The Politics of Alienation
The Politics of Alienation © 2012 By Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. I just finished writing a book about child alienation (Don’t Alienate the Kids!), broadly defined as when a child resists spending time with one parent after a divorce, without assuming the cause. Ironically, I finished this in 2010 – the year that the issue of alienation escalated into the news with two opposite political efforts: one to officially recognize alienation and the other to officially ban it from existence. In this article I want to explain what may be going on, why now and what to do about it. A Little Background About 10-20% of children resist or refuse all contact with one of their parents after a separation or divorce. This seems to be a worldwide phenomenon, although the percentages may vary. For the past 25 years or so, parents and professionals have argued about who “caused” this resistance. Is it Mom’s fault, or is it Dad’s fault? In the 1980’s, fathers began to share parenting tasks on a much larger scale after a divorce, and shared decision-making became common (joint legal custody). At the same time, child sexual abuse started being recognized in the larger society as real and not just a child’s fantasy. In the mid-1980’s, Richard Gardner, a child psychiatrist who testified in custody disputes, coined the term Parental Alienation Syndrome to explain why many cases of alleged child sexual abuse against fathers were actually the result of the child being purposely alienated against the father by the mother, to win an advantage in court. Battle lines were drawn and it wasn’t surprising that the alienation issue quickly became a clash between women’s rights advocates against abuse of women and children, and father’s rights advocates against parental alienation of the children. Mothers asked the court to support the child’s expressed wishes to stop contact with the father temporarily – saying that the risk of elimination of the father was a small price to pay to protect the child from the father’s abuse or severe incompetence. Father’s argued that the court should order a change of custody to the father and stop contact with the mother temporarily – saying that the risk of elimination of the mother was a small price to pay to protect the child from the mother’s emotionally abusive alienation. Fast Forward to 2010 While this debate has raged in thousands of family courts around the world for all these years, it has received little attention in the public until the past couple years. What changed? Several things: Child alienation seems to be increasing.I believe this corresponds to the increase of parents with personality disorders, which include a lot of “all-or-nothing thinking.” This becomes passed on to their children, who develop an all-or-nothing view of their parents: one is “all-good” and one is “all-bad.” At the same time, the federal government reports that child sexual abuse has decreased over the last twenty years. Only 2-5% of custody disputes involve an allegation (whether true or false) of child sexual abuse, whereas over 20% of custody disputes involve an allegation of alienation. Child alienation is no longer a gender issue.Today we see many mothers who have become the “rejected parent” and many fathers who have engaged in alienating behaviors and have become the “favored parent.” And children become alienated against custodial parents (traditionally mothers), as well as parents with less parenting time (traditionally fathers). Many women have joined the fight against alienation and many men are active in the fight against child abuse. Many professionals of both genders are concerned about both issues. Many alienated children don’t reconcile with the rejected parent when they become adults.Recent research about adult children of divorce is revealing this reality. This is in contrast to what many divorce professionals used to believe and advised their clients – just back off and your child will come back to you after they turn 18. Sometimes this happens, but many children remain alienated as much as 20 or more years after they reach 18. Further, this can have serious consequences for their own adult relationships and emotional health. It is no longer being seen as just a passing phase in the divorce, so that more parents are becoming assertive when alienation seems to be occurring. Several children have been killed in the past year in high-conflict divorce cases.At the same time as courts are paying more attention to alienation issues, concerns about child abuse and the need for protective court orders have grown as well. This has motivated activists to demonstrate outside of family courts, stating that judges are biased against mothers who report abuse concerns – perhaps because their reports are seen as lacking credibility and a form of alienation. They are concerned that once alienation is