Social Alienation in Families

Social alienation in family settings, known as parental alienation, is a relative newcomer to sociological theory and practice. The alienation phenomenon in the family creates harmful structural conditions that coerce children to reject a parent without cause incongruent with a history of their loving parent-child relationship. Such structural conditions also normalise socially unacceptable behaviours and draw on institutionalised family ideologies to reinforce alienation practices. Alienation in the family reflects a broader societal alienation discourse of objectification, stigmatisation, and exclusion that cancels parental identity, marginalising and exploiting children and parents. The faculties of psychology and law have historically dominated the field of parental alienation. Nevertheless, these faculties do not address the interaction between broader social conditions, family conditions, and individual presentations. The author invites a sociological perspective to address the social issues alienation causes in families and the family's vulnerability to alienation discourses that deconstruct them.