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→The impact on children
While the process of alienation is underway, children are subject to a tremendous conflict of loyalties, which compounds the burden of nurturing an emotionally troubled parent, particularly when the alienation is intentional. While the parents were together, their children love them both, and children naturally desire for this to continue even when their parent's aren't together. Alienating conduct essentially asks children to pick sides, to chose one parent permanently and irrevocably over the other parent.
In G.F. Cartwright's article "[http://www.secuestro-emocional.org/pas/cartwr93.pdf Expanding the Parameters of Parental Alienation Syndrome]," published in The the American Journal of Family Therapy in 1993, a number of long-term psychological problems were found in children in alienation situations, including:
#depression, anxiety and/or stress,
#being less able to conceptualize complex situations.
Finally, when the process of alienation is complete, the child will have chosen sides. The child's relationship with the other parent may be permanently impaired. While many children afflicted by alienation will recover in their mid- to late-teens and reach out to the other parent, some never do , and their relationship with the other parent is permanently destroyed. To quote from the judge in a 2005 Ontario case, ''[http://canlii.ca/t/1jgqp Cooper v. Cooper]'', 2004 CanLII 47783 (ON SC):
<blockquote>"I find that [the mother's] sabotaging actions have been knowing, wilful and deliberate. As a result of [her] behaviour, the children have little or no relationship with the father who loves them, who has tried to be a good father, and who has been a good provider throughout their lives."</blockquote>