Month: May 2016

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Alienation Craig Childress, Psy.D. Dr. Craig Childress EXPERTS

June 2016 Flying Monkey Newsletter — Dr Craig Childress: Attachment-Based “Parental Alienation”

I have posted the June edition of the Flying Monkey Newsletter to my website: Flying Monkey Newsletter: June 2016 The June edition deals with the false assertion by the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent and their flying monkey supporters that children’s expressed “preference” for parents represents an authentic expression of the child’s feelings and is not being […]

via June 2016 Flying Monkey Newsletter — Dr Craig Childress: Attachment-Based “Parental Alienation”

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Alienation

Children Resisting Contact

Children Resisting Post- Separation Contact

Source: Children Resisting Contact

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Alienation

Psychopathy -Emotion recognition and empathy

Emotion recognition and empathy

Abnormal patterns of brain activity is observed in children with callous-unemotional and psychopathic traits when viewing others in painful situations

A large body of research suggests that psychopathy is associated with atypical responses to distress cues (e.g. facial and vocal expressions of fear and sadness), including decreased activation of the fusiform and extrastriate cortical regions, which may partly account for impaired recognition of and reduced autonomic responsiveness to expressions of fear, and impairments of empathy.[22] The underlying biological surfaces for processing expressions of happiness are functionally intact in psychopaths, although less responsive than those of controls. The neuroimaging literature is unclear as to whether deficits are specific to particular emotions such as fear. Some recent fMRI studies have reported that emotion perception deficits in psychopathy are pervasive across emotions (positives and negatives).[57][58][59][60][61] Studies on children with psychopathic tendencies have also shown such associations.[61][62][63][64][65][66] Meta-analyses have also found evidence of impairments in both vocal and facial emotional recognition for several emotions (i.e., not only fear and sadness) in both adults and children/adolescents.[67]

A recent study using offenders with psychopathy found that under certain circumstances they could willfully empathize with others. Functional neuroimaging was performed while the subjects were watching videos of a person harming another individual. While reduced empathic brain activation relative to the controls was observed in the control condition, the empathic reaction of the psychopathic offenders initiated the same way it did for controls when they were instructed to empathize with the harmed individual, and the area of the brain relating to pain was activated when the psychopathic offenders were asked to imagine how the harmed individual felt. The research suggests that individuals with psychopathy could switch empathy on at will, which would enable them to be both callous as well as charming. The team who conducted the study say it is still unknown how to transform this willful empathy into the spontaneous empathy most people have, though they propose it could be possible to bring psychopaths closer to rehabilitation by helping them to activate their “empathy switch”. Others suggested that despite the results of the study, it remained unclear whether the experience of empathy by these psychopathic individuals was the same as that of controls, and also questioned the possibility of devising therapeutic interventions that would make the empathic reactions more automatic.[68][69][70]

Work conducted by Jean Decety with large samples of incarcerated offenders with psychopathy offers additional insights. In one study, the offenders were scanned while viewing video clips depicting people being intentionally hurt. They were also tested on their responses to seeing short videos of facial expressions of pain. The participants in the high-psychopathy group exhibited significantly less activation in theventromedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala and periaqueductal gray parts of the brain, but more activity in the striatum and the insula when compared to control participants.[71] In a second study, the subjects with psychopathy exhibited a strong response in pain-affective brain regions when taking an imagine-self perspective, but failed to recruit the neural circuits that were activated in controls during an imagine-other perspective—in particular the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and amygdala—which may contribute to their lack of empathic concern.[72]

Despite studies suggesting deficits in emotion perception and imagining others in pain, professor Simon Baron-Cohen claims psychopathy is associated with intact cognitive empathy, which would imply an intact ability to read and respond to behaviors, social cues and what others are feeling. Psychopathy is, however, associated with impairment in the other major component of empathy—affective (emotional) empathy—which includes the ability to feel the suffering and emotions of others (what scientists would term as emotional contagion), and those with the condition are therefore not distressed by the suffering of their victims. Those with autism, on the other hand, often are impaired in both the affective and cognitive facets of empathy.[73]

