Why the DFSV–Suicide Inquiry Must Widen Its Lens: Supplementary Submission to the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs

By Stan Korosi, PhD
Dialogue in Growth | Policy and social analysis

Australia’s new parliamentary Inquiry into the relationship between domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) victimisation and suicide is important, timely, and necessary. But if the Inquiry remains conceptually narrow, it risks missing a significant and preventable subset of suicide deaths.

Supplementary Submission (Corrigendum)

My original submission (https://doi.org/10.25907/01015) to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs has now been replaced with an updated version (https://doi.org/10.25907/01031 ).

There is no substantative change in the development of concepts, focus or policy direction.

It uses more accurate suicide statistics for 2023 published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 2024.

The 2023 suicide statistics reinforce that, in absolute terms, men’s deaths from suicide across all psychosocial categories are substantially greater than for women and that men’s and women’s suicide deaths coded in the Z63.5 psychosocial suicide category are proportionally more similar.

As previously it argues that, current policy settings are not yet sufficiently specified to explain — or prevent — a substantial subset of suicides associated with family relationship rupture during separation and divorce. The dominant DFSV victim–perpetrator framing captures important harms. It should be retained. But on its own, it may not be enough.

The central problem is this: some suicides appear to occur at the intersection of family rupture, coercive relational dynamics, social narratives, and institutional interpretation. If policy only sees one part of that intersection, it will underperform in the real world.

The suicide prevalence signal policy should not ignore

A major blind spot in public discussion is the psychosocial suicide category ICD-10 Z63.5: “Disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce.” In the updated submission, I highlight Australian 2023 data showing this category recorded in a substantial number of suicide deaths for both men and women, with markedly higher male mortality. This is not a fringe issue. It is a population-level signal that our current approach to DFSV and suicide is missing a significant at-risk group.

This matters because such coding does not tell us whether cases involved victimisation, perpetration, bidirectional conflict, coercive dynamics, parental alienation, institutional misreading, or some combination of these. It identifies a high-risk psychosocial presentation. What it does not do is explain the pathway.

That is the policy gap.

Why conventional framing of suicide can be incomplete

Much of suicidology and DFSV policy examines trauma, violence, coercive control, and social determinants. However, broad frameworks can become too generic when they are applied to severe family rupture during separation and divorce.

The issue is not whether existing frameworks are “wrong.” The issue is whether they are sufficiently granular.

Where policy is too broad, high-risk presentations become flattened into generic categories such as “relationship problems,” or interpreted through pre-existing templates that may not fit the facts of a specific case. In practice, this can obscure coercive relational dynamics, identity degradation, and institutional responses that intensify suicidality.

That is especially relevant where the parent–child relationship itself becomes the site of coercive conflict.

Parental alienating behaviours as one possible coercive pathway

The submission argues that parental alienating behaviours (PABs) should be examined as one possible (but not the only) under-recognised coercive pathway within family relationship rupture. This argument includes all forms of DFSV that meet evidentiary standards and are gender-inclusive.

It is an argument for empirical investigation of this hidden suicide presentation.

If coercive parenting and relational behaviours are contributing to suicidality in some separation/divorce contexts, then policy must be capable of identifying that pathway and responding to it. If not, an entire high-risk presentation can sit in plain sight in national data while remaining poorly specified in a prevention strategy.

In my submission, I frame PABs as coercive communicative practices that can restructure family relationships and identity — including, in some cases, inducing child rejection of a parent without reasonable justification. The policy question for the Inquiry is whether such dynamics are currently under-recognised in suicide prevention settings.

The missing suicide mechanism: identity degradation and institutional uptake

One of the most important gaps in the current debate is the role of social and institutional meaning-making.

Suicide risk is not always reducible to individual pathology or immediate interpersonal conflict. In some cases, suicidality may be intensified by a cumulative process in which:

• Parental identity is degraded;
  
• Claims are filtered through delegitimising templates;
  
• Gendered scripts shape credibility;
  
• Institutions stabilise these interpretations; and
  
• Alternate non-stigmatised identities become harder to sustain.

That is a sociological and policy problem, not merely a clinical one.

The submission proposes a pathway model in which coercive relational dynamics, including but not limited to parental alienation, gendered social scripts, and institutional uptake, can combine to create entrapment, burdensomeness, defeat, and loss of belongingness — all well-known suicide-relevant constructs in the literature. The point is not to presume causation in every case, but to specify a mechanism that can be tested, rather than ignored.

This is not a zero-sum argument about gender

A recurring mistake in policy discourse is to treat recognition of one form of harm as denial of another. That is intellectually lazy and policy-destructive.

My submission explicitly argues for a gender-inclusive approach. Men are overrepresented in suicide mortality in this presentation, which warrants focused attention. But women are also significantly affected and may experience different forms of identity foreclosure and institutional misrecognition.

The relevant policy question is not “Which gender counts?” The question is: Which coercive pathways are operating, how are they institutionally interpreted, and what interventions reduce deaths?

That is the standard that a serious inquiry should apply.

Where the current National Suicide Prevention Strategy appears under-specified

The submission uses Australia’s National Suicide Prevention Strategy 2025–2035 as an example of a broader structural issue: a high-risk psychosocial presentation is recognised, but pathway-specific responses remain underdeveloped.

The Strategy addresses DFSV as a major public policy concern and recognises family relationship disruption as a suicide factor. However, in my assessment, it does not yet provide a sufficiently targeted response for suicidality associated with severe family relationship rupture during separation and divorce — particularly where coercive relational or parenting dynamics may be involved.

In practical terms, this can lead to:

• risk recognition without pathway-specific intervention design,
• generic service responses where specialist responses may be needed,
• insufficient service mapping/commissioning for this presentation, and
• limited evidence-building on causal pathways and intervention effectiveness.

If we want outcomes to improve, strategy language must connect to operational design.

What a serious policy response should look like

The answer is not ideology. The answer is better specification, better evidence, and better implementation.

My submission recommends a targeted policy package to complement — not displace — existing DFSV work. Key elements include:

• an independent evidence review on suicide associated with family relationship disruption (including coercive relational and parenting dynamics and parental alienation as testable pathways);
  
• improved data linkage and case-review capability;
  
• gender-inclusive risk identification at family law, mediation, counselling and related touchpoints;
  
• targeted interventions for high-conflict/coercive presentations (beyond generic counselling-only responses);
  
• specialist service mapping, commissioning and evaluation;
  
• evidentiary safeguards to assess claims and counterclaims, especially of DFSV and parental alienation without presumption; and
  
• practitioner training that is gender-inclusive, evidence-disciplined, and capable of working under evidentiary uncertainty.

In plain terms: if a risk pattern is visible in national data, but invisible in service design, policy is not finished.

