Douglas Darnall, in his book Divorce Casualties: Protecting Your Children from Parental Alienation, describes three categories of PA. The mild category he calls the nave alienators. They are ignorant of what they are doing and are willing to be educated and change. The moderate category is the active alienators. When they are triggered, they lose control of appropriate boundaries. They go ballistic. When they calm down, they don't want to admit that they were out of control. In the severe category are the obsessed alienators or those who are involved in PAS. They operate from a delusional system where every cell of their body is committed to destroying the other parent's relationship with the child. In the latter case, he notes that we don't have an effective protocol for treating an obsessed alienator other than removing the child from their influence (p. 11).

An important point is that in PAS there is no true parental abuse and/or neglect on the part of the alienated parent. If this were the case, the child's animosity would be justified. Also, it is not PAS if the child still has a positive relationship with the parent, even though one parent is attempting to alienate the child from him or her.

Gardners statistics showed that the majority of PAS occurrences were initiated by mothers, usually 90% of the time. Mothers have traditionally had primary custody of children, and usually spent more time with the children. In order for a campaign of alienation to occur, one parent needs to have considerable time with the child. However, in recent years increasing numbers of fathers are instigating PAS, since there are few legal sanctions for doing so.

When parents first separate there is often parent alienation. For example, due to the anxiety of the mother, she is likely to implicitly impart to a child that he or she is not safe with the father. She might say "Call me as soon as you get there to let me know you are okay." "If you get scared, you call me right away. Okay?" "I'll come get you if you want to come home." Usually this level of alienation dies down after the separating couple get used to changes brought on by the separation and move on with their lives.

However, in rare cases, the anxiety does not calm down, it escalates. PAS parents are psychologically fragile. When things are going their way, they can hold themselves together. However, when they are threatened, they can become fiercely entrenched in preserving what they see is rightfully theirs. Only a small percentage end up in this level of conflict.

To many PAS parents, having total control over their child is a life and death matter. Because they don't understand how to please other people, any effort to do so always has strings attached. They don't give; they only know how to take. They don't play by the rules and are not likely to obey a court order.

The parent may be diagnosed as a narcissistic, or self-centered, where they presume that they have a special entitlement to whatever they want. They believe that there are rules in life, but only for other people, not for them.

They may be diagnosed as a sociopath, a person who has no moral conscience. These are people who are unable to have empathy or compassion for others. They are unable to see a situation from another person's point of view, especially their child's point of view. They don't distinguish between telling the truth and lying in the way that others do.

In spite of admonitions from judges and mental health professionals to stop alienating, they can't. The prognosis for severely alienating parents is poor. It is unlikely that their condition will ever be corrected. It is also unlikely that they will ever stop trying to eternalize the alienation. It is simply a survival issue to them.

At birth, children are totally reliant on a parent, usually the mother, for having all of their needs met. It is part of normal child development to be enmeshed with their primary caregiver and very young children do not have a separate identity from this caregiver. One of the mother's roles is to help the child develop as a separate person, therefore, infancy and childhood become a series of tasks of learning how to become independent. For example, learning to put oneself back to sleep, eating, toilet training and caring for one's hygiene. Instead of promoting this independence, the alienating parent encourages continued dependence. The parent may insist on sleeping with the child, feeding the child and taking care of these rites of passage longer than normal child development calls for. This spoiling may not feel right to the child, but they do not have enough ego strength to do anything about it.

A PAS mother cannot even imagine that the father is capable of planning the child's time while in his care. Therefore, she arranges several things for the child to do while at the father's house. One of the most common ways of doing this is to sign the child up for on-going lessons without permission from the father. The parent may even decree whom the child can and cannot see, particularly specific members of the child's extended family on the father's side. The mother desperately wants control over the time when the child is not with her.

When children spend time with the father, and enjoy it, they are put into a double bind. Clearly, they cannot tell the mother that dad treats them well or that they had fun together. They want to bond with the father, but do not dare. They figure out quickly who has the power and their survival needs tug at them. Therefore, children will tell the mother about everything they did not enjoy about time spent with the father, which will add to her belief that they do not like to be with him. These children feel that they must protect their mother. The same is true when the alienator is the father. The child will avoid expressing their affectionate feelings for the mother to him.

The alienating parents hatred can have no bounds. The severest form will bring out every horrible allegation known, including claims of domestic violence, stalking and the sexual molestation of the child. Many fathers say that there have been repeated calls to the Department of Family and Child Services alleging child abuse and neglect. In most cases the investigators report that they found nothing wrong. However, the indoctrinating parent feels that these reports are not fabrications, but very, very real. She can describe the horror of what happened in great detail. Regardless of the actual truth, in her mind, it did happen. Fathers ask, "How can she lie like that?" They simply do not realize that these lies are not based on rational thinking. They are incapable of understanding the difference between what is true and what they want to be true. A vital part of fighting PAS is to understand the severity of the psychological disturbance that is the source of it.

Alienation advances when the alienating parent uses the child as a personal therapist. The child is told about every miserable experience and negative feeling about the alienated parent with great specificity. The child, who is already trapped with the parent because his or her identity is still undefined, easily absorbs the parent's negativity. They become aligned with this parent and feel that they need to be the protector of the alienating parent.