Emotion recognition and empathy

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Brainwashing - Mind Control Narcopath NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) Pathological Lying PERSONALITY DISORDERS

How manipulators control their victims according to Simon

According to Simon

Simon identified the following manipulative techniques:[2]

  • Lying: It is hard to tell if somebody is lying at the time they do it, although often the truth may be apparent later when it is too late. One way to minimize the chances of being lied to is to understand that some personality types (particularly psychopaths) are experts at the art of lying and cheating, doing it frequently, and often in subtle ways.
  • Lying by omission: This is a very subtle form of lying by withholding a significant amount of the truth. This technique is also used in propaganda.
  • Denial: Manipulator refuses to admit that he or she has done something wrong.
  • Rationalization: An excuse made by the manipulator for inappropriate behavior. Rationalization is closely related to spin.
  • Minimization: This is a type of denial coupled with rationalization. The manipulator asserts that his or her behavior is not as harmful or irresponsible as someone else was suggesting, for example, saying that a taunt or insult was only a joke.
  • Selective inattention or selective attention: Manipulator refuses to pay attention to anything that may distract from his or her agenda, saying things like “I don’t want to hear it”.
  • Diversion: Manipulator not giving a straight answer to a straight question and instead being diversionary, steering the conversation onto another topic.
  • Evasion: Similar to diversion but giving irrelevant, rambling, vague responses, weasel words.
  • Covert intimidation: Manipulator throwing the victim onto the defensive by using veiled (subtle, indirect or implied) threats.
  • Guilt trip: A special kind of intimidation tactic. A manipulator suggests to the conscientious victim that he or she does not care enough, is too selfish or has it easy. This usually results in the victim feeling bad, keeping them in a self-doubting, anxious and submissive position.
  • Shaming: Manipulator uses sarcasm and put-downs to increase fear and self-doubt in the victim. Manipulators use this tactic to make others feel unworthy and therefore defer to them. Shaming tactics can be very subtle such as a fierce look or glance, unpleasant tone of voice, rhetorical comments, subtle sarcasm. Manipulators can make one feel ashamed for even daring to challenge them. It is an effective way to foster a sense of inadequacy in the victim.
  • Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else’s behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering and the manipulator often finds it easy to play on sympathy to get cooperation.
  • Vilifying the victim: More than any other, this tactic is a powerful means of putting the victim on the defensive while simultaneously masking the aggressive intent of the manipulator, while the manipulator falsely accuses the victim as being an abuser in response when the victim stands up for or defends themselves or their position.
  • Playing the servant role: Cloaking a self-serving agenda in guise of a service to a more noble cause, for example saying he is acting in a certain way to be “obedient” to or in “service” to an authority figure or “just doing their job”.
  • Seduction: Manipulator uses charm, praise, flattery or overtly supporting others in order to get them to lower their defenses and give their trust and loyalty to him or her. They will also offer help with the intent to gain trust and access to an unsuspecting victim they have charmed.
  • Projecting the blame (blaming others): Manipulator scapegoats in often subtle, hard-to-detect ways. Often, the manipulator will project his/her own psychotic thinking onto the victim, making the victim look like he/she has done something wrong. Manipulators will also claim that the victim is the one who is at fault for believing lies that they were conned into believing, as if the victim forced the manipulator to be deceitful. All blame, except for the part that is used by the manipulator to accept false guilt, is done in order to make the victim feel guilty about making healthy choices, correct thinking and good behaviors. It is frequently used as a means of psychological and emotional manipulation and control. Manipulators lie about lying, only to re-manipulate the original, less believable story into a “more acceptable” truth that the victim will believe. Projecting lies as being the truth is another common method of control and manipulation. Manipulators love to falsely accuse the victim as “deserving to be treated that way.” They often claim that the victim is crazy and/or abusive, especially when there is evidence against the manipulator. (See Feigning, below.)
  • Feigning innocence: Manipulator tries to suggest that any harm done was unintentional or that they did not do something that they were accused of. Manipulator may put on a look of surprise or indignation. This tactic makes the victim question his or her own judgment and possibly his own sanity.
  • Feigning confusion: Manipulator tries to play dumb by pretending he or she does not know what the victim is talking about or is confused about an important issue brought to his or her attention. The manipulator intentionally confuses the victim in order for the victim to doubt his/her own accuracy of perception, often pointing out key elements that the manipulator intentionally included in case there is room for doubt. Sometimes manipulators will have used cohorts in advance to help back up their story.
  • Brandishing anger: Manipulator uses anger to brandish sufficient emotional intensity and rage to shock the victim into submission. The manipulator is not actually angry, he or she just puts on an act. He just wants what he wants and gets “angry” when denied. Controlled anger is often used as a manipulation tactic to avoid confrontation, avoid telling the truth or to further hide intent. There are often threats used by the manipulator of going to police, or falsely reporting abuses that the manipulator intentionally contrived to scare or intimidate the victim into submission. Blackmail and other threats of exposure are other forms of controlled anger and manipulation, especially when the victim refuses initial requests or suggestions by the manipulator. Anger is also used as a defense so the manipulator can avoid telling truths at inconvenient times or circumstances. Anger is often used as a tool or defense to ward off inquiries or suspicion. The victim becomes more focused on the anger instead of the manipulation tactic.
  • Bandwagon Effect: Manipulator comforts the victim into submission by claiming (whether true or false) that many people already have done something, and the victim should as well. These include phrases such as “Many people like you…” or “Everyone does this anyways.” Such manipulation can be seen in peer pressure situations, often occurring in scenarios where the manipulator attempts to influence the victim into trying drugs or other substances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation#How_manipulators_control_their_victims