The Inquiry has an opportunity — and a responsibility

This Inquiry can do more than restate known harms. It can improve the evidence base by testing under-recognised pathways and sharpening suicide prevention design where family relationship rupture is the presenting context.

That requires conceptual courage and evidentiary discipline at the same time.

Australia does not need a false choice between DFSV prevention and a more complete account of suicidality in family rupture contexts. It needs a framework capable of handling complexity without collapsing into ideology, and a prevention strategy capable of matching the real-world patterns visible in the data.

Lives depend on whether policy can do that work.

Selected references (as cited in the underlying submission)

• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2022). Psychosocial Risk Factors and Deaths by Suicide.
• National Mental Health Commission. (2025). National Suicide Prevention Strategy 2025–2035.
• Harman, J. J., Kruk, E., & Hines, D. A. (2018). Parental alienating behaviours: An unacknowledged form of family violence. Psychological Bulletin, 144(12), 1275–1299. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000175
• Cleary, A. (2019). The Gendered Landscape of Suicide: Masculinities, Emotions, and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16634-2
• Van Orden, K. A., Witte, T. K., Cukrowicz, K. C., Braithwaite, S. R., Selby, E. A., & Joiner, T. E. Jr. (2010). The interpersonal theory of suicide. Psychological Review, 117(2), 575.
• Poustie, C., Matthewson, M., & Balmer, S. (2018). The Forgotten Parent: The Targeted Parent Perspective of Parental Alienation. Journal of Family Issues, 39(12), 3298–3323. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X18777867
• Lee-Maturana, S., Matthewson, M. L., & Dwan, C. (2020). Targeted parents surviving parental alienation: Consequences of the alienation and coping strategies. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 29, 2268–2280. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-020-01725-1

• The Schlock Horror Alienation Show-National Suicide Prevention Day
• What Happens When Men become Alienated from their Children?
• Parental Alienation Gets Publicity In The Australian
• Parental Alienation: A Violent and Potentially Lethal Social and Psychological Phenomenon
• Accredited Professional Development in Parental Alienation Presentations and Behaviours

International Parental Alienation Conference Focusing on Families, Family Relationships and Preventing Harm.

I am one of several keynote speakers, featuring the next parental alienation conference, PASG 2026, to be held in Perth, 11-13 October 2026. This conference will continue to provide a platform to present the latest developments in the social science, practice, policy and law in this field.

I will speak on several subjects:

• International perspectives on parental alienation,
  
• The future of families in an alienated world, and
  
• How alienating behaviours can coerce those exposed to them into suicide.

International Perspectives on Parental Alienation

I will address some important questions, such as:

• How is parental alienation regarded in different jurisdictions around the world?
  
• How is it that it is accepted within the framework of family violence and coercive control in some countries, but faces trenchant opposition in others?
  
• What do claims that the concept of parental alienation is “contested” mean?
  
• What are the ideologies and politics of those areas that accept parental alienation alongside other forms of family and domestic violence?

The Future of Families in an Alienated World

Parental alienation (PA) is a contested yet increasingly recognised phenomenon at the cutting edge of contemporary families. The PA field straddles the intersection of family dynamics, power, gender, and politics. Family networks transcend national boundaries, geography and historical structural forms.

This presentation will explore PA as a social dynamic driving family configuration and the family narratives that constitute the contemporary family. We will also discuss how PA also drives adverse societal change as an alienation discourse.

How Parental Alienating Behaviours (PABs) can Coerce Those Exposed to Them Into Suicide

Research on parental alienation has repeatedly linked exposure to PABs with adverse psychosocial outcomes, including suicidality with parents, especially alienated fathers, who are frequently identified as high risk.

I will propose a possible mechanism linking PAB exposure to suicidogenic conditions, including a plausible account of why male suicide mortality is overrepresented in family-relationship disruption and how this pathway may vary by gender.

• What Happens When Men become Alienated from their Children?
• Parental Alienation in Australia, A Year in Review
• Join The Parental Alienation Study Group
• ‘The Pinball Machine’: How The ‘House’ Wins The Alienation Game
• Parental Alienation: What is Wrong with Your Family Assessment?

The word “contestable” and the notion of “contestability”  are increasingly used as a political lever to delegitimise parental alienation (PA) in government and court settings. Yet, gendered theories of family violence (GFV) are largely untouched by the same standard. 

The brief responds to reporting that in 2025, a UN delegate questioned the Irish Government’s use of PA because PA is “highly contested.” The report in the Irish Examiner (https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/courtandcrime/arid-41655221.html) referred to alleged risks from “contested” claims of PA to women and children experiencing domestic violence. 

To put it bluntly: if “contestability” is treated as a disqualifier for policy, GFV should face equal—or greater—scrutiny. GFV is also contested on conceptual, empirical, and policy grounds. 

What is Different About Contestability?

“Contestability” has a special meaning in this debate. It is not merely disagreement about a concept’s usefulness. Contestability disputes the nature of the underlying reality (ontology) and how we can know it (epistemology)—a deeper challenge than conventional critique. 

In summary, contestability is framed as a typical rhetorical move in some strands of feminist theory. It shifts the argument from evidence and mechanisms to the claim that the phenomenon itself cannot be stably defined or objectively verified. 

PA critics apply this move selectively. PA research has been subject to sustained scientific and legal scrutiny since the 1980s. It has developed advanced and validated assessment frameworks and behavioural indicators. Meanwhile, GFV—often anchored in ideological origins and policy orthodoxy—can be difficult to critique without professional or reputational risk. The political and ideological orthodoxy about GFV make it less open to correction. 

What Are The Policy Implications?

The policy implication is straightforward: public institutions should not treat “contestability” as a one-way veto. The same scrutiny should be applied to all fields affecting children’s welfare. When formal bodies exclude PA from public health and policy frameworks on contestability grounds, they may inadvertently harm children and families by denying recognition, services, and evidence-based remedies to those affected—across genders and family structures

For the full article, please refer to :
https://doi.org/10.25907/00940

• Anti Parental Alienation Protestor Kicks Own Goal
• Sociological Implications of Social Alienation and its Demon Spawn Parental Alienation in Families
• Response to UN Special Rapporteur’s Call for Input: Custody Cases, Violence against Women and Children
• Should Alienated Parents Abduct Their Alienated Children?
• Parental Alienation Professional Development

—and Policy must catch up

Parental alienation (PA) is not just a private family dispute but a structural social phenomenon. It is actively reshaping family relationships, family narratives, and the future configuration of families. 

How is Parental Alienation a Problem?

One parent uses PA behaviours (PABs) to manipulate a child into rejecting the other parent without reasonable grounds. PA theory, practice and research have reached a turning point; it is now a distinct field. It is moving beyond a purely “problem-fixing” stance. Instead, the PA field could lead the public dialogue on family narratives and configurations that meet children’s developmental and relational needs now and into the future. 

