Research Databases — Where the Evidence Lives¶

The Highway's pointer list for primary-source PA research and case law. Free / low-cost / open where possible. Last reviewed 2026-05.

Academic & Clinical Research¶

PubMed (NIH/NLM) — free¶

URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
Coverage: 35M+ biomedical & clinical citations
PA-relevant queries: "parental alienation", "alienating behaviors", "resist-refuse dynamics"
API: E-utilities (eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) — no auth, generous rate limits
Best for: psychiatry, child psychology, custody-evaluation methodology

CrossRef — free¶

URL: https://search.crossref.org/
Coverage: 130M+ DOIs across publishers
API: https://api.crossref.org/ — no auth
Best for: catching PA papers PubMed misses (law journals, social work, family-studies)

Google Scholar — free (browser only)¶

URL: https://scholar.google.com/
Use the "Cited by" graph to map influence forward from foundational papers (Gardner 1985, Warshak 2001, Bernet 2010)
Set up alerts on "parental alienation" for weekly digests
Limitation: no API; respect rate limits

URL: https://www.ssrn.com/index.cfm/en/lps/family-juvenile-law/
Family & Juvenile Law eJournal: working papers and pre-prints from family-law academics
Best for: catching legal-academic arguments before they hit law-review print

PsycNet (APA) — paywalled, abstracts free¶

URL: https://psycnet.apa.org/
Gold standard for clinical psychology citations. Most law libraries provide access.

US Case Law¶

CourtListener (Free Law Project) — free, generous API¶

URL: https://www.courtlistener.com/
Coverage: federal + state appellate opinions, oral arguments, financial-disclosure data
API: https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest/v4/ — Basic Auth or token
Best for: full-text search of "parental alienation" across US opinions
Bulk: https://www.courtlistener.com/api/bulk-info/ — opinion JSONs by court

Google Scholar Case Law — free¶

URL: https://scholar.google.com/ (select "Case law")
Coverage: US federal + state, with cite-by graph
Best for: quick lookup; build forward-citation maps

Justia — free¶

URL: https://law.justia.com/cases/
US Supreme Court + state supreme + federal appellate
Best for: clean reading view of full opinions

Caselaw Access Project (Harvard) — free¶

URL: https://case.law/
6.4M cases, 1658–2018, full text & structured metadata
Best for: historical research, doctrinal evolution

UK / Ireland Case Law¶

BAILII — free¶

URL: https://www.bailii.org/
Coverage: UK + Ireland court decisions, Family Court (EWFC), Court of Appeal (EWCA Civ), High Court (EWHC)
Recent decisions feed: https://www.bailii.org/recent-decisions.html
Best for: family-court rulings, especially Re-named anonymised cases

Family Law Week — paywalled summaries free¶

URL: https://www.familylawweek.co.uk/
Curated case digests with practitioner commentary
Best for: practitioner perspective on emerging trends

Transparency Project — free¶

URL: https://www.transparencyproject.org.uk/
Family-court reform commentary + reported judgments
Best for: public-interest analysis of contentious rulings

EU / International¶

HUDOC (European Court of Human Rights) — free¶

URL: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/
Article 8 (right to family life) jurisprudence
Best for: regional cross-border PA arguments

Council of Europe — free¶

URL: https://www.coe.int/en/web/children/
Children's rights instruments and committee reports

CURIA (Court of Justice of the EU) — free¶

URL: https://curia.europa.eu/
Brussels IIa / IIb regulation interpretations on jurisdiction in custody disputes

Australia & New Zealand¶

AustLII — free¶

URL: https://www.austlii.edu.au/
Sister site to BAILII covering AU + NZ + Pacific

Federal Circuit & Family Court of Australia — free¶

URL: https://www.fcfcoa.gov.au/

Canada¶

CanLII — free¶

URL: https://www.canlii.org/
Federal + provincial; strong family-law coverage

Practical Tools¶

Zotero — free, open source¶

URL: https://www.zotero.org/
Reference manager with one-click capture from any database above
Build a shared group library: "Parental Alienation — Core Sources"

Connected Papers — free tier¶

URL: https://www.connectedpapers.com/
Visual citation graph from any seed paper. Start with Bernet 2010 or Warshak 2015.

Litmaps — free tier¶

URL: https://www.litmaps.com/
Auto-monitor citation networks; alerts when new work cites your seeds

How to use this list¶

You are a parent: Start with the Influencers section to find clinicians whose work matches your situation, then use Google Scholar to read what they've published.

You are a lawyer: CourtListener + Google Scholar Case Law + BAILII (or CanLII / AustLII regionally) — search "parental alienation" filtered to the last 24 months for fresh authority.

You are an evaluator or researcher: PubMed + CrossRef + SSRN, with Zotero for capture and Connected Papers for graph navigation.

You are a journalist: Transparency Project + Family Law Week for UK; CourtListener oral arguments + financial disclosures for US. SSRN for academics willing to talk on record.

Maintained by the AntiAlienate.com knowledge collective. Missing a database? Open a PR.

Sources & authoritative references¶

Referenced in this page:

Topic baseline (independently verifiable):