Category: Psychologists

Posted in Alienation, DESTRUCTIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDER, Psychological manipulation, Psychologists, Psychopath, Psychopathic style, PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Parental Psychological Control

Posted on by Linda Turner
 Parenting aggression can take on different forms, such as physical aggression, verbal aggression, and psychological aggression (Straus, Hamby, Finkelhor, Moore, & Runyan, 1998), and one key form of psychological aggression which is understudied is psychological control. Parental psychological control refers to parental behaviors that are intrusive and manipulative, undermining child autonomy, and characterized by guilt induction, love withdrawal, instilling anxiety, and verbal constraint (Barber, 1996;Barber & Harmon, 2002;Schaefer, 1965). In guilt induction, parents coerce children into complying with parental demands by making children feel guilty. …
… Parental psychological control has been linked to various forms of child maladjustment, including lower self-esteem, internalizing symptoms, and externalizing symptoms (Barber, 1996;Barber, Olsen, & Shagle, 1994;Barber, Stolz, Olsen, Collins, & Burchinal, 2005). For example, parental psychological control predicted adolescent depression and antisocial behaviors even after controlling for parental support and behavioral control (Barber et al., 2005). …
… Children’s theory of mind does not develop until around 4 years old (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001) and self-conscious emotions do not develop until around 2 years old (Muris & Meesters, 2014). This is consistent with previous research that documented the adverse effect of parental psychological control behaviors primarily in middle childhood and adolescence (Barber, 1996;Barber et al., 1994;Barber et al., 2005;Soenens & Vansteenkiste, 2010). Future research with larger samples should examine whether child age moderates the association between parental psychological control and child maladjustment. …

Continue reading “Parental Psychological Control” →

Posted in Alienated children, Alienation, Linda Turner, Parental Alienation PA, PERSONALITY DISORDERS, Psychologists, Recovery

I DON’T NEED A THERAPIST

Posted on by Linda Turner

Are you the adult survivor of emotional child abuse? The effects of childhood abuse on adults are…

  • Post-traumatic stress disorder
  • Cognitive distortions (e.g., “highly fearful and overestimate danger and adversity in your current environment”)
  • Emotional distress (e.g., depression, anxiety, and anger)
  • Anxiety, disorders, panic disorders, phobias, and obsessive-compulsive order
  • Chronic irritability, rage, and difficulties expressing anger constructively
  • Impaired sense of self
  • Avoidance (e.g., disassociation, amnesia for abuse-related events)
  • Interpersonal problems
  • Physical health problems

In reading that list, you may relate to some effects and know you need help. Perhaps something within you is whispering (or perhaps even shouting) that you need to find some sort of livable peace, some direction, some guidance in your journey.

You didn’t just stumble onto The Invisible Scar for no reason. Something or someone brought you here.

Moreover, if you’ve found yourself wanting to share your story in the comments or via the contact form, you clearly do want someone to hear your story, to validate what you’ve endured, to make you feel not so crazy and lost and hurt by what has happened and to feel hopeful for the future.

You may long for that personal touch, that face-to-face interaction, and that’s all very normal and healthy and, if anything, a good sign that you want to heal.

Continue reading “I DON’T NEED A THERAPIST” →

Posted in Psychologists, Self Help

Self psychology

Posted on by Linda Turner

Not to be confused with Psychology of self.

Empathy

Kohut maintained that parents’ failures to empathize with their children and the responses of their children to these failures were ‘at the root of almost all psychopathology’.[5] For Kohut, the loss of the other and the other’s self-object (“selfobject”) function (see below) leaves the individual apathetic, lethargic, empty of the feeling of life, and without vitality – in short, depressed.[6]

The infant moving from grandiose to cohesive self and beyond must go through the slow process of disillusionment with phantasies of omnipotence, mediated by the parents: ‘This process of gradual and titrated disenchantment requires that the infant’s caretakers be empathetically attuned to the infant’s needs’.[7]

