Solution Child Psychological Abuse

See Dr Sheehan from the AFCC award winning UpToParents program at 6 minutes 45 seconds.

Just think how would you feel if you had not grown up not having one of your parents in your life ?

The ideal way to fix the problem would be to contact the child and get them to go along to a specialist Psychologist who diagnoses the problem then puts in place a treatment regime to fix it. Realistically if the child has the problem it is symptomatic that they will not want to go along to a Psychologist for diagnosis and treatment. The next problem is that at the time of writing  (August 2020 ) there is a scarcity of Psychologists in Australia that have been educated and accredited for best practice in this type of work. 

The first thing to do is share this website in confidence with as many of the close friends of the Psychologically abused child to get them interested and knowledgeable about the problem. The more friends that are supportive to help before the child knows about it the better.

The problem to fix is the enmeshed relationship the child has with the Aligned parent. This is founded on a shared persecutory delusion the child has about the rejected parent. The way of fixing this madness of two ie Folie à deux has been known for a long time and was published in the DSM as far back as 2000 in DSM4. Essentially it is separating the child from all forms of contact with the  Psychologically abusing parent for about 90 days. The child will not want to do this.

The author of this website has been in contact with approximately 150 adults who had been cut off from a parent as a child by psychological abuse and later reconnected. Not one of them told me that direct contact by the rejected parent was the initiating factor. Some came to a realisation themselves, others triggered by the emotions at the funeral of a family member. The greatest number was by the initiation of a romantic partner (includes spouse, partner). So if you want the child/adult free from psychological abuse the best person to be the rescuer is a romantic partner. The next best is a very close friend or family member. The worst person to be the rescuer is the rejected parent from anecdotal experience which is explained by the psychology of child psychological abuse. (For more information go to: https://www.divorcepizza.com/child-psychological-abuse )

DO's and DON'Ts

When the rejected parent gets opportunity to meet with their child try doing physical activity with the child such as: ten pin bowling, bicycle riding, football, swimming etc. A coffee shop meetup is not a good idea. They should avoid having long conversations with them and steer away from talking about the past. They should avoid saying anything negative about the other parent or that could be interpreted negatively about the other parent.

Try giving the child information about the pathology. The following videos are excellent:

Next you need to support the child to change his/her environment to surround themselves with other people who see the value to society of supporting both parents in a child's life. People that say things like, is your absent parent proud about your latest travel adventure, does your absent parent like your boyfriend/girlfriend, did your absent parent come and visit you in hospital when you had your wisdom teeth out last year, was your absent parent involved in helping you choose a career, was your absent parent keen at sport/art/hobbies/languages etc like you. People that encourage a person to have momentos such as photos about each parent around them. Even adults in their 50's and 60's still tell other people about their dad and mum and their friends ask about them. These adults are still asked about celebrating Fathers Day, Mothers Day, Birthdays and Christmas, Hari Raya with them. This is normal for most people.

Support them to have a complete break of all contact from the Aligned parent for 90 days so they are not constrained from the emotional pressure of the Aligned parent to prevent them re-bonding with the absent parent. If you have a spare room in your house make it available to them to stay in.

When they are ready for it find out the reason why the child rejected the Targeted parent to support the Aligned parent (hopefully there will soon be specialist therapists that have been trained how to do this). This reason will have been amplified in the child's mind to the point it was a delusion. The most common ones are that the Targeted parent financially abused the Aligned parent, had an affair or was violent to the Aligned parent. This reason could be completely false, distorted or blown out of all proportion. The Targeted parent may have overwhelming evidence to confirm what did or didn't happen or they may have no evidence. Having the child talk with you or other people not connected with the Alienator will help identify the belief as a delusion even if no physical proof is available.

The delusion about financial abuse is usually easy to disprove with receipts.

The delusion about the Targeted parent having an affair can appear quite silly if:

-the child cannot positively identify who the person was;

-the child can be reminded of an affair the Aligned parent had;

-it is pointed out that once separated it is natural to want another partner;

-the Targeted parent said sorry and the Aligned parent would not accept the apology.

The delusion about violence can easily be shown to not make sense:

-prior to the marriage and after the marriage there was no history of violence;

-spouse and children from past or future marriages did not find the person violent;

-when they are asked to recall what happened lots of detail is missing, confused or contradictory;

-did they really see the violent event or were they told about it by someone else;

-show them pictures of gangland killer Carl Williams daughter who loves him or McDonald who visits his father in prison jailed for trying to murder his son. http://www.whoshouldibelieve.com/really-bad

Other delusions believed in very strongly by the child would sound ludicrous to other people. For example to totally remove a parent from your life because you thought he/she threw your Christmas presents out the window sounds non sensicle.

Encourage them to contact the absent parent and allow the suppressed bonding to open up and reconnect with the absent parent. If you have a spare room in your house make it available to them to stay in.

When they are ready you should encourage THEM to give the parent who was formally absent in their life a hug. This is highly recommended by Dr Craig Childress as a way of re-bonding to that parent. 

Professor Linda Nielsen an expert in father-daughter relationships wrote this excellent article as a guide to help repair damaged relationships that young adult daughters have with their fathers.

REUNIFICATION

Once the relationship with the absent parent is relatively normal the child will hopefully be willing to attend sessions with a Psychologist who specialises in family systems therapy. The Psychologist would prepare a genogram of the family to identify and repair broken bonds among family members. Part of this process would be to reconnect the child with the previously dis-functionally aligned parent.