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What is the Difference Between Parental Alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome?

By Sam Vigil


Are you being denied your right to be involved in your child's life without justification?

Is your child treated negatively by the other parent when he or she shows any affection towards you or expresses a desire to spend time with you?

Does your child disrespect, reject, and avoid you without good reason?

If the answer is yes to any of the questions, you may be dealing with Parental Alienation and probably Parental Alienation Syndrome if you answered yes to the last question. If the answer is yes to all three you are most likely right in the middle of it.

You need to know the differences between the two and how they relate to each other so you can know what you are dealing with. This will help you on what best course of action to take to combat the alienation and get back into your child's life.
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It is important to know and understand what you are dealing with so you can have a clear picture of what is going on. Once you have this understanding you will be better equipped to deal with it. This will help you to make the decision on what is the best course of action to combat alienation and get back into your child's life. Do you know the difference between the two and how they relate to each other?


To get a better understanding we need to first define Parental Alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome to know what they are, what the differences are, and how they relate to each other. Keep in mind that both men and women are capable of P.A. and it occurs in intact families as well as in broken families .


o Parental Alienation (P.A.) is the alienating parent's negative behaviors toward the child and targeted parent. These constellations of behaviors whether conscious or unconscious disrupt the relationship between the child and the target parent.

o Parental Alienation Syndrome (P.A.S.) occurs when a parent engages and successfully manipulates a child to turn against the other parent. This causes a disturbance in which the child is preoccupied with denigrating the targeted parent. The depreciation and criticism toward the targeted parent is seldom justified and often exaggerated.

Once the child adopts the distorted views of the alienating parent about the target parent and actively participates in defaming him Parental Alienation is transformed into Parental Alienation Syndrome.

This is the point when it becomes tribal warfare; them against the common enemy, the target parent.

The primary manifestations of the campaign to denigrate the target parent results from a combination of the alienating parent's indoctrination and programming the child to denigrate the target and the child's own contributions in denigrating that parent.

It needs to be noted that P.A.S is not applicable for any animosity the child has towards a parent from the result of abuse and/or neglect. The hostilities the child has are then justified. P.A.S. is only valid when a child rejects a parent without the justification of abuse, neglect or both and is under the influence of the alienator who encourages the alienation.

With P.A. you need to address the alienator's behavior and with P.A.S. you have to reprove and correct the child's bad behavior. You will find that both usually have to be addressed simultaneously.

Though Parental Alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome are related to each other it is important to distinguish the difference between them and how they relate to each other. It will set the course of action you need to take to reunite and remain in your child's life.

P.A is when a parent manipulates and programs the child to turn against the target parent. It transforms into P.A.S. when a child adopts the distorted reality of the alienating parent, rejects the target and actively participates in denigrating him.

Knowing the differences will give you better insight on what course of action to take to increase your chances to be involved in your child's life.
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 What is the Difference Between Parental Alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome?