A self-censored chronicle of family court dramas, lived by parents who lost all or some visitation with or custody of a child or children based on perjury and/or other false courtroom evidence
Compiled by DV LEAP, Joan Meier, Director, and Andrew Hudson (intern) for consideration by the Committee on the DSM-V
The following brief compilation includes cases that DV LEAP is aware of, either through its own litigation, that of colleagues, and/or press accounts. Where there are published appellate opinions, cases are cited instead in the accompanying memorandum overview of all published cases referencing PAS as of 2009. A very few cases are cited in both this memorandum and the accompanying one.
Isolation. The act of isolating, or the state of being isolated, insulation, separation; loneliness.
Manipulation. A method of changing an individual’s attitudes or allegiances through the use of drugs, torture or psychological techniques, any form of indoctrination, alluding to the literal erasing of what is in or on one’s mind.
Brain Washing used to be associated exclusively with the act or practice of manipulating. The state of being manipulated. Shrewd or devious management, especially for one’s own advantage. Indirect control, as of an advisor; power to affect the opinions.
If you isolate the target You can say what you want about them. If you isolate the victim and only allow contact with allies you have complete control. This is an "Alienation Tactic".
He helps them out of their troubles. He protects them and keeps them alive; he publicly honors them and destroys the power of their enemies. He nurses them when they are sick, and soothes their pain and worries. "O Lord," I prayed, "be kind and heal me, for I have confessed my sins."
– a form of abuse that can have devastating impacts on children.
Miranda Orr, a former police officer in Belleville, recently joined Parental Alienation Awareness Organization — a group that aims to educate the public and professionals about prevention of, and responses to, parental alienation, according to their website.
The act refers to the alienation of one parent by the other — typically going through a separation or divorce — through manipulating the child or children involved in the family. The behaviours generally involve the mental manipulation and/or bullying of the child to pick between one parent or the other.
“This is happening in our community, children across the globe are experiencing this,”
said Orr Monday.
“It’s actually a huge, growing phenomena. Children develop all kinds of self esteem issues, depression is a common one.”
These behaviours can also result in destroying a loving and warm relationship they once shared with a parent.
The organization, based in Toronto, works to create awareness in the courts, with judges, lawyers, police officers and children’s services. As explained on the PAAO website, parental alienation and hostile aggressive parenting deprive children of their right to be loved by and showing love for both of their parents and extended family. It can occur in intact families, but is mostly seen in separated and divorced families. Orr joined the organization about a year ago. Through her lengthy career as a police officer she witnessed various forms of emotional abuse.
She decided to get involved after realizing many people are not aware of parental alienation and do not know that it is a form of emotional abuse.
To help increase awareness, she is working on organizing an event this April.
April 25 is recognized as Parental Alienation Awareness Day. On this day, people are encouraged to take part in “Bubbles for Love” by blowing bubbles for 10 minutes at noon, to recognize parental alienation and the affected children.
Locally, Orr, along with an organizing committee, is hosting an event on April 10 to make bubbles available to those interested in doing a Bubbles of Love day.
“We will be doing a family fun barbeque, we’ll be have a petting zoo, bouncy castle. We’ll also be handing out cases of bubbles to companies, organizations, or schools that want to participate in Bubbles of Love. The event will take place at West Zwick’s Centennial Park Lions pavilion from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Orr has created a Facebook page, Bubbles of Love Day Quinte, where people can find information or contact organizers.
More information about parental alienation can be found at: www.paawareness.org
If the child can withstand the alienating parent’s lies and manipulations, then bad parenting is certainly taking place, but Parental Alienation Syndrome is not. It becomes Parental Alienation Syndrome when the child capitulates and begins to participate in the campaign against the targeted parent. This is where the real damage occurs to a child’s developing personality and young mind and heart.
Dr. Richard A. Gardner did pioneering work identifying Parental Alienation Syndrome in the mid-eighties. He characterized the disorder as a cluster of symptoms:
A campaign of denigration waged against the target parent.
Weak, absurd or frivolous rationalizations given for the deprecation.
The child’s lack of natural ambivalence for both parents.
The child displays “independent thinker” phenomenon.
The child reflexively supports the alienating parent throughout the parental conflict.
The child displays no guilt about cruelty to and exploitation of the target parent.
The child employs scenarios borrowed from the alienating parent.
The animosity includes the friends and family of the target parent.
The Alienating parent will exhibit specific behaviors, signs and symptoms than those of the children and the target parent. The following examples of Alienators behavior are called Red Flags. The more of these a parent exhibits or enacts, the higher the probability of PAS occurring. Below is a list of over 150 most often used tactics to alienate children from a parent. A score of 10 or more is an indicator of PAS
Denigrating the other parent in front of anyone who will listen, including the children, as well as calling the TP or step-parent derogatory names in front of the child.
Filing allegations of abuse while constantly dragging the ex into court for child support or alimony. (Note: A truly abused individual wants to have nothing to do with the abuser, making face-to-face confrontation out of the question.)
