The lost parents' perspective on Parental Alienation Syndrome - Research Paper Example

Running Head: 2 APA ARTICLE CITATIONS 2 APA Article Citations Citation The lost parents' perspective on Parental Alienation Syndrome Nature of Parental Alienation Syndrome According to this study, Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is a characteristic based syndrome which is common to most divorcing families. PAS involves one parent (in most cases the custodial parent), distancing or estranging the child “or children” from the other parent by means of various conscious and subconscious means including indoctrination.

This is usually done in an effort to malign the other parent (Vassiliou & Cartwright, 2001). In addition to this the child also contributes to this alienation of the supposedly reviled parent by means of; a campaign of maligning, “unfounded rationalizations”, labeling of the parents, the autonomous thinker phenomenon, automatically loving the maligning parent, lack of guilt, creating pretentious situations and generalized oversimplification of hostility (Vassiliou & Cartwright, 2001). Additionally, the study hypothesizes that in many cases where incidents of abuse have been mentioned in relation with PAS, they may in most cases turn out to be “virtual allegations” in the sense that they are usually mentioned in order to paint the “lost parent” as bad without the need for the alienating parent to formulate actual occurrence of supposed violence.

Vassiliou and Cartwright continue to say that PAS like any other disorder can be “mild” or “severe” and that the characteristics of both the alienating parent and child range depending on the severity with the alienating parent exhibiting paranoia that may be partial regarding the lost parent or general at the severe stage, an obsession with preventing the lost parent from seeing the child or children, and playing victim. As for the children, they share in the paranoia of the alienating parent, they refuse to visit the lost parent and they will also display fear and antagonism which often make visitations impossible and they may even turn violent during visitation (Cartwright, 1993) At the mild PAS level, the alienating parents generally have healthy psychological bonds with their children, they recognize that alienation can only cause harm rather than good and they are ready to take a peace-making approach with regard to the other parent.

The children in this case are also able to get healthier psychologically. The study also makes a note of the fact that the degree to which the child will get alienated will be depended on the amount of time that is spend alienating them and that increased time hikes the risk of the child developing a mental illness and the sooner they are taken away from an alienating environment the healthier for them. It is therefore vital that parents should attain a better understanding of PAS, how it develops and how it can be avoided to avoid the distressing results that it may cause a family (Cartwright, 1993).

Citation # 2 “Does a history of mild traumatic brain injury increase suicide risk in veterans with PTSD” According to this study, Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) independently increase the risk of suicide among but there is very little research that has been done to establish whether mTBI alone increases the risk of suicide in cases where a soldier has both mTBI and PTSD. The study in seeking to establish this .compares “suicide risk factors among a coordinated sample of “Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF)” armed military recruits and military experts with PTSD alone with those that have both PTSD and a record of an mTBI.

According to the study, the differences in both cases were quite diminutive and even though both disorders are linked with increasing suicide risk when they are together as compared to when there is an occurrence of PTSD alone, there is a likelihood that the witnessed increased suicide risk in a sufferer could be a confusion concerning the severity of PTSD symptoms (Battlemind Training System Office, et al, 2007). The study draws attention to the significance of screening and treating military recruits and veterans for PTSD (Barnes, Walter, & Chard, 2012).

In this study, the writers say that about 5-25% of the sample involving OEF and OIF military veterans and personnel report symptoms that reliably show that they suffer from PTSD. At the same time about 15-23% of the OEF and OIF military veterans and personnel have had mTBI and about 33-42% of those who have sustained mTBI also have PTSD. The study also alludes to the fact that military personnel with PTSD are estimated to die by suicide by about 2 to 4 times than those without PTSD. In the same tone the study says that those with Mtbi are likely to die by suicide by about 2 to 3 times higher than those without a history of mTBI (Barnes, Walter, & Chard, 2012).

This study through a series of measures and reports demonstrates that when PTSD and mTBI co-occur among military personnel as they do oftenly in military personnel, then it is likely that PTSD mediates in the outcomes of both since the post-deployment symptoms that are witnesses in the second case are not likely to occur with mTBI. The study therefore demonstrates that veterans and military personnel with a history of mTBI are likely to die from suicide more that those with PTSD alone (Barnes, Walter, & Chard, 2012) Question & Answer Explain two ways that you evaluated the two articles you downloaded to ensure the information within them is, in fact, reliable and accurate.

First, I looked at whether the articles had “editorial statements” to the authors in their first pages in order to ensure that they were peer-reviewed and I was also able to establish that they were peer-reviewed and I also consulted “Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory, available online at: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/orr/get.php?instid=258215” concerning the matter and found that they were actually peer-reviewed. Explain how you know that the two articles you downloaded are, in fact, from peer-reviewed journals.

The two articles are really peer-reviewed because first the authors are very well recognized in the field of psychology having read several of their writing which were also contained in very prominent journals and besides I limited my search to peer reviewed articles. Write a paragraph explaining the importance, to a scholar-practitioner, of peer review of scholarly journals. Peer-reviewed articles are very important to scholars and practitioners because authors are scholars too and are well recognized as such and they always publish the findings of researches and research finding may have faults but they never lie and thirdly, the publishers of these articles are professional organizations, research institutions and they are usually not-for-profit organizations and therefore they are very unlikely to publish anything for the sole sake of commercial purposes and personal gain.

Include in your explanation the importance of peer-reviewed articles to a scholar-practitioner in your area(s) of interest. The importance of peer-reviewed journal articles to scholars/practitioners is that; (a) they are concerned with academic study and specifically research; (b) they display characteristics of the methods and the attitudes of a scholar and (c) they have a manner and appearance of a scholar such as citations and all. List of References Barnes, s., Walter, k., & Chard, k. (2012).

Does a History of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Increase Suicide Risk In Veterans with PTSD? Rehabilitation Psychology, Vol. 57 (1) , 18-26. Battlemind Training System Office, et al. (2007). Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Facilitator's Guide. Battlemind , 15-25. Cartwright, G. (1993). Ex-panding the parameters of parental alienation syndrome. American journal of Family therapy , 205-220. Vassiliou, D., & Cartwright, G. (2001). The lost parent's perspective on parental alienation syndrome.

Journal of Family Therapy, Vol. 29 (3) , 181.