Parental Alienation in a Nutshell.

I am going to give it my best shot to try to put all of this in laymans terms, so everyone can understand this. I am in no way a writer, nor claim perfection, so bear with me. FIrst of all, the idea of Parental Alienation was developed by Dr. Richard Gardner.(http://www.rgardner.com/refs/pas_intro.html) Basically it is the "brainwashing"/programing of a child by one parent to hurt/defame/blacken/put down/bad mouth/knock/belittle/slander another parent, usually in a custody dispute. It also includes the child helping this along by eventually going along with this and supporting the parent who created this. The child actually ends up believing all of the awful things that the "brainwasher" has said. So the child, all on their own, also estranges themselves from the targeted parent, with no reason other then those pointed out by the other parent/"alienator". In PAS the "alienator" parent "programs" into the childs mind ideas and attitudes that are completely different from what they have actually experienced. The childs contribution to this is welcomed by the alienator and is reinforced, resulting in even more contribution by the child. ** example: Alienator says mom/dad is a bad person. They do drugs,they are not a good parent, the never took care of you. Child says: yea I remember that he/she never brushed my hair once. Alienator: oh yea, remember when she never did laundry because she was gone from the house? She/he was on drugs. Child: Yea, she/he didn't do laundry AND never picked me up from school that day. I think she/he was at work though. Alienator: That is the bad thing about drugs, people who do them forget about the ones they are supposed to love. They don't do the things they promise to do.** This conversation will continue until the child forgets totally that the targeted parent was at work, and that the delegation of the targeted action was actually given to the alienator. By the end, the child will completely believe that the targeted parent is on drugs, is a bad parent, and they will come up with senarios, however untrue, that supports their views. In mild cases the child is taught to disagree with, disrespect,or even act out towards the targeted parent. As things progress it gets worse to the point the child wants nothing to do with the targeted parent. The child may even claim they are afraid of this parent, to the point they may even exhibit symptoms associated with this fear. There are several degrees of PAS. They go from bad to worse. The one thing that I would really like to stress is that PAS is genderless. There have been tons of things written on this and usually it was only associated with woman having custody and the father being alienated. However, as times have changed so have the norms with custody. There are now just as many men who alienate the mothers of their children as there was once mothers who alienated the fathers. This also used to be mainly associated with false allegatons of sexual abuse of the child. Of course, it still is, but with many cases Sexual abuse does not even come into play. There have been many who will argue that PAS does not exist, because PAS is not listed in the DVM( the little book that shrinks use to diagnois mental health problems). Personally, I was just glad to put a name to what was going on. They could call it anything, and the results are the same. Even if the term PAS is not recognized, there is something going on here and Dr. Gardners explanation definitly fits it all. All I can ask is this~~~ Whos reality check has bounced???