Comments regarding “Looking beyond the Sorting Hat: Deconstructing the ‘Five Factor Model’ of Alienation,” by Garber and Simon

ABSTRACT

Some aspects of family law have become contentious and polarized, such as when children resist or refuse a relationship with a parent. There are several possible causes of contact refusal, one of which is parental alienation. Garber and Simon recently published an article highly critical of the Five-Factor Model (FFM), a method for identifying parental alienation. They promote the Ecological Model (EM), a method for assessing the possible causes of contact refusal. It is our contention that the article by Garber and Simon is flawed because they misunderstand the FFM. Moreover, it is illogical to compare the EM with the FFM and say one of them is superior. It is illogical because these two distinct constructs have different scopes of interest, i.e., the broad differential diagnosis of contact refusal in the EM vs. the narrow list of criteria for the identification of parental alienation in the FFM. Even though Garber and Simon acknowledge the value of the FFM several times, they create controversy and polarization with a gigantic straw person argument: they are assigning a task to the FFM that is not part of its job description – to identify all the potential causes of contact refusal – and then they complain that the FFM has poor job performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental alienation
• parent–child contact problems
• contact refusal
• Five-Factor model
• Baker model
• ecological model

This article is referred to by:

Looking Beyond the Sorting Hat: Deconstructing the “Five Factor Model” of Alienation

This article responds to:

Moving Toward Consensus: Joining Bernet and Baker, Emery, and Griffin to Better Understand the Dynamics of Parent-Child Contact Problems (PCCP)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

William Bernet

William Bernet receives royalties from a publishing company and honoraria for making presentations at professional conferences. He is the president of the Parental Alienation Study Group.

Amy J. L. Baker

Amy J. L. Baker receives royalties from publishing companies.