Parental Alienation and Families

The PA field is situated in the broader context of rapidly evolving family structures. These evolving structures include blended families, single-parent households, and increasingly diverse parenting networks. It leads to thinking about how these shifts can make relationships more fluid and, therefore, more vulnerable to manipulation through coercive narratives. 

What Type of Abuse is Parental Alienating Behaviour (PAB)?

 PA behaviours are a form of power exercised through discourse, where one adult uses discursive strategies to normalise vilification and exclusion within the family system. Crucially, family law and child support settings can provide perverse incentives; these incemtives unintentionally reward vilification and exclusion and destabilise family moralities.

The PA Field Challenges Anti-Family Initiatives

The PA field brings to light adverse family relationship moralities. These anti-family moralities include:

• an unsettling norm where the State enforces child support while the parent receiving child support coaches the child to hate or reject the paying parent, and
  
• where social and legal agencies no longer consider parent-child relationships and a child’s relationship with family members as central to children’s development and welfare.

Public Policy and legislation should stop treating alienation as an oddity to be contested. Our social and legal agencies should treat it as a societal issue affecting children’s long-term health. It is time for structural reforms to ensure that children can maintain meaningful relationships with both parents, where safe, and for our institutions, such as family law, to repair family relationships rather than adjudicate conflicts about who cares for the children. The message from the PA field is clear; it is time to recenter families and family relationships in society.

For more information: download the full article at: https://doi.org/10.31124/advance.175869940.09833509/v1

Or at https://research.usc.edu.au/esploro/outputs/991198251002621

• Ethics Approval for Research into Parental Alienation as a Social Phenomenon
• Sociological Implications of Social Alienation and its Demon Spawn Parental Alienation in Families
• False Allegations and Parental Alienation in Australian Family Law
• Important Changes for Parental Alienation Services in Australia
• Progress on Research into The Lived Experience of Parental Alienation in a Social Context

Why Gendered Theories of Family Violence Are As Contestable—If Not More So—Than Parental Alienation Theory

Like many social science presentations, gendered theories of family violence and parental alienation may be considered contested concepts. They both rely fundamentally on the subjectivity of lived experience and assessment of structural factors that cannot be directly discerned. If, as the Irish Examiner claims, the Irish Government should not rely on contestable theories, then governments cannot rely on the gendered theory of violence to guide their policies either.

This false contestability argument has significant adverse implications for formal bodies responsible for legislation and public health policies. The WHO accepting GFV as an essential public health issue affecting women but not accepting PA as a public health issue affecting men, women, and children is contradictory. It is an example of how the false claim that PA is contestable but GFV is not (or that GFV is contestable but PA should still not be accepted) drives policies that harm significant populations that GFV regards as politically incorrect.

Gendered theories’ systemic entrenchment, ideological rigidity, and dogmatic nature render them more contestable. The same rigorous scientific explanation applied to PA should also apply to GFV. A shift towards inclusive, evidence-informed policymaking is essential for equitable justice and support for all affected families.

Please refer to the full article at https://doi.org/10.25907/00940

Key points: Gendered Family Violence and Parental Alienation

• Gendered theories are a political concept about reordering social and political structures to eliminate patriarchy. They rely on the ideological doctrine of patriarchy and male control, which discounts empirical evidence that disagrees with its doctrine.
  
• Large-scale studies indicate that bi-directional and female-perpetrated intimate partner violence is more prevalent than gendered theories acknowledge.
  
• Parental alienation, despite controversy, some of which is politically manufactured, has a growing interdisciplinary evidence base. It includes assessment instruments and behavioural tools for identification, clinical validation, social theories, and measures of its structural implications.
  
• Public polices rely on social determinants such as gender, race and other demographic factors, to perpetuate the doctrine of male-perpetrated violence against women and children.
  
• Public policies exclude PA because PA is independent of gender or other demographic factors. It is a relational and structural phenomenon using narratives that structure abuse across social determinants.
  
• Policy frameworks based on gendered models marginalise male victims, non-binary individuals, same-sex families and families experiencing non-gendered forms of violence.
  
• Gendered theories of violence harm the women and children they claim to protect by denying their experience. These theories insist on reframing their lived experience through their doctrine, which does not fully encompass the lived experience of parental alienation.
  
• A pluralist, evidence-based approach and the adoption of non-gendered public health initiatives would better serve all families and children, indeed all victims and reduce politicisation in family law and child welfare systems

• Response to UN Special Rapporteur’s Call for Input: Custody Cases, Violence against Women and Children
• Sociological Implications of Social Alienation and its Demon Spawn Parental Alienation in Families
• What Happens When Men become Alienated from their Children?
• False Allegations and Parental Alienation in Australian Family Law
• Family Violence Orders: Should You Really Apply For Them?

The report on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) released in June 2025, relies on tired, male-gendered tropes that skew its findings and may mislead the public and policymakers.

It reports that in 2022, one in three Australian men used IPV,  mostly against their female partners or family members. According to the study, these figures indicate a worsening trend compared to the previous report in 2013-2014, in which one in four men used IPV.

Summary Critique

The AIFS report, part of AIFS’s Ten to Men longitudinal study, reinforces outdated gender stereotypes in its portrayal of IPV as male-only. It ignores female factors associated with all forms of IPV, including parental alienating behaviours as a form of coercive control. Men and women, and mothers and fathers, equally use parental alienating behaviours.

The report is deeply flawed, best described as misleading, and gender-discriminatory for ignoring the roles women may play in perpetrating IPV and coercive control. Notably absent is any mention of parental alienating behaviours. These behaviours are a form of emotional abuse and control that research suggests is used by both mothers and fathers.

Proponents of gendered family violence will use this research to call for even more punitive and discriminatory laws. This research falls short by not telling the whole story. It is the wrong platform for policy, guidance, and legal changes.

The AIFS is simply recycling a simplistic narrative that casts women and children solely as victims. They undermine more balanced, evidence-based understandings of family violence. We call for future studies to include the experiences of all genders, especially in cases involving alienation and coercive control.

What the AIFS report is not telling us

• Women engage in IPV against their male partners at nearly equal prevalence with certain types of coercive control (parental alienating behaviours). They are also significantly represented in other forms of IPV against men and children. The AIFS research does not investigate female IPV and its links to male health or male IPV.

• One of the largest categories of suicide deaths is men suffering family relationship breakdowns from separation and divorce. In Australia, women are involved in manufacturing some of those relationship ruptures. Their behaviours are a coercive-controlling form of IPV against men. It was within the AIFS’s capability to address the situational factors leading to suicide. But the AIFS chose not to.

• IPV is also intergenerationally transmitted to male children by exposure to emotionally abusive mothers. The AIFS study only investigated links with abusive fathers. It is misleading only to examine the factors with which the AIFS agrees.

