Tag: #Psychological Control

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Alienation Brainwashing - Mind Control Coercive Control coercive control EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Parental Alienation and Patterns of Cult Mind Control

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Parental Alienation is a form of undue influence in which one parent deceives and manipulates the child to feel fear, anger, disgust, or other negative emotions towards the other parent and their entire side of the family. Stories are told that might include: the parent doesn’t love them, beat, raped them, are drug addicts etc.. The alienating parent might even attempt to instill false memories of abuse or phobias in the child’s mind. They may encourage the child to spy and tattle on the other parent. In other words, parents who unethically alienate their child against the other parent use similar tactics that cults use to distance their members from family, friends, and ex-members.

According to developmental psychologist and expert witness Dr. Amy Baker, parental alienation strategies can fall into the following five categories:

  • poisonous messages to the child about the targeted parent in which he or she is portrayed as unloving, unsafe, and unavailable
  • limiting contact and communication between the child and the targeted parent
  • erasing and replacing the targeted parent in the heart and mind of the child
  • encouraging the child to betray the targeted parent’s trust
  • undermining the authority of the targeted parent

This systematic mind control programming of children against their non-custodial parent is absolutely dangerous.

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Alienation Brainwashing - Mind Control Coercive Control coercive control EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Children experiencing interparental coercive control | Iriss

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Overall there is very little research into coercive control without violence (Crossman et al. 2016), and even less specific research into how children experience coercive controlling behaviours only, when living with domestic violence perpetrated by one caregiver to another (usually their father/father-figure against their mother). To illustrate, Callaghan et al. (2015) state:

[T]here is limited research that engages either with children’s lived experience of violence, or more specifically with their experience of psychological abuse and coercive control in family relationships affected by domestic violence.

The majority of research on children and domestic violence tends to focus on children’s exposure to physical violence (Katz 2016), and in the majority of cases emotional abuse co-occurs with physical abuse. Additionally, very few studies of the impact of domestic violence on children control for the effect of co-occurring child abuse (Wolfe et al. 2003), so in many cases it is not possible to identify the effects of a specific form of domestic violence, for example to measure the impact of coercive control specifically. Where studies do not differentiate between emotional and physical abuse, we have not been able to include these studies as they do not isolate the effect of witnessing and experiencing non-physical violence/abuse.

Where research has been conducted into the impact of coercive and controlling behaviour, the methods for analysing and understanding instances and examples of experiences are often not classified using a theoretical framework (for example Johnson’s (2008) framework of intimate partner violence). This means that there is no standard approach to operationalising or measuring coercive control, which limits comparisons and generalisability across studies (Hardesty et al. 2015). This means it can be challenging for practitioners to use evidence to inform their assessments.

However, we have identified some key publications and sources of knowledge that seek to identify and explain the impact of coercive control on young people, where these effects are described specifically. This is in response to the specific information need relating to this Outline.

Continue reading “Children experiencing interparental coercive control | Iriss”
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Alienation Brainwashing - Mind Control Coercive Control coercive control EMOTIONAL ABUSE

Definition of coercive control in the Serious Crime Act 2015

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Definition of coercive control in the Serious Crime Act 2015
Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015: ‘Controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship’

An offence is committed by ‘A’ if:
• ‘A’ repeatedly or continuously engages in behaviour towards another person, ‘B’, that is controlling or coercive; and
• At time of the behaviour, ‘A’ and ‘B’ are personally connected; and
• The behaviour has a serious effect on ‘B’; and
• ‘A’ knows or ought to know that the behaviour will have a serious effect on ‘B’.

‘A’ and ‘B’ are ‘personally connected’ if:
• They are in an intimate personal relationship; or
• They live together and are either:
o members of the same family; or
o have previously been in an intimate personal relationship with each other.

There are two ways in which it can be proved that ‘A’s behaviour has a ‘serious effect’ on ‘B’:
• If it causes ‘B’ to fear, on at least two occasions, that violence will be used against them: s.76 (4)(a); or
• If it causes ‘B’ serious alarm or distress which has a substantial adverse effect on their day-to-day activities: s.76 (4) (b).

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Coercive Control

Why does a coercive controller do it?

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I began re writing my account of my life with Peter following an article I read by Linda Gottlieb. The article can be found on her End Parental Alienation website:  The Sacrifice of the Alienated Parent.  I took on board her opening paragraph in the sense that leaving this after my death may be the only avenue left open to me (I may be in my 60s, but I sincerely hope I last a while yet – I have to, my dog is only four and I quite like being around!)

Screenshot 2019-06-14 at 17.49.12

“Anyway, after reading her article, I tried hard to write from a point of understanding rather than bitterness. I don’t know if I succeeded. It’s a harrowing tale for me anyway. But the truth is, I have tried hard to UNDERSTAND and I do have sympathy. My daughter hurt me deeply but I cannot bring myself to blame her.

After I left I read a book by Lundy Bancroft: ‘Why does he do that, inside the minds of angry and controlling men’ and my light bulb finally went on. [NC notes: Women as well as men can be needy, angry and controlling.]  How I wish Lundy Bancroft could have had my husband in front of him!  Then I found an article which made so much sense to me. It’s called: You’re not your daughter’s handsome prince by Hugo Schwyzer (2011).

I really wish I was a psychologist (my training in education really didn’t equip me beyond childhood) because I would give anything to have got inside my husband’s head. As it was, he pushed all my buttons, I reacted, defended myself, argued with him, and it was enough to prove to my daughter that I was what her father made me out to be. As he told me: “She grew up and saw you for what you are

via Why does a coercive controller do it? A very secure Attachment

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Parental Alienation PA

Parental Psychological Control of Children

Dr. Craig Childress: Attachment Based "Parental Alienation" (AB-PA)

In his book, Intrusive Parenting: How Psychological Control Affects Children and Adolescents, published by the American Psychological Association, Brian Barber and his colleague, Elizabeth Harmon, define the psychological control of children by a parent:

“Psychological control refers to parental behaviors that are intrusive and manipulative of children’s thoughts, feelings, and attachment to parents.” (Barber & Harmon, 2002, p. 15).

In table 1 on pages 29-32, Barber and Harmon list and describe 40 empirically validated scientific studies demonstrating the psychological control of children by parents. Forty studies in the scientific literature.

Parental psychological control of the child represents a violation of the psychological integrity of the child.

“The essential impact of psychological control of the child is to violate the self-system of the child.” (Barber & Harmon, 2002, p. 24).

Barber and Harmon cite the established research regarding the damage that this violation of the child’s psychological integrity has on…

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