Correspondingly, to help a patient deal in therapy with earlier failures in the disenchantment process, Kohut the therapist ‘highlights empathy as the tool par excellence, which allows the creation of a relationship between patient and analyst that can offer some hope of mitigating early self pathology’.[8]

In comparison to earlier psychoanalytic approaches, the use of empathy, which Kohut called “vicarious introspection”, allows the therapist to reach conclusions sooner (with less dialogue and interpretation), and to create a stronger bond with the patient, making the patient feel more fundamentally understood. For Kohut, the implicit bond of empathy itself has a curative effect, but he also warned that ‘the psychoanalyst … must also be able to relinquish the empathic attitude’ to maintain intellectual integrity, and that ’empathy, especially when it is surrounded by an attitude of wanting to cure directly … may rest on the therapist’s unresolved omnipotence fantasies’.[9])

The conceptual introduction of empathy was not intended to be a “discovery.” Empathic moments in psychology existed long before Kohut. Instead, Kohut posited that empathy in psychology should be acknowledged as a powerful therapeutic tool, extending beyond “hunches” and vague “assumptions,” and enabling empathy to be described, taught, and used more actively. Continue reading “Self psychology” →

Posted in Psychologists

To all Authors, Psychologists, Parental Alienation‬ Syndrome experts:

Posted on by Linda Turner

Some moms & dads have no contact with our kids because of the psychological pain/punishment & rewards they receive & that results under the control of the alienating parent. Therefore, our kids desperately need materials to be made available to school libraries, online, etc.
Even in the form of a brochure, novel, or play — youth deserve to understand they are not alone or crazy. It would be ludicrous to ignore sexual abuse —— why is Parental Alienation abuse not taught to youth? It is as if this form of abuse is being condoned. The sociopath alreadymanipulates and controls information and every reality to their child. Is it healthy to just go alone with the abuser’s orchestrations & sick games requiring denial even for those who do have some contact with their kids? Even if that’s the better choice, then all the more reason we depend on intervention from experts via age-appropriate educational materials. The community is a must in many situations where a youth is living a risky lifestyle the system ignores. Some of our kids are suicidal in their confusion. Education would give them a sense of power (just the power to name & express the hurt in a diary or to a trusted friend or adult!) & hope when their relationship with their loving parent and all family members has been severed completely.

“My father was viewed as ‘the hero’ by his family, neighbors, friends, etc. After all, HE was the parent who stuck around. I am disappointed (to put it lightly) in the adults who did not question this at the time and did not step in to intervene. The alienating parent often convinces and intimidates the adults in his life into believing he is doing the right thing,” says author of musingsimplicity blog, an adult child of Parental Alienation who is in the process of writing her memoir.

Another formerly alienated daughter writes on One Mom’s Battle Facebook wall:  “My father was verbally and emotionally abusive to my mother, and did everything possible to alienate my siblings and myself against her. It worked. Even though my father abused my siblings and me, and terrorized the whole family, I was utterly brainwashed to think that my mother was the problem. I spent twenty years estranged from her.” […] “Let them know that their other parent is distorting things. Protecting them from this information isn’t protecting them, it’s setting them up.”

Sometimes the only person to let abused youth understand their pain and confusion is for someone other than the target parent to educate them on healthy relationships and how Parental Alienation may be the cause of many young people’s pain. Some young people are stepping up by creating youtube videos about their Parental Alienation experience for other youth. It’s time for professionals to support youth when parents are completely stopped and no avenues exist — YES, MANY TIMES NO AGENCY OR JUDGE WILL DO THEIR JOB NO MATTER WHAT DOCUMENTATION WE DO OR ADVICE WE FOLLOW FROM YOU EXPERTS. Thank you for all you already to do help those suffering from Parental Alienation.  Please help educate youth about EXTREME/SEVERE alienation.

http://momsheartsunsilenced.com/2014/07/11/attention-authors-psychologists-parental-alienation%e2%80%ac-syndrome-experts/