Comments for Robert Gougaloff 's Parent Alienation Blog

Comment on Why do PAS/HAP parents act like they do? by Rachel from NC

Rachel from NC — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:34:44 +0000

My sister ,niece and nephews are going through a divorce and their father is displaying PA behavior. They sought counseling at first but it was pointless. Their pyschologist diagnosed him as a “egomaniac” close to a “narcissist” as you pointed out. However, after reading “Living with the passive aggressive man” by Scott Wetzler, PhD, we both believe that this more fits his personality and problems. As you say, he just never grew up He displays Fear of Dependency, intimacy, and competition. In his marriage he always carried out Obstructionism, and fostered Choas. He feels victimized, makes excuses and lies, and is a procrastinator. He is a master of ambiguity and sulking and the silent treatment are his major mode of communication. He is the text book passive aggressive man. That is why his marriage failed and that is why he is a natural at manipulating other people, especially his children now that he fears abandonment, as he did when he was a child of a divorce family. And as you said, he is a professor of biology and very intelligent and yet he can’t see or doesn’t care that he is making his children suffer by alienating them form thier loving mother.
He has made it clear that he resents my sister for asking for the divorce and has not taken any responsibility for their failed marriage. He has also made this clear to his children that it was not his choice to “break up the family” and has been caught on tape telling his children that their mother will take them away from him if he makes any mistakes, (i.e. like letting them stay home from school in thsi particular circumstance). He is very manipulative and makes repeat atttempts to make his children feel sorry for him becuase he is being so badly treated by their mother. The result is that they begin to resent their mother for their Father’s pain. Their father is quite aware that he is trying to alienate his children and he uses the defense and rationale that he is just trying to protect his children since he thinks that my sister is trying to take their children away (or has caused this separation) and this is the way he thinks he can fight back. But in actuality, my sister has given him close to 40-50% custody. She understands that it is important that her children have a father. However, after seeing his behaviour towards his children, she now believes that their father is detrimental to their psyche if he continues to behave in this manner. She doesn’t know how to proceed and I don’t know how to help. She jsut wants him to stop and put their children before his own needs. As I said, her husband comes from a divorce family and has unresolved abandonment issues. As you state so perfectly in your blog:
I firmly believe that PAS/HAP parents have never left the “Egocentric Stage” , which is the very first stage in child development, where survival skills are learned. To the parents still stuck in the first stage, having complete control over their child or children is a life and death matter.”
I personally just don’t know if their is any way for him to see himself as he truly is. He needs to deal with his emotional issues but he doesn’t seem to understand that. My sister has tried to protect her children by reassuring them that they are not responsible for her or their fathers happiness and that adults can take care of themselves (she ahs even given him a similar list aas your “post on your Fridge” home page (from “the turth about Divorce and Children”. But loyalty and love will make anyone, especially a child, feel that they need to help the love ones that suffers. My sister hides her suffering from her chidlren and therefore the children seem to migrate towrds their Dad’s neediness thinking that their Mom doesn’t care, like their dad, about the Family separation. She does not know what she can do and is still contemplating how to settle the custody in the divorce. Unfortunately she still engages in negative interactions with her spouse (as you say “Takes the Bait” and can not emotionally step away from his controlling behavior. He somehow can still can push her buttons and when he involves her children in the PA behavior, she allows her anger to take over and fights with him, forgetting that her chidlren may be hearing the conversation or will be the brunt of his anger from the conversation. He is driving her crazy and making her nervous to the point that she feels that she is losing control over her children and her life. In other words, he is accomplishing what he wants. I am at a loss at what to do to help. I love her children like they are my own but I hesitate to talk with them about it because I don’t want screw up or make them not trust me by taking my sister’s side or by explaining to them what their dad is doing. I think they need to be exposed to what their Dad is doing to them but I don’t think they are old enough or mature enough to understand it or handle it. Indirectly or directly. They are 10, 8, and 5. What good advice personally and in relation to the divorce itself can i give her? She regrets ever asking for the divorce but now that she sees her hsuband for who he truly is, she understands why she needed it to emotionally survive but now fears her own children’s survival since they can’t divorce their Father!
Help!
A very loving Aunt who wants nothing more than a mentally healthy niece and nephews.

Comment on Something To Post On The Fridge… by Stacy

Stacy — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:46:51 +0000

Great post…I know we could use this reminder at our house…

Comment on Don’t take the bait !!! by Stacy

Stacy — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:37:59 +0000

You’re so right. I always say that if they throw the ball your way and you don’t serve it back, they can’t play the game.

Comment on Why do PAS/HAP parents act like they do? by Stacy

Stacy — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 01:36:27 +0000

Wow! This is a fantastic description and so understandable. Unfortunately I can think of several people whom I know, that fit this profile. Thank you for writing about this topic, I really appreciate it!

Comment on Can children recover? by Amy J.L. Baker, Ph.D

Amy J.L. Baker, Ph.D — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:12:52 +0000

You are asking some good questions about the long-term effects of parental alienation and I wanted to draw you attention to my book published last year by WW Norton called Adult children of parental alienation syndrome: Breaking the ties that bind. The book is based on interviews with 40 adults who as children were alienated from one parent by the other. The book described different family patterns within which PAS occurs, describes the pathways to having the realization that one has been a victim of PAS and discusses the long-term effects. Ia lso have an e-paper which might be of interest you called beyond teh high road: responding to 17 parental alienation strategies without compromising your morals or harming your child. This is available on my website http://www.amyjlbaker.com and was written for targeted parents eager to find new ways to respond to alienation tactics of the other parent.

Best to you and your viewers.

Amy J.L. Baker, Ph.D

Comment on Rationality and Emotion – Can both co-exist in the same Brain? by Stacy

Stacy — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:13:41 +0000

Great insight! I struggle with trying to understand why my husband is the target parent. What happened to his ex-wife that made her this way? The thing that I’ve figured out, through observation and things my husband, step-daughter and in-laws have told me, is that she’s always been this way, although it seems to get worse the older she gets. But maybe it’s just finally surfacing instead of lying dormant.

She has alienated her own parents from her life. She is trying to alienate my stepdaughter from my husband’s life.

I, personally do not understand this mentality, myself. PAS is horrific and I feel that target parents in this position are not taken seriously and are labeled negatively by the courts and society.

I worry for the future of my stepdaughter. The damage is done. How do we work to undo the damage once she’s away from the malicious mother? I feel so helpless at how to help my stepdaughter as she is so full of anger toward her mother for the PAS toward my husband.

Thanks Robert!

Comment on Can children recover? by Robert Gartner

Robert Gartner — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:32:21 +0000

Thank you Mr. Gougaloff for this blog. A lot of discussion is needed about PAS, Parental Alienation Syndrome. Two reasons come to mind. One, many targeted parents need understanding and support. Another, pressure from the public needs to bear upon processes that allow its proliferation.

Some of you know there are groups and organizations that command powerful material resources that oppose any credibility for PAS or any other name given to it. Among them are so called experts that speak through the groups as well. There are lawyers that will take a case against a targeted parent. There are judges and psychologists and psychiatrists that oppose PAS.

One of these groups, Justice for Children (JFC) gave my daughter’s mother not one but two lawyers for free from perhaps the largest law firm in America, Fulbright and Jawoprski,Llp. Mom was out committing three felonies hile she was getting this ‘help’. I had raised our daughter for five and one half years, or from the time she was enighteen months until she was six and one half. Our daughter had flourished despite the many neurosis inculcated and nurtured by her mother and the fact that she had hardly seen me before I got her. She was a healthy, happy child.

After her mother got her back she floundered and eventually dropped out of high school and made a baby. This baby too is separated from its father.

It has been sixteen and a half years that my daughter has not been able to even pick up the phone and talk with me.

On May 2, 2007 the Houston Chronicle ran an interview of attorney Alene Levy, with another huge law firm, that of Haynes and Boone, Llp. She was about to go to work for JFC presumably on loan from Haynes. In the interview she said that “when a mother discloses child sexual abuse, she is correct,” and then she said “a father will then often retaliate and claim Parental Alienation Syndrome in a custody suit in order to get custody”.

JFC has vociferously supported and subsequently defended the biased film financed by the Mary Kay Foundation, called Breaking Silence: Children’s Stories, when it was shown in Houston before it was pulled nationally on orders from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, for being biased.

One thing about which to be very aware, as one proceeds in any custody matter, is to become very aware of who lurks in your community that rejects PAS, for the sake of the fact that you as a targeted parent might face them in the courtroom. Many of these confused and demented souls can be named today and someone should compose a list of them for the sake of a child and a targeted parent. I have assimilated many names.

PAS is insidious and it is real despite what these groups say. It does not take a stretch of anyones imagination to know this. One but ask oneself if one is dealing with a sociopath, a narcissist, one with bi-polar disorder, borderline personality disorder, etc. Therein you may very well find behavoirs that will destroy the child mentally and ruin the targeted parent.

Comment on Can children recover? by Nora

Nora — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:43:39 +0000

We need the Wisdom of Solomon on the bench to acknowledge when this damage is taking place under the false parenting conduct of the mother or the father– To believe that we need to engage in gender wars is to fall for a red herring. In 2001–the literature was showing that the genders were approaching parity as Alec Baldwin cites in his new book on the subject of the courts and the alienating parent. For all we know, fathers may have overtaken mothers as alienating parent since then. We don’t have reliable statistics. It is not about which gender does it more, it is about why the courts are not stopping it in its tracks. We need wisdom and knowledge to be readily available in the courts. Instead we seldom have either.

Comment on Can children recover? by Louise Uccio

Louise Uccio — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:19:04 +0000

Can you tell me the source of this statement

“This cluster of symptoms is formerly known as PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome) which, by the way, will most likely finally be included as a pathological behavior syndrome in the next edition of the DSM-IV.”

I do a ton or research on PA/PAS and this is the first I’m hearing of it.

Thanks in advance,
Louise

Comment on Can children recover? by Stacy

Stacy — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 21:20:23 +0000

I am an adult victim of PAS, as a child. My mother was the epitome of a Malicious Mother and my dad was just a regular dad.

I feel that the PAS was the reason of a miriad of emotional issues I experienced in my young adult life. I am 40 now, the mother of a 9 year old bio-daughter and step-mother to a 15 year old step-daughter.

I can say that my past experience of being the victim of PAS has made me a much better mother/step-mother in a blended family. As we deal with my husband’s ex as the Malicious Mother and PAS, I can so relate to what my stepdaughter is going through. I would never inflict this kind of treatment on my bio-daughter, pertaining to her dad.

The Malicious Mother does nothing for anyone by creating PAS. She is only hurting herself, and as I can attest, once the child is grown, they will be able to do what they want, with whom they want. They don’t have to have a relationship with that Malignant Mother anymore, if they so choose.

Sometimes I think the child support should go into a special fund for therapy because that’s what children with a Malicious Mother need when they get out from under her thumb.

PAS does not benefit anyone, especially the children. Adults can take care of their own issues, but kids don’t have a say and they should. Our court system is so that it allows the PAS to take place. These Malicious Mothers need to be recognized for what they are and actions need to be taken to protect the kids. In the end, the kids are the real victims in all of this.