Upcoming & Past Events

I’m honored to share that I have received the Ned Holstein Shared Parenting Research Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Parents Organization. This award recognizes researchers whose work has meaningfully advanced our understanding of parenting arrangements that support children’s well-being when parents live apart.

In presenting the award, the National Parents Organization cited not only my research contributions but also the public outreach that has helped inform legislation and practice—“improving the lives of parents and children around the world.” The award made special note of my 2014 “consensus report” article, endorsed by 110 researchers and practitioners, describing it as “a literally extraordinary article—seldom does one see in social science research a paper of this nature.”

This recognition is especially meaningful to me, as past recipients include some of the world’s foremost scholars in child development. To be counted among them is both humbling and deeply gratifying.

After 14 years, Welcome Back, Pluto: Understanding, Preventing, and Overcoming Parental Alienation, continues to be the best-selling educational video about parental alienation. It has been shown in 33 countries and every state in the U.S.

I am very happy to announce that Pluto is now available to an even wider audience. Amazon Prime Video now offers Welcome Back, Pluto for rent (streaming) or purchase. English and Spanish subtitles are available.

Until now there has been no streaming version of the Welcome Back, Pluto video. The Amazon Prime Video streaming option allows us to offer the program at a much lower cost. You can now rent the video for $7.99, and you have 30 days to start watching the video and 48 hours to finish once started. Or you can buy the video for $19.98.

Another benefit: Amazon includes a sharing link for Email, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. So help us spread the word in the English, Spanish-speaking, and hearing-impaired communities. Pluto is in Amazon Prime’s solar system and ready for easy and inexpensive viewing.

Abused and Rejected: The Link Between Intimate Partner Violence and Parental Alienation was published this month in the journal, Partner Abuse. This peer-reviewed study, led by Dr. Gena Rowlands and co-authored by me and Dr. Jennifer Harman, found the majority of parents who identified as targets of parental alienation also identified as victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). As a group, those identifying as IPV victims rated their children as more severely alienated than did non-IPV alienated parents.

Studies such as this may lead to greater recognition of parental alienation and collaboration among researchers and practitioners who specialize in IPV and those concerned with parental alienation. You can read the article at the journal’s website .

The Institute for Family Studies blog published Dr. Warshak’s article: New Research on the Science of Parental Alienation. The key takeaway message: Parental alienation is real and supported by a legitimate and trustworthy foundation of scientific study. Read the article .

New Zealand award-winning journalist, Nadine Porter, interviewed me for her feature article, Abandonment After Despair: How the Family Court Process Is Estranging Children from Parents. The result is a poignant account of the harm to families when loving parents are separated from their children, and a call for family law reform to prevent the entrenchment of parental alienation. The article discusses the hope offered by specialized programs such as Family Bridges. Read the feature .

The Washington Times quoted Dr. Warshak in an article on a link between dad deprivation and mass school shootings. Read the article .

Developmental Psychology and the Scientific Status of Parental Alienation was published in Developmental Psychology, a premier peer-review journal of the American Psychological Association.

It is to date the most comprehensive review of scientific data on parental alienation. Dr. Warshak and his coauthors (Harman, Lorandos, & Florian) reviewed 213 studies published in 10 languages through December 2020. The studies provide a wide range of reliable information for judges, lawyers, legislators, therapists, and parents, including the prevalence of parental alienation, the strategies parents use to undermine their child’s relationship with the other parent, how to identify a child who rejects a good parent, and how courts can help families suffering this problem.

The takeaway message? Parental alienation is real and supported by a legitimate and trustworthy foundation of scientific study. Critics who claim otherwise are wrong and either through ignorance or design are ignoring scientific advances in the field and spreading misinformation. The published version (preferable for litigation purposes) is available from the American Psychological Association at this link .

Dr. Warshak presented a training webinar for the Domestic Relations Unit of the Family Court in Greene County, Missouri. The topic was: Parental Alienation: Prevention, Remediation, and Risks.

