The Definition of Parental Alienation Syndrome

Parental Alienation Syndrome, can occur if a parent criticizes the other parent or stepparent directly to a child or in front of the children. It will most likely occur during divorce, custody hearings, upon remarriage of a parent, or most commonly during primary contact with the children. The effect is to produce a disturbance in the child's relationship with the other parent.
Gardner proposed that children have been taught by an alienating parent to hate the targeted parent, to the point of wanting to eliminate the targeted parent from their lives. He considered this psychological abuse and a form of psychological abuse that has clear-cut unmistakable signs and symptoms, and therefore be easily diagnosed.
Alan Kemp (Kemp. p. 36) further described the categories that make up PAS: Rejecting (spurning), terrorizing, corrupting, denying essential stimulation, emotional responsiveness or availability, unreliable and inconsistent parenting, mental health, medical or educational neglect, degrating/devaluating the other parent, isolating, and exploiting the child. By deliberately alienating the victims from other family members and social supports, isolation occurs. The alienator then uses threats or denigrating tactics to force victims to comply with their requests (terrorizing). Essentially, in PAS, the children are used to destroy the targeted parent as a means of revenge and domestic violence.
The alienating parent refuses to comply with court orders, tells the children they do not have to abide by them either, thus prompting them to ignore the authority of the targeted parent. The idea is the alienating parent has a goal of destroying the targeted parent by using the children as weapons or pawns. The alienating parent uses the children to verbally terrorize their other parent, to isolate the other parent, to accuse the other parent and to take away the financial or earning capabilities of the other parent by continual harassments such as false accusations of abuse, further ignoring of court orders to bring about more custody changes and eventual destruction of the targeted parent through emotional/financial/physical collapse wherein the alienated parent goes to court in a custody fight to appear to be the better parent for custody of the children.
There are three main categories of Parental Alienation Syndrome perpetrators in terms of severity: naive alienators, active alienators and obsessed alienators. In general, naive alienators do not realize what they are doing to their children, nor do they consciously intend any harm; active alienators act when an event triggers them; and obsessed alienators fully, consciously commit themselves to alienating the child from the other parent.
Parental Alienation Syndrome occurs as a result of cross-generational coalitions, enmeshed relationships, triangles, borderless boundary families and is child psychological maltreatment as recognized by the DSM under Cluster B Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder.
The alienating parent without regard to the needs of the children continually violates the rights, needs and court orders from the other parent. The alienating parent willingly and callously puts their own needs and desires above that of everyone else, including their own children, to fulfill their compulsion to destroy the other parent. Early signs of Parental Alienation