A Discursive Mechanism Linking Parental Alienating Behaviours to Suicidality: A Testable Conceptual Model

Parental alienating behaviours (PABs) constitute a communicative, relational, and structural discourse that can restructure family relationship meaning, sometimes culminating in the coerced parent-child relationship rupture. Research on parental alienation has repeatedly linked exposure to PABs with adverse psychosocial outcomes, including suicidality with parents, especially alienated fathers, who are frequently identified as high risk. Yet, the field lacks a specified mechanism linking PAB exposure to suicidogenic conditions, including a plausible account of why male suicide mortality is overrepresented in family-relationship disruption and how discursive pathways may vary by gender. Contemporary suicide theories are not wrong, but they under-specify social-to-psychological translation processes in this domain. This article develops a testable conceptual model in which PAB-induced parental identity degradation interacts with (i) delegitimising sociolegal narratives about parental alienation, (ii) culturally available scripts that frame masculinity/fatherhood through suspicion, danger, or disposability, and (iii) institutional uptake of these scripts in assessments and determinations. The model proposes discursive foreclosure: intersecting discourses progressively narrow socially intelligible, non-stigmatised identities and future pathways, thereby intensifying established suicide motivations (e.g., burdensomeness, defeat, entrapment). A gender-variant pathway is also hypothesised for targeted mothers, whose identity scripting and institutional legibility may differ. The model complements motivational-volitional suicidology by specifying a discursive pathway through which identity degradation and institutional narrative uptake can intensify burdensomeness, defeat, entrapment, and thwarted belongingness. The article specifies falsifiable indicators and a mixed-methods agenda; it does not test the mechanism.