Solutions for Parental Alienation (PAS) Part 2

Solutions for Parental Alienation (PAS) Part 2 by Martyn Carruthers Would you like to benefit from our experience?

We offer private and telephone coaching and training on systemic coaching,
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PAS Part 1 - Before Adolescence . Emotional Incest

Parental Alienation Part 2 - After Adolescence

Often, children perceive their parents in a black or white world. They may generally perceive one parent as rejecting, and the other parent as rejected.

During and after adolescence, children become biologically ready for partnership and parenthood. Adolescents who accept unhealthy relationship habits as normal may feel unable fulfill these needs. Instead, teenagers may withdraw or express emotional outbursts. The consequences can include:

• desperate search for adult role models
• delayed emotional maturity - perhaps for years
• emotional bonding to same-sex parent (homosexuality)
• emotional bonding to opposite sex parent (emotional incest)
• chronic anger, depression, anxiety and / or learning disabilities
• high motivation to dissociate (alcohol, drug abuse or other addictions)
• teenage-onset schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder or passive aggression

Emotional Maturity

Before emotional adolescence (which may be delayed), an adult child is likely to accept and express the rejecting parent's qualities. On gaining emotional maturity, the young adult may start accepting the rejected parent in a number of ways, including:

1. lives with the rejected parent (may avoid the rejecting parent)
2. identifies with the qualities of the rejected partner (Identification)
3. oscillates between mother's and father's behavior (Identity Conflict)
4. partners a person who has qualities of the rejected parent (Transference)
5. suffers trauma, depression or breakdown and retreats from reality (Lost Identity)

If ignored, this unpleasant drama may well continue into 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 . Private 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.

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 inner conflict.

Emotional Incest . Identification . Learning Disabilities . Stress Disorders

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.

The best interests of the child, in a court of law, rarely 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 childishness, rivalry and power games.

Divorce . Children of Divorce . Parent Coaching

Pleasure may be senseless for parents who have hurt or damaged their own children. Many people, fter alienating a once-loved partner, seem to depress their lives. Some common symptoms are:

Ignore personal hygiene Avoid completing essential tasks Avoid keeping track of finances

Ignore important problems Consider self-harm or suicide Do things that create problems

Typical PAS Scenario

Either parent can initiate a sequence of events leading to Parental Alienation Syndrome.

1. A separated parent states that a child does not wish to visit the other parent
2. A social worker confirms that the child does not wish to visit the other parent
3. The custodial parent and social worker report to a court
4. A court limits the child's contact with the other parent
5. The child and rejecting parent bond by their rejection of the other parent
6. The child and rejected parent lose contact until the child is adolescent
7. After adolescence, the child returns to and bonds to the rejected parent

Many people who suffered PAS as children told us that they could not cope with this situation as children, and avoided, rather than hated, the other parent. If the rejecting parent continues to reject the qualities of the rejected partner, the adult child may come to avoid or even hate the rejecting parent.

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 is becoming common in America. TM, Therapist

Emotional Maturity & Child Abuse

Children may suffer from the sometimes vicious tactics that immature parents may use to punish each other. Although immature parents express depression, anger, and aggression by withdrawing love, alienating a child's parent is child abuse. Our systemic coaching can 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. What can you develop if you experience parental alienation?

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Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2004-2010 All rights reserved.