It’s my belief that everyone in society is affected by or
has been affected by some form of abuse.
Sorting it out is not an easy task,
either on a personal level or on a wider societal level. It’s work that I’m motivated to engage
in. The reason I’m writing my book on Understanding Abuse is that I believe the solutions start with understanding
and education on the patterns of abuse and how to get away from it.
Today I want to give
you an overview on Parent Alienation.
Parent alienation is a form of child abuse that goes largely
unreported and under-discussed. It’s
swept under the carpet, although that’s not clear why. Maybe because it’s so scary how common it is
or because the pathological parent is too difficult to contain or control. Those can’t be reasons not to speak up about
it and get some proper systems in place to tackle it.
I can’t give you statistics on its prevalence in the UK because
of the aforementioned lack of reporting.
It’s barely recognised by the UK Government and rarely discussed in
Parliament. But there are online groups
with thousands of people affected by it (and the effects are very serious), all
reporting the same behavioural patterns, the same troubles, and those people
are speaking up and getting their voices heard.
CAFCASS admit there is a lot of work to do but thankfully they are
getting on board with its seriousness.
The topic of Parent Alienation did get an airing on the BBC yesterday
which is amazing news.
Millions of children are growing up estranged from one of
their parents because of the deliberate brainwashing and destruction of the child-parent
bond by the other parent. The reasons
vary, and the only solutions that can work are:
1.
REMOVE THE CHILD FROM THE ABUSE
2.
Get the pathological parent to a psychotherapist
to sort out what on earth is going on in their heads to cause this behaviour
Number 1 is a problem because the law is wishy washy and
likes separated parents to play nicely and pretend to be friends. The law regularly perpetuates the cycle of
abuse by sending children back to pathological parents and patronising the targeted
parent, because child abuse was not detected (and how could it be when a
psychological assessment is so rarely ordered?)
An underpaid and overworked Social Worker with little
training is simply not equipped to detect the levels of underhanded covert
abuse of the pathological parent. As with
everything nowadays, there’s this obsession with structures and systems to the
point where people even in their professions, are delivered of the need to
actually use their human emotion and judgement.
Killing human impulse cannot be effective. Any fool ought to be able to see that taking
a pathetic tick box and overly-structured systems of pointless paperwork to detect
and resolve deeply ingrained embedded pathological abuse is not fit for
purpose. But why isn’t anyone doing anything
about it? It's too easy for agencies to pass the buck between each other and ultimately do nothing.
The targeted parent is told they know nothing by the
lawyers, when they are precisely the ones with all the knowledge. They are the ones we should be listening to,
not doing more victim blaming. We have a
system that actively disregards the number 1 rule of solving abuse which is
remove the victim from the source of abuse. Stuck in this system, you can’t get your child
away.
Number 2 is a problem because the pathological parent displays
behaviour that is always right, outrageously difficult, manipulative, deceitful
and is the least likely person to ever get near a psychotherapist’s couch. (Sadly, given that they need it most.) Threatening to break down their ego
structures is like a threat on their life.
They will simply up their game, step up their abuse and step up their false
allegations. Anything to stop them looking
at whatever issues lie inside them that need resolving.
There’s a misconception of what causes a parent to behave in
this way. Each person has developed
their pathology their own way throughout the course of their own lives. Thus, only
they can unpick it – and let’s be honest, that could take years. Meanwhile, the child deserves to be
removed from psychological and emotional harm and deserves to have a chance at
a healthy functioning relationship with the non-pathological parent. I am not advocating that the child be removed permanently from the pathological parent - but that emotional health must be restored before that relationship can be functional.
There are misconceptions around what causes the pathological
parent to act out in this way and abuse their own child. All parents who have been the targeted or
erased parent will have attachment to their own situation, whether it seems to
be motivated by financial gain or an extension of Intimate Partner Violence, perhaps
only a psychologist could truly say.
The epidemic of parent alienation is a massive problem for
society: it is abuse on a huge scale from childhood. IT AFFECTS EVERYONE – those children who have
grown up in healthy functioning families will soon become young adults and take
their pick of future partners from the children who have been alienated from
their primary care givers, with Mum or Dad attempting to erase the other.
The systems are currently not fit for purpose in the UK and
US. I perceive both a lack of
psychological and spiritual understanding of the patterns of behaviour.
Additionally, the people who could actually take action are those in the legal system, however, since they stand to gain financially from the misery and long drawn out court proceedings that ensue from cases like these, there is little motivation for them to work to resolve it.
Additionally, the people who could actually take action are those in the legal system, however, since they stand to gain financially from the misery and long drawn out court proceedings that ensue from cases like these, there is little motivation for them to work to resolve it.
The people who can take up the mantle here are those who
have been affected and managed to come out the other side. For many targeted parents, sadly “the other side” includes a life where they may be estranged from their own child or children. I sympathise with and applaud all of the erased and targeted parents who have been affected by this horrendous abuse on both them and their children or grandchildren. Many of them are working for a change in the system so that others do not go through what they have suffered.
There is so much work to do.
