Of Course Video Game Addiction Exists; So Does Parental Alienation Syndrome
By Rinaldo Del Gallo, III
Click
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with parental alienation that all credible people in the mental health profession agree upon—the child becomes withdrawn and alienated from the other parent (as the name suggest), has less self-esteem because the child views the parent as an extension of themselves, anxiety when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
100 North Street
Suite 404
Pittsfield, MA 01201
BerkshireFatherhood.com
413-445-6789
To contact Attorney Del Gallo, click here
About Rinaldo Del Gallo Rinaldo Del Gallo, III, Esq. is the spokesperson of the Berkshire Fatherhood Coalition, whose website is BerkshireFatherhood.com. He has been practicing family law attorney and has been a member of the Massachusetts bar since 1996. Mr. Del Gallo has handled a wide variety of family law cases including issues of child custody, child visitation, child support, restraining orders, grandparent visitation, contempt of family court, access to academic records, guardianship, allegations of abuse, criminal allegations related to domestic violence, disputes over the care of a child, and care and protection proceedings before the Department of Social Services. For years, he has hosted bi-monthly free legal seminars for people of any gender having problems in family court. On behalf of non-custodial parents, he has had made numerous media appearances in printed news, radio, and television. He has authored numerous family law related articles and columns. He has performed extensive bro bono work for fathers. Attorney Del Gallo also has extensive experience as a civil rights attorney, working in the areas of free speech rights and ballot access. Mr. Del Gallo is also an intellectual property attorney and a patent lawyer, and has written what is regarded as one of the most famous law reviews in the area of patent law, “Are Methods of Doing Business Finally Out of Business As A Statutory Exception?,†that helped end the so-called “business method exception,†which paved the way for an entire field of software and Internet related patents. Attorney Del Gallo graduated from Northeastern University (Boston) with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering, and graduated from George Washington University (Washington) in the top of his three-year class. | More from Rinaldo Del Gallo, III
Stumble It!
June 22nd, 2007 at 3:19 pm
That is why I have always suggested that we call it parental alienation TACTIC.
Problem solved.
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:09 am
WLS graces us with: “It’s also very important to note that the majority of children who suffer due to one parent attempting to alienate them from the other, never develop or exhibit, at least in full-blown form, the syndrome.”
WLS, does this sort of deliberate obfuscation come naturally to you or does it require many hours of intensive effort? I suspect the former.
Children developing or exhibiting “the syndrome”. Uh huh. Priceless, just priceless.
June 23rd, 2007 at 9:24 am
Many children, despite being subjected to an at least highly painful campaign deprecating their other parent, don’t come to hate or avoid the target parent, or become unusually or unhealthily soliticious of the alienating parent, which are the criteria for the syndrome. Nonetheless they are harmed by PA.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:05 am
Yes, of course, “harmed”. That is a pleasantly euphemistic way to put it. Apparently, you’ve never had children of your own unnecessarily “harmed” in this manner.
My children would, no doubt, enjoy hearing your explanation of how they have merely been “harmed” by years of parental alienation by their mother.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:40 am
WLS: “Many children, despite being subjected to an at least highly painful campaign deprecating their other parent, don’t come to hate or avoid the target parent, or become unusually or unhealthily soliticious of the alienating parent, which are the criteria for the syndrome. Nonetheless they are harmed by PA.”
Again, this is a definitional thing, but not all people agree with this assessment. Many believe that children that don’t come to have or avoid the target parent, or who become unusually or unhealthily solicitious of the alienating parent, can suffer the syndrome.
A syndrome is an identifiable set of charateristics associated with a phenomina and this occurs without alienation.
Dr. Darnall is one person that has defined parental alienation syndrome that way, and agrees that is too much obsession with the name.
June 23rd, 2007 at 8:50 pm
To be meaningful and useful a syndrome should comprise a set of symptoms—behaviors if it’s psychological—that have significant cohesiveness in practice and taken together point to a unique cause.
I suppose one could define various parental alienation syndromes to accommodate variations and degrees—`PAS of the second kind,’ etc.—but I’m not sure how helpful that would be: it would seem to me to only add clutter to the discussion.
I use the term `PAS’ I believe very close to the way Richard Gardner did, because I think it succinctly communicates well to people with some background in the subject. It’s been a few years since I have actually consulted his works, but I never thought he insisted that the `accusations’ against the target parent necessarily be false in any strict sense: indeed, a lot of the bad-mouthing often consists of disparaging the other parent for his gender, ethnicity, profession, recreational preferences, taste in music, etc., invoking common stereotypes and prejudices but not misclassifying him.
When both the aversion and solicitousness are manifest in the child—what I would call the full-blown PA syndrome and regard as the extreme case—one can be pretty sure they are being subjected to a campaign disparaging their other parent, but since many children manage to resist to a greater or lesser degree, one cannot conclude from the absence of PAS that PA and associated stresses aren’t occurring.
It seems to me the best way to respond to the `PAS does not exist’ crowd should be to emphasize PA’s common senseness: no one should need a psychologist to tell them that given the unfortunate dark side of human nature a vindictive parent might try to set the child against the ex-partner.
June 24th, 2007 at 2:07 am
“To be meaningful and useful a syndrome should comprise a set of symptoms—behaviors if it’s psychological—that have significant cohesiveness in practice and taken together point to a unique cause.”
WLS, is it your intention, then, to define a diagnostic criteria for the DSM IV as regards the psychologocal state of the children who have suffered the effects of this horrid behavior of one parent, generally the mother?
I am asking a sincere question.
June 24th, 2007 at 5:26 am
Sorry gentlemen:
To me the issue of parental alienation, as a classified psychiatric disorder is moot. Who cares, when I recently witnessed two Missouri judges in different circuits award primary residential custody to parents prior adjudicated a danger to themselves and others and certified as disabled by the Social Security Administration as meeting the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria of paranoid schizophrenics. In one case the award was to the father, and in the other to the mother.
One must conclude that custody orders have absolutely nothing to do with the mental health of the parents or the best interest of children, but rather will of a judge with unlimited discretion.
June 24th, 2007 at 8:15 am
PAS regarded as a disorder is suffered by the _child_: not by the parent promoting the alienation.
I really think we would be better off without a DSM at all, but since it seems to be inexorably a sort of standard, a nomenclature, and is used to bill insurance companies, etc. parental alienation should probably be included in the forthcoming DSM-V.
What really pisses me off is that many of the courts will put the child in therapy to treat their problematic relationship with one parent, but do nothing—absolutely nothing—to curtail the behavior of the parent patently causing the problem!
And understand that the `APA’ that creates and publishes the DSM is the American Psychiatric Association, distinct from the `APA’ which is the American Psychological Association
July 7th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
NOW has a bill that will be heard Tuesday (10 July) before the California legislature, that would deny parental alienation and further their program to worsen family court along lines of their claims that women are frequently `victimized’ there.
Some of us disagree, but it seems to me fathers ought to be showing some opposition.
July 9th, 2007 at 7:03 am
Probably the last chance, today, to lobby against the parential alienation denial bill in California.
July 12th, 2007 at 5:39 am
CAFC has been working deligently this year to either defeat or amend the California bill AB 612 Ruskins , Child custody evaluations. The link for all of the bill details can be found here:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_612&sess=CUR&house=B&author=ruskin
The bill has been amended several times with some positive and some negative outcomes: http://www.cafcusa.org/child_custody_evaluations.aspx . When the bill was originally introduced the language was that PAS, PA or Alienated Child could not be used. We were successful in getting that language amended out in the 3/26/07 amendments. Glenn Sacks has also written on the bill:
http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=481
Over the last week I have been working feverishly with the Family Law Executive Committee (Flexcom), California Psychologists Association (CPA), Association of Family Conciliation Courts (AFCC), (one the chairs just so happen to be the minors counsel in my own case), the judges and others to either force amendments or kill the bill.
The bill took a really nasty turn for the worse in the 6/14/07 amendments. I met with another democrat member’s Chief of Staff the day before the bill’s Senate Judiciary hearing which was held this last Tuesday 7/10/07. A private meeting was setup with Ruskin’s Chief of Staff to provide him with information and details that they were not aware of. As a result of the work that had been put into the bill and the new information, he took a major amendment. The analysis and the amendments are not yet up on the state website but I have provided links for both here:
http://www.cafcusa.org/docs/Amendments_7_05_07_Strike_Psycological_Testing.pdf
http://www.cafcusa.org/docs/AB_612_senate_jud_analysis_7_9_07_001.pdf
All this information was provided to Glenn Sacks and Marc Angelucci along with a few others late evening on 7/10/07.
The way the amendments come down is that the good cause hearing language has all been struck out. This was the worst part of the bill from the last amendments. In fact you can see from the mock up that most of the language has been struck with a new (a) & (b) only. C thru E is gone. The hearing was held and the new amendments went down as agreed.
The only language left that we don’t like is the term (non scientific labels) but everyone agrees, attorneys, mental health and judges, that the bill is now acceptable and non-threatening. Ruskin is also willing to listen to further comments and we may still be able to get (non scientific labels) struck also.
As the bill stands now an expert can use the terms (a parent engaged in alienating tactics and behavior) or (the child[ren] have been alienated from a parent due to inappropriate conduct/behavior by the other parent). They just can’t use the term Parental Alienation Syndrome because it is not listed in the DSM.
If Ruskin does not take the additional amendment and tweaks Flexcom has already committed to introduce the amendments next year in an Omnibus committee bill to assure it gets amended the way we want exactly.
You will also notice in Flexcom’s opposition statement in the analysis that they also recognized how this bill could have hurt us in move away cases. That threat, and for the most part, all of the other problems are now gone.
As a side note, Karen Anderson (California Protective Parents Association), the sponsor of the bill has already started her push to get another author for next year to get back everything she lost in this bill, which is about 99%. So we will have to fight it again next year.
Karen Anderson’s personal case is very well known to most of the Sacramento family law specialist and practitioners. She lost custody because of false allegations and engaging in Alienation Tactics and Behavior.
During the testimony one of the supporting groups, Karen Anderson’s, announced that they had started a study back in 2004 or 2005 about PAS and are close to publishing a book on it. Of course we know how it will be written and what their spin is on it: http://www.protectiveparents.com/research.html.
They also had one girl from courageous kids testify. I think she said she started the group. 2 of the kids from that group have had their cases very well vetted and it was clear that the mother in one case was the abuser (verified by 4 CPS investigation), the Dr Scott Loeliger case that Glenn Sacks has written about. And then Karen Andersons case where 2 mediators, one Ph.D. and a minors counsel all come to the same conclusion, Karen made relentless false allegations and was alienating the children.
Make no mistake about what is happening here if you haven’t grasped what is going on and where this is all leading.
We have to do our own study with well recognized and peer reviewed experts to counter anything they come up with. I’m sure they have some other experts in their corner that helped with their study.
It is very clear they intend on making California the battle ground against PA. If we don’t get the funding we need they will win and this will be pushed nationally and they will win that also. Do you want to lost by political default again and get stuck with another VAWA?
John Hamel, http://www.favtea.com & http://www.nfvlrc.org, and I can pull the experts together that have allot more respect and credibility than anyone they can come up with to do our own peer reviewed published study, but that will cost money. I can also pull Flexcom in on the effort for case examples.
Karen Anderson has NOW, The Commission on the Status of Women, Coaliton of Family Equity, i.e. Kim Robinson & Carol Bruch (attorney’s for the mother in the LaMusga move awy case, & a slew of others. CA is the battle ground. We have to stop this here. We did this year but how long can we do it without proper funding on this and all the other issues that need reformed and stopping bad bills at the same time.
Funding has got to be a serious priority because if not, it amounts to playing Russian Roulette with 5 out of 6 chambers loaded.
We will be covering this issue in our February 2008 training conference for mental health, attorneys and judges here in Sacramento. It will cost us well over 25K up front cost to do this conference and very few people are donating: http://www.nfvlrc.org/docs/NFVLRC_2008.Pre_Anounce__conf_flier.pdf
You can help: http://www.nfvlrc.org/contribute.htm
July 12th, 2007 at 8:21 am
No text is available at this time, but according to committee counsel and Ruskin’s office the amended version will focus _essentially exclusively_ on parental alienation denial.
In an attempt to reconcile with the objections of the California Psychological Association and the State Bar, the—in some contexts advantageous—provisions requiring detailed justification to order and authenticate psychological testing have been removed, but the truly pernicious restrictions on the _scope_ of custody evaluations will remain. Whatever the final language, the published legislative analyses will be usable in court to support arguments citing legislative intent that all notions of parental alienation, under any name and exegesis, be proscribed in deciding custody—unless the bill is defeated.
It will go next to the Senate Floor; if it passes there it will probably have to go back to the Assembly in conference because of the amendments, and then to Governor Schwarzenegger.
What we need at this point is a ground swell of grassroots lobbying: first contacting all members of the Senate, with emphasis on Democrats since the Judiciary Committee vote was strictly partisan.
July 18th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
PARENTAL ALIENATION DENIAL LEGISLATION IS _ADVANCING_ IN CALIFORNIA.
Read the committee records: the basis is being laid for mischief and havoc in court—disallowing evidence and consideration of PA—whenever questions of children’s aversion to seeing a parent or of badmouthing campaigns arise. Only the lawyers and psychologists benefit—to continue with their business as usual—from the amendments.