Many rejected parents and grandparents find themselves involved with legal and mental health professionals as they navigate their very difficult alienation journey. As you are likely aware, PA is a bona fide specialized field of practice - there is a knowledge base and core content that experts must have to properly assist families affected by PA and to avoid common errors that can result in poor outcomes for such families. Such errors are extremely common among non-specialists because many aspects of PA are highly counterintuitive. The field is counterintuitive because the human brain is hard-wired to commit certain types of systematic cognitive errors that are particularly common in PA cases.

Consequently, non-specialists who attempt to evaluate or manage such cases will often fall prey to a variety of cognitive and clinical errors, particularly if they rely on naive intuition rather than a highly specialized knowledge base. Furthermore, such clinicians are likely to have great confidence in their incorrect conclusions. Indeed, the usual repertoire of clinical skills is often inadequate in such cases and will often result in poor clinical and forensic outcomes. Similarly, lawyers who have little knowledge, training and experience in PA will often provide a disservice to rejected parents seeking positive court outcomes.