Stopping any contact with the children and the ex’s extended family or friends who disagree with them
Believing that they are above the law, and that all orders/laws were made for everyone else but them.
Impeding Communication with the children, including blocking access to school records and meetings and events.
Grilling the children about their visit, asking the children to spy or collect evidence.
Refusing visitation because the ex spouse has been unable to afford the child support or not made a payment.
Statements of constant hatred and vengeance about the ex-spouse
Children and parents who have undergone forced separation from each other in the absence of abuse, including cases of parental alienation, are highly subject to post-traumaticstress, and reunification efforts in these cases should proceed carefully and with sensitivity. Alienated children seem to have a secret wish for someone to call their bluff, compelling them to reconnect with the parent they claim to hate; despite strongly held positions of alignment, alienated children want nothing more than to be given the permission and freedom to loveand be loved by both parents (Baker, 2010). Yet the influence of the alienating parent is too strong to withstand, and children’s fear that the alienating parent may fall apart or withdraw his or her love holds them back. Research has shown that many alienated children can transform quickly from refusing or staunchly resisting the rejected parent to being able to show and receive love from that parent, followed by an equally swift shift back to the alienated position when back in the orbit of the alienating parent (Fidler and Bala, 2010). Thus while children’s stated wishes regarding parental residence and contact in contested custody afterdivorce should be considered, they should not be determinative in cases of parental alienation.
Reunification efforts subsequent to prolonged absence should be undertaken with service providers with specialized expertise in parental alienation reunification. A number of models of intervention have been developed, the best-known being Warshak’s (2010) Family Bridges Program, an educative and experiential program focused on multiple goals: allowing the child to have a healthy relationship with both parents, removing the child from the parental conflict, and encouraging child autonomy, multiple perspective-taking, and critical thinking. Sullivan’s Overcoming Barriers Family Camp (Sullivan et al, 2010), which combines psycho-educational and clinical intervention within an environment of milieu therapy, is aimed toward the development of an agreement regarding the sharing of parenting time, and a written aftercare plan. Friedlander and Walters’ (2010) Multimodal Family Intervention provides differential interventions for situations of parental alignment, alienation, enmeshment and estrangement. All of these programs emphasize the clinical significance of children coming to regard their parents as equally valued and important in their lives, while at the same time helping enmeshed children relinquish their protective role toward their alienating parents.
In reunification programs, alienated parents will benefit from guidelines with respect to their efforts to provide a safe, comfortable, open and inviting atmosphere for their children. Ellis (2005) outlines five strategies for alienated parents: (1) erode children’s negative image by providing incongruent information; (2) refrain from actions that put the child in the middle of conflict; (3) consider ways to mollify the anger and hurt of the alienating parent; (4) look for ways to dismantle the coalition between the child and alienating parent and convert enemies to allies; and (5) never give up on reunification efforts. As much as possible, Warshak (2010) recommends, alienated parents should try to expose their children to people who regard them, as parents, with honor and respect, to let children see that their negative opinion, and the opinion of the alienating parent, is not shared by the rest of the world. This type of experience will leave a stronger impression than anything the alienated parent can say on his or her own behalf, according to Warshak.
As Baker (2010) writes, alienated parents acutely feel the hostility and rejection of their children. These children seem cruel, heartless, and devaluing of their parents. Yet it is important to realize that from the child’s perspective, it is the targeted parent who has rejected them; they have been led to believe that the parent whom they are rejecting does not love them, is unsafe, and has abandoned them. Thus, the primary response of the alienated parent must always be one of loving compassion, emotional availability, and absolute safety. Patience and hope, unconditional love, being there for the child, is the best response that alienated parents can provide their children, even in the face of the sad truth that this may not be enough to bring back the child.
With alienating parents, it is important to emphasize that as responsible parenting involves respecting the other parent’s role in the child’s life, any form of denigration of a former partner and co-parent is harmful to children. Children’s connections to each parent must be fully respected, to ensure their well being, as children instinctively know, at the core of their being, that they are half their mother and half their father. This is easier said than done, as alienating parents are themselves emotionally fragile, with a prodigious sense of entitlement and need to control (Richardson, 2006), and thus pose significant clinical challenges. Yet poisoned minds and instilled hatred toward a parent is a very serious form of abuse of children. When children grow up in an atmosphere of parental alienation, their primary role model is a maladaptive, dysfunctional parent. It is for this reason that many divorce specialists (e.g., Fidler and Bala, 2010) recommend custody reversal in such cases, or at least a period of separation between a child and an alienating parent during the reunification process with an alienated parent. I have come to believe, however, that the means of combating alienation should not themselves be alienating, and that a non-punitive approach is most effective, with co-parenting being the primary goal. Thus engaging and involving the alienating parent in reunification programs, whenever possible, is critical (Sullivan et al, 2010).
Thank you to the members and supporters of Parental Alienation Awareness Organization USANorth Texas Chapter who made valuable contributions to the article, both with personal stories and expert advice.
