How PA affects children — what the research says

Understanding PA
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I needed to understand what was happening to my children — not just to me. And when I dove into the research, what I found broke my heart all over again. But it also gave me clarity and, strangely, some comfort.

Children caught in parental alienation experience intense loyalty conflicts. They’re trapped between loving both parents and feeling they must choose one. My children were living in a closed religious community that actively depicted me as spiritually dangerous. The psychological pressure on them was enormous — far beyond what any child should ever have to carry.

The research shows that children often develop what looks like a complete identity split. They reject one parent entirely to resolve the unbearable internal conflict — not because they stopped loving that parent, but because the pressure became too much to bear. It’s a survival mechanism. When my daughter was having panic attacks asking me why I “chose to go to hell,” she wasn’t performing. She was genuinely terrified. That terror was planted in her by adults who should have been protecting her.

What the studies consistently show about long-term effects is sobering. Adults who went through severe alienation as children report higher rates of depression, anxiety, and difficulty with trust and relationships. Many describe feeling like they lost part of themselves when they lost that parent.

But — and this is what I hold onto — the same research shows that many of these children eventually recognise what happened. Some find their way back as teenagers, others in their twenties or thirties. The love doesn’t actually die, even when it gets buried under years of programming.

I keep these findings close to my heart. Not as weapons for court, but because on the dark days, they remind me that the bond I built with my children in those early years — the real one, before it was poisoned — still exists somewhere inside them. And that matters.

The grief isn’t just about my loss. It’s knowing my children are carrying psychological burdens they were never meant to carry. That is what makes this so much more than a custody dispute.

Malcolm

Research referenced:

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This research has been both devastating and oddly comforting for me too. Three years in, I still find myself going back to those studies when I need to remind myself I’m not imagining this.

The loyalty bind thing — God, yes. My youngest used to apologise after every phone call we managed to have, like she’d done something wrong by talking to me. Reading Johnston’s work helped me understand that wasn’t about me failing as a mum, it was about the impossible position she’d been put in.

The part about many adult children eventually recognising what happened… I hold onto that research like a lifeline on the worst days. Not as false hope, but as a reminder that love really doesn’t just disappear, even when it gets buried under all this mess. Some days that’s the only thing that keeps me writing those letters they don’t reply to.

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This hits so close to home. My youngest was 11 when he told me “Papa, mama says I shouldn’t miss you.” That loyalty bind you describe — I lived it too.

The research helped me understand, but it also made the waiting even harder knowing what they were going through. Six years later when my eldest finally called, he said almost exactly what those studies predict about feeling split in two.