Dr. Warshak presented a video seminar to the International Psychotherapy Institute, as part of its Master Speaker series. Topic: When Children Reject Parents: Therapeutic Management of Parental Alienation. The program was open to anyone with a license in any mental health discipline, working in the mental health field, or currently enrolled in a mental health-oriented graduate program, and qualified for 2 CE credit hours.

Dr. Warshak’s article, Parental Alienation: The Psychology of Fractured Parent–Child Relationships, was published by the Child and Family Blog, the leading resource for reliable, fact-based information on how the family influences children’s development, originally launched under the auspices of Princeton University, Brookings Institution, University of Cambridge, and the Jacobs Foundation. Read the article .

The article offers a brief, clear, and objective overview of parental alienation: what it is, and how to identify, prevent, and overcome the problem. The article quickly went viral.

Dr. Warshak presented a training webinar for the Domestic Relations Unit of the Family Court in Greene County, Missouri. The topic was: Identification of Parental Alienation.

An Op-ed column in the Dallas Morning News offering advice to divorcing parents referred to “cutting edge research” by Dr. Warshak that served as the basis for recommendations. One of the studies in this body of research was a 2014 article that appeared in a journal of the American Psychological Association in which 110 additional researchers and practitioners endorsed my conclusions and recommendations. Read the column .

Dr. Warshak was interviewed for a Dakota News Now segment on parental alienation. Watch the segment .

Dr. Warshak participated in an online webinar on Attachment Theory and Family Law. The two other participants were Professor Michael Lamb (University of Cambridge) and Professor Tommie Forslund (Stockholm University). They are among the 70 leading attachment researchers who coauthored a seminal statement on the application of attachment theory in family court cases.

The webinar was sponsored by the United Kingdom’s 174 Family Law and Voices in the Middle.

Dr. Warshak participated on a panel convened by the editor of Litigation—the American Bar Association’s preeminent journal in the field of trial practice—to discuss how courts handle parental alienation issues. Also on the panel were two judges: Judge Elizabeth Gleicher, a recipient of the State Bar of Michigan Champion of Justice Award who sits on the Michigan Court of Appeals, and Judge Kristina Karle, a former prosecutor with experience in domestic violence and child abuse cases at the Monroe County, New York, District Attorney’s Office who presides in the Ontario County, New York, court.

A transcript of this discussion was published in the Summer 2021 issue of ABA’s Litigation. See Dr. Warshak’s Facebook post about the article for more details and a link to download the article.

Dr. Warshak participated on a panel giving a 3.5 hour presentation on Dysfunction and Disorders in Complex Custody Cases as part of the Innovations—Breaking Boundaries in Custody Litigation course co-sponsored by the University of Texas School of Law and the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers Texas Chapter. Those attending were eligible for CLE and CEU credits.

Dr. Warshak and Katie Flowers Samler gave a video presentation at the Family Law Bench Bar conference of the Dallas Bar Association. The title: Steering Through Parental Alienation Hurricanes: Myriad Concerns and Mistaken IDs. Ms. Samler is a family law attorney with the firm of GoransonBain Ausley and has been selected to the Texas Rising Star List of Thompson Reuters.

Dr. Warshak and Melissa Kucinski, J.D., M.A., a Washington, D.C. family lawyer with expertise in international family law and Hague Convention cases, gave a Zoom presentation to the Dallas Forensic Group. The topic was International Child Custody Disputes: Legal and Psychological Dimensions. Ms. Kucinski discussed legal principles and their applications and cautions related to international child custody cases. Dr. Warshak discussed child custody evaluations in international family law cases and addressed ways to frame issues unique to these cases.

An article in this month’s The Atlantic magazine quotes Dr. Warshak, discusses his research, and mentions his book, Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family From Bad-Mouthing and Brainwashing. The article, written by veteran journalist Barbara Bradley Hagerty, is titled: Can Children Be Persuaded to Love a Parent They Hate? Read the article .

On June 11, 2020, Dr. Warshak presented a webinar titled: Parental Alienation: False Positives and Myriad Concerns. The webinar was part of the AFCC Webinar Series on Parent-Child Contact Problems .

Allegations that a parent has manipulated a child to turn against the other parent raise complex issues challenging child custody evaluators, expert witnesses, and courts. A key issue relates to false positive identifications—mistakenly concluding that a child is alienated and that a parent has engaged in a campaign of alienating behaviors. Dr. Warshak presented seven criteria that distinguish negative behaviors of moderately or severely alienated children from negative behaviors that do not indicate parental alienation, and discussed judgment biases that can lead to faulty conclusions.

Dr. Warshak’s chapter, Parental Alienation: How to Prevent, Manage, and Remedy It, was published in a book edited by Demosthenes Lorandos and William Bernet, Parental Alienation—Science and Law. The chapter integrates Dr. Warshak’s work from the past decade, including myths about parental alienation and practice tips for lawyers and judges. The book can be ordered in hard cover and eBook directly from the publisher Charles C Thomas .

Dr. Warshak is quoted extensively in an article on divorce at PsyCom.net, a website that receives 2.3 million unique visits per month. Read the article .

Risks and Realities of Working With Alienated Children was published in Family Court Review, Volume 58, April 2020. The article discusses biases that lead some expert witnesses to dismiss the possibilities that a child’s rejection of a parent is unwarranted and that the child’s favored parent has contributed significantly to the conflict between the child and the rejected parent.

The article also discusses risks to professionals such as unfounded accusations of mistreating children, and negatively biased commentary in the media, social media, professional conferences, journals, and courtroom testimony. It concludes that criticisms of a judge or service provider merit careful scrutiny in the context of the case evidence and empirical data. The article can be purchased and downloaded directly from the publisher at this link .

When Evaluators Get It Wrong: False Positive IDs and Parental Alienation was published in the American Psychological Association journal, Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. The article provides a framework to help evaluators, other experts, therapists, and courts avoid false positive identifications, and to help attorneys represent clients who are wrongly accused of alienating behaviors. It can be accessed via the APA at this link .

The article discusses how multiple areas of reliable psychological research shed light on parental alienation processes and their impact on children, and emphasizes the importance of considering the nuances of alienating behaviors—such as intensity, frequency, duration, and motivation—when making recommendations that serve children’s best interests.

Dr. Warshak delivered a guest lecture in a course to train parenting coordinators and parenting facilitators. The lecture took place on September 24, 2019 in Denton, Texas.

Dr. Warshak was quoted in an article on Fatherly.com about the importance of fathers remaining involved in their children’s lives when parents are separated. Read the article .

Dr. Warshak gave two presentations at the annual family law seminar of the Utah State Bar. The first presentation, Night Shifts: Implications of Social Science for Overnights and Shared Parenting with Young Children, discussed how to challenge experts’ opinions that rest on poor research, unreliable assessment instruments, and faulty inferences.

The second presentation, Representing a Client Accused of Perpetrating Parental Alienation, addressed situations that can be mistaken as evidence of alienating behavior and offered attorneys strategies and tips for defending clients who are falsely accused, as well as clients who do engage in alienating behaviors. Dr. Warshak also described court orders that can help severely alienated children, and an outcome study of a specialized program that helped severely alienated children and adolescents repair their damaged relationship with a parent whom they had previously rejected for an average of 3–4 years.

Dr. Warshak was quoted in a column on international child abductions published in Canada’s The Globe and Mail. Read the column .

Dr. Warshak appeared on a panel that addressed judges and lawyers at the State Bar of Texas CLE conference: Innovations: Breaking Boundaries in Custody Litigation. The panel topic was Defending the Accused, and Dr. Warshak spoke about considerations for lawyers when representing clients accused of parental alienation behavior.

He stressed that allegations that a child is alienated require a thorough investigation of reasonable alternative explanations of the behavior of the child and both parents, and highlighted the importance of understanding the nuances of claims that a child is alienated and of claims that the lawyer’s client is responsible for the problem. The conference took place in San Antonio, TX.