June 17 • 8PM ET

Trauma is another word for injury. Severe parent alienation results in trauma to children. Parent alienation trauma can impair learning ability, interfere with brain development, and result in physical illness. The trauma can also result in behavioral, emotional, relationship, and mental health problems. Dr. Steve Lindenberg discusses the trauma of severe parent alienation to children in this instructive and easy to understand presentation. Steven P. Lindenberg Ph.D. received his doctorate in counselor education with honors from the University of Georgia in 1977. He is a member of Phi Kappa Phi and Kappa Delta Pi. His dissertation was based on research performed at Emory University Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia. It proved the efficacy of group therapy for terminally ill cancer patients. He wrote a book on the subject, Group Psychotherapy With People Who are Dying. Springfield IL: Thomas, 1983. Among his many honors Dr. Lindenberg has received Jesse S. Heiges Distinguished Alumnus Award (1996), Shippensburg (PA) University, Professional Service Award - American Mental Health Counselor's Association (1989 & 1991) Pennsylvania Counseling Association Eminent Practitioner Award (1988) and American Spirit of Honor Medal, a civilian award received while in the United States Air Force (1968). Dr. Lindenberg is the Founder of the Alliance of Parent Alienation and Family Reunification Practitioners (Alliance). He has also hosted Clinical Seminars by Dr. Bill Bernet and Lynn Steinberg, Ph.D. He has been interviewed as a parent alienation expert by Dr. Petra Deeter, Victim to Hero, and participated on a panel that included himself, Ashish Joshi, Esq., and Dr. Amy Baker moderated by Dr. Deeter. Dr. Lindenberg has been in practice for almost 46 years. He began his practice in Hershey Pennsylvania on June 15, 1977. He has performed hundreds of custody evaluations. He has testified under oath for over 1500 hours many of which have focused exclusively on parent alienation. In addition, he has provided therapy in dozens of reunification therapy cases. He has participated in 100 hours of basic and advanced family mediation training. He has be trained as a collaborative divorce neutral and is a past member of Collaborative Professionals of Central Pennsylvania, a collaborative law practice group. He was trained as a parenting coordinator. He has also consulted on behalf of alienated parents in Texas, North Carolina, and New Jersey. Since retiring after 14 years as a school psychologist in 2011, Dr. Lindenberg returned to his full- time practice. His work has focused on evaluations in case of severe parent alienation and reunification therapy. He conducts evaluations and provides expert testimony, consultation, reunification therapy in Pennsylvania, and consultation nationwide. Dr. Lindenberg is a charter and lifelong member of the American Mental Health Counselors Association and a retired member of the National Association of School Psychologists, the National Education Association, and the Pennsylvania State Education Association. He belongs to the Parent Alienation Study Group as well. He lives in Central Pennsylvania with his wife of 56 years, Linda, and their pets. He has three daughters and four grandsons. His hobbies are music, gardening, and reading.

June 24 • 8PM ET

Parental alienation is growing more common in today’s family law courts, however, the impact upon children is not given the weight the issue demands by Courts and child protective services personnel. Attorney Chris Smith presents a conversation on the topic postulating that children rejecting a parent for no reason and demonstrating unusual behaviors, severe expression of emotion, and functioning outside the culturally expected norms is clear evidence of emotional abuse. And state and federal laws include mental and emotional harm in definitions of child abuse therefore it’s time for those charged with protecting children to do so in cases of parental alienation as well. Join Chris as we discuss points of concern, evidence of impact upon the children, and a course of action for child protection personnel. 

