Being a War Veteran Does Not Make You an Expert on War

Let me say that again. Being a veteran of a war does not make one an expert on war. By that I mean this. The war veteran is an absolute expert on his or her experience with the war in which they found themselves, but this experience alone does not equip them to teach at, say The War College. Likewise, ones personal experience with parental alienation, as tragic as it may legitimately be does not - by virtue of that personal experience alone - qualify one to serve in an expert capacity for other peoples cases. Expertise to do this should be grounded in a combination of deep academic experience, research experience, clinical experience "in the trenches" as they say, with many many families in a variety of circumstances, as well as with professional experience in a more general sense in order to place all of these specific experiences in a broader context.

But, you say, what about all of the support groups, websites, etc offering support and advice? Are they not legitimate? Of course they are, and I applaud the wonderful work and support that they provide, and this is not what I am referring to at all. I am a supporter of a great many of them, and hold them in the highest regard. They are wonderful sources of education and validation of the experience of alienation, and enough cannot be said about how profoundly valuable these efforts are. The distinction I wish to make is the distinction between support and education, and the giving of specific strategic advice - which is based in mental health or legalistic principles - to individuals in their cases, and doing so for a fee.

I hear stories from time to time that make me cringe as I hear of the specific advice that has been handed out to a client under these circumstances that was obviously based more on that advisor's own personal experience with parental alienation, than it is based on the facts and factors of the client's specific case. It is important to understand that, while the phenomenon of parental alienation is indeed very patterned, that it also is individually nuanced. One size does not fit all. The best advice I can give is to kick the tires of any potential advisor. Find out about the depth of their academic background, the depth of their experience in dealing with parental alienation, as well as the depth of their experience in dealing with families where parental alienation is not present. Both categories should be significant. Find out about the number of cases in which they have been involved and ask for references. In my experience, parents who have experienced parental alienation are very often inspired to help others and will not be put off by being listed as a reference. Finally, find out how versed they are in the legal system, assuming they are not a lawyer. If their advice comes from more of a mental health perspective, find out what expertise, training and background they have in the mental health field, both related to parental alienation and not related to parental alienation.

None of the questions suggested here should put off anyone you are considering becoming involved in your case. They are reasonable and completely justifiable, and should not ruffle feathers. If feathers do get ruffled however, perhaps the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. Take care.

Persuasive Rhetoric: The Tool of Choice for the Alienating Parent

Persuasive Rhetoric refers to using language in an emotionally laden manner with the purpose of convincing the audience of some particular perspective. Persuasive Rhetoric is a tool for selling ideas, beliefs and positions on a given topic or subject. It is unrelated to truth. It only refers to the spin, the story and the goal of winning over the audience. Nothing in the message requires truth.

In the case of Parental Alienation, this concept is useful in that it describes a favorite modus operandi that the alienating parent uses to vilify the targeted parent. In this context, the alienating parent will allege something either entirely untrue or grossly distorted regarding the targeted parent. It is done with such emotion and tenacity, that the audience is typically drawn into its message. Then the alienating parent does the same thing with another listener. Now there is a group of three who all believe the same either untrue or grossly distorted thing. There are now three voices in this chorus, and the intensity level tends to increase with the volume and the numbers of those involved. Then someone in this group of three relates this to another person, who questions it but is told that several other people told them the same thing, so it must be true. This new "convert" to the distortion then unwittingly spreads the distortion to someone else, and to someone else, and to someone else.

Rightly or wrongly, we humans do tend to be herd animals. Due to our wiring and our evolution, when the herd is exposed to some message that is potentially dangerous or at least negative, we do tend to give it extra weight, and then pass it on. This is a self protective reflex that is easily exploited by the alienating parent in their mission to obliterate the targeted parent.

Socrates, the story goes, is approached by a man who wants to tell him some urgent news. Before he does this, Socrates stops him and says he would first like to ask him three questions before he tells his story. The man agrees. The first question is, "do you know the person to whom this news occurred?" Answer: "No, but I know someone who does know them. " Question two: "did you witness the event yourself?" Answer: "No, but I spoke to someone who was there." Question Three: " Is the news good or bad?" Answer: "It would be considered bad news." Socrates reviews accordingly, "You do not know the person to whom this happened, you only heard about it from someone who says they were there, and it is bad news. Thank you, but I think I would rather not listen to this news."

