Parental alienation syndrome (PAS) and intrafamily sexual abuse: differentiation criteria and shared origins

Abstract

The aim of this work is discussing a very important problem that may emerge as a spin-off of the Parental Alienation Syndrome in the context of the child custody diputes after marital separation: the false sexual abuse allegations. More and more frequently we can observe, in fact, judiciary cases with a typical development: a parent is accused of abuse and cruelty to his/her child and the judge provides his/her removal, interrupting his/her relationship with the child; the long investigating and judiciary course doesn’t confirm the accusation but, in the meantime, the parentchild relationship is irremediably damaged. Therefore it’s very important differentiating correctly between bona fide abuse allegations and the accusations resulting from Parental Alienation Syndrome: for this purpose Gardner (1999) presents a long list of criteria referring both to minors’ behavioural patterns and to parents’ psychological characteristics, behaviours and family history. When really abused by the refused parent, children generally exhibit symptoms seen in the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (A.P.A., 2001) and aren’t likely to exhibit the typical manifestations of PAS. With regard to parents, alienating parents are typically uncooperative with examiners and their reports aren’t very credible; they need to provide continually “refresher courses” in order to remind their children of the abuse experienced; they’re overprotective of their children from the alienated parent, even in protected contexts; their accusations of alleged abuse emerge only after the separation. Parents of children who are genuinely abused, instead, let their children rember spontaneously the abuse experienced; they recognize the risk of an attenuation of the child’s bond with the abuser parent and most often they do everything in their power to restore it in protected conditions; their accusations of child abuse date back long before the separation. Targeted parents in PAS are generally credible in their reports and very much concerned for the physical and financial well-being of the family; in these cases the abuse accusations regard only the children, not the other family members. Abuser parents are, on the contrary, uncredible in their affirmations, not very or not at all concerned for the physical and financial well-being of the family; they’re inclined to impulsivity, acting-out of anger and paranoia; in these cases the abuse accusations extend also to the other family members. It’s finnaly proposed an interesting reading (Villa, 2006) of the psychic dynamics acting in the families from which rises an accusation of alleged abuse, observing that Parental Alienation Syndrome, incestual relations and incest cases have the same psychodynamic origins: they take rise from family relations that are primitive and concrete, narcissistic and excluding, typical of “pre-oedipical” conditions, in which there’s no space for the symbolic and its representations.