Parental alienation, coaching and the best interests of the child: Allegations of child sexual abuse in the Family Court of Australia

, , & (2019) Parental alienation, coaching and the best interests of the child: Allegations of child sexual abuse in the Family Court of Australia. Child Abuse and Neglect, 94, Article number: 104045 1-10.

[img]
Preview
 		Accepted Version (PDF 131kB)

View at publisher

Description

Background Allegations of child sexual abuse provide complex challenges to family court systems.
Objectives Despite being highly criticised in the academic research, this analysis examined whether and how the gendered concepts of parental alienation syndrome or parental alienation more broadly are still being used to rebut allegations of child sexual abuse in family court cases in Australia. Parental Alienation is broadly understood as the deliberate actions of one parent to disrupt and prevent children’s ongoing relationships with their other parent, in this case through allegations of abuse
.Methods We examined 357 publicly available judgements of the Family Court of Australia between 2010 and 2015. Judgements were analysed qualitatively for key themes using N-VIVO software.
Results Five themes emerged in the data, including use of the concept of parental alienation, coaching, mothers as manipulative, mothers as mentally ill, and impact of the best interest of the child.
Conclusions Results indicate that judgements made in the Family Court of Australia are both similar and divergent from those made in other jurisdictions internationally. The complexity of responding to allegations of child sexual abuse for parents is discussed.

Impact and interest:

19 citations in Scopus
17 citations in Web of Science®
Search Google Scholar™

Citation counts are sourced monthly from Scopus and Web of Science® citation databases.

These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.

Citations counts from the Google Scholar™ indexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.

Full-text downloads:

847 since deposited on 19 Jun 2019
419 in the past twelve months

Full-text downloads displays the total number of times this work’s files (e.g., a PDF) have been downloaded from QUT ePrints as well as the number of downloads in the previous 365 days. The count includes downloads for all files if a work has more than one.

More statistics...
ID Code: 130824
Item Type: Contribution to Journal (Journal Article)
Refereed: Yes
ORCID iD:
Death, Jodiorcid.org/0000-0002-0522-4324
Ferguson, Claireorcid.org/0000-0002-7443-6558
Burgess, Kylieorcid.org/0000-0002-3247-2120
Measurements or Duration: 10 pages
Keywords: child sexual abuse, family law, parental alienation, separation
DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104045
ISSN: 0145-2134
Pure ID: 40813544
Divisions: Past > QUT Faculties & Divisions > Faculty of Law
Current > Schools > School of Justice
Past > QUT Faculties & Divisions > Division of Administrative Services
Current > Research Centres > Crime, Justice & Social Democracy Research Centre
Copyright Owner: Consult author(s) regarding copyright matters
Copyright Statement: This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the document is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to qut.copyright@qut.edu.au
Deposited On: 19 Jun 2019 10:05
Last Modified: 29 Apr 2026 14:29

Export: EndNote | Dublin Core | BibTeX

Repository Staff Only: item control page