raised as an issue, the possibility of child abuse and future child abuse is ignored. In short, concerns about alienation have grown rapidly and concerns about child endangerment have grown at the same time. This brings us to the two opposing political efforts: To legislate the existence of Parental Alienation as a psychiatric disorder (currently being considered by the body developing the DSM-V, the internally-used diagnostic manual of mental disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association, expected out in 2012) and To legislate the non-existence of alienation as forbidden in assessments of children in custody and visitation disputes (Assembly Bill currently in the California 2010 legislature). I have trouble with both of these efforts, as I will describe below, and I think I have a better solution. Psychiatric Diagnosis A group of mental health professionals have submitted Parental Alienation for adoption as a psychiatric diagnosis in the DSM-V. They say that there are hundreds of articles about parental alienation in peer reviewed publications in the past 25 years, so that it is not just the thinking of one person. (Richard Gardner coined the term “Parental Alienation Syndrome in the mid-1980’s and was criticized for developing his own theory without peer review.) This is the first time
Beware of HCPs Who Are Persuasive Blamers
© 2012 By Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. [Excerpted from It’s All Your Fault!] Instead of adapting to their social group and current environment, HCPs try to get others and their environment to adapt to them and their point of view. This is a big reason they routinely get into conflicts and then escalate into “high conflict” situations. They don’t use the ordinary conflict resolution procedures of listening to and respecting others’ points of view and making some adjustments (however small) in response. Because of their dual personas, they can be very persuasive. There are at least 10 nonverbal, unconscious, social cues that HCPs generally use (mostly unconsciously, but sometimes consciously) that are highly persuasive to many people around them. Advertising researchers and negotiations experts call this “peripheral persuasion.” It occurs on the periphery of people’s consciousness and usually slips under their radar, highly influencing their thinking and actions. These 10 peripheral factors (Two are included in this blog. To read more, please purchase your copy of It’s All Your Fault!) help persuade people in any type of dispute, even when the facts would indicate otherwise. 1. Charm—All human beings, including judges and juries, develop bonds with people, and these bonds can influence our view of the facts. HCPs are especially good at forming bonds temporarily with anyone. It’s called charm. This is perhaps their strongest skill because they have to rely so heavily on others to handle their many interpersonal problems. They’ve spent a lifetime charming, manipulating, and pleading to get other people on their side. Ordinary, reasonable people usually don’t put much energy into bonding with or persuading decision-makers, because they believe the truth will simply come out and resolve the dispute. Unfortunately, in a society based so much on persuasion, this is often not the result. Just as HCPs may have it backward because of their high conflict thinking, they and their advocates often persuade others and decision makers to also get it backward. Their Internal Upsets become external facts to those who bond with them. 2. Heightened Emotions—One of the first things people notice about HCPs is their high-intensity emotions: hurt, fear, anger, sadness, etc. These emotions can be almost intolerable to be around, so many people will agree with HCPs simply to get them to calm down. If you disagree, HCPs will escalate the situation more and more urgently. Finally, someone has to give in. HCPs usually outlast ordinary people, because to them the problem feels so urgent and absolute. Yet these emotions are highly persuasive. We tend to think that when someone is really upset it’s because something upsetting happened. “That’s awful. Something should be done about that.” But with HCPs, especially the “Always Dramatic” HCPs, it more likely comes from the constant emotional chaos of their Internal Upsets and is less likely caused by external events. On the other hand, the emotions of HCPs make them much more interesting than the average person, so they succeed at getting a lot of attention. Bill Eddy is a lawyer, therapist, and mediator. He is the co-founder and Training Director of the High Conflict Institute, a training and consultation firm that trains professionals to deal with high conflict people and situations. He is the author of several books and methods for handling high conflict personalities and high conflict disputes with the most difficult people.
How Big Is This Problem Today?
