300,000 AFFECTED HERE BY PARENTAL ALIENATION
IT is estimated that over 300,000 people are affected by parental alienation in Ireland, according to Parental Alienation Europe.
Parental Alienation Europe was created to provide a positive contribution towards the global efforts to eliminate Parental Alienation.
Parental alienation is a situation in which one parent uses strategies — sometimes referred to as brainwashing, alienating, or programming — to distance a child from the other parent.
The organisation aims to achieve this through increasing awareness of Parental Alienation, delivering education services to the public and professionals, and by introducing effective intervention and professional support services to help those affected by Parental Alienation.
Parental Alienation is being increasingly recognised globally as child psychological abuse with some countries implementing legislation making parental alienation a criminal offence.
With children and teenagers caught in the middle where two parents may be engaged in protracted court proceedings it is not just the parent who has been alienated who suffers.
The child constantly and unfairly criticizes the alienated parent (sometimes called a “campaign of denigration”).
The child doesn’t have any strong evidence, specific examples, or justifications for the criticisms — or only has false reasoning.
The child’s feelings about the alienated parent aren’t mixed — they’re all negative, with no redeeming qualities to be found. This is sometimes called “lack of ambivalence.”
The child claims the criticisms are all their own conclusions and based on their own independent thinking. (In reality, in PA, the alienating parent is said to “program” the child with these ideas.)
The child psychologist who first coined the term parental alienation syndrome (PAS) in 1985 was Richard Gardner. He listed the following as criteria for it.
The child constantly and unfairly criticises the alienated parent (sometimes called a “campaign of denigration”).
The child doesn’t have any strong evidence, specific examples, or justifications for the criticisms — or only has false reasoning.
The child’s feelings about the alienated parent aren’t mixed — they’re all negative, with no redeeming qualities to be found. This is sometimes called “lack of ambivalence.”
The child claims the criticisms are all their own conclusions and based on their own independent thinking. (In reality, in PA, the alienating parent is said to “program” the child with these ideas.) The child has unwavering support for the alienator.
The child doesn’t feel guilty about mistreating or hating the alienated parent.
The child uses terms and phrases that seem borrowed from adult language when referring to situations that never happened or happened before the child’s memory.
The child’s feelings of hatred toward the alienated parent expand to include other family members related to that parent (for example, grandparents or cousins on that side of the family).
Every child has a fundamental right and need for an unthreatened and loving relationship with both parents say campaigners.
To be denied that right by one parent, without sufficient justification such as abuse or neglect, is itself a form of child abuse. Since it is the child who is being violated by a parent’s alienating behaviors, it is the child who is being alienated from the other parent.
Children who have undergone forced separation from one parent—in the absence of abuse—including cases of parental alienation, are highly subject to post-traumatic stress.
I FEEL LET DOWN BY TUSLA, THE LEGAL SYSTEM, THE PSYCHOLOGIST. IT’S DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS. EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU IS USED AGAINST YOU
- A FATHER OF TWO WHO HAS NO CONTACT WITH HIS TWO CHILDREN AFTER GOING THROUGH THE FAMILY LAW PROCESS IN RECENT TIMES