The scholarly work Divorce Casualties: Protecting Your Child From Parental Alienation (Darnell 1998), leading author and child psychologist Dr. Douglas Darnell listed some of the clustering signs of commonalities that form what has become known as Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). PAS has striking similarities to NPD and the Stockholm Syndrome (Rawlings et al., 1994, pp. 401– 417), where the “victim sees world from abuser’s perspective” and “denies or rationalizes violence by the abuser.”
The following are adapted from Darnell et al in relation to Parental Alienation (Syndrome):
- They have a relentless hatred for towards the targeted parent(s)
- They parrot the obsessed alienator
- The child does not want to visit or spend any time with the targeted parent
- Many of the child’s beliefs are enmeshed with the alienator
- The beliefs are delusional and frequently irrational
- They are not intimidated by the court
- Frequently, their reasons are not based on personal experiences with the targeted parent, but reflect what they are told by the obsessed alienator.
- They have difficulty making any differentiations between the two
- The child has no ambivalence in their feelings; it’s all hatred with no ability to see the good
- Victim identifies, enmeshes and aligns through the abuser and the abuser’s allies. Seeing things from the perspective of the perpetrators
- They have no capacity to feel guilty about how they behave towards the targeted parent or forgive any past indiscretions
- They share the Obsessed Alienators cause. Together, they are in lockstep to denigrate the hated parent
- The children’s obsessional hatred extends to the targeted parent’s extended family without any guilt or remorse
- They can appear like normal healthy children until asked about the targeted parent that triggers their hatred (Darnell, 2003, 33–34)
These signs not only assist us in understanding Parental Alienation, but also help therapists identify children whose narcissistic and alienating parents drive them to a campaign of hate. Sandy Hotchkiss, author of the book on this most prevalent personality disorder: Why Is It Always About You? The Seven Sins of Narcissism, sums up a root cause of this mentality in America:
The ‘pseudomature’ child is the one who seems to have skipped right over childhood. Both the ‘pseudomature’ child and the ‘entitlement monster’ are bi-products of narcissistic parenting. The latter is held captive in a parent’s narcissistic bubble, while the former is forced out prematurely and forms a false Self that appears more competent than it actually is.
Both fail to separate from their emotionally bankrupt mothers, and they become what Mother, or Father, needs them to be rather than whom they truly are. (Hotchkiss, 2003, pp. 56–57)
In his scholarly work Divorce Poison: Protecting the Parent-Child Bond from a Vindictive Ex, Dr. Richard Warshak eloquently listed the areas like “corrupting reality,” which the NPA is especially renowned: “. . . To intervene effectively in a campaign of denigration, we must understand exactly how the child’s view of reality is being manipulated. Below is a summary of some of the most common strategies for distorting the child’s perceptions, beliefs, and memories of the target” (Warshak, 2001, pp. 202–203).
- Manipulating names to disrupt children’s identification with the target
- Repeating false ideas until: they are assumed to be true and are embedded in memory
- Selectively directing the children’s attention to negative aspects of the target while ignoring positive aspects
- Dropping the context of a target’s behavior
- Exaggerating the target’s negative behavior
- Telling lies about the target
- Revising history to erase positive memories of the target
- Claiming that the target has totally changed
- Suggestions that convey in a covert manner negative messages about the target
- Encouraging the children to exploit: the target
- Projection of the brainwasher own thoughts, feelings, or behavior onto the target
- Rationalizations that hide the perpetrator’s real motives and make the target look bad
- Self-righteous tones intended to ward off careful scrutiny of the programmer’s reality distortions
- Denunciations cloaked in religious dogma
- Associating the label “the truth” with the programmer’s implanted scenarios
- Overindulging the children with excessive privileges, material possessions, and low expectations for responsible behavior to buy their allegiance
- Encroaching on the children’s time with the target and sabotaging their enjoyment of special activities
- Instructing children to keep secrets from, spy on, and lie to the target
- Conspiring with others to reinforce the programming
- Programming the children to resist attempts to undo their indoctrination
Narcissistic children often become like their narcissistic alienating parent, but one should wisely keep in mind that “narcissistic traits may be particularly common in adolescents and do not necessarily indicate that the individual will go on to have Narcissistic Personality Disorder” (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, p. 660).
