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1 out of 4 Children Involved in a Divorce Undergoes Parental Alienation Syndrome |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: In the 1980's, PAS was defined by scientist Richard Gardner of Columbia University. Men are usually the target parent, since in most cases the mother has custody of the child. According to Mª Rosario Cortés, "the so-called alienating parent is the one who has custody and uses it to brainwash the child, turning him or her against the alienated parent". As pointed out by the group of researchers of the University of Granada, there are many other factors which influence PAS apart from the unacceptable attitude of the custodial parent, such as children's psychological vulnerability, the character and behaviour of parents, dynamics among brothers, or the existing conflicts between the two divorced parents. Among other symptoms, Professor Cortés points out that children tend to find continual justifications for the alienating parent's attitude. They denigrate the target parent, relate negative feelings unambivalently towards that parent, deny being influenced by anyone (pleading responsibility for their attitude), feel no guilt for denigrating the alienated parent, or recount events which were not experienced but rather came from listening to others. The authors of Marital Conflicts, Divorce, and Children's Development, state that PAS is more frequent among children aged 9 to 12 than among teenagers, and that there are no relevant gender differences in PAS. The professor of the UGR underlines that in every case of SAP, "the family must be provided with a family-mediation programme for equal treatment of all members affected by this problem, which is increasingly more frequent." Department of Evolutionary and Educational Psychology of the University of Granada.
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