Female IPV Against Men: The Other Untold Story

This research and its parent research program, Ten-to-Men, do not tell the story of female IPV. Women use particular forms of coercive control (parental alienating behaviours) at a similar prevalence to men. Studies show that men are also victims of female IPV. Some international studies show that a quarter of women and 11% of men report being survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) during their lifetimes^[i].

The AIFS’s failure to address female IPV, especially female emotional abuse and coercive control, misdirects the reader. By excluding female IPV, readers may conclude that adverse male health and male violence are only related to male factors and not to their exposure to female violence and emotional abuse.

The AIFS study gives a free pass to abusive and violent women. The AIFS dogmatic approach cannot recognise that women and mothers can also be emotionally abusive and that their behaviour is harmful to both male and female children.

Are Suicidal Men Potential IPV Perpetrators?

The AIFS study does not explore situational factors for suicidality, such as family relationship ruptures due to separation and divorce. It excludes the possibility of a linkage between female coercive control, suicidality and men’s use of IPV. In certain circumstances, a type of coercive control may induce suicide in both men and women. Such induced or coerced suicide could be considered proxy murder^[i]. This presentation requires further research. 

It is inappropriate, if not unethical, to design a research program using suicidal men as a variable without also inquiring into the psychosocial nature of that suicide. Such a simplistic research design leads to shallow results. The outcome, “Men who had had suicidal thoughts, plans or attempts were 47% more likely to use IPV against their partner” is one example. It implies that suicidal men are also likely to be IPV perpetrators, simply because they are suicidal. This conclusion is misleading and is not the whole story.

What Happens When You Are the Son of an Abusive Mother?

Many studies into the linkage between childhood exposure to emotional abuse, emotional maltreatment, and domestic and family violence identify a link with children, who then go on to perpetrate forms of IPV as adults^[i]. Many of these studies do not differentiate by gender. They are open to the assumption that male children become violent adults because they witnessed their mothers being subjected to family violence by their fathers. 

On the other hand, the absence of gender differentiation leaves the question open to male children becoming violent, misogynistic adults after exposure to female violence, emotional neglect, and maltreatment. Overall, the literature implies that any severe family violence, including maternal coercion and emotional abuse, may lead to future IPV.

There is growing recognition of the prevalence of abuse against men from emotionally abusive mothers^[ii]. There is much research in this field available to the AIFS suggesting adverse mental health outcomes and misogynistic views because of emotionally abusive mothering. The AIFS study could have explored this dimension. Instead, they focused only on how children, especially male children, may socially learn abusive and misogynistic behaviours from witnessing their fathers’ abuse of their mothers.

Conclusion: The AIFS Misled the Public with Biased Research

The AIFS chose to mislead the public with an adverse male-gendered view. They did not investigate factors that could have provided a more nuanced, if not different, guidance to policymakers. Their study poses difficult questions for the AIFS.

• Why did the AIFS only research factors associated with male-gendered IPV? 

• Why did the AIFS not investigate links between male-gendered IPV and female-gendered emotional abuse and maltreatment? 

• How does the AIFS justify demonising suicidal men as IPV perpetrators using research bias to demonstrate its preconceived conclusion?

The most plausible reason is that the AIFS, similarly to the National Suicide Prevention Strategy^[i],   had already decided that men are violent because of their gender. They were already addicted to the extremist gendered violence cult’s dogma, and their research program was designed to confirm their adherence to it. 

Implications for the AIFS Research

This approach enables the AIFS to overlook the harm that such biased and poorly designed research can cause. It empowers the AIFS to ignore research that does not support their dogma. Their study may mislead policymakers to recommend initiatives to screen suicidal, depressed, and anxious men seeking help as IPV perpetrators. So, why would men seek help when support services’ priority is to establish whether they are violent instead of saving their lives?  

New Policy Directions to Address All Forms of IPV

We need public policies to address all forms of IPV, not just the politically attractive ones.

• Service providers to men and women seeking help must guarantee that they will not screen or treat men or women as potential perpetrators without a valid reason. 

• Family law and family violence legislation must be de-gendered and de-politicised, not just in the words used but in the interpretation of the law^[i].

• There should be no preventive protective measures taken without investigation.

A public health approach considers a social issue, such as IPV, as a multifaceted problem that affects the population in various ways. Such an approach considers the situational, demographic, social, and economic factors relevant to any presentations that require a collective social response.

Policy Implications

Research into parental alienating behaviours demonstrates that this is independent of gender, occurs more or less equally across all genders, across different forms of employment, education, age, sexuality, etc. So, using these types of social determinants simply doesn’t work as a basis for policy laws about emotional maltreatment, abuse and coercive control in family relationships, that deliberately rupture the parent-child relationship.

Policy development should not assume that a socio-economic issue such as IPV is only related to demographic factors such as gender, but may require responses addressing how relational power is abused in family settings, regardless of gender.

^[i] Korosi, S. (2025). The End of Gendered Policy: A New Public Policy Framework for Alienation in Families (Parental Alienation). Advance. https://doi.org/10.31124/advance.174524965.51184766/v1 

[i] Korosi, S. (2025, 24 March). NOT A National Suicide Prevention Strategy For Parental Alienation!  https://dialogueingrowth.com.au/not-a-national-suicide-prevention-strategy-for-parental-alienation/

^[i] Mbilinyi, L. F., Logan-Greene, P. B., Neighbors, C., Walker, D. D., Roffman, R. A., & Zegree, J. (2012). EXPOSURE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND CHILDHOOD EMOTIONAL ABUSE: Childhood Domestic Violence Exposure among a Community Sample of Adult Perpetrators: What Mediates the Connection? J Aggress Maltreat Trauma, 21(2), 171–187. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2012.639203

^[ii] Goldsmith, B. (2023). Being the Son of an Abusive Mother. Psychology Today. 

^[i] Korosi, S. (2024). Proxy Murder: How Parental Alienating Behaviours Lead to Suicide.  https://dialogueingrowth.com.au/proxy-murder-how-parental-alienating-behaviours-lead-to-suicide/

^[i] Adair-Russell, R., Reed, K., & Torres, M. F. (2025). The Role of Defendant Gender and PTSD Diagnosis in a Battered Spouse Case. J Interpers Violence, 40(5-6), 1112–1134. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605241257594

• Parental Alienation: A Violent and Potentially Lethal Social and Psychological Phenomenon
• Anti Parental Alienation Protestor Kicks Own Goal
• Response to UN Special Rapporteur’s Call for Input: Custody Cases, Violence against Women and Children
• False Allegations in Parental Alienation Cases: Misleading Family Law
• Are Mothers and Children being Silenced in the Family Court?

Australia’s National Suicide Prevention Strategy has now been published, but it is not for men or women dying from suicide due to disrupted family relationships from parental alienation during separation and divorce.

Australia’s National Suicide Prevention Strategy is gendered. It fails to address the leading causes of male suicide, particularly those related to family relationship disruptions that include parental alienation.

As a result, this strategy abandons women and children enduring the same presentation.

The strategy focuses on preventing violence against women and children as a solution to male suicide. It implies that men die by suicide because they are perpetrators of gendered violence. 

The national strategy all but fails to address the single largest number of suicides in Australia (men experiencing separation and family breakdown.

This failure raises questions about competency and ideological blindness. It represents dogmatic adherence to a policy that devalues and lacks empathy for half of the Australian population. The other half are no better off!

Summary: How The National Suicide Strategy Fails

• Gendered misinterpretation of data: The document acknowledges that 75% of suicide deaths are male but does not provide a targeted prevention strategy for men.
  
• Bias Toward Women: Suicide prevention efforts focus on factors like intimate partner violence against women while ignoring similar risks for men. 
  
• Lack of Response to Family Separation: The strategy recognises that separation and divorce contribute to male and female suicide,. Nearly twice as many men as women die from suicide. Still, it does not address this psychosocial category with targeted measures for both men and women.  
  
• Exclusion of Male-Specific Causes: The strategy does not consider that men may die by suicide due to disrupted family relationships, coercive control, abuse, or family disruptions caused by their ex-partners. 
  
• Selection of support services that do not address the most significant number of deaths by suicide. Instead, it addresses comparatively smaller populations.
  
• Outdated policy frameworks that dogmatically focus on gender inequity rather than factors common to all genders.
  

Why The National Suicide Prevention Strategy Fails 

It assumes suicide is always linked to male violence

It ignores the broader and non-gendered psychosocial factors.  The National Suicide Prevention Strategy excludes the possibility that men may die from suicide because their ex-partners have been violent, abusive or coercive to them. For example, it openly acknowledges that:

• “in 2023 in Australia, just over three-quarters of all suicide deaths were among males. 2,419 male deaths at a rate of 18.0 per 100,000. Suicide is the leading cause of death for males aged 15-55”.

At the same time, when it comes to prevention strategies, it cites safety and security as a key factor. What solution do you think they proposed?

• “Advance gender equality and address the drivers of all forms of gender-based violence, including through initiatives aimed to improve community attitudes and norms toward family, domestic, and sexual violence.”

 It relies on an outdated policy framework

It uses inappropriate social determinants such as gender, sexuality, employment, and education as associated factors to suicide. These factors do not account for power imbalances in relationships beyond gender.  

This framework presumes that social problems are always associated with inequality and inequity in social factors such as age, gender, employment, and education. Therefore, the social determinant approach to policy and strategy concludes that one gender is disadvantaged by the other gender.

This outdated approach does not respond to power abuses in relationships independent of these social factors. Instead, it isn’t very objective.

On the one hand, despite its gender bias, its framework does not lead to a specific gendered strategy to address disruptions to family relationships engineered by parental alienating bejaviours. Yet it acknowledges that nearly twice as many men die than women from suicide due to family relationship disruption.

On the other hand, it claims that women die from suicide as a result of male-gendered family violence. It then provides a strategy to address just this factor.

It proposes generic suicide prevention programs without specialised interventions for men or women.

According to the National Suicide Prevention Strategy:

• Disruption of family by separation and divorce has been identified in around 1 in 6 male and 1 in 10 female suicide deaths. Intimate partner relationship problems such as romantic break-ups, arguments and conflict are also common factors in adult suicide

This psychosocial category must include parental alienation. Yet, the proposed prevention strategy is:

• “continue to provide subsidised access to counselling for people going through separation and divorce, promoted through family law services and other key touchpoints in the family law system”.

This strategy is too generic; it does not address this psychosocial factor. The reader can easily assume that such disruptions result from gendered family violence. It ignores non-gendered, bi-directional forms of violence, abuse, and coercive control.

Those statistics are serious. Nearly twice as many men as women die from suicide in this psychosocial category. “Disruption of family by separation and divorce” must, by definition, include parental alienation that significantly affects both men and women. Parental alienation is a non-gendered, bi-directional form of coercive control.

It Knows About Specialised Support Services But Refuses to Identify Them

In its listing of support services, it fails to list the one service specialising in suicidality for both men and women from disruptions to family relationships and specifically for the most significant number of suicides. It appears to use ideological considerations instead of actual risk, and the population needs to select support services.

Instead, to prevent suicide among men, who represent 75% of national suicide deaths, the National Suicide Prevention Strategy proposes ending violence against women and children. This strategy focuses on:

• “Reducing the prevalence and impact of key drivers of distress” such as ” experiences of childhood abuse and neglect, alcohol- and drug-related harm, and intimate partner violence (against females)” (P.21)

It Assumes That Men Don’t Matter Because They Are Perpetrators

The National Suicide Strategy does not explain how “reducing the prevalence and impact of […] intimate partner violence (against females) would prevent men dying from suicide. The only logical conclusions are:

• That men are perpetrators of gendered violence who then die from suicide

• Male death from suicide does not matter. The strategy should only focus on women dying from suicide.

What About Women?

Yes, the National Suicide Prevention Strategy identifies that women are especially at risk for adverse mental health outcomes such as self-harming, more so than men¹.

Given the gendered bias of the strategy, we could surmise that women are at higher risk of these adverse mental health outcomes because they are victims of gendered family violence.

Still, as previously identified here, family relationship disruption is not explicitly recognised with targeted strategies for both men and women. Even though more men than women die from suicide in this psychosocial category, the fact is they BOTH DIE!

It is acceptable for women and mothers to die from suicide due to disruptions to family relationships from separation and divorce.

We can only conclude women, mothers, and their children are acceptable casualties in the dogmatic pursuit of the ideology that makes the male gender perpetual perpetrators of gendered family violence and which refuses to accept the validity of parental alienation.

How to Make the National Suicide Prevention Strategy Effective for All Genders 

A genuinely national suicide prevention strategy should:  

• Be gender-inclusive and address suicide risk factors for both men and women.
    
• Acknowledge bi-directional abuse in relationships rather than assuming a one-sided narrative or relying on political theories that make one gender the victim of the other. 
  
• Target specific psychosocial factors, such as family disruptions and parental alienation, with appropriate interventions.  
  
• Include specialised support services, such as programs for those affected by separation and divorce (e.g., Parents Beyond Breakup).

Endnotes

1. In 2022–23, females made up almost two-thirds (66%) of intentional self-harm hospitalisations.
   Reporting of ambulance attendance data indicates higher rates of suicide attempt and self- injury (without suicidal intent) among young females compared to young males. ︎

• Anti Parental Alienation Protestor Kicks Own Goal
• The Schlock Horror Alienation Show-National Suicide Prevention Day
• What Happens When Men become Alienated from their Children?
• Response to UN Special Rapporteur’s Call for Input: Custody Cases, Violence against Women and Children
• Parental Alienation On The Air

Reform Family Law For 2025!