Categories
Alienation

How manipulators control their victims

According to Braiker

Braiker identified the following ways that manipulators control their victims:[1]

  • Positive reinforcement: includes praise, superficial charm, superficial sympathy (crocodile tears), excessive apologizing, money, approval, gifts, attention, facial expressions such as a forced laugh or smile, and public recognition.
  • Negative reinforcement: involves removing one from a negative situation as a reward, e.g. “You won’t have to do your homework if you allow me to do this to you.”
  • Intermittent or partial reinforcement: Partial or intermittent negative reinforcement can create an effective climate of fear and doubt. Partial or intermittent positive reinforcement can encourage the victim to persist – for example in most forms of gambling, the gambler is likely to win now and again but still lose money overall.
  • Punishment: includes nagging, yelling, the silent treatment, intimidation, threats, swearing, emotional blackmail, the guilt trip, sulking, crying, and playing the victim.
  • Traumatic one-trial learning: using verbal abuse, explosive anger, or other intimidating behavior to establish dominance or superiority; even one incident of such behavior can condition or train victims to avoid upsetting, confronting or contradicting the manipulator.

According to Braiker

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Alienation

Motivations of manipulators

Manipulators can have various possible motivations, including but not limited to:[1]

  • the need to advance their own purposes and personal gain at virtually any cost to others
  • a strong need to attain feelings of power and superiority in relationships with others
  • a want and need to feel in control (aka. control freak)
  • a desire to gain a feeling of power over others in order to raise their perception of self-esteem
  • boredom, or growing tired of his/her surroundings, seeing it as a game more than hurting others
  • covert agenda, criminal or otherwise, including financial manipulation (often seen when the elderly or unsuspecting, unprotected wealthy are intentionally targeted for the sole purpose of obtaining a victim’s financial assets)

Motivations of manipulators

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Alienation EXPERTS PARENTAL ALIENATION Parental Alienation PA PASG

Parental Alienation Database

This online database pertains to parental alienation, a mental condition in which a child – usually one whose parents are engaged in a high-conflict separation or divorce – allies strongly with one parent (the preferred parent or alienating parent) and rejects a relationship with the other parent (the target parent or alienated parent) without legitimate justification.

