The Essentials of Parental Alienation Syndrome ( PAS )

[Guest]

The Essentials of Parental Alienation Syndrome ( PAS ): It's Real, It's Here and It Hurts

The latest book on Parental Alienation Syndrome has been released through The Center For Human Potential and can be ordered at http://www.drbobevans.com PAS is a controversial issue in both the legal and mental health professions. This book is a concise overview of PAS and presents the controversial issues that need to be considered. The authors, Drs. Evans and Bone, provide an objective view of the disorder with specific suggestions on dealing with it as a targeted parent. Included in the book is a handy PAS Journal that a parent can use to document specific data and incidents of what is happening to them and their children.

Some excerpts from the book:

-- The campaign of denigration is like a public relations campaign to convince the audience, in this case an evaluator or therapist, about the abusiveness, neglectfulness, and unloving of the other parent. Frequently the parent who brings the child will just sit back and shrug and go, "I wish they felt differently but that's just the way they are". So the presentation carries the appearance that this is coming solely from the child and the connection for the relationship between the parent and child is sort of puppeteer, the puppeteer is often very successfully hidden.

-- Living with an alienating parent is continual exposure to emotionally charged situations where the child is in an environment where there are a lot of expressions of anger and hostility towards the targeted parent. That negative energy is contagious. The child picks up on that energy. This is the breeding ground for depression, feelings of rejection, and poor self-esteem in the child, all emanating from the negativity that is in the alienating parent's home.

-- PAS is very real; it is very valid; and it is very well documented. The phenomenon admittedly needs more research and discussion; there is no doubt about it. Our focus should, however, should be on the harm PAS does to children, especially when they lose their relationship with a loving parent. In fact when PAS is not acknowledged it can be life-threatening.

Bonus!

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[BullittBuzzaro]

Very good. Be careful, Kentucky does not recognize it. When they do recognize PAS, they tend to punish the wrong parent. This could be due to their lack of education, stupidity, or just typical courtroom manipulation. The parent with the most money and best attorney win. The children are not of their concern.

[Guest]

Found this yesterday

ABA: PAS Found in 60% of Custody Cases
September 19th, 2011 by Robert Franklin, Esq.
A 12-year study by the American Bar Association found Parental Alienation in 60% of custody cases. That’s just one of the many remarkable aspects of this article on PAS (Psych Central, 9/2011).

The article, by Richard Zwolinski, is excellent for a number of reasons. First, he understands his topic and conveys his information in a way that’s neither too technical and advanced nor too elementary.

Second, it’s got a number of good links. The linked-to video toward the end of the article should definitely be seen, particularly by PAS deniers. The woman in it describes her childhood in detail; it was a childhood in which her father relentlessly turned her against her mother. His campaign led her to totally reject her mother, even to the extent of assaulting her and saying “the cruelest things a child can say” to a parent.

It was only when the woman grew up and had children of her own that she was able to understand what had happened and build bridges back to her mother.

But her story is remarkable for other reasons apart from its raw immediacy. For example, her father started his campaign of alienation during the marriage. Her mother was often away from the house due to her work, so there was ample opportunity for her father to pursue his alienation of his daughter. I’ve always thought of PAS as occurring during and after divorce, but that’s not the case as the article and the video make clear.

The woman’s story draws a disturbing picture of the alienating parent. In her case, it became clear that her father was deeply disturbed, apparently narcissistic and believed that divorce would utterly destroy him. His recruitment of his daughter was his attempt to secure another person as his ally and security blanket against the possibility of divorce which of course his alienating behavior helped to bring about.

His campaign required his daughter to take sides against her mother and to suppress all feelings of love for her, need of her and desire to be with her.

And that’s one of the important things the article emphasizes - the needy alienating parent forces the child to abandon his/her own needs in order to meet those of the alienating parent. In so doing, the child becomes, in very real emotional ways, the parent of the parent.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/...

[BullittBuzzaro]

I don't know how much of that article is fact or based on a "father's" view. Men and women are BOTH notorious for creating a disturbing picture of the alienating parent. I guess it depends on the people and the court involved.

[Scarecrow]

Bull S HIT !!

[Guest]

BullittBuzzaro wrote:

I don't know how much of that article is fact or based on a "father's" view. Men and women are BOTH notorious for creating a disturbing picture of the alienating parent. I guess it depends on the people and the court involved.

You are correct, the alienator could be the mother or the father. It extends to family members and even close friends of the families, pretty much anyone that has frequent enough contact and influence over the child. The response varies from court to court but it has become more acceptable to have a third party evaluator talk to both parents and children and try to get a sense of what the real issues are. This seems to be most effective in situations not involving custody disputes.

[Guest]

Another new release on the topic of Parental Alienation

http://causatum.blogspot.com/2011/10/crossing...

Crossing Medea - A new book about Parental Alienation

"Crossing Medea: My Fight to Remain a Dad" by Clair Wiederholt shares the true story of a father separated from his children by an ex-wife and unsympathetic court system

MADISON, Wis.(MMD Newswire) October 3, 2011 -- "Crossing Medea: My Fight to Remain a Dad" (ISBN 1461198313) by Clair Wiederholt tells the author's story of heartache and determination in overcoming a series of obstacles to be a father for his children. The book looks to reveal the darkest side of human nature in a mom willing to poison her own kids to avenge her ex-husband.

According to Wiederholt, millions of American men and women divorce every year, and one third of all divorces involve children. In the unnecessary custody disputes that follow, Wiederholt contends that the family law system and portions of society at large remain wholly unsympathetic to a father and child's needs for each other. Following his own divorce, Wiederholt faced opposition from his ex-wife and members of his birth family in his efforts to remain a father. In a 16-year struggle to defend his right to see his three daughters he saw the courts amplify, rather than resolve, his family's problems. Blending autobiographical elements with insights into the family law system, the book traces his efforts to retain his fatherhood role.

"Untold numbers of fathers have been burned by the family courts and have seen their role in their family devalued," Wiederholt says. "My book exposes the trauma of these silent disenfranchised parents along with parental alienation syndrome, cultural perceptions of fathers, institutionalized anti-father bias of our family law system, a child's need for his or her father and a father's love of his children."

Offering another untold story of American fatherhood, the book recounts Wiederholt's dismay as he faces a second fathering challenge in a later relationship. By the sheer force of his narrative, Wiederholt feels this book will force readers to reconsider assumptions about fathers, their place in the lives of children and our most cherished cultural bias, the sacrosanct relationship of mother and child.

"Crossing Medea: My Fight to Remain a Dad" is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels.

About the Author

Clair Wiederholt is a writer, speaker and educator focused on fatherhood, family and gender issues. A graduate of Loyola University, he earned a master's degree in social psychology from the University of Wisconsin.

Read more about this book at http://causatum.blogspot.com/2011/10/crossing...