Foreword: While I am convinced that the basic theoretical premises of Parental Alienation Syndrome (often called PAS) are a real phenomenon, I am concerned about how legal recognition of PAS wil impact child custody cases and mandated interventions. Some of the currently suggested remedies for dealing with alienated children may cause greater harm than good. Here, I propose a cautious and measured approach to dealing with children who have been alienated from a loving parent, while at the same time recognizing PAS as a valuable diagnostic tool. I hope for more recognition and treatment for PAS, while at the same time asking for recognition of its limitations and risks. Notes from an adult victim of alienation
As an adult who experienced parental abduction as a child, I can attest to the fact that the basic premises argued in Parental Alienation Syndrome are a real phenomenon. It perfectly describes what happened to me as a young child. I was taught to fear my mother, to reject her religion and culture, and to believe that it was in my best interests to live a life of poverty, homelessness and abuse in order to avoid a relationship with her.
I was four years old when I was taken from her. My father took me from Oslo, Norway to New York City, and gave me a new name and new identity. I was devastated at first, but with time (the most effective weapon in child abduction cases) I forgot what my mother looked like. I forgot that I loved her.
In order to survive, I clung to my father and believed that what he did was right. I believed the majority of the negative things he said about my mother and my maternal family. I came to accept the abduction, simply because I did not want to lose him or the life I had grown accustomed to. I did not want to lose my father's love. I was a victim child, stuck between two people who could not reconcile their differences, and I lost so much.
In my case, as my mother was willing and able to compromise and work for a mutually acceptable solution to custody issues, I must place the blame on my father for the abduction and difficult childhood I had. He had no reason to do what he did.
My father had abducted his first set of children to Norway many years before, so abduction had become his way of dealing with shattered marriages. The Norwegian courts gave him custody of my half brothers, believing, in the unfortunate logic used in many custody cases in the late 1960's, that this was in the best interests of the children. They had been with my father for over 5 years and had been estranged from their mother. So the Supreme Court of Norway determined that in order to protect the children from further trauma, my father, the abducting parent, was to get full custody of them. Essentially, a criminal act was rewarded in this case in the misguided assumption that the damage could not be undone. The boys had no contact with their loving and capable American-Ecuadorian mother for five years, and so she and they were punished with further isolation from one another because of this. I too was to suffer the consequences of this decision several years later, as it emboldened my father to abduct me to the United States.
The courts have difficult decisions to make in these cases, as it is rare to come to a decision that is perfectly fair to all parties involved. The children always lose, as they navigate through the losses, emotional turmoil and loyalty conflicts that separation entails.
Parental Alienation Syndrome as a diagnosis has the potential to provide greater clarity to legal experts in custody cases, and can serve as an invaluable tool in reunification efforts between alienated children and parents. However, I offer a word of caution as well. I would have been traumatized had I been reabducted by my mother or forced to return to Norway against my will. While reunification efforts, with the help of experienced professionals, are essential to return a child to a place of connection with the alienated parent, I do not want to see a diagnosis of PAS used to further traumatize already traumatized children.
Dr. Jayne Major, author of Breakthrough Parenting: Moving Your Family from Struggle to Cooperation, discusses the various levels of PAS. Mild, moderate, severe and obsessed. Briefly, mild to moderate PAS occurs among most recently divorced couples but usually eases off within a fairly short amount of time. Severe PAS is longer-lasting, more calculated and more sinister. The alienating parent purposely manipulates the children´s hearts and minds to turn them against the other parent as completely as possible. Obsessed alienators are often abductors, inherently unable to “share” their children, and they will go to great lengths to manipulate the child into hating the other parent. In my view, the severity of the alienation, and multiple other factors such as the child´s living situation, options for reunification, the emotional cost to the child of returning the child to the victim parent, and more, should be key determining factors in what remedies are used.
Alienation must be recognized as the social ill that it is. Stealing a child's trust in a parent, is equal to telling a child that a part of them is no good. As a child, I absorbed the extent of my father's negative feelings towards my mother, He was obsessed. I desperately attempted to hide anything about me that could remind him of her. I took on my father's feelings as my own. I lost my mother because I was turned into a pawn in my father's emotional war against his ex-wives. He used his children as weapons, and as a way to build up damaged self-esteem by demanding loyalty to one parent at the expense of the other. He was an abused child himself. His mother died when he was a young boy, and his father largely ignored him after getting remarried. Unfortunately, he continued the cycle of abuse when he became a father himself.
In my view, the way to approach the issue is to see it from the child's perspective and work from there. As a parent myself, I would be devastated if I were to lose daily contact with my children, or worse still, be alienated from them. But I remind myself that I do not own my children, and that I must place their well-being above mine. Children cannot physically (or emotionally) be split in two, so it is the unfortunate fact that one parent will often lose out in custody cases. This is especially true in international and bi-cultural divorces, where distance becomes a key factor in maintaining regular and close relationships with children. But there is hope, and there are always compromises and solutions to be found. Flexibility and goodwill are the keys to finding ways to maintain strong bonds despite physical distance.
My mother allowed me to reunite with her on my terms, and we have the positive relationship we have today because of this. If she had reabducted me or had given me the impression that physical possession of me was her right and primary goal, we may not have what we have today.
It appears that for many parents and professionals, a diagnosis of PAS gives license to take any measures seen as necessary to rectify the wrong done. But reabductions and deprogramming can backfire in many cases. One danger is that the child sees not just one, but both parents as possessive people who have attempted to own the child's heart and mind. A parent in pain is a powerful force, and desperate actions by the victim parent can potentially lead to more harm than good for all parties.
I advocate building awareness of alienation in the legal, social and public realms, so that new ways of thinking and dealing with children caught in the midst of their parent's custody conflicts can be met and worked with in positive ways. I advocate mandatory classes for separating parents, and guiding them in co-parenting and maintaining good relationships with their children and ex-spouses.
My personal focus areas are recognition of PAS as the description of the process of alienation and the harmful effects this has on children, diagnosis and treatment of the symptoms, and respect for the children´s unique challenges in these cases. Children are in a no-win situation. They have lost ties to one of their parents, and are in danger of losing ties to the other. Encouraging alienated children to recognize that they have the right to a relationship with both parents is critical. I was six years old when my mother briefly reappeared in my life after searching for me for two years. The courts provided us with supervised visitation, which only reinforced my image of her as dangerous. Supervised visitation was mandated because I feared her, and ironically because my father claimed that my mother might abduct me. We were left to our own devices with regard to reconnecting. No therapy was provided or suggested, and my mother had no guidance in how to reconnect with me. I was severely alienated from her at the time. We had the additional challenges of cultural and religious alienation, which was not recognized at the time. With proper support and understanding, I am convinced that we could have reconnected.
But within a few weeks, my father abducted me again in the middle of the night, and I did not meet my mother again until I was 18. I am convinced that my mother and I could have developed a positive relationship had some simple tools and resources been in place.
Whenever possible, I encourage rebuilding trust in a gentle manner and over time. My mother had to wait 20 years before I was willing and able to visit Norway for the first time as an adult. I now live in Norway and have given birth to two children there. It took time, but I will always appreciate my mother for respecting my feelings, as hard it was for her to do so. It would have been very traumatic to have been forcibly snatched away from my father. But if only PAS had been recognized at the time, so much suffering could have been spared us both.
