Parental Alienation Syndrom (PAS) is a painful condition I’ve experienced with my own children, and is an issue slowly making its way into public awareness. Parental alienation is considered a form of child abuse, deeply disturbing the emotional health of everyone affected by it. What is Parental Alienation Syndrome? It’s a disorder proposed by American psychiatrist Dr. Richard A. Gardner, who writes that it is “a disturbance in which children are obsessively preoccupied with depreciation and/or criticism of a parent. In other words, denigration that is unjustified and/or exaggerated.” The effects of one parent’s psychological warfare with their ex-spouse is played out in the lives of their children who often “choose” to reject or marginalize the victimized parent. The damage that can be done in turning children against a parent is often permanent, inflicting trauma on both the children and the victimized father.

Dr. Gardner also writes, “Many of these children proudly state that their decision to reject their fathers is their own. They deny any contribution from their mothers. And, the mothers often support this vehemently. In fact, the mothers will often state that they want the child to visit with the father and recognize the importance of such involvement, yet such a mother’s every act indicates otherwise.”

If you are a child of a family separated by divorce, and you were raised to believe your father (or mother) was always bad or wrong, or even potentially abusive, then you may be a victim of parental alienation. If you chose to reject your alienated parent, and no longer have them in your life, you may be unknowingly suffering from this socially-denied form of child abuse. While there are a small number of fathers who are recognizably abusive, many of them of good and loving men, and are damaged by PAS as are their children. Worn down by years of active - and passive - aggression and rejection by their children the heart-breaking result is often emotional capitulation, the acceptance that some things can never be changed. Many alienated fathers are shell-shocked and traumatized by years of ex-spousal abuse, and only a few will seek psychotherapy, or healing. Many fathers simply limp away, stoically shouldering their loss, traumatized for life as an unacknowledged victim of a hidden crime.
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