Hundreds of children across the United States have been sent into controversial treatment programs where they’re cut off from the parent they trust and forced to live with the one they fear. This investigation explores how proponents of “parental alienation” theory have convinced family court judges to order children into these experimental reunification programs, usually during a custody battle in a divorce. The therapists claim their programs can repair broken parent-child relationships, but critics call them junk science and say they have traumatized kids.