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Intractable contact?

06 October 2017 / Kate Molan
Issue: 7764 / Categories: Features , Divorce , Family
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Kate Molan discusses how best to address implacable hostility & the increase in parental alienation

 

  • Intractable contact cases are some of the hardest to resolve.
  • Parental alienation can include belittling, brainwashing and other strategies.

After a relationship breaks down, the task of agreeing arrangements for any children can be a complex one, and many separating parents struggle to come to terms with the new dynamics and mutual respect that co-parenting entails. Indeed, there are some cases in which extreme, negative behaviour is exhibited by one parent with the aim of undermining a child’s relationship with the other. Such characteristics and behaviour have come to be known as implacable or intractable hostility—a term that should only be applied to a parent who will do almost anything to frustrate a relationship between the child and their other parent.

Implacable hostility can often result in parental alienation. Parental alienation describes a situation where a child has been deliberately manipulated, coerced or otherwise pressured to align themselves to one parent by the other. The impact on children

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