What Is Parental Alienation Syndrome?
Parental Alienation Syndrome, or PAS, as discussed in an earlier post, is the brainwashing of a child by one of his/her parents to denigrate the other parent. This often happens in child custody disputes, or during cases of divorce.
To understand PAS it is important to discern the child’s role in the disorder that affects the whole family.
Gardner notes that the PAS is more than brainwashing or programming, because the child has to actually participate in the denigrating of the alienated parent. This is done in primarily the following eight ways: The child denigrates the alienated parent with foul language and severe oppositional behaviour. The child offers weak, absurd, or frivolous reasons for his or her anger. The child is sure of himself or herself and doesn’t demonstrate ambivalence, i.e. love and hate for the alienated parent, only hate. The child exhorts that he or she alone came up with ideas of denigration.
The “independent-thinker” phenomenon is where the child asserts that no one told him to do this. The child supports and feels a need to protect the alienating parent. The child does not demonstrate guilt over cruelty towards the alienated parent. The child uses borrowed scenarios, or vividly describes situations that he or she could not have experienced. Animosity is spread to the friends and/or extended family of the alienated parent. In severe cases of parent alienation, the child is utterly brain- washed against the alienated parent. The alienator can truthfully say that the child doesn’t want to spend any time with this parent, even though he or she has told him that he has to, it is a court order, etc. The alienator typically responds, “There isn’t anything that I can do about it. I’m not telling him that he can’t see you.”
Gardner’s statistics showed that the majority of PAS occurrences were initiated by mothers. Mothers have traditionally had primary custody of children (although before the 20th century it normally belonged to the father), and the mothers usually spend more time with the children.
In order for a campaign of alienation to occur, one parent needs to have considerable time with the child. However, in recent years increasing numbers of fathers have started instigating PAS, since there are few legal sanctions for doing so.
I’ve seen several dramatic child custody cases where the father was the alienator. In one case, the father had no control over his obsession to trash the mother. Numerous professionals told him, including the mother, that he could have shared custody if he would be willing to follow the rules. He didn’t have the self-control to do this.
When he lost child custody because of his aberrant behaviour, he became a celebrity in the father’s rights movement and took his campaign into national circles. No one would know from hearing him speak about his situation that there was serious pathology going on (PAS) or how hard the professionals worked to stabilize it.
It is important that those involved in child custody cases and divorce settlements that they recognize if there is evidence that may be regarded as features of PAS.
If you require an attorney to help you settle a case of child custody then contact Ivan Zartz Attorneys today. Ivan Zartz Attorneys also specialize in matters involving surrogacy, debt collection, insolvency, sectional titles and dispute resolutions.