Solution Child Psychological Abuse
Doing nothing is not an option as the problem will not go away according to many experts. Until the child is reunited with the other parent they will continue to suffer psychological damage. Dr Shari Stines outlines some of the psychological damage this process causes at Psychcentral. Dana Laquidara was Alienated from her mother for approximately 40 years. See her website and podcasts at:
According to Family Court Psychologist Dr Sheehan fixing the problem is actually very easy, mum and dad just agree in front of each other to put aside their differences. Unfortunately as he knows most psychologically disordered people cannot do this.
For many children the problem becomes intergenerational.
Don't be a bystander. Anyone who is related to or knows an affected person no matter their age should try and help. While the child is Alienated they are suffering ongoing psychological damage which can have indirect impacts on the child's physical health.
The child may not be willing for your help now however they will be very grateful once they reunite with their Alienated parent. Maybe by reaching out to an affected child you might loose their friendship however it is a very worthwhile thing to do and if you can can get others to help you, you will likely succeed.
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 are no 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 alienated 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 Ă 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 Alienating parent for about 90 days. The child will not want to do this so you need to ask some questions so that it becomes obvious to you that the child is in an enmeshed relationship with the Alienating Parent.
QUESTIONS TO ASK THE SUSPECTED ALIENATED CHILD
CONFIDANT QUESTIONS
Did your aligned parent show you court papers about their divorce as a young child ?
Did your aligned parent show you papers about their parents finances as a young child ?
Did your aligned parent share lots of very personal information about their new dates or partners ?
Do you help your aligned parent to make decisions about their new dates/partners ?
Is your aligned parent emotionally needy ?
Are you one of the most bonded children to your aligned parent of any person you know ?
How many times a day do you phone/message/email your aligned parent ?
Do you think that children as young as 8 should be able to decide that they no longer want to see a parent ?
DELUSIONAL ERASED MEMORY QUESTIONS
Did your aligned parent tell you in detail how your absent parent financially damaged the aligned parent.
Did your aligned parent tell you in detail how your absent parent had an affair during the marriage.
Did your aligned parent tell you in detail how your absent parent physically or sexually abused them.
Do you have another bad event you can remember that your absent parent did to your aligned parent ?
What independent proof do you have of that bad event ?
Do you think that bad event justifies erasing him/her as a parent ?
Do you have a bad event you can remember that your absent parent did to you/your sibling ?
What independent proof do you have of that bad event ?
Do you think that bad event justifies erasing him/her as a parent ?
Can you remember any good times with your absent parent ?
Can you remember much of the time you spent with your absent parent ?
Does your aligned parent keep in your house for you to see pictures, momentos or other things to remind you of the absent parent ?
What nice things about your absent parent does your aligned parent say ?
Can you give me a list of some bad traits of your aligned parent ?
Can you give me a list of some good things about your absent parent ?
Do you think many of the worlds problems are caused by the opposite gender to your aligned parent ?
For example if your aligned parent was your father do you see many of the worlds problems are caused by females !
ABANDONMENT/ATTACHMENT QUESTIONS
Do you call your rejected parent mum or dad or by their own name or something else ?
Did your absent parent abandon you ?
How long did your absent parent spend fighting in the family court to stay in your life ?
Were there court orders preventing your absent parent from seeing you ?
Did your absent parent send you messages/letters cards and gifts ?
Did you respond to the cards and gifts your absent parent sent ?
When did you stop sending your absent parent fathers day/mothers day/Christmas/Birthday cards ?
Do you sense anxiety from the parent you are living with when you have any contact from your absent parent ?
Did you want your absent parent to attend your high school/college graduation ?
Did you invite them to your graduations ?
Do you want your absent parent to come to your wedding ?
Do you think your absent parent loves you ?
Do you call your step parent dad or mum ?
Do you think that if you have children you should be allowed to raise them and have contact with them ?
Would you consider a non contact period of 90 days with the parent you are living with to help you connect with your absent parent ?
Reunited after 44 years !
(click on image for video)
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT !!!!!
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.