Parental Alienating Behaviors in Noah Baumbach’s High-Conflict Divorce Films, the Squid and the Whale and Marriage Story: A Cinematherapy Tool for (Training) Mental Health Providers

In this assessment of Noah Baumbach’s films, The Squid and the Whale and Marriage Story , the use of parental alienating behaviors is examined. Examples are organized according to Darnall’s (Darnall, D. (1998). Divorce casualties: Protecting your children from parental alienation . Taylor Trade Publishing.) types of alienators – naive, active, or obsessed – and across Baker and Fine’s (Baker, A. J. L., & Fine, P. R. (2014). Co-parenting with a toxic ex: What to do when your ex-spouse tries to turn the kids against you . New Harbinger Publications.) categories: (a) poisonous messages, (b) interfering with contact and communication, (c) erasing or replacing the targeted parent, (d) enlisting the child to betray the targeted parent, and (e) undermining the targeted parent’s authority and fostering dependence in the child. Implications of this review are two-fold - examples across categories and types of alienating behaviors can be utilized in mental health training programs to help identify and understand the dynamics of parental alienation. Early detection of alienating behaviors is imperative to safeguard children and foster the overall relational health of divorcing families. Secondly, mental health providers may find these films useful as cinematherapy to facilitate growth and healing in families affected by parental alienation.