Dialogue: Criminality, Social Deviancy and Institutional Responses to the Crisis of the Child’s Best Interests.

Stan Korosi

PhD (Provider of Integrated Assessment and Remediation Services, Australia)

Teresa Silva

PhD (Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mid Sweden University)

Teresa Silva.

In this dialogue, we will discuss aspects of institutional response to PA and how it minimises its adverse impact on children and targeted parents. In particular, we will debate the consequences of not considering PA a psycho-social emergency for children and remediation as a child-protective action. Moreover, we will discuss the extent to which institutions promote alienation by empowering alienating behaviours, favouring economic exploitation, dehumanisation, and objectification of alienated parents in a climate where academic disinformation about the validity of PA theory has negatively impacted funding for research disturbing any preventive actions and case-management programs.

Stan Korosi.

As a second part of the debate, we will argue that the best interest of the child is politically hijacked when shared parenting provisions are removed, removing with it the presumption that parental alienation relationships are beneficial. In such cases, targeted parents' mental health is seriously affected with an increased risk of suicidal behaviours, and the impact on children's lives may be as severe as other forms of child maltreatment.