Professionals
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 'Word of the Year 2022, 'Gaslighting,' driver of disorientation and mistrust, gaslighting is “the act or practice of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.”
Professionals who work in the industry of alienation continue to redirect parents (gaslight) by telling them that the past abuse doesn’t matter - and that it’s time to move forward. Serious abuse allegations are often minimized or completely ignored. This manipulative and self-serving redirection is beneficial to the professional because it allows them to paint the parent in a negative light (as the focal point of the conflict). This in turn, provides the professionals with business and this false narrative can be incredibly lucrative. Parents often spend tens of thousands of dollars for these services (evaluations and reunification therapy) and a four-day reunification camp can cost approximately $40,000 per child.
Past abuse allegations (coercive control, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and psychological abuse) do matter - and should be given considerable weight in deciding child custody issues and parenting time. When in doubt, family court professionals should always err on the side of caution. To brush abuse allegations under the carpet and tell survivors to let the past go and to focus on the future is gaslighting - to be forced to pay for said gaslighting is criminal.
““The first is the economic incentives around the family court system. This is what I’ve previously described as a “repugnant market” — when a market forms around servicing the demand for something that is unethical or amoral. In the family court’s case, the demand comes from abusive men not wanting to face consequences for their behaviour and wishing to maintain their household authority. These are powerful desires which men will pay a lot of money to protect.” ”
Even more concerning is the gaslighting that takes place with children who are forced into reunification therapy, programs or camps. Children’s voices and experiences should be heard and given tremendous weight in decisions that impact their lives. Instead, children are often told that their memories are false or their preferred parent is accused of “coaching” them. Instead of being empowered, children caught in the alienation pipeline are infantilized or worse, accused of lying.
Survivors are expected to gaslight their children when they are forced to encourage and facilitate a relationship with a parent who may be unhealthy or abusive. Survivors are required to guide their children to override their instincts and their truth because the family court system puts a greater emphasis on parental rights than it does child safety.
During testimony in a Santa Cruz County courtroom, Dr. Lynn Steinberg described what happens in her 4-day intensive reunification program:
“We go into false accusations, and also memory. So a lot of times the children claim to have remembered these things, so we introduce a memory game, so they can see that their memory isn’t all that reliable, and talk about memory in general. And then we go into false allegations.”
The alienation professionals have re-branded and re-packaged the original term “parental alienation syndrome” many times over the years. Some of the repackaged terms or concepts include: parental alienation, alienation, child alienation, gatekeeping, unhealthy attachment, enmeshment, toxic parenting, Stockholm syndrome, parentifying/parentification, resist-refuse dynamic, Munchhausen by proxy, parent-child conflict, or pathogenetic parenting. Regardless of what it is labeled as, it is the same disturbing movement. It is the “alienation industry.”
The “professionals” (proponents) of parental alienation.
A comprehensive list of alienation proponents worldwide can be found by clicking here.
While the “alienation professionals” claim that their treatments are reserved for children who have not been abused, stories from survivors challenge this assertion. We continue to ask, “what healthy parent would impart such drastic measures on a child?”
According to Psychologist and Founder of the Leadership Council, Joyanna Silberg,
"Forced reunification against a child’s will and without taking into consideration the child’s point of view and emotional well-being, can be expected to reinforce a sense of helplessness and powerlessness in an already vulnerable child. Such “treatment” can be expected to do more harm than good, and rather than helping their well-being, could cause lasting psychological harm, particularly when imposed upon children who claim the parent they are being forced to reunify with is abusive.”