• The Australian family law system is broken, and parental alienation is rampant as we head into the 2025 Federal Election.
   
• Campaigns on the cost of living, housing, and immigration ignore families caught in the turmoil of separation, coercive control, and parental alienation. 
  
  
• A failed system allows parental alienation to go unchecked. Its reckless and harmful reforms make the most vulnerable navigate a system encouraging this abuse.
  
  
• Parents using alienating behaviours turn their children against the other parent, disrupting the child’s relationship with that parent and their family members. It leads to mental health challenges, suicides, and significant social and economic costs to the public.

Ignoring the Costs at YOUR Expense!

According to USA population projections¹, 1.3% of Australians may be parents who have been moderately or severely alienated from their children. In 2024, that equates to more than 350,000 parents and possibly 700,000 children².

UK research³ and USA projections suggest that a significant proportion, up to half of parents exposed to alienating behaviours (a form of psychological and emotional abuse), will suffer adverse mental health outcomes such as PTSD and non-fatal suicidal behaviour (including suicide attempts) or may die from suicide.

Australia does not directly measure parental alienation’s effects or socioeconomic costs. Still, we think that a significant number of suicide deaths and non-fatal suicidal behaviour result from parental alienation.

A 2017 study⁴ estimated that the economic cost of suicide and non-fatal suicidal behaviour (NFSB) in the Australian workforce, including both men and women, is approximately AUD$6.73 billion. We think that a significant proportion of this cost results from parental alienation. It is possible this burden still does not capture the true impact of parental alienation on the Australian community. The Australian Government is too frightened to measure it!

Australia Fares Poorly in International Comparisons

While countries like Belgium, Denmark, Israel, and the UK lead the way in shared parenting and smarter family law policies, Australia is tearing families apart. Our Government has removed shared parenting and meaningful relationship principles from the Family Law Act, while countries like Denmark retain it. Australia now uses some of the worst practices for children’s welfare. We are clinging to outdated policies that hurt families and fail children.

Why Isn’t This Issue On Campaign Agendas?

Extreme political agendas are warping Australia’s family law system. Current policies operate on the flawed assumption that children don’t need both parents or family relationships and can make adult decisions. 

The extremists claim to address safety. Instead, they reward destructive behaviour. Parents who block contact or alienate their children face no real consequences and may be rewarded for their behaviour.

Australian governments are putting families in danger and tearing families apart. They are making abusive parenting a social and legal norm by “validating bad behaviour in the child’s best interests”.Getting rid of a good enough parent is OK as long as the children are “safe”. Seriously?

Take the Lead-Demand Change!

• Investigate Properly: Fully examine all allegations before decisions are made. Stop taking protective action that becomes a status quo even after allegations are found unsubstantiated or false.

• Reinstate Shared Parenting: Children need a healthy relationship with both parents⁵. Reform judicial processes to prioritise swiftly resolving parent-child contact issues in line with international best practices.

• Resolve issues outside court: Strengthen time-limited mediation and arbitration for parent-child contact issues.

• Recognise parental alienation: Treat it as abuse, as non-gendered coercive control and child psychological abuse at the same level as any other form of family and domestic violence.

• Stop Rewarding alienation and abusive parenting: Cut child support for parents who block access. Align child support and family law processes

• Enforce Court Orders: Give accountable consequences⁶ for breaches that compensate for time lost and prevent further violations. Remove perverse incentives for harmful and abusive parenting behaviours.

• Call for a Royal Commission: Expose the damage of failed policies and family breakdowns. Investigate links between relationship disruptions, suicide rates, family violence policies, child support and family law.

• Focus on Fairness: Men and women do damage to family members. Address violence and coercive control without political or gender bias.

Alienated Parents and Family Members VOTE!

Take the lead—demand accountability and action for Australian families.It is time to mobilise politically to highlight the terrible consequences of current policies on families and children. This federal election could be pivotal for addressing these challenges and reclaiming your family.

1. ^{Harman, J. J., Leder-Elder, S., & Biringen, Z. (2019). Prevalence of adults who are the targets of parental alienating behaviours and their impact. Children and Youth Services Review, 106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.104471}  “^{Using another means of assessment for the third poll, 39.1% (of 594) of parents in the US are the non-reciprocating targets of parental alienating behaviours, which is over 22 million parents and confirms previous estimates that did not differentiate between reciprocating and non-reciprocating parents (Harman et al., 2016). Of these, 6.7% of the parents had children who were moderately to severely alienated, which is at least 1.3% of the US population. Alienated parents also had high levels of depression, trauma symptoms, and risk for suicide.”} ︎
2. ^{Assuming an average of two children per family, with each parent representing a family, and that both children are alienated.} ︎
3. ^{Hine, B., Harman, J., Leder-Elder, S., & Bates, E. (2024). Alienating behaviours in separated mothers and fathers in the UK. UK: University of West London Retrieved from https://www.uwl.ac.uk/sites/uwl/files/2024-04/Alienating%20behaviours_v3.pdf} ︎
4. ^{Kinchin, I., & Doran, C. M. (2017). The economic cost of suicide and non-fatal suicide behaviour in the Australian workforce and the potential impact of a workplace suicide prevention strategy. International journal of environmental research and public health, 14(4), 347. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5409548/pdf/ijerph-14-00347.pdf}  ︎
5. ^{Together with reversal of parental care and authority to give it effect. Paramount considerations should be a relationship with both parents, family members and it is safe to do so. For example, substantiated claims of family violence or coercive control (for example, using parental alienating behaviours) could extinguish the presumption of shared parenting. Similarly, unsubstantiated, false and malicious allegations of family violence, sexual abuse, alienation or other forms of coercive control could also extinguish the presumption of shared parenting.} ︎
6. ^{Including reversal of parental care and responsibility, restrictions on further legal action, compensating time, incarceration for severe breaches that harm children.} ︎

• Parental Alienation in the Australian Media!
• Parental Alienation Australia and New Zealand (PAANZ) Launches Website
• Should Alienating Parents Be Punished?
• Hope for Reconnection and Reunification after Parental Alienation
• Withdrawing the Building Family Bridges Workshop from Australia

We no longer provide the Building Family Bridges Workshop and the adjunct After Care Protocol in Australia. We previously provided these services for Family Law in Australia to remediate child psychological abuse and severely alienated parent-child relationships.

The principal reasons are:

Adverse Changes to the Australian Family Law Act 1975

• Recent changes in the Family Law Act 1975 removed the relevance of family relationships and shared parenting in children’s best interests. I have made representations about the dire implications of these changes at Family Law Amendment Bill 2023: An Anti-Family and Anti-Child Law.

• Family Law in Australia has become increasingly reluctant to reverse parental care and responsibility to the targeted/rejected non-residential parent. This approach leaves children exposed to further abuse despite evidence supporting such a structural change to the family system. It also provides legal justification for “bad parenting in the child’s best interests”.

• Family Law in Australia often does not engage the AfterCare Protocol or other appropriate remediation for the parent with whom the children previously resided. These parents then exploit well-documented structural flaws in Family Law to interfere with the children’s relationship with their previously rejected parent, thereby potentially undoing the remediation.

Inadequate Family Assessments and a Lack of Therapeutic Jurisprudence

• Some family consultants, single experts and Independent Children’s Lawyers continue to demonstrate a lack of understanding about alienated parent-child relationships. They remain captured by politicised notions that lead them to accept children’s distorted realities without question. They incorrectly construe that these children cannot cope with a necessary reversal of parental care and responsibility. I have written about this situation previously, and it remains largely unchanged, with few but notable exceptions. Parental Alienation: What Doesn’t Family Law and Family Violence Know?
  
• In our view, Family Law and the experts on whom they rely misjudge the severity of these cases. They continue to make inappropriate recommendations for therapy, even when they fail to meet their goals. Such an approach further entrenches child abuse instead of remediating it.
  
• Remediations for severe and extremely alienated parent-child relationships work best in a therapeutic jurisprudent approach. In such an environment, children’s living arrangements are finalised, while the time the previously residential parent spends with their children is contingent on meeting therapeutic objectives. Family Law has not fully implemented such an approach. They do not provide compelling incentives for the previously residential parent to change their behaviour while supporting them when they do not.

A Lone Dissenting Voice on Parental Alienation

We have often found ourselves in a position of being the lone dissenting voice. We offer an evidence-based assessment at odds with the prevailing expert view on which the Family Court relies. Recent cases suggest the Family Court is still prepared to justify abusive and harmful parenting as being in the child’s best interest. They disregard evidence to the contrary. We do not think any reasonable parent would agree with such ideas. Targeted/rejected parents seeking to rescue their children from abuse have to bear the legal costs of the structural biases against them. This approach does not reflect our ethos.

Over the last decade, there have been good outcomes with the Building Family Bridges socio-educative methodology, which addresses the adverse structural effects of alienation. In these cases, continuing with therapy entrenches child abuse. Unfortunately, we are not confident that Family Law in Australia will continue in this direction.

Improving Alienated Children’s Lives with the Building Family Bridges Workshop in Australia

In 2014, I was part of a foundation team from Western Australia invited to attend the training in the USA to bring the Building Family Bridges workshop to Australia. Since then, we have worked hard to establish best practice evidence-based models for the remediation of child psychological abuse by alienation. We have demonstrated what is possible.

Our team, dedicated Children’s Contact Services, and some legal counsel have positively influenced the Family Law jurisdiction in Australia. We have improved children’s lives. Thank you.

Future Developments

We have never had the monopoly on remediating severely alienated parent-child relationships. Some new developments in Australia may provide different options.

For more information please refer to https://www.buildingfamilybridges.com.

• Family Law Amendment Bill 2023: An Anti-Family and Anti-Child Law
• Parental Alienation:Evidence Based Reunification Available in Australia
• Hope for Reconnection and Reunification after Parental Alienation
• Parental Alienation – Faster Than The Speed of Love
• Parental Alienation in the Australian Media!

What Happens to Mothers and Fathers whose Relationships with their Children Are Disrupted? They Die From Suicide.

A recent study in the U.K. found a direct link between parental alienating behaviours, and suicidality in parents exposed to those behaviours (Hine,B., Harman, J., Led-Elder, S., Bates, E., 2024).

Parental alienating behaviours that induce or coerce a targeted parent into suicide is an especially insidious form of social deviancy and Family Violence. The practice of “the ends justify the means” and doing “whatever it takes” best describes social deviancy.

Parental alienating behaviours could be considered murder-by-proxy. The alienating parent uses parental alienating behaviours to induce the targeted parent to kill themselves. The targeted parent enacts the alienating parent’s intention to destroy them by dying from suicide.

There is a combined political and media campaign about male-gendered family violence, focused on women dying as a result of men perpetuating violent forms of family violence. Even more punitive and gendered measures targeting men as characteristically violent follow this campaign. The data on deaths from suicide due to disruption to family relationships from separation and divorce most likely include suicide deaths from parental alienating behaviours.

The data suggests the scale of suicide attributed to disruption to family relationships from separation and divorce, including parental alienating behaviours is a significantly greater social and public health problem than male-gendered family violence.

Suicide and “Disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce”

“Disruptions to Family relationships by Separation or Divorce” is a psychosocial factor coded Z63.5 in the International Classification of Diseases version 11 (ICD-11). It is a subset of a parent category Z63.0 for issues between spouses or partners. It can also relate to the broader family setting where parental alienating behaviours may occur. These behaviours disrupt all family relationships. Another ICD-11 code Z62.820- Parent-Child Relational Problem describes parent-child relationship disruptions. It can also include parental alienation.

It is likely that the reported category Z63.5 encompasses deaths by suicide due to parent-child relationships ruptured by parental alienating behaviours. But it does not differentiate them from issues between partners. A better category for this presentation is Z62.820.

What the AIHW Says about Suicide Deaths Due to “Disruptions to Family relationships by Separation or Divorce”

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) publishes data on deaths from suicide in Australia. They report those suicide deaths in the Z63.5 psychosocial category “disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce”. That category must, by definition, include a proportion due to the rupture of parent-child relationships from parental alienating behaviours.

Neither the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) nor the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reports adult suicide deaths due to Z62.820- Parent-Child Relational Problem. That does not mean they do not happen, only that these deaths still occur but are likely unrecorded or captured in another category.

In 2022, the AIHW reports:

• 2455 adult men and 794 women died from suicide.
• 15.6% (507) were men, and 10.1% (328) of the total suicide deaths were women whose deaths the AHIC attributed to “disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce (15 men and 10 women every 11 days).
• 84 people were killed in Bidirectional Domestic Homicide, out of a total of 220 homicides.
• 38 people (45.24%) of the total of Bidirectional Domestic Homicide were killed by an intimate partner.
• 34 women (73.9%) of the 38 people killed by an intimate partner were killed by their male intimate partner (1 women killed every 11 days).
• 4 men (10.5%) of the 38 people killed by an intimate partner were killed by their female intimate partner.

What the ABS Says about Suicide Deaths Due to “Disruptions to Family relationships by Separation or Divorce”

Further data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for 2017 (ABS, 2019) reports that male and female suicide deaths from “disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce as a single psychosocial factor were 156 deaths (46.4% of the male suicide deaths) and 24 (28.6% of the female suicide deaths). These suicide deaths were due to disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce as the most frequently occurring psychosocial factor.

Disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce as a single psychosocial factor are more likely to include parental alienating behaviours as a risk factor for suicide death. Taking the data back to total numbers of suicide deaths in Australia (2348 men, 779 women for a total of 3127), assuming no significant changes over different periods, 5% of annual suicide deaths are men and less than 1% (0.77%) are women dying by suicide from disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce as a single psychosocial factor.

More than 5 times as many men as women die by suicide from the single psychosocial factors most likely to reflect parental alienating behaviours as a risk factor for suicide. More research is required to drill down into disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce for the subcategories specifically attributed to parental alienating behaviours. After all, the AIHW and the ABS report other equally harmful psychosocial factors, such as sexual abuse, in their own category.

Are Male and Female Suicide Deaths Linked to Parental Alienating Behaviour?

The shock result is that in 2022-2023 15 men and 10 women die from suicide from “disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce” every 11 days.

Furthermore. 5 times as many men as women die by suicide from “disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce” as a single psychosocial factor. This factor is most likely to include parental alienating behaviours.

By comparison, 1 woman dies from gendered family violence every 11 days. It appears that death from suicide is a proportionally more significant social problem than male-gendered family violence.

The data supports a claim that we may have a suicide pandemic among mothers and fathers who die from suicide as a direct result of ruptures in their family relationships. One of the causes of these ruptures includes parental alienating behaviours. It is notable that there is no specific subcategory for death from ruptured parent-child relationships.

Adverse Outcomes from Disruption to Family Relationships and Parental Alienating Behaviour

Parental alienation research is replete with studies associating suicidality with parental alienating behaviour (Poustie, C., Matthewson, M., & Balmer, S. 2018). Worldwide, studies confirm that men are much more likely to die from suicide than women (Leo Sher, 2015; Leo. Sher, 2015). Yet both men and women suffer similar levels of mental health distress, including suicidality but not death from suicide.

Both men and women suffer adverse mental health outcomes when exposed to any form of family violence behaviour. However, some behaviours are disproportionally harmful by gender. In 2022, the AIHW reported that 69 men (13.6%)of the total male deaths from suicide and 8 women (12%) of the total female deaths from suicide were attributed to problems in their relationship with their spouse or partner.

Men and women endure similar proportions of mental health distress and suicidality when facing relationship issues, but disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce disproportionally affect men.

Reclassifying Suicide Deaths as Deaths by Family Violence

The real incidence of suicide deaths directly related to parental alienating behaviours is buried in the suicide category of “disruptions to family relationships by separation or divorce”. Further research is required to unpack that incidence from the broader category. Nonetheless, this data likely supports Hine, B. et al. (2024) findings in the U.K.

As previously reported in Alienated Parent Suicide may be Death by Family Violence (Amended), the Police are considering reclassifying women’s deaths from suicide in the context of family violence as a Family Violence death. Therefore, they should also reclassify alienated parents’ deaths from suicide in the same way.

Parental alienation is an insidious and violent issue that currently escapes social and legal attention (Korosi, S., Bernet, W., Graham, S. P., & Ross, D. 2023). Foundational research defines an extreme category of parental alienating behaviours where alienating parents commission their children into violent acts. These violent acts include murdering the targeted parent, suicide and coercing the targeted parent into suicide as murder-by-proxy (Korosi, S. et al., 2023).

The Wrong Priorities: Suicide as a Sequel to Parental Alienation

The deaths of 1 woman every 11 days from male-gendered family violence arouse a social outrage and a frenzy of punitive legal moves. Yet, at least some of the 15 men and 10 women who may be dying from suicide every 11 days because of another form of non-gendered family violence do not.

The absence of a discrete subcategory in AIHW and ABS data points to the selective social recognition of suicide as a sequel to parental alienation. International research supports findings that mothers and fathers almost equally engage in parental alienating behaviours and are equally its targets (Harman, J. J., Leder-Elder, S., & Biringen, Z. 2019).

Further research and analysis should focus on identifying the suicide victims of parent-child relationships that parental alienating behaviours rupture. The statistics belie the individual distress that leads to death by suicide. The numbers and the stories could inform more targeted public health polices and focused sucide prevention initiatives.

Support is Available

Please call the Parents Beyond Breakup HELPLINE 1300 853 437 if you need to speak to someone for this article raises issues for you.

The author is a volunteer member of the Board of Directors.

References

Harman, J. J., Leder-Elder, S., & Biringen, Z. (2019). Prevalence of adults who are the targets of parental alienating behaviors and their impact. Children and Youth Services Review, 106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.104471 

Hine, B., Harman, J., Leder-Elder, S., & Bates, E. (2024). Alienating behaviours in separated mothers and fathers in the UK. UK: University of West London Retrieved from https://www.uwl.ac.uk/sites/uwl/files/2024-04/Alienating%20behaviours_v3.pdf

Korosi, S., Bernet, W., Graham, S. P., & Ross, D. (2023). Parental Alienation: A Violent and Potentially Lethal Social and Psychological Phenomenon. European Journal of Parental Alienation Practice, 1(1). https://journal.parentalalienation.eu/parental-alienation-a-violent-and-potentially-lethal-social-and-psychological-phenomenon-download 

Korosi, S. (2024). Social Alienation in Families. Advance: a SAGE preprints community. Sage Publishing, 10. https://doi.org/10.31124/advance.171802097.78339306/v1 

Poustie, C., Matthewson, M., & Balmer, S. (2018). The Forgotten Parent: The Targeted Parent Perspective of Parental Alienation. Journal of Family Issues, 39(12), 3298-3323. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X18777867 

Psychosocial Risk Factors and Deaths by Suicide (2022).  Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Retrieved (AIHW) 25 November from https://www.aihw.gov.au/suicide-self-harm-monitoring/data/behaviours-risk-factors/psychosocial-risk-factors-suicide

Psychosocial risk factors as they relate to coroner-referred deaths in Australia. (2019).  Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Retrieved 17 June from https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/research/psychosocial-risk-factors-they-relate-coroner-referred-deaths-australia#annex-listing-psychosocial-codes-inclusions-and-exclusions-

Sher, L. (2015). Parental alienation and suicide in men. Psychiatria Danubina, 27(3), 288-289. 

Sher, L. (2015). Suicide in men. J Clin Psychiatry, 76(3), e371-372. https://doi.org/10.4088/JCP.14com09554

• Parental Alienation: A Violent and Potentially Lethal Social and Psychological Phenomenon
• Parental Alienation Awareness Day: Be Aware of the Social Pandemic!
• What Happens When Men become Alienated from their Children?
• Parental Alienation On The Air
• False Allegations and Parental Alienation in Australian Family Law