Chapter Title: The Psychology of Family Bonds: Clinical Diagnosis, Misinterpretation,
and Survivor Trauma from High-Conflict Family Court

Dr. Alyse Price-Tobler delivers one of the anthology’s most rigorous and groundbreaking chapters, offering a clinically precise roadmap for understanding the psychological mechanisms behind attachment-based parental alienation. Drawing on her twin PhD research and decades of frontline experience, she reframes alienation not as conflict, but as child psychological abuse with measurable developmental consequences. Price-Tobler’s chapter stands out for its clarity: she explains how induced fear, pathogenic parenting, coercive control, and identity enmeshment distort a child’s attachment system—often leading to confusion, complex grief, and long-term relational harm. Her diagnostic sequences, emphasis on differential assessment, and call for advanced professional training expose the dangerous gaps in current family-court practices. Most importantly, she offers a survivor-informed framework that validates lived experience and points clinicians toward ethical, evidence-based intervention. This chapter is essential reading for anyone seeking to protect children, prevent misdiagnosis, and confront the systemic failures that perpetuate generational trauma.