Chris Smith is a tireless advocate for parental equality and the rights of Fathers. He has a passion for advocating for parents who are being alienated and kept from their children and it shows by his willingness to take on difficult cases. As the founder of The Smith Firm, Chris provides legal services to clients in Oklahoma and across the Midwest in the areas of domestic litigation and family law issues, including high-conflict and hard to litigate custody cases. Chris's clients include individuals, business owners, and professionals who find themselves in a high stakes divorce or custody disputes. Mr. Smith received a Bachelor of Science from Oklahoma Christian University in 2001. He then went on to attend The University of Oklahoma College of Law and earned a Juris Doctor in 2004. Over the course of his career, Mr. Smith has dedicated himself to advocating for his clients and their rights. He understands that personal and business issues can often be connected and he believes that the relationship between an attorney and his clients should be a partnership. For that reason, he strives to work with his clients to reach positive resolutions that meet their needs. Chris is the author of the Oklahoma Divorce Guidebook which is available at his firm's website, as well as Faithfully: Issues of Faith & Family Law in the 21st Century. Staying active in the legal community is a priority for Mr. Smith. He is a member of numerous associations, including the Family Law Section of the Oklahoma Bar Association, the Texas State Bar, the American Bar Association Family Law Section, and the Oklahoma County Bar Association. He has spoke at South-by-Southwest, pitched at the Clio Cloud Conference, and presented on various issues relating to law and technology. Mr. Smith has also provided commentary for television and print media on issues of legal policy that affect workers in the legal field. In order to best serve his clients, Mr. Smith is admitted to practice law in Oklahoma, Texas and before the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma and Eastern District of Texas. Chris Smith, ESQ chris@thesmithfirm.net

July 1 • 8PM ET

Elaine Simmonds and her husband, Glen, who have been married for over 50 years, and they have been alienated from both their son and their grandchildren for over 14 years now. Elaine shares some of her story here with us as well as her thoughts on being a grandparent in alienation.

July 8 • 8PM ET

Parents who have been cut off by their children experience enormous pain and confusion. Sadly, those emotions often cause parents to communicate or behave in ways that hurt their ability to move the relationship with their children toward reconciliation. In this talk, I will review the 5 most common mistakes and the best way for parents to heal them if they have occurred. 

Dr. Coleman is a psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families, a non-partisan organization of leading sociologists, historians, psychologists and demographers dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best practice findings about American families. He has written for the New York Times, The Atlantic, NBC THINK, The Behavioral Scientist, CNN, MarketWatch, the San Francisco Chronicle, Greater Good Magazine, AEON, Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and more. He has given talks to the faculties at Harvard, the Well Cornell Department of Psychiatry and other academic institutions. A frequent guest on the Today Show and NPR, he has been featured on Sesame Street, 20/20, Good Morning America, PBS, America Online Coaches, and numerous news programs for FOX, ABC, CNN, and NBC television. He is the author of numerous articles and chapters and has written four books: The Rules of Estrangement (Random House); The Marriage Makeover: Finding Happiness in Imperfect Harmony (St. Martin's Press); The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework (St. Martin's Press); When Parents Hurt; Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along( Harper Collins). He is the co-editor, along with historian Stephanie Coontz, of seven online volumes of Unconventional Wisdom: News You Can Use, a compendium of noteworthy research on the contemporary family, gender, sexuality, poverty, and work-family issues. His books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, Polish, and Croatian. He is the co-editor, along with historian Stephanie Coontz of seven online volumes of Unconventional Wisdom: News You Can Use, a compendium of noteworthy research on the contemporary family, gender, sexuality, poverty, and work-family issues.

July 15 • 8PM ET

Constitutional issues are seldom raised in family court. There's a good reason for that: they are unlikely to be seriously considered by the court! But that doesn't mean that constitutional issues aren't relevant to family law. There is now more than a century of Supreme Court decisions holding that parental rights are "fundamental constitutional rights". The phrase "fundamental constitutional rights" is not just lofty, but empty, rhetoric. It has a very specific legal meaning and should have important implications for how courts handle custody disputes between parents. Fundamental constitutional rights may not be interfered with by the state unless there is a "compelling state interest" to be achieved by doing so. And, when there is such an interest, the state must proceed in a manner that involves the least serious infringement on those rights. The implications of the doctrine that parental rights are fundamental constitutional rights are significant and they constitute an indictment of the way courts routinely address issues of child custody in divorce cases. There is, I will argue, a constitutional right to a presumption of shared parenting when parents divorce. Despite this, I caution parents not to rely on this constitutional argument in seeking to retain custody of their children when they divorce. Donald C. Hubin, Ph.D., is a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at The Ohio State University, former Chair of the OSU Department of Philosophy, and Founding Director Emeritus of the Ohio State University Center for Ethics and Human Values. He received his B.A. with honors from the University of California, Davis, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Arizona. He specializes in ethics, social/political philosophy and philosophy of law. One of Don’s main areas of current research is the nature, basis and implications of parental rights. In this area, his major articles are:

● “Parental Rights and Due Process,” The Journal of Law and Family Studies, 1:2(1999)123–150;

● “Daddy Dilemmas: Untangling the Puzzles of Paternity,” The Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, 13(2003) 29-80;

● “Fatherhood,” International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Wiley-Blackwell, (2013); and • •

● “Fractured Fatherhood,” Journal of Family Theory & Review, 6(2014)76-90.

● “Procreators' Duties: Sexual Asymmetries,” Oxford Handbook of Reproductive Ethics, (2017) 301-324. Don has been active in citizen action groups to promote shared parenting and has also served on several state commissions, including the Ohio Child Support Reform Shareholders’ Group (2001–2003) and the Ohio Child Support Guideline Council (2003–2005). He currently serves as Chair of the National Board of National Parents Organization (NPO).

July 22 • 8PM ET

Alienation is significantly driven by repeated over-exposure of a child to a parent’s intense and unmanaged emotions. This presentation will address some of the brain dynamics associated with contagious emotions and some of the personalities associated with insufficient emotional boundaries. Then there will be an explanation of how teaching self-management skills to parents and children can help them overcome or reduce alienation by learning skills for appropriately managed emotions with the New Ways for Families skills training method. The talk will include video clips of parents being taught these skills.

Bill Eddy is co-founder and chief innovation officer of High Conflict Institute. He pioneered the High Conflict Personality Theory (HCP) and is the world’s leading expert on methods for managing disputes involving people with high conflict personalities. Bill has worked as the senior family mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center, a certified family law specialist representing clients in family court, and a licensed clinical social worker therapist. In 2021, he received the Lifetime Achievement award from the Academy of Professional Mediators. He serves on the faculty of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law in California and is a conjoint associate professor with the University of Newcastle Law School in Australia. He has delivered talks and trainings in more than 30 U.S. states and thirteen countries and is the author or co-author of 20 books. His popular blog on the Psychology Today website has more than 5 million views. He trains lawyers, judges, and mediators, and regularly consults on issues of alienation, family violence, and false allegations in family court cases. 

July 29 • 8PM ET

Most of us, being normal human beings, tend to focus a lot on the things that are presently bothering us or are grievously missing from our lives. We unconsciously magnify the importance of those particular things, victimizing ourselves with more pain and anxiety than is absolutely necessary. 

The late Dr. John Killinger was a noted author, minister, and professor, has pastored eight churches, including the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles and Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, and has taught at such major universities as Vanderbilt, Princeton, and Chicago. His wife Anne was the author of A Son Is a Son Till He Gets a Wife: How Toxic Daughters-in-Law Destroy Families, the book that spawned the alienated parents and grandparent movement in America. He himself has written more than 70 books, including three volumes of From Poppy with Love: Letters from a Grandfather to the Grandchildren He Isn’t Allowed to See. He has appeared on numerous radio and TV programs across the U.S., and served for many years as a special seminar leader for chaplains in all branches of the American Armed Forces. ​ Among almost all the alienated grandparents I have met—and I have met many--the fact that they can’t see or enjoy regular visits with their grandchildren has assumed an exaggeratedly large role in their thinking. I have found, in my own experience of living with alienation, that it is very helpful and often necessary to consciously minimize my concentration on my grandkids, to psychologically shrink the time I give to thinking about them, and to spend more time and concentration on the other aspects of my daily living. This doesn’t mean I love those precious grandchildren—there are four of them, now aged 11 to 17—any less. It simply means that I am not allowing my grief at being unable to see and be with them to color or distort the rest of my existence. Life is simply too great and too beautiful to allow this alienation factor to diminish the wonder and glory of it!