go to the database here:- http://mc.vanderbilt.edu/pasg/

Categories
Alienation

Prisoners of a Parent’s Mind: On the Futility of Therapy in Alienation Cases

Any therapist who is familiar with the research and who has undertaken transfer of residence of a child will be very familiar with the psychological splitting of the child. This psychological coping mechanism, which leads to the phenomenon of the idealised/demonised division of feelings about their parents, causes children a great deal of harm. (Baker &Sauber 2013, Bernet et al 2013, Clawar & Rivlin 1991, Dunne & Hendrick 1994, Gardner 1998, Johnstone 2003, Kelly & Johnstone 2001, Wallerstein & Kelly (1980) Waldron & Joanis 1996, Warshak 2001). A child who is saying on the surface that they hate their parent and using weak and spurious reasoning for doing so, who is seen to be involved in an overly close relationship with a parent they profess to love beyond measure and who is making proclamations of hatred or simply saying that they have no feelings about the other parent, must routinely be assessed for this phenomenon. Psychological splitting causes children immense suffering (Baker 2007) and the core concern about parental alienation is in fact not even the relationship that the child loses with a parent (though that is terrible enough) but the psychological impact on their wellbeing over their entire lifetime. (Gottlieb 2012). This is reason enough to intervene and the evidence which is provided by studies undertaken by Amy Baker et al, as well as interviews with adult children who were once alienated and parents who were alienated as children who are now alienated themselves (see above comment), should provide mental health professionals with the impetus to stop this generational march of harm, by providing the right interventions, interlocked in the right way, with the legal system.

Karen Woodall

‘Thank you for sharing this, Karen. From the perspective of an adult alienated child, I will say your words are completely accurate. No amount of therapy for me or my alienated mother would have changed my father’s behavior or the circumstances. And my father would have had to cooperate and participate in years of intense therapy in order to change his ways. As long as I was under the influence of my father, no therapist in the world would have been able to get me to let down my defenses. In fact, I repressed my love for my mother as a way to survive emotionally, in my father’s care, and therefore became consciously unaware of my own feelings. From my child perspective, no one was as powerful as my father, and until he was removed from my life, I would live according to his wishes. And it’s worth noting that…

View original post 2,401 more words

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Alienation

I’ve Lost Contact with my Children – Family Problems | Relate

The sense of loss and upset when the contact between parent and children is lost can be overwhelming. The depth of sadness may come as a surprise, and often is akin to mourning. The grief can be difficult to accept especially if you had been close to your children, and the guilt just as hard, if you were not close. How and why the contact was lost will also contribute to how you feel. Worried about your relationship with your teenage children? Chat to a trained counsellor free online.

Source: I’ve Lost Contact with my Children – Family Problems | Relate

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Alienation

16PF psychometric test

The traits evaluated are as follows:

  1. Warmth, which is considered to indicate friendliness towards others and willingness to participate.
  2. Reasoning, which is thought to be indicative of cognitive ability and intellect;
  3. Emotional Stability, which refers to the candidate’s ability to adapt while under stress and whether they are easily upset.
  4. Dominance, which ascertains to levels of aggression, assertiveness and co-operation.
  5. Liveliness, which tends to indicate whether the candidate is likely to be cheerful or expressive as opposed to introverted or serious.
  6. Rule-Consciousness, which generally conveys attitudes towards authority and likelihood of obedience.
  7. Social Boldness, which refers to whether an individual is likely to be timid or shy as opposed to being uninhibited or out-going.
  8. Sensitivity, which considers whether the candidate is compassionate and sympathetic to others or if they tend to be more objective.
  9. Vigilance, which specifies how trusting, accepting or suspicious the individual may be around others.
  10. Abstractedness, which can refer to being imaginative or solution orientated but at the higher level can also suggest being impractical.
  11. Privateness, which can indicate how forthright or non-disclosing an individual might be.
  12. Apprehension, which is descriptive of whether someone may be more self-assured or insecure.
  13. Openness to Change, which is regarded as flexibility and a liberal attitude as opposed to being attached to the familiar.
  14. Self-Reliance, which identifies how self-sufficient or group orientated an individual might be.
  15. Perfectionism, which refers to self-discipline and precision as opposed to impulsiveness.
  16. Tension, which conveys the likelihood of being time driven or impatient instead of being relaxed and patient.

take the test here:- http://www.psychometrictest.org.uk/16pf-test/