Of Course Video Game Addiction Exists; So Does Parental Alienation Syndrome

By Rinaldo Del Gallo, III

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HERE to read the San Gabriel Valley Tribune Story (West Covina,CA,USA) to which this article refers.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune posed the question, “Are video game additions real?” The answer to the question is obvious. There are two types of addiction, physical addiction (characterized by symptoms of withdrawal when individuals attempt to get off the drug) and psychological addiction. There is a school of thought that people should not recognize addiction, whether physical or psychological, to non-psychosomatic drugs, to things such as gambling, food, sex, pornography, computers, work, exercise, cutting, and shopping / spending, or as in the article, video games. Using the definition of “addiction” provided above, of course, there are recurring compulsions to engage in such activity. But the debate of whether they constitute “addictions” is purely a semantic one—i.e., whether the term “addiction” should extend beyond psychomatic drugs. Semantical discussions are of very limited interest because it is not a debate of how things are, but what words mean—if a tree falls in the forest does it make a “sound” type of thing. (Semantics are often important in law because the meaning of a word can trigger the creation or abrogation of certain rights and/or responsibities—elsewhere, the discussion is of limited importance.)

The danger of a debate about semantics is that people perversely use it to question the legitimacy of the occurrence of the phenomena itself, when that is not a subject of legitimate debate. A classic example that you used in the article itself is “parental alienation syndrome,” something of which I am familiar as a father’s rights activist. No credible person in the mental health professions would deny that parents unfortunately attempt to alienate a child from the other parent, whether or not based on real, exaggerated, or false events. Thus, “parental alienation” exists. A “syndrome” is defined as the set of detectable characteristics associated with the condition. There are a whole host of characteristics associated with parental alienation that all credible people in the mental health profession agree upon—the child becomes withdrawn and alienated from the other parent (as the name suggest), has less self-esteem because the child views the parent as an extension of themselves, anxiety when the child feels he or she is “letting down” the parent that wants them to be alienated from the other parent, and/or resent towards the parent that is attempting to alienate them from the other parent. No credible mental health professional would deny that these phenomena exist. Any debate whether the American Psychological Association should recognize “parental alienation syndrome” should be regarded as no more than a psychological debate over a term, rather than a substantive debate about whether these aforementioned phenomena occur.

The grave danger is when “domestic violence advocates” attempt to discredit the existence of parental alienation syndrome by confusing the public into believing that this is something beyond a debate over semantics—i.e., they dupe the public into believing that there is a bona fide debate over whether or not parental alienation itself exist. Or they dupe the public into believing that if it is conceded that parental alienation does exists, that there is a bona fide debate regarding the existence of a set of identifiable characteristics that are frequent associated with the phenomena of parental alienation. That is dangerous legerdemain; there is no such debate. This slight of hand causes confusion over how the world actually is, rather than offer a viewpoint in how terms should be defined—which is the only subject up to any form of legitimate debate. The objective of these people is to have the public believe that there is a real debate in the mental health community whether parents actually alienate their children from the other parent, or sometimes even brainwash them into believing things happened that did not.

Their objective of these people is simplistic—they want to have the public believe in all cases when the child is alienated towards his father, dad is a jerk and earned that alienation. The simple truth is that sometimes the father was a jerk, sometimes he was not a jerk, and that sometimes he was a jerk but mom exaggerated the fault(s) or kept harping on it (them). Yet every time the subject of parental alienation is brought up, these “domestic violence advocates” like to speak of how parental alienation is a thoroughly discredited theory. (They have grossly misrepresent the APA’s own position on the matter, which is the subject of an entirely different article. Nobody denies the exist the existence of the phenomena—the debate is over the meaning of a term.

To the question posed by the article. By definition, an addiction is “a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity.” Because children exhibit “a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in the playing of video games,” yes, video game addiction is real. As to “parental alienation syndrome,” because there are a recognizable set of conditions associated with parental alienation, the phenomena of “parental alienation syndrome,” by definition of the term “syndrome,” exist. Any other conclusion is not logical, uses terms in ways that are not customarily defined, or embraces an assured world-view of the psychological conditioning of individuals which no credible mental health professional would believe.

Rinaldo Del Gallo, III
Spokesperson
The Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition
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Suite 404
Pittsfield, MA 01201

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