the circumstances. In 2025 there was a further case where a judge purported to make findings of fact based on the psychologists own ‘findings’ which was an ‘uncertain’ and ‘mistaken’ foundation. The judge should have embarked on a factual investigation of the mother’s specific behaviours.
Commentary
It is clear that things went badly wrong in those cases where a judge allowed an unregulated expert to find the facts of the case; this is a matter for the judge and judge alone. The problem is compounded when the expert operates through a narrow lens of a particular position, such as ‘attachment science’, which necessarily prevents a holistic over view of the evidence.
I note with interest the developing thinking in the family courts about the need for regulation. In 2019 I published an open letter on this site, signed by 77 parents, psychologists and lawyers, which urged the President to agree to a change in the rules to prohibit unregulated experts providing reports. We were ignored.
We said
We feel strongly that the requirement to consider such regulation on a ‘case by case basis’ is potentially unfair to parents who may be acting in person and who may not initially appreciate the potential significance of a failure by any professional to submit to external regulation.
We are very concerned that parents who wish to raise significant concerns about the conduct of an expert who is not subject to external regulation, have no where to go other than the appeal process, which is clearly not a suitable mechanism to deal with the majority of complaints against an expert’s conduct.
However, by the middle of 2025 the Family Procedure Rule Committee consulted on proposed changes to the rules to restrict appointment only those those who are regulated. The outcome of the consultation is not yet known but it is now clear that the courts are ‘strongly encouraged’ to favour the instruction of regulated experts. The President gave guidance from para 73 to say that a ‘psychologist’ should not be instructed unless registered by a relevant statutory body nor chartered by the BPS. This requirement should only be departed from when there are clear reasons for doing.
I agree it is not the ‘fault’ of an individual who has a hammer and is looking for a nail, to be let loose in family proceedings. I doubt that these individuals are deliberately malign or dishonest. But the risk is that they operate in a myopic and hence dangerous way. If they are not regulated, there is no external check or balance. They may claim a formal sounding title that lures a Judge into deferring to an ‘expertise’ that may not stand up to examination. Courts must remember that foundational principle that finding facts is the job of the judge, no one else.
But I do wonder what would have happened if my open letter had been taken seriously in 2019. Perhaps it would have helped in this case and the others cited, to prevent them going so firmly off the rails and the impacts of those court decisions reverberating through many years. My only reassurance in this is that my instincts are sound. Any person who ought to be subject to external regulation but refuses, is someone to treat with extreme caution, and certainly not someone who should ever be paid to provide reports to the Family Court.