Parental Alienation, Toxic Stress, and Your Child's Brain - Dr. Mary Alvarez

“Parental Alienation, Toxic Stress, and Your Child’s Brain” We are all ‘hard-wired’ to have a physiological response to a very stressful or even dangerous situation. The purpose of this brain and body response, also called the “fight or flight” response, is to help us cope and manage whatever it is at the time that is causing an immediate threat to our well-being. Once the threat is over, our brain chemicals and body responses are designed to return to baseline, or normalcy. However, what happens when the high levels of stress, known as toxic stress, never return to baseline and the brain continues to release neurochemicals and hormones in high doses? There is a body of research that has examined the psychological and neurological consequences of brain chemicals and hormones that are released when an individual is living in a chronic, toxic stress environment. How do we infer from the known science on toxic stress what is likely happening to alienated children and their developing brain and developing psyche? Dr. Alvarez will discuss toxic stress and known consequences therein within the context of children who have been undergoing the effects of toxic stress related to being alienated from a parent. Mary Alvarez, PhD, a licensed psychologist for more than twenty-five years in Texas, has both a forensic and a clinical practice and she specializes in evaluating and treating high-conflict families. As a result of her forensic work in family law as a custody evaluator, Dr. Alvarez has evaluated and witnessed the devastating psychological effects on children whose parents are involved in chronic high conflict, including parental alienation. Dr. Alvarez recognized the need to focus on prevention and early intervention of parental alienation, so she co-developed a set of programs, Resetting the Family, to evaluate and intervene as soon as possible with high-conflict parents and families that include mild and moderate parental alienation as part of the conflict. Dr. Alvarez is involved in several research projects with university colleagues concerning parental alienation, and she is the second author of a book chapter concerning the psychological split continuum that children who exhibit mild, moderate, or severe alienation show. ⸻ Let me know if you’d like a condensed version or formatted for a flyer, webpage, or presentation.