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We offer coaching and
training on building healthy families,
family constellations, quality relationships and resolving parenting stress.
PAS Part 1 - Before Adolescence
. Emotional Incest
Parental Alienation Part 2 - After Adolescence
Children often perceive a simple world of good or bad,
of black or white. Following parental alienation, children may perceive one parent as rejecting
- as a victimizer or a tyrant, and the other parent as rejected - as a victim
or wounded. Such perceptions can have unpleasant long-term consequences.
During adolescence, children become
biologically ready for partnership and parenthood. Adult children who
have perceived
unhealthy relationships as normal may not be emotionally
ready for partnership - they may feel unable to fulfill
these emotional needs. Instead, as teenagers, they may emotionally withdraw or emotionally
act out. The consequences seem to include:
Emotional Maturity
Before adolescence (which may be delayed), adult
children are likely to accept and express a rejecting parent's qualities.
On gaining emotional maturity,
young adults may accept the rejected parent in a number of
ways, including:
- lives with the rejected parent (may avoid the rejecting
parent)
- identifies with the qualities of the rejected partner
(Identification)
- oscillates between mother's and father's behavior
(Identity Conflict)
- partners a person who has qualities of the rejected parent
(Transference)
- suffers trauma, depression or breakdown and retreats
from reality (Lost Identity)
If ignored, this unpleasant drama often seems to repeat itself in subsequent
generations. The rejecting parent, the rejected parent and the adolescent children
can benefit from our coaching, which we can provide individually or simultaneously
(systemic family coaching).
Parental alienation affects the
sense of life of children. People
affected by PAS may become unable to feel joyously connected to their friends, partners,
families, humanity and to their God. If human connectedness can be replaced by depression
and suffering, then PAS is a deeply spiritual issue.
Systemic Family Coaching .
Systemic Couple Coaching
Chronic Anger
A symptom set commonly associated with Parent
Alienation is Victim Identification.
If the child perceives one parent as a victim, the child may identify with
that parent and express anger or rage to the
other parent (the victimizer), often explosively and inappropriately. After
adolescence, the same child may identify with the rejected parent (now
seen as the real victim) and express anger to the rejecting
parent (now seen as the real victimizer).
Chronic Conflict
If a child tries to remain loyal to both parents,
and those parents are in conflict, the child will likely be in conflict. The
side of the child that supports the father will object to the side of
the child that supports the other parent. The result is
identity conflict. We can
coach you to resolve these issues.
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My ex-partner played a victim role very
well, gained the
sympathy of the judge and was awarded custody of our two children ... our
older child is now perpetually angry, and the younger suffers from
endless indecision. Portland, Maine |
Emotional Incest
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Identification . Learning
Disabilities
Power & Privilege
Emotional blackmail is a common strategy for gaining
and maintaining the benefits of child custody, even though a mother who
disrupts father-child contact defined by court order
may be acting illegally.
In a court of law, the best interests of the child
may not mean the child’s best interests. Parents
can vote, parents can file lawsuits and parents can pay lawyers. The child’s
interests and rights are usually subordinate to the parents' interests.
Children of divorce are
rarely represented in court, and may be emotionally crushed during
their parent's rivalry and power games.
Divorce
. Children of Divorce
. Parent
Coaching
Pleasure may become senseless for parents who have hurt or
damaged their own children. Many people, after alienating a once-loved partner,
feel enormous guilt and depress
their lives. Some common symptoms of unassimilated guilt and depression are that
adults:
- Ignore personal hygiene
- Avoid responsibility for finances
- Avoid completing essential tasks
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- Sabotage themselves
- Ignore important problems
- Consider self-harm or suicide
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Typical Parental Alienation Scenario
Either parent can initiate a sequence of events
leading to Parental Alienation. Here is a common scenario for separated parents:
- A separated parent states that a child does not wish to
be with the other parent
- A social worker confirms that the child
does not wish to visit the other parent
- The custodial parent and social worker report to a
court
- A court limits the child's contact with the other parent
- The child and rejecting parent bond by their rejection of
the other parent
- The child and rejected parent lose contact until the child is
adolescent
- After adolescence, such children may visit and bond
to the rejected parent
- After bonding to the rejected parent, such children may
reject the custodial parent
Many people who suffered PAS as children told us that they
could not cope with this situation as children, and that they avoided, not hated, the other parent, to avoid problems with the custodial
parent. Later, after emotional adolescence (which may be delayed), they may say
that they cannot tolerate to be with the custodial parent.
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If I did anything my mother didn't like, I
heard her worst insult - "I was just like my father". I avoided meeting him,
mostly to avoid problems with my mother. I left home at 16, and found
that my father wasn't at all like my mother's descriptions. I'm 37 now, but my
mother refuses to discuss anything about my childhood or my father. I still
can't visit my mother without feeling angry with her. Maybe I am "just like my
father". Belfast, Ireland
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If one parent continues to reject the other parent, their adult
children may avoid, dislike or even hate the rejecting parent. If this is accompanied
by chronic anger, I might explore
if this is what we call victim identification - that a person is expressing a
victim's unexpressed anger.
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The toxicity of PAS is not only in
the description of the syndrome but also in the solutions chosen by courts.
Sometimes, if PAS is diagnosed, the hated parent is given custody of the child,
against the child's own will. This seems to be increasingly common in America. |
Emotional Maturity & Child Abuse
Children may suffer from the sometimes vicious
tactics that immature parents may use to hurt each other. Although
immature parents express depression, anger, and aggression by
withdrawing love, alienating a child's parent is child abuse. We help people dissolve the consequences of:
- betrayal of one partner by the other
- physical, emotional or sexual abuse
- instilling children with false memories
- using children as 'dependent hostages'
- emotional incest &
passive aggression
- court ordered suffering - custody by the hated parent
Spirituality seems to be about acquiring virtues - and people often develop
virtues under challenging conditions. If you experience danger, you can
develop courage, and if you experience lack, you can develop generosity.
If you experience guilt you can develop purity, and if you experience
depression, you can develop compassion.
We coach people to create healthy
relationships if they suffered parental alienation.
Online Coaching for Better Relationships
Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2004-2012 All rights reserved. |
