Parental Alienation Syndrome

With special guest:

• the UK’s Dr Ludwig Lowenstein, one of the world’s leading experts on Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), who has just published a new book Parental Alienation: How to Understand and Address Parental Alienation Resulting from Acrimonious Divorce or Separation.

This week features the UK’s Dr Ludwig Lowenstein, one of the world’s leading experts on Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), who has just published a new book on the subject.

We are extremely fortunate to have a professional on the program with such impeccable credentials as Dr Lowenstein to explain the characteristics of PAS. We hope this interview will help raise further public awareness of the insidious psychological and emotional abuse of innocent children under PAS.

Parental Alienation Syndrome is a form of child abuse. It involves the systematic brainwashing and manipulation of children by one parent, with the sole purpose of destroying the loving and warm relationship they once shared with the other parent. It is mostly seen in cases of separation and divorce.

PAS is a term coined by the late Dr Richard Gardner. It is used in the context of parental separation, but the tactics and techniques used by the perpetrators, are also used in other settings where it is known by such terms as brainwashing and programming. It occurs when one person or group is given, or has taken, total control over another person or group, and the normal checks and balances have been removed.

The current badly flawed Family Court practice is to give residency of the chidren to one parent (most often the mother). By so doing, this parent is placed in exactly such an all-powerful position of total control over the child without the balancing influence of the other parent. This allows the custodial parent to resist the sharing of parenting time with the non-custodial parent. It is not uncommon to hear them say that the children involved no longer want to have a relationship with their other parent.

Well-intentioned but ill-informed so-called “experts” regularly call for the desires of children to be listened to. However, in the case of PAS, this is a simplistic answer to a complex problem. Unfortunately many psychologists and health care workers still deny that parental alienation occurs and reject the research on the subject. By doing so they contribute to the psychological abuse of children and become an unwitting accomplice to the abusive parent.

Along with the general public there are still many professionals such as judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, teachers and police officers who have no idea this problem exists. The more people know about PAS, the more difficult it will be for the alienators to be able to get away with their underhanded and extremely damaging tactics.

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