In the litigious atmosphere of the modern United
States, it is common for personal, professional, or financial allegations
against someone to be brought into the courtroom as ways for another party to
achieve a goal. Divorce courts and family courts frequently see arguments based
on such allegations, deployed for financial or other gains. An increasingly
common allegation by one parent against another is parental alienation—generally defined as the refusal of a child to
have contact with one parent, in the absence of rational objections (usually
limited to a history of substantiated physical or sexual abuse), and as the
result of a campaign of denigration and “brainwashing” by a favored parent. When
parental alienation (PA) is successfully argued in the courtroom, the
consequences for the accused parent may be dire, involving prohibition of
contact with the child and financial responsibility for treatments offered by
PA proponents. This continues despite the absence of evidence supporting the PA
diagnosis or the safety and effectiveness of the treatments used.
The question I want to raise in this post is whether some
organizations promoting PA concepts and treatment methods are in fact similar
to cults.
Let me state at the beginning that I am far from
claiming that PA cannot happen. I have no doubt that this parental behavior and
child outcome do sometimes occur. However, I am equally far from accepting that
the behavior and resulting outcome are present in most of the cases where PA
allegations are made. The burden of proof for a claim to that effect is on PA
proponents, who have not provided evidence either for their diagnostic approach
or for the treatments they advocate.
Given that no adequate evidence has been provided, and
that organizations nevertheless strongly support PA views, the obvious question
is how and why people are persuaded that claims about PA are valid. Do the
practices of PA groups resemble
those of cults?
The Wikipedia
definition of cults says this: “The term cult usually refers
to a social group defined by its religious, spiritual,
or philosophical beliefs, or its common interest in a particular personality, object or goal”. This broad definition would include
the Boy Scouts, the Green Party, and the Pennsylvania Association for Infant
Mental Health, because of their common interests and goals, and presumably PA
advocacy groups also fit here. But most uses of the term imply or say overtly
that a group called a cult is potentially harmful in some way, to its members
or even to society in general. To match that aspect of the meaning of the term,
various checklists of cult characteristics have been offered.
For example, material at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/27/cults-definition-religion, proposes that cults have these
characteristics:
·
Absolute
authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.
• No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.
• No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget
or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement.
• Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as
impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.
• There is no legitimate reason to leave, former
followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.
• Former members often relate the same stories of
abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.
• There are records, books, news articles, or
broadcast reports that document the abuses of the group/leader.
• Followers feel they can never be "good
enough".
• The group/leader is always right.
• The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing
"truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is
really acceptable or credible.
Here is another checklist of
cult characteristics, from
|
Do
you struggle to recognize yourself in self-help books or common parenting
stories?
Have
you withdrawn from your support networks because they cannot relate to what you
are going through?
Do
you feel mocked by others’ responses or advice?
Then, states the
website, “ Parent Speak meetings are for you. Completely anonymous,
these meetings are by and for parents like you because you deserve to be
supported, nurtured and uplifted.”
At https://www.simplyparent.org/working-groups, the website invites interested parents to
join the “movement” and its working groups. Acknowledging that people may have
different motives for joining, the page answers the question “What’s in it for
you?” in several ways. Possible rewards for the joiner may be:
1. 1. Retribution, on behalf of all
those whose darkest hour is brought on by biased, archaic, and inhumane systems
intended to serve them
2. 2. Network of leading thinkers
across research, professional practice, media, policy, and more…
3. 3.Exposure to the cutting edge of
a force that will shortly affect millions of people and redefine professions
4. 4. Influence over an emerging
public health and social justice frontier
5. 5. Kudos—both personal and
professional—for not only being on the right side of an emerging movement, but
for having the foresight, expertise, and commitment to shape it.
[A note at the bottom of this list again assures readers that they
may remain anonymous, though it is not clear how personal kudos is to be
enjoyed by anonymous people.]
Without at all wanting to claim that these lists are perfectly accurate or reliable, I want to consider the question of how much do these things overlap-- the cult characteristics or checklist, and
the questions and statements of Simply Parent?
Let’s look first at the questions posed to
potential members who may feel isolated, mocked, etc. These questions appeal to
a we-they polarized mentality that places members in opposition to the wider
society. They suggest unreasonable fear about the “outside world”, including
the possibility of conspiracies that work against these individuals. It is
implied that the group has a special status and mission. These questions alone
show that the organization shares some characteristics with cults.
The “what’s in it for you?” section reveals
other cult-like characteristics, including an emphasis on adding new members:.
1. 1. “Retribution…”: Again, a
we-they polarized view is shown. A special mission of the organization is suggested.
The group is not only unaccountable to authority, but planning to take steps
that will control and shape outside authority.
2. 2. “Network of leading thinkers…”: The group is shown as the means of finding
truth, is always right, and is the source of absolute authority drawn from
credentialed persons who agree with the group.
3. 3. “Exposure…”: The special
mission of the group is shown here, with predictions about dramatic social
changes to be created in the form of what the website calls a “battle plan”.
4. 4.“Influence…”: Again, there is a
special mission in which interested people are invited to take part.
5. 5. “Kudos…”: A we-they polarized
view places members in a superior position to those outside the group and
identifies the group as the source of knowledge about the mission and ways to
achieve it.
While Simply Parent’s website
shows some overlap with identifying characteristics of cults, there are some
characteristics that are absent or for which no information is available. For
example, it is unknown whether people ever leave the group, what pressures they
may find themselves under, or whether there is criticism or punishment for
those who go. Nothing suggests that members are confined to socializing with
other members (although if they feel isolated and mocked by outsiders, they may
tend to do so). Clothing and other everyday concerns do not seem to be issues,
although certainly the entire PA concept stresses a single way of handling specific
child behaviors and attitudes as the primary focus of the group and the reason
for the existence of the organization. Whether group members feel they can
behave unethically in order to achieve their goals is not stated, though in my
own experience another PA group was willing to use subterfuge in order to have
an exhibit booth at a psychology conference. There is no living leader
mentioned as an absolute authority on the Simply Parent website, although the
PA proponent Craig Childress seems to take this position on his own website, as
he claims a complete reformulation of developmental changes in attachment.
The cult characteristics lists
that I gave earlier do not mention some items that I see in the Simply Parent material.
One is a “come the revolution” approach with goals and promises of changing
laws and social attitudes, which is not characteristic of small “end of the
world” or “guru” cults, but is seen in larger groups like the Scientologists. A
second is a sense of grandiosity, as in claims that millions of people will
soon be affected by the work of the organization. A third is the apparent
appeal to narcissism, as members are invited to join with persuasive statements
about the advantages of the organization for individuals who have been “mocked”
but will now attain power and even participate in retribution against those who
have rejected them. These two items are of particular interest because PA
proponents claim that those they accuse of “campaigns of denigration” are
grandiose and narcissistic and will cause the alienated children to develop
those problems as well. Whether grandiosity and narcissism are common elements
in cult-like organizations is not clear, although certainly such
characteristics, if not excessively blatant, would be advantageous for a cult
leader, and might well make an organization attractive to those whose own personalities
were reflected in that of the leader.
One final comment: the absence
of one factor is painfully evident in the Simply Parent material, as far as I
can see. This is any statement of concern about the needs of the children whose
welfare is the supposed concern of PA advocates. If this is a cult-like
organization, it is one whose mission involves “simply” parents and not
children.
How
Hs lists overlap accompanying exam.
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