A Network of Alienation-Informed Professionals

If you are searching for a therapist, attorney, or guardian ad litem who truly understands parental alienation, you have probably already discovered how few of them there are. Too often, the professionals a family turns to for help don’t recognize alienation for what it is. Some, knowingly or not, make it worse. That gap is exactly what The Empowerment Community exists to close.

Parental alienation is domestic violence

Let us be clear about what this is. Parental alienation is not a “he said, she said” custody disagreement. It is a form of domestic violence — coercive control directed at a former partner and, at its center, the emotional abuse of a child. Manipulating a child to fear, reject, or hate a loving parent uses that child as a weapon. The research increasingly recognizes these behaviors as family violence and psychological maltreatment, with lasting harm to the child’s mental health and development. Treating it as an ordinary parenting dispute is part of how the abuse is allowed to continue.

Why we don’t yet hand out a referral list

We are honest with the families who come to us: a reliable, vetted network of alienation-informed professionals does not yet exist — not because families don’t need one, but because the training that would produce those professionals is only now being built. We would rather tell you the truth than send you to someone who will deepen the harm. Building that network is the work, not a box we can already check.

The vision: CE and CLE built specifically for alienation

The Empowerment Community is developing continuing education (CE) for mental health professionals and continuing legal education (CLE) for attorneys, along with training designed for guardians ad litem and other court-involved professionals. The goal is a body of practitioners who can recognize alienation, respond to it competently, and critically, avoid the well-meaning mistakes that so often make it worse. From that training, we intend to build a directory of professionals who have completed it and who understand that enabling alienation means enabling abuse.

A higher standard for the professionals you trust

No longer should an attorney be able to help a client abuse a former spouse or a child under the cover of “zealous advocacy.” No longer should a therapist or evaluator unknowingly reward the alienating behavior they were brought in to assess. Professionals who work with these families carry real responsibility, and understanding alienation as domestic violence is part of meeting it. Our training exists to raise that standard.

Join Our Directory

If you are a therapist, attorney, or guardian ad litem who understands the clinical and forensic research that constitutes parental alienation, we want to hear from you. Even before our own continuing education is complete, we are building a directory of professionals who can demonstrate a research-grounded understanding of alienation. Reach out to us to be considered, and we can share your contact information with families and colleagues seeking knowledgeable, alienation-informed help.