Undoing Mind Games: Helping Alienated Children
https://karenwoodall.blog/2018/07/13/undoing-mind-games-helping-alienated-children/
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Undoing Mind Games: Helping Alienated Children & Comments that describe our situation.
What we know about parental alienation is that the dynamic locks itself into the child’s mind and then begins to spread through the family and into anyone else who comes into contact with the child. This is because the underlying cause of the alienation, which is the psychologically split state of mind, is a defense mechanism which the child is using to prevent themselves from being exposed to impossible demands and pressures upon them.
Depending on whether someone upholds the child’s “choice” or not, the reaction rises and falls. Thus you will see a child escalating allegations and insisting a parent is truly wicked towards them when no-one is looking, when they engage with anyone who tries to challenge the defense by making them see the parent they have rejected.
Whilst others, who do not challenge but who accept the child’s narrative, are accepted by the child and liked and ‘trusted.’
This alignment and rejection dynamic, which is the outward sign of splitting is one which is poorly understood and therefore one which triggers enormous splitting elsewhere around the family.
In some cases I have worked in, the professionals became so affected by the splitting in the case that they were fighting each other inside and outside of the court process. Add the (UK) adversarial court process, where someone is always right and someone is always wrong to the child’s display of alignment and rejection and a perfect storm awaits for anyone who comes close to a case.
The right/wrong problem in parental alienation spreads throughout professionals and even into the minds of those who work to solve the problem of parental alienation. This everyone is wrong and I am right approach, comes from a place where the psychologically split state of mind runs even into those who seek to resolve it.
I work with alienation, and it fascinates me. It fascinates me because it is a problem with a human face and it is as old as time. From the way in which ancient cultures controlled human behavior through shunning people and placing them outside of the tribe so that they died, to the explicit mind control of cults, alienation as a life experience is very real.
Finding the places and conditions where it flourishes is about noticing how society regards human behavior. Recognizing that the divorce and separation landscape is the perfect condition for alienation is part of what drew me to this work in the first place.
This week I watched a young person heal from the psychologically split state of mind in less than two hours. Just as the conditions are right for an alienation reaction to occur, when the conditions are right for healing, this problem is very easily resolved.
The more I do this work the more I know that the formula for healing is – A + B + C = D
A) Understand the route into alienation (Identify the conditions in which the child took up the use of psychological splitting)
plus
B) Change the way the aligned parent holds power over the child
plus
C) Deliver the dynamic intervention which shifts the mindset in the child
equals
D) Integration of the split state of mind of the child
When the alienated child is enabled to integrate the psychologically split state of mind, they are no longer using the defense which denies the positive memories and experiences with the rejected parent.
It is the defense in the mind which creates the denial (and the defense which triggers all the other clear signs of alienation such as lack of ambivalence, entitlement, cruelty, reflexive support of the aligned parent and more).
This is how a perfectly normal child comes to be able to say cruel and untrue things about a parent they were once seen to love dearly.
This is exactly how a child is brainwashed into behaving as if a parent is a cruel and abusive monster when all the evidence proves that this is untrue.
(THIS where Common Sense enters for OUR CASE. For ONE SOLID DECADE ……………………
Undoing the mind game is therefore about creating the right conditions for the delivery of the dynamic shift which creates integration. And whilst the right conditions for that in younger children, are almost always created by the court process, the right conditions, I have come to realize, can be created without the court for older children.
I wrote once about children whose eyes are wide open but able to see nothing at all. LOOK AT THIS…THIS THE ARTICLE “I AM THE ALINATOR”!!! What I have come to know about older alienated children is that even when they are confronted with the evidence, that is even when everything is contrary to what they are saying, they are unable to psychologically see it. They may be able to physically see it, but they cannot see it psychologically and will therefore argue with anyone who tries to persuade them.
Thus the route to integration is not about talking but about listening, it is not about teaching, it is about learning what the alienated person needs to experience and about watching and waiting for the opportunity to push the button which creates the dynamic shift in thinking.