© 2012 By Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq. [Excerpted from It’s All Your Fault!] In 2004, a study funded by the National Institutes of Health (N.I.H.) reported that 14.8% of the general population of the United States meets the criteria for the diagnosis of at least one personality disorder. Over 43,000 people were interviewed. The study covered only 7 of the 10 personality disorders. Since they didn’t include Borderline, Narcissist, or Schizotypal, the percentage is likely to be higher. A follow-up study is planned that will include these three disorders (Grant, 2004). This study was done because the lack of information on personality disorders was considered a “major gap” in the nation’s health policies. The concern was that personality disorders seemed particularly associated with work problems, marital problems, and criminal activities. The results showed a slightly higher number of personality disorders among people living in urban areas and in younger age groups (18 to 29-year-olds had the most, then 30 to 44, then 45 to 64; 65 and older had the least). Since personality disorders generally don’t change with age, this study reinforces the other indicators that personality disorders and traits are increasing in our society with each new generation. Why Are HCPs Increasing? People with personality disorders apparently exist in all countries and cultures, perhaps as part of the biological variety of the human race. However, I believe we’re witnessing an increasing amount of high-conflict personalities in modern urban societies, for at least five possible reasons. 1. Instability in early childhood: Personalities develop primarily in early childhood, by age 5 or 6. Stable family relationships are an essential part of this process, so a child develops healthy coping strategies for being responsible and succeeding in future social relationships. The more stable and secure the first five or six years, the more secure and adaptable the person is as an adult. It’s easy to see that young children over the last few decades have experienced an increasing amount of disruption to their important family relationships from substance abuse, divorce, child abuse, and so forth. Mental health researchers report that child abuse and neglect increase the risk of developing a personality disorder four times (Wekerle, 2006). 2. Diminishing social glue: Personality development depends on the “social glue” of many positive personal experiences throughout childhood. These include thousands of smiles, moments of empathy, hours of listening, friendly touches, praise, etc.—what I think of as “social glue bits.” Over the last few decades, community ties have weakened, families have shrunk or broken up, and electronic devices have rapidly begun replacing personal contact. Children seem to be getting fewer and fewer of these personal social glue bits. They can’t get them from television, movies, iPods, PDAs, or the Internet. Even cell phones and webcams leave out physical touch and other important in-person behavior. ATM machines, self-service gas pumps, subway turnstiles, and self-service store checkouts let us come and go without anyone giving us personal attention. Everyone experiences this, but we’re witnessing the first generations to be raised with this diminished social glue as part of their personality development. 3. Loss of personal behavior role models: A powerful part of personality development is family and community storytelling about good and bad behavior. Yet, in today’s world, print media and electronic media compete with family values and role models by providing ever-increasing drama and extreme behavior. Stories of conflict resolution that are self-centered, extreme, and/or violent make the evening news and popular shows, while normal problem-solving behavior occurs mostly out of sight. Children personally experience fewer examples and styles of resolving conflicts, and fewer opportunities to practice negotiation strategies in everyday life. 4. A society of individuals: In our urban cultures, we have created a Society of Individuals who can live and work on our own. We don’t depend on others as much, so we don’t have to compromise with them as much or even care about them. This reinforces self-centeredness and a drive for more control over our personal space and more desire for relationships with material goods. Ironically, the more socially isolated we are, the more fearful we seem to become in the world. Personality disorders and traits are significantly driven by chronic individual fears. 5. Teaching self-centeredness: Over the past 40 years our culture has placed a strong value on feeling good about ourselves. However, this self-esteem focus has inadvertently given people high expectations of receiving benefits for themselves, without learning as many skills to achieve or to give back to others. The effect is to teach narcissism as a cultural trait. Some researchers believe that when you are born is more significant than to whom you are born in forming your personality (Twenge, 2006). For some people, but not all, these cultural traits may become stuck and exaggerated in their personalities. 6. Openness to social complaints: Part of the progress of our modern society is our belief in justice for all. This means our courts, workplaces, community organizations, and others have become much more fair and open to everyone. As a society, we’re dedicated to helping victims of abuse and punishing perpetrators. This is a good thing, but it means we must learn to tell the difference between those who are true victims and those who just feel like victims and are complaining because of their personalities (although some people have personality problems and are true victims). Our procedures of fairness and openness unintentionally encourage complaints and prolonged disputes. We thoroughly and objectively examine limited “facts,” without recognizing the significance of personality problems and how they can distort the “facts.” This encourages those with personality disorders to seek validation and vindication for personal problems and upsets they can’t handle inside themselves through the courts and other agencies. They know people will listen and take them seriously. Bill Eddy is a lawyer, therapist, and mediator. He is the co-founder and Training Director of the High Conflict Institute, a training and consultation firm that trains professionals to deal with high conflict people and situations. He is the author of several books and methods for handling high conflict personalities and high conflict disputes with the most difficult people.