Can the courts tell someone who to love? They must try, decided Ontario Superior Court Judge James Turnbull, in a recent ruling involving the case of "L.S.," a 13-year-old boy systematically brainwashed by his father to hate his mother. "Parental alienation is a difficult issue increasingly faced by the courts," said Turnbull. In a bold move, he granted the mother sole custody of her estranged son. The ruling gives her the right to transport him — against his will, if necessary — for treatment to counteract years of "subtle emotional abuse" by her ex-husband. Turnbull based much of his ruling on the testimony of Dallas-based clinical psychologist Richard Warshak. L.S. and his mother will participate in a four-day program Warshak helped devise to counteract such alienation. Warshak is the author of Divorce Poison: Protecting the Parent-Child Bond From a Vindictive Ex.

Q: Explain parental alienation.

A: What I call divorce poison are the things parents do that undermine the relationship with the other parent. It can range from occasional badmouthing to a vicious campaign to remove the parent from the child's life. When children succumb to this kind of negative influence they begin to treat the other parent with contempt, or with fear. The term that I've come to use is pathological alienation because I want to distinguish this problem from situations where a child has good reason to reject a parent.

Q: Is pathological alienation an act of love, or of hatred toward the children?

A: I do think this is the most under-recognized form of emotional abuse toward children. What happens is parents who do this are so caught up in their emotions that they lose sight of their children's needs. They don't deliberately intend to hurt their children. The children are just collateral damage.

Q: Can you give examples from your experience of how this brainwashing is done?

A: It usually begins with a theme: "Your mom left us." Or, "Your dad goes on business trips because he doesn't care about us." The parent's love for the child is put in question: "She never really wanted you." Sometimes a parent's past mistakes are exaggerated. Other times entire episodes are manufactured to make the parent look bad to the child.

Q: That's particularly evil.

A: In some cases, children's memories of the good things that were done are wiped out, so they don't remember that the parent was present at an important event. Even though the parent has pictures to prove it, the child's negative view is so fixed that they discount the evidence. Attempts by the rejected parent to reach the child, such as gifts and cards, are withheld. In one case a girl was told that if her father really wanted to see her he would have sent money for airfare. A few years later the girl found a drawer full of plane tickets that the father had purchased and sent and the mother had hidden. In another case a woman who was in her 30s reconciled with her father after her mother died. She told him she could never get over the fact that he didn't provide money for her to attend college. So he pulled out his cancelled cheques that amounted to four years of tuition that he had sent to the mother but the girl had never seen.

Q: You say in your book that rejected parents sometimes contribute to their victimization by maintaining a stoic silence or just by refusing to indulge in a similar sort of slander about their ex-spouse. It's not always a good idea to remain passive?

A: It's not a good idea to remain passive. Certainly it's not a good idea to react by doing your own badmouthing. The single biggest mistake that parents and the professionals who advise them make is to do nothing. This leaves children with no help or understanding of what is at best a confusing situation. In any other situation when children misperceive reality we help correct their distortions. If children act hatefully toward people of another race or religion we teach the importance of judging people fairly and treating them with dignity. This is no less essential when the targets of animosity are parents and other relatives.

Q: What is the price children pay for writing off one of their parents?

A: The most serious consequence is the loss of the parent and sometimes the loss of half their family. It's not uncommon for these children to reject not only the parent but anyone associated with that parent. It's common knowledge when you have problems with your parents it handicaps your future relationships. In addition to that, though, there is long-term damage to the child's personality and character. As adults they suffer low self-esteem. Some children feel very guilty for having mistreated the other parent. These are the children who've come to understand what has happened to them.

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