In this young person’s mind this week I watched the switch in thinking happen after a process in which we had carefully led the way to the right conditions. As I watched it happen I realized how much of a mind game had been played and how tricky alienation really is. As the switch happened I found myself paddling furiously to prevent the counter switch from being triggered so that the young person didn’t counter reject the parent who had caused the splitting.
Working in the mind of a young person to bring this change about, requires the capacity to know the depth and breadth of how the problem impacts.
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This statement suggests a scenario where a child, who had previously been pretending or acting a certain way to please others, returned to their parent and tried to be their genuine self, only to face punishment or disapproval for expressing their true personality, highlighting a problematic dynamic where authenticity is not valued or encouraged.
Key points to consider:
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"The real child":
This refers to the child's authentic self, the person they are when not trying to conform to expectations.
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"Tried to stay real":
This indicates the child's conscious effort to be genuine and express their true thoughts and feelings.
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"Punished for that":
This implies that the parent reacted negatively to the child's honesty, potentially through scolding, reprimands, or other forms of punishment.
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COMMENTS & EXPLAINING MADISON’S ENTIRE LIFE!!!
Comments
Wondering if teaching teenagers and adult children how to set up and have boundaries would stop them from being alienated or at least realize what is going on. As growing up in an alienated family that was intact until I left the house I know you aren’t taught to have any boundaries and boundaries are violated. Plus the alienator is a person that communicates and teaches triangular communication. So teaching those two skills would be super helpful to teenagers and young adults. Maybe even help to establish better relationships with people. And both parents. As an alienated kid, You don’t realize that some people don’t care about boundaries in relationships or don’t even realize they are appropriate. They don’t realize they have any other options because no one taught them. I think that is why it takes to your 30s and 40s to realize something isn’t right.
karenwoodall
Yes teaching children how not to triangulate and how to have straightforward conversations about feelings is one way of helping them to avoid alienation – prevention is 100% better than cure in alienation for certain.
karenwoodall
Now I am thinking about a parental alienation ‘vaccine’ in the form of protective parenting from the early years of a child’s life – thing is you would have to go into relationships believing that the other parent had the capacity to alienate in order to practice that.
karenwoodall
what you describe is switching behavior in parental alienation, where the alienation drops suddenly and the real child underneath appears again. It sounds like the real child went back to their parent and tried to stay real and was punished for that.
This statement suggests a scenario where a child, who had previously been pretending or acting a certain way to please others, returned to their parent and tried to be their genuine self, only to face punishment or disapproval for expressing their true personality, highlighting a problematic dynamic where authenticity is not valued or encouraged.
Key points to consider:
-
"The real child":
This refers to the child's authentic self, the person they are when not trying to conform to expectations.
-
"Tried to stay real":
This indicates the child's conscious effort to be genuine and express their true thoughts and feelings.
-
"Punished for that":
This implies that the parent reacted negatively to the child's honesty, potentially through scolding, reprimands, or other forms of punishment.
​
karenwoodall
Which is why the mental health intervention usually has to be held within the court process, the parent with the power over the child has to be managed by the court to reduce that power as much as possible.
To get the switch in the adult child you have to use as much power as you have to maneuver the adult child into a situation where they are able to experience the rejected parent and then push them into an encounter with their internal cognitive dissonance – which means you have to challenge their belief by holding up reality in front of them and then pushing their defenses very hard.
To lead the adult child to the right conditions you need to be a strong, healthy and powerful rejected parent who refuses to give up.
In recent cases I have come into families where there has been a sort of partial reconciliation which has stalled because the dynamic switch hasn’t happened – the dynamic switch means the child’s realization that what they have been told and made to believe is true is the opposite of what is true.
When that switch is thrown there is no going back – there may be a struggle with counter rejection but there is, in my experience, no going back.
Thus the route to integration is not about talking but about listening, it is not about teaching, it is about learning what the alienated person needs to experience and about watching and waiting for the opportunity to push the button which creates the dynamic shift in thinking.
