Washington State Mom Accused of the Unthinkable

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Sept. 12, 2014 - PRLog -- It’s clear that the woman accused of drowning her 2-year-old daughter and slashing her teenager was ordered to surrender her daughters to their father for a valid reason. And because of Jessica Smith’s delusion and determination to not let that happen, her youngest lost her life and her eldest will forever live with the ramifications of her mother’s alleged horrific actions.

Frank Smith had accused his wife of manipulating their children and likely felt they would be better off living with him. It’s also very likely that Alana, 13, had been subjected to a severe form of parental alienation at the hands of her mother at least since the separation of her parents, if not longer.

Parental alienation is a form of child abuse, specifically psychological and emotional abuse. Like any other form of child abuse, the remedy must be removal from the abusing, incorrigible alienating parent, which was supposed to happen in this case, albeit too late. Leaving a child in an abusive situation carries considerably more risk to the child than transferring custody to the alienated parent—who is the healthier parent and is far better equipped to rear a responsible, emotionally stable child into adulthood.

There are many possible long-term effects the teenager in this case will likely experience as a result of her mother’s unthinkable actions:

1.     Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

2.     Relationship difficulties—never feeling loveable and seeking love in all the wrong places

3.     Self-hatred and poor self-esteem, which inevitably lead to bad behaviours

4.     Significant difficulty conforming to societal and cultural norms and values because lying, deceit, disrespect and aggression have been normalized for her

5.     Her judgment, perception, reality testing, and conscience have been compromised therefore psychosis can be a result

6.     Because it is anti-instinctual to hate and reject a parent and for a mom to go to the lengths she did to do just that, this girl will likely already have developed an elaborate delusional system consisting of spurious, frivolous and absurd rationalizations to justify the hatred and rejection. Eventually, if not already, she will come to believe all the absurdity

7.     The emotional hole left in her for the losses will likely be filled with a great deal of negativity including, but not limited to: eating disorders, cutting, criminal activities, antisocial and acting out behaviours, defiance, disrespect for all authority, cognitive distortions, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, guilt, poor peer relationships, educational issues, drug abuse, and a general malaise about her life

There is near-unanimous agreement among experts that severe alienation constitutes severe child abuse. Moreover, there is agreement that psychological and emotional abuse is at least as damaging to a child as physical abuse (DSM-5).

“It is my deepest wish that the courts and responsible adults in this case understand the necessity of immediately seeking treatment for this child to give her the best possible chance, in spite of the horrors she has witnessed and been subjected to in her young life,” says Reay


Parental Alienation expert, Dr. Kathleen Reay has written a book to help alienated parents rebuild loving relationships with their children. Toxic Divorce: A Workbook for Alienated Parents provides step-by-step directions and powerful strategies to deal with the ramifications of Parental Alienation, including how to cope with grief and loss and how to overcome negative thoughts, feelings and behaviours.