Obviously, without anyone to stop the alienation from progressing, the child will become estranged from the alienated parent. The relationship with this parent will eventually be severed. It is doubtful that, without psychological intervention as the child grows, he or she will ever understand what happened. The child's primary role model will be the dysfunctional parent. He or she will not have the benefit of growing up with the most well-adjusted parent and all that this parent can contribute to enrich the child's life. Many of these children experience serious psychiatric problems. Without someone who can recognize the syndrome and counsel the child about it, they may never grow up and realize what happened to them.

Those people who are typically called upon to handle such difficult situations, such as the police, social workers, attorneys or psychologists assume that what the frightened mother is saying is true. These things can and do happen. There are men who are seriously disturbed, violent, out of control sexually, and stalk, who should be feared. The mother is very convincing in her desperation and vivid in her descriptions. In addition, the alienated child collaborates with the mother by saying, "Yes, I am afraid of my father." "Yes, my father did touch me down there." "Yes, he does beat me."

Therapists will most probably never realize the severity and depth of this problem if they are not trained in this level of pathology. In many cases, they unintentionally side with the alienating parent and even testify or produce evidence in court that the child is afraid of the father. This can be a serious stumbling block in getting an accurate diagnosis and can actually tip the scale into the alienating parent's agenda and do real damage.

Our courts, social services and mental health workers are all committed to stop child abuse and neglect when they see it occurring. In PAS, however, the most dramatic complaint ends up being acted upon before there is an investigation as to the accuracy of the allegation. This allows the alienating parent considerable time to proceed with the alienation. By the time all of the evaluations are in place and the case is heard by the court, considerable damage has been done to the child. Ironically, the very people we turn to for help in such a difficult situation can often be those who most contribute to allowing the on-going abuse and neglect of the child to continue.

It takes a sophisticated mental health professional to be able to identify that PAS is occurring. Most forensic evaluators such as psychiatrists and clinical psychologists at the Ph.D. level have studied the disorder and are able to recognize it. Forensic evaluators diagnose PAS by having the parents take a battery of psychological tests, doing a detailed case history and by observation. They make recommendations as to what to do. Once the evaluator has written a report of the family and made recommendations, nothing will happen to resolve the crisis without court intervention. The alienated parent has to take the report to a judge who must then be convinced that the child is being alienated and that it is not in their best interest to remain in that environment. It is rare that judges have any degree of mental health training. They most often learn about PAS from the bench. It usually takes several trips to court to point out how badly a child is being treated before a judge is willing to act.

Judges are inevitably conservative in their orders. Even when the evidence is overwhelming that the alienation is occurring, the court order may still end up saying, "the parents are to make joint decisions about the child's welfare," when this is impossible to do. This is further evidence that the judge does not understand the magnitude of the problem. Judges have been slow to place serious sanctions on the alienating parent. If there is no threat of severe fines, jail time or sole custody to the targeted parent, the chances are less likely that the out-of-control parent can be stopped. It usually takes a dramatic situation where court orders are broken to force the court to change primary custody. Often it is only a matter of time before alienating parents become desperate and their unstable mental health gets the better of them. People in an official position start to recognize the alienating parent as being out of line, and become supportive of the targeted parent.

Many of those who have won against a PAS situation:

• Completed a comprehensive parenting course and continued until they rated excellent in the knowledge, skills and methods taught there. Thus, their parenting skills became superior.

• Were even tempered, logical and keep their emotions under control. They never retaliated. A person who reacts in anger is proving the alienator's point that he or she is unstable.

• Thought of giving up but never did. No matter how awful the harassment got, they worried about leaving their daughter or son in that environment. They were driven to continue trying to get the court to understand the seriousness of the issues and to change primary custody to them.

• Were willing and able to go to the financial expense of seeing it through.

• Got legal representation from a skilled family lawyer who had experience with parent alienation syndrome. The parent became good at understanding how the courts work and the law as it applied to their case. Because of excessive expenses, they often ended up as Pro Se or Pro-Per where they were without counsel and representing themselves.

• Had a case where a forensic evaluator made a strong statement about the alienation and recommend changing legal and primary custody to the alienated parent. Some parents had to go back to the evaluator to demonstrate that his or her earlier recommendations were not working.

• Had persevered in demonstrating that they were rational, reasonable, and had the best interest of the child at heart. They provided the court with an appropriate parenting plan that showed that the child would be well taken care of in their care.

• Even though they and their children were being victimized, they understood the nature of the problem and focused more on what to do about it. Alienated parents who got caught up in how terrible it all is and spent time judging the situation, went under emotionally. Thus, the successful ones did not live a victim's life. They were proactive in seeking constructive action. They avoided adding to the problem.

• Kept a diary or journal of key events, describing what happened and when. They documented the alienation with evidence that was admissible in court.

• Always called or showed up to pick up their children, even if they knew that the children would not be there. This was often very painful, but then they could document that they tried, when the alienator alleged that this parent had no interest in the child.

• Focused on enjoying their children's company and never talked to their children about their case. They always took the high road and never talked badly about the other parent to their children. They absolutely never showed a child any court orders or other sensitive documents. They did not let the children overhear inappropriate conversations on the telephone.

• Did not violate court orders. They paid their child support on time and proved that they could live within the letter of the law.

• Were truly decent, principled people. It was obvious that they love their children.

PAS cases are the most difficult to figure out, even for professionals in the field of divorce. Once the syndrome is discovered, it is even harder to figure out what to do about it. It is important to be connected and supported by compassionate people while going through such a difficult time.

Resources for PAS: