Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome: Breaking the Ties that Bind" W.W.Norton,

April 2007

Amy J.L.Baker's new book "Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome: Breaking the Ties that Bind" W.W.Norton, April 2007, is a fascinating examination of alienating parents. For the past 30 years The Family Court of Australia has routinely encouraged women to cut fathers out of their children's lives, doing enormous harm to both the children involved and to the country as a whole.

John Howard's failure to make any more than lukewarm reform of family law and child support in this country has constituted emotional abuse of separated dads and their children on a massive scale. He may well pay dearly at the box office in the coming election for his duplicity in double crossing fathers who had been led to believe that his Liberal government had heard their voices and would fix the despised Family Court and the utterly hated Child Support Agency. Of course, he did nothing of the kind, instead kow towing to man-hating feminist bureaucrats and acting to protect the legal profession from the charges of corruption routinely levelled at them by the hundreds of thousands of disgruntled fathers and their families who have been battered by the system.
.
Amy J.L. Baker writes in part::

"Cult leaders have been compared to both psychopaths (Tobias & Lalich, 1994) and narcissists (Shaw, 2003) because of their lack of humility in presenting themselves as superior to others and because of their willingness to use their charm and persuasion skills in order to exploit and unduly influence others.

"The adult children who participated in the interviews described the alienating parent in similar terms. In particular, they perceived the alienating parent as needing to be the center of attention at all times and insisting on being the center of the child's emotional life. "She was the center and everything revolved around her." (31)

"Another participant said, "Mainly I think she always wants to be your everything. She wants to be your center of attention. And so she liked the fact that by making me hate him all I had was her." (27) In fact, many of the interview subjects described their parents as narcissistic, either using that label or using precise descriptors that called that term to mind.

"In cults, it is not enough to feel devotion to the leader; members are expected to demonstrate their devotion on a regular basis. Expressions of devotion include putting the needs of the leader first, never questioning the authority of the leader, confessing imperfections, allowing the leader to make all important decisions, and making public declarations of faith and love. These actions reassure the leader that the member is fully indoctrinated and further solidify the member's commitment to the cult (Lifton, 1989).

"In many cases the expressions of devotion are public, with the aim of turning a public declaration of devotion into an inner desire to be loyal to the leader. By requiring such public assertions of faith and trust in the leader, cult leaders are exploiting the natural tendency in people to want their beliefs to be consistent with their actions ( e.g. Festinger, 1957). In this way saying becomes believing.

"This process also occurred in the families of alienation. The participants reported feeling pressured to show their devotion to the alienating parent. Many described their relationship with the alienating parent as one in which their parent's needs were felt as more real and urgent to them than their own. They recalled staying home from social activities to tend to their parent, to keep them company, to take care of younger siblings, or to perform household duties. "I did what I could do to make her life easier because her life was so hard because of my father. That was my mantra, mom's life is hard. I have to try to help her. (40)" They chose friends, hobbies, and eventually careers and spouses to please their parent.

"Others reported that they grew up believing that it was their job to satisfy the needs of their parent, exemplified in the statement, "I was there to help her. It would make me want to try harder to please her. I learned how to be amusing at a very young age. " (27) In general, they experienced themselves as extensions of their parent, their primary function in life being to take care of, please, admire, eassure, and be devoted to them.

"A particularly important expression of devotion was an allegiance to and preference for the alienating parent over the targeted parent. Some of the participants recalled being asked to spy on the targeted parent and keep secrets from him or her. Many participants said that they had made negative reports to the alienating parent about the targeted parent such as saying that they did not have a good time during visits, exaggerating small infractions or hurts, and making false claims of harm.

"Joining the alienating parent in the belittling of the targeted parent was another means of showing devotion. A few participants recalled mocking the targeted parent, and one told of being encouraged to spit, hit, and sexually humiliate his mother at the behest of his father. Devotion also took the form of making accusations against the targeted parent for real and fabricated allegations, including stealing the child's personal items and shirking financial obligations such as child support payments."

Amy J.L Baker concludes:

"The 40 adults who participated in this study described their parents in much the same terms that cult leaders are described. These parents required excessive devotion and utilized a range of strategies in order to cultivate their children's dependence on them. The perceived impact of the alienation as described by the participants matched many of the outcomes associated with cult involvement. These findings should provide a useful framework for adults who were alienated from a parent as a child and for clinicians working with this population."

With many of the country's feminist ideologues desperate to dismiss PAS as a discredited syndrome, as the ABC's recent, disgracefully biassed program on the subject suggested, we were extremely fortunate to have a professional on the program last week with such impeccable credentials as Dr Lowenstein to explain the characteristics of PAS. We hope this interview will help raise further public awareness of the insidious psychological and emotional abuse of innocent children under PAS.

Parental Alienation Syndrome is a form of child abuse. It involves the systematic brainwashing and manipulation of children by one parent, with the sole purpose of destroying the loving and warm relationship they once shared with the other parent. It is mostly seen in cases of separation and divorce.

PAS is a term coined by the late Dr Richard Gardner. It is used in the context of parental separation, but the tactics and techniques used by the perpetrators, are also used in other settings where it is known by such terms as brainwashing and programming. It occurs when one person or group is given, or has taken, total control over another person or group, and the normal checks and balances have been removed.

The current badly flawed Family Court practice is to give residency of the children to one parent (most often the mother). By so doing, this parent is placed in exactly such an all-powerful position of total control over the child without the balancing influence of the other parent. This allows the custodial parent to resist the sharing of parenting time with the non-custodial parent. It is not uncommon to hear them say that the children involved no longer want to have a relationship with their other parent.

Well-intentioned but ill-informed so-called "experts" regularly call for the desires of children to be listened to. However, in the case of PAS, this is a simplistic answer to a complex problem. Unfortunately many psychologists and health care workers still deny that parental alienation occurs and reject the research on the subject. By doing so they contribute to the psychological abuse of children and become an unwitting accomplice to the abusive parent.

Along with the general public there are still many professionals such as judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, teachers and police officers who have no idea this problem exists. The more people know about PAS, the more difficult it will be for the alienators to be able to get away with their underhanded and extremely damaging tactics.