A short quiz to help you test how narcissistic you may be.

Source: Narcissistic Personality Quiz | Psych Central | Psychological Tests and Quizzes

The cause of antisocial personality disorder, or ASP, is unknown. Like many mental health issues, evidence points to inherited traits.

Source: Antisocial Personality Disorder Causes – Psych Central

What if the custodial parent refuses to co-operate with child contact decisions?

If a custodial parent refuses to co-operate with the child contact decisions as set out by a Court what can be done about this? Are punitive measures carried out sufficiently by the Court? We will begin with a typical case illustration before turning to the choices that the Court has,  and an Expert Witnesses’ views, on how to deal with such a situation.

Illustration

Mrs Y had for some years been resolute in not granting contact between her two children and their father despite the Court ruling to grant such contact. As an Expert Witness dealing with such matters by providing expert evidence and advice to the Court, one is often faced with such controversial matters which have to be sorted out by the Judiciary. Psychological experts are not permitted to make decisions such as: 1) punitive measures to make Mrs Y co-operate with the Court ruling of granting contact to a father; 2) removing the children into care for a time or recommending this in order to treat the indoctrination such children have received from the custodial parent against the now absent parent; 3) deciding to fine or imprison the non co-operative parent and/or changing the residence of children to reside with the non custodial parent or members of his/her family. This is the role of the Judiciary and not the Expert Witness.

(Most parents who fail to co-operate with court rulings on contact arrangements are mothers, but 20% or so are fathers. Furthermore custodial parents frequently indoctrinate or brainwash children against having good contact with an absent parent usually the father).

Mrs Y always thought she had a reason for putting off contact arrangements. Some of the ploys used were:

1. The children did not want to see their father or have anything to do with him. ( In this case Mrs Y had worked hard to turn the children against the father. It must also be said that the children witnessed some upsetting scenes of threats by the father against the mother and possibly physical domestic violence on both sides.)
2. The mother, Mrs Y, claimed that she had to work and could not comply with either contact arrangements or mediation recommended by the Court. (This was only admitted following the Court decision allowing contact and when arrangements were being made for mediation and contact visits to be arranged and monitored.)
3. Mrs Y  also claimed that the children would not want to attend contact sessions because they would miss school and/or needed to do their homework, or be out with their friends.
4. When mediation was arranged Mrs Y also tried to put obstacles in the way of attending at the times specified due to excuses such as: having to work, too short notice to arrange the meeting, the children needed to be at school etc.

(Those who seek control of  children over contact with the absent parent will frequently use any excuse or reason why children should have as little contact as possible, or no contact at all, with the absent parent, claiming that this is the wish of the children. One can only say this is at best taking unfair advantage of the position of being a custodial parent, and at worst, a form of emotional abuse since the custodial parent has created the situation where the children want little or no contact with the absent parent,( usually the father). Had such children been required for medical or dental treatment there would have been no question about them attending for this.)

Systematic mind control programming of children against their non-custodial parent is absolutely dangerous. As a mental health professional, I have long worked with children and adults who have suffered from parental alienation as a result of exiting a destructive cult, like Scientology and the Jehovah’s Witnesses (but is a very common practice of all cults). The Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, have a documented history of efforts to manipulate ex-members by threatening disfellowshipping and legal wrangling to keep children inside the Watchtower group. Children are told that anyone who rejects the Witness lifestyle is dangerous and “part of Satan’s world”–even immediate family members. Watchtower has even published a guide for followers to use when facing a non-believing parent in court to get custody of the children. A PDF of this document can be accessed here. Scientology has their total disconnection policy if someone is declared a Suppressive Person (SP).

Add the component of active negative programming that the child’s parent has betrayed God, or become possessed, or has gone insane. This can cause powerful thought and emotional problems as well. People have had nervous breakdowns, psychotic breaks, suicide attempts, or manifested migraine headaches and other debilitating psychosomatic illnesses.

• PLEASE stay connected with this person. This can be hard at times because they are in such intense pain. They are grieving a loss similar to a death, except this continues every day for them. You often don’t know how to help or what to say so it’s easy to start avoiding them.

• If you know someone who is being alienated from their children, the greatest gift that you can give them is the gift of your constant love, support and prayers.

Source: Parental alienation suggestions for friends and family to help children and targeted parents

t The cause of mental disorders such as depression
remains unknown. However, the idea that neurotransmitter
imbalances cause depression is vigorously promoted by
pharmaceutical companies and the psychiatric profession at
large. We examine media reports referring to this chemical
imbalance theory and ask reporters for evidence supporting
their claims. We then report and critique the scientific papers
and other confirming evidence offered in response to our
questions. Responses were received from multiple sources,
including practicing psychiatrists, clients, and a major
pharmaceutical company. The evidence offered was not
compelling, and several of the cited sources flatly stated that
the proposed theory of serotonin imbalance was known to be
incorrect. The media can play a positive role in mental health
reporting by ensuring that the information reported is
congruent with the peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Evidence of biological changes correlating with
environmental stressors is vastly different from evidence that
mental illnesses are “caused” by biological deficits. For
instance, a correlation between abnormal behavior and altered
brain activity does not necessarily imply that the behavior was
caused by a brain defect. There is a growing body of research
showing that biological changes could be due to environmental
stimuli. Take the hippocampus, a brain structure important
in learning and memory: It has been shown that chronic
psychological stress can reduce the size of the hippocampus,
and that, conversely, 3-D spatial relationship training leads to
enlargement of the hippocampus. As another example, a
recent meta-analysis found that 69% of the female patients
diagnosed as psychotic in over 70 studies had reported either
physical or sexual abuse. It is entirely possible that the women
in the study developed a chemical imbalance, but it would be
difficult to determine if their conditions resulted from genetic
defects or environmental stressors.

In this surprising book, Allan V. Horwitz argues that our current conceptions of mental illness as a disease fit only a small number of serious psychological conditions and that most conditions currently regarded as mental illness are cultural constructions, normal reactions to stressful social circumstances, or simply forms of deviant behavior.

The theory fits in with psychiatry’s attempt, over the past half century, to portray depression as a disease of the brain, instead of an illness of the mind.

There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

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“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”

Every generation believes that it must battle unprecedented pressures of conformity; that it must fight harder than any previous generation to protect that secret knowledge from which our integrity of selfhood springs.

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