How efficacious is Building Family Bridges? What the legal and mental health fields should know about Building Family Bridges and “parental alienation”

Abstract

Parental alienation (PA) has been defined as a situation when a child demonstrates a preference for one parent (“preferred parent”) over the other (“targeted parent”). PA has become an influential topic in family courts and oftentimes programs like Building Family Bridges (BFB) are ordered because of the perceived impact of PA. There are concerns regarding methodological flaws in program research. Richard Warshak has become an influential proponent of BFB and has published articles suggesting it is a successful program. This publication addresses concerns of PA in courts, as well as BFB, that are based on junk science. This publication also provides judges with tools and information to utilize should cases involving allegations of PA arise in their courtrooms.

Keywords:

• Child custody
• family bridges
• family court
• parental alienation
• Richard Warshak
• reunification

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge and thank Robert Geffner for his contributions to this publication.

Disclosure statement

None of the authors have any disclosures of conflict to report.

Ethical standards and informed consent

No human subjects were involved in the development of this article.