|
|
Signs of Parental Alienation And How to Counteract Its Effects by L.F. Lowenstein
Abstract
Parental
alienation has numerous signs, chief of which begins with a
question: "Why should children who were initially close to
both parents suddenly seek to reject one of them?" This tends
to occur following an acrimonious separation or divorce.
There is a tendency to rely too much on what a child
says it wants rather than looking behind the obvious remarks.
They are often 'programmed' by the alienating parent and this
leads to false, frivolous exaggerated criticisms against the
other parent. 28 signs of alienation which are not always
simultaneously apparent are presented as well as 24
suggestions for remediation.
Signs of Parental
Alienation and How to Counteract Its
Effects
Introduction
What
follows will be in two parts. The first part will deal with
the signs of parental alienation or what one should look out
for when dealing with children, alienators, and the victims of
alienation. The second part will concern itself with remedies
in dealing with the alienation process.
It must be
understood that what the child wants is important but one must
be absolutely certain that what the child wants is truly being
reflected by what the child says. It must be understood that
children who state that they do not want to see a parent,
unless there has been proven sexual, physical or emotional
abuse, that child should still strongly be encouraged to have
contact with the other parent.
Children may state they
do not wish to see a parent and those who deal with children
in the legal profession and as psychologists and psychiatrists
often feel they must listen to the child and concede that what
the child wants is right for that child. This is a very wrong
way of looking at things.
Children often want things
for themselves that are not good in the short term as well as
the long term. While a major consideration when dealing with
the alienation process is to do what is best for the child, we
must be careful to understand that children will have reacted
in a certain way after a period of alienation by one
parent.
This then leads to information solely on the
basis of what the child feels and thinks should happen.
Children who have been alienated or programmed against a
parent will often state things that are untrue, exaggerated or
frivolous despite having had a good earlier relationship with
that parent.
The approach of the therapist in dealing
with alienation cases is very different from the psychologist
or psychiatrist dealing with a variety of neuroses or
psychoses. What is required is to understand that the
alienating parent can be, but not necessarily, mentally ill,
or evil, or both in the manner in which she deals with the
child in order to seek vengeance on a parent who had been
close at some point in time.
What such parents fail to
realise is that they are harming the child both in the short
and the long term by depriving that child of a good parent
merely because they are angry and wish to get back in a
vengeful way against their ex partner. The child is used as a
tool in this process. The alienator is not concerned for the
welfare of the child but is concerned with their own desire
for vengeance against the alienated individual.
