2nd Part Of Parental Alienation and Parental Blocking! Stockholm Syndrome is caused by a trauma based defensive response to events which are beyond one’s control. In rejected parents, the experience of having your children removed from you, (often right from under your nose) and the experience of knowing that this has been caused by the dysfunctional behaviours of the other parent, is a sufficient trigger to cause the psychologically split state of mind. In some parents the split state of mind causes rage towards the alienating parent, in others it causes passivity and a desire to placate. Being trauma bonded to the person who is abusing their child becomes a very strong defensive mechanism for some parents, who will continue, even in the face of consistent evidence to the contrary, to believe that an abusive parent might change.

In our work we see many parents who continue to believe, long after those with a healthy mindset would be able to, that the other parent might change. