What is Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS)?
This is the definition of PAS as described by R.A. Gardner who discovered the syndrome and has become an expert in dealing with the issue.
Gardner's definition of PAS is: "The parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a disorder that arises primarily in the context of child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child's campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent's indoctrinations and the child's own contributions to the vilification of the target parent."
(Excerpted from: Gardner, R.A. (1998). The Parental Alienation Syndrome, Second Edition, Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.)
Basically, this means that through verbal and non verbal thoughts, actions and mannerisms, a child is emotionally abused (brainwashed) into thinking the other parent is the enemy. This ranges from bad mouthing the other parent infront of the children, to withholding visits, to pre-arranging the activities for the children while visiting with the other parent.
Don't you find this reaching too much for an excuse? Hasn't this been around since the dawn of time? I would take a bet that anyone and everyone that has been through a divorce, with children, has been plagued with PAS. Wouldn't this 'syndrome' apply to many other areas of our lives? What about when you are fired? You say things about the company/boss. Wouldn't this be a type of brainwashing? Wouldn't letting others know the 'bad' things about the company and thus causing people to have negative thoughts be considered brainwashing? What if you purchase a product and don't like it? You then tell someone about it. Aren't we brainwashing the other person about the product? Right now, my 18yo son is having issues with his best friend (they are no longer friends). Since they are both talking bad about each other - does this qualify as some sort of syndrome and now they both need help? This happens in everyday life all the time.
I have always thought that a syndrome was something more of a medical condition - like Down Syndrome. So I looked up the definition and here is what I found:
1. Pathology, Psychiatry. a group of symptoms that together are characteristic of a specific disorder, disease, or the like.
2. a group of related or coincident things, events, actions, etc.
3. the pattern of symptoms that characterize or indicate a particular social condition.
4. a predictable, characteristic pattern of behavior, action, etc., that tends to occur under certain circumstances
It is amazing the things they can come up with to justify mad-mouthing others. I don't think that feeling bad about a situation causes the right to be called a syndrome. How is it treated? What do you think?
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