Monday, November 19, 2007

Parental alienation - Wise Counsel

What is wisdom? Wisdom is the unnecessary identification when you study psychology, or listen to a psychology podcast for that matter. Dr. David van Nuys spoke with Amy Baker on Wise Counsel about parental alienation. I thought I recognized some behavior of my divorced parents, I thought I recognized some of the bad effects of the Parental Alienation Syndrome on myself. Apart from the hypochondriac element, I notice, one has to be careful and not slip into this mode lest one finds yet another exterior phenomenon to blame for certain deficiencies in our lives. Oh how convenient to have some other person, or some syndrome to blame!

But seriously, from my personal observation, parental alienation is a pretty common occurrence. Even if it does not turn into the outright syndrome, the extreme effects Ms. Baker describes, it may help to identify certain behaviors of our parents, the effect they had and to do away with them. Or, alternately, identify the behavior of our spouses (Praise, the lord, none of that I have) and learn some practical pointers to counter.

Hence, Wise Counsel succeeded, once more, to strike a chord. It is a great podcast and Van Nuys is the genius to bring this about. Dr. Dave the psychologist turned podcaster, what contribution to valuable content, and, I hope, the sanity of us all. Please listen.