Dealing with Worry and Danger

Have you ever wondered why it is that after you tell yourself not to worry about something, or not to think of something that is painful, that you still find yourself worrying, and still find yourself thinking about the negative thing that you have no control over? Ninety-nine percent of the population will identify with this question and this experience. It is normal. Now insert the reality of an alienated child and a former spouse who places this child in the middle, and it is easy to see how this very human proclivity to worry and perhaps even dwell at times on the negatives of life, hits warp speed with the realities of loosing a child to parental alienation. It is like the realities of parental alienation takes this otherwise normal human foible, and blows it up into becoming the theme of one's life.

There are very sound reasons to explain why we are vulnerable to worry and may tend to even focus more on the negative than the positive. The reasons have to do with how we are hard wired, that is, how our brains are wired and how they have evolved over the centuries. We do have certain hard wired biases that have helped us to survive but also have created this vulnerability to be on the lookout for the negative. Add to that the unprecedented explosion of information technology within only the last generation, and it becomes easy to see how this informational excess, layered on top of this neurologically grounded vigilance, further drives us to warp speed, just trying to keep up. Again, then insert the alienated child into this maelstrom, with the themes of being falsely accused of things you never did, nor would ever do, and being treated as a criminal by relative strangers who perhaps used to be friends, and it is all the easier to see how being a targeted parent is such a challenge.

One good thing about we humans is, however that we are very adaptable. Human beings are about the only creatures (other than perhaps cockroaches I am told) who have successfully adapted to virtually all climates and environments known to this planet. Not only have we adapted, but even in the harshest environments, we call these extreme places home. We are very adaptable indeed. Likewise, I believe that parents who identify with the label of "targeted parent" of the parental alienation variety, can also learn to respond to the cruelties of parental alienation in ways that bring light back into their own lives, and that increase the chances of reconnection.

More to come.

Resiliency and the Targeted Parent

In my recent presentation at the PAS (SAP in spanish) in Spain, I began sketching out the foundation of what I believe will be a very helpful set of coping strategies designed specifically for for targeted parents. Targeted parents, after all, live in perpetual states of reactiveness. The Targeted Parent is chronically left to respond to attacks, accusations, provocations and various slanders of all descriptions by various accusers. This enormously difficult psychological environment is a recipe for the development of either acting out behaviors and/or depression. In the psychological literature we refer to this as an "external locus of control" whereby the individual is left to simply react to whatever may be the next incoming volly of accusations. I remarked in an earlier blog that it is much easier to throw missles than to catch them, and the Targeted Parent is in the perpetual position to be always having to catch them. At least this is what it feels like, and this is what an "external locus of control" feels like. In past studies focused on this perspective, what was found to have happened to these individuals who were depressed and whose sense of control was external to them, was that when their depressive symptoms had abated, what had actually happened was that their perceived locus of control had become internalized. Their "locus of control" had moved from being external to being internal. In other words, they had found ways to refocus their sense of control and attention to things that were within their control. In cases of prisioners of war, we find that the most resilient prisioners were also able to accomplish this. The classic movie The Great Escape provides repetitive examples of this. The character played by Steve McQueen survives unbelievable periods of isolation in the Cooler by throwing a baseball in a repetitive manner, obviously taking him to a different experiential place. When Ruben Carter, the former prizefighter was falsely imprisoned for murder, he chose to be awake at night and sleep during the day, symbolizing not only his protest but also his refusal to be in that place. What these resilient examples reveal is the importance of finding avenues of control, often in very creative ways, that then protects one from giving in to the depths of depression or to the depravity of violence. This is no small feat. Like many things in life, it is simple, but not easy.

The compilation of strategies which I am compiling are not exotic or particularly secret, but when placed within an understanding of their power, they can be just that, quite powerful. Therefore, rather than just providing a list of these Intentional Behaviors, I think it is vital to set the stage, so to speak, so as to make it clear and indelible why they are so important. Therefore, the first part of this newly developed course is devoted to just that. I will address why, as humans, we have become so vulnerable to the things that Targeted Parents live on a daily basis. This vulnerability can be traced down to the brain and its structure and development. It is literally in our DNA. That said, we still have the power to overcome this bias with the right tools.

PAS Congress in Spain

I have just finished my involvement with the Second International Congress on Parental Alienation Syndrome (SAP in Spanish) in Alcala de Henares, just outside of Madrid. I spoke at the conference as did Jayne Major, as did the imminent German Psychiatrist Wilfred Von Boch-Galhau. Also present as a presenter was well known Spanish Psychiatrist, Jose Miguel Gaona. There were also many prominent Spanish psychologists such as Jose Manuel Aguilar Cuenca and Asuncion Tejedor Huerta, and just about every other Spanish authority on the alienation of children. Also in attendance were two very supportive Judges, the national President of the Spanish Family lawyers, as well as investigators, attorneys, psychologists, and parents. The meeting was organized by Juan Carlos Presa Periera, who is the President of the Association for the Rights of Children. While I have attended many such meetings, I do not believe that I have attended any where the level of enthusiasm and commitment to improve the situation of children caught in the middle, leading often to their alienation, was so great.

As I became more familiar with the issues in Spain, I was astounded to learn that a situation exists in Spain where fathers are in great jeopardy not only of loosing their children, should they divorce, but are also in jeopardy of loosing their freedom. Currently in Spain, under the authority of the Ministry of Equality, any woman or child who accuses the husband/father of abusing them, I any way, ranging from name calling to physical abuse to sexual assault, will result in the automatic and immediate arrest of the accused man, with absolutely no proof being necessary. Consequently, it is common in contested divorce situations for a father to arrive at the home of the mother to pick up the child for visitation, to be met by a law enforcement officer, due to the mother having called in some false accusation of abuse. Under the current law, the officer has no choice but to arrest the accused father. I was told that it was common for fathers to go to pick up their children, with a packed bag so as to accommodate the weekend stay in jail. This is no joke! This is really happening. I know that this sounds suspect. I wondered about this too. However, the more I looked into it the more I found it to be true. During the weekend of this meeting a man who had been held in jail for 14 months was finally released after it was determined that there was absolutely no evidence for the crime that he was jailed for. His former wife had made a claim of his having assaulted her, and he was arrested. Period. In the 14 months he was false incarcerated he lost his job and his home.

Perhaps it should not be a surprise that there has been an increase in suicide amongst this population of men, which there has. Imagine being accused of doing something which you did not do, being arrested for it, being forced to leave your house, which you must still pay for, and then loosing your access to your child. As if this is not enough, if you stay in jail long enough, you probably will lose your job. It is not difficult to imagine that this set of circumstances could not cause one to loose all hope.

I plan to look more into this situation. From what I see now, I believe that this deserves international attention.

Criticisms of Parental Alienation Exposed

Recently, there has been a increase in negative and unfounded criticisms of parental alienation. In these criticisms, parental alienation is typically referred to as being "junk science" or as a shield for abusers of their own children. Neither is accurate nor founded on any responsible scientific principal.

The scientific basis for parental alienation is wide and deep. The phenomenon of one parent influencing the child against the other parent is familiar to all involved in the field of psychology as well as in Family Law. To argue that this is without foundation is preposterous. In fact virtually all states have statutory language that identifies the negative influences of one parent onto the child regarding the other parent (parental alienation) as a reason to favor the targeted parent in consideration for custody. Additionally, there are literally hundreds of peer reviewed articles that are premised on the phenomenon of parental alienation. Additionally, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) has devoted its entire annual meeting specifically to parental alienation.

Secondly, it is well established in the literature that if real abuse is present on the part of the unfavored parent, that parental alienation cannot be diagnosed. Period. There is no debate about this.

it is difficult for me to grasp where this unfounded criticism is coming from and why. It is like arguing that the earth is flat.

Proving Parental Alienation

I frequently get the question, "How do you prove parental alienation in Court?" My response is that, luckily, you do not have to prove it, you just have to get the Judge to believe that it is present. By this, I do not mean that your job is to falsely convince the Judge of anything, but that absolute proof of such a thing is not necessary. There are many a judge who "get it" based on how the case is presented and how the various players impact the judge. If the combination is right, the Judge will most likely "get" that parental alienation is present and hopefully will rule accordingly. Given the special circumstances of Family Court, the Judge has immense discretion in his or her ruling, so getting the Judge to believe vs having to prove is less difficult. That said, it is no easy matter.

I often receive email requests asking for the name of an expert in a given area. I typically respond that an expert is only part of the presentation - an important one - but only part. What is needed is a carefully and thoroughly planned strategy wherein the expert is a portion of the plan, who typically ties up the loose ends of the testimony and gives specific meaning to what the fact witnesses have described; but it is not the end all and be all. I have seen too many disasters where this reality was not adequately recognized.

In my effort to educate parents to these difficult lessons and issues, I have created a course on Family Court that I believe is filled with helpful information. To access that, just CLICK HERE. I believe that this information can be crucial to your outcome.

Again, my mission is to get this sort of information to you before you learn it the hard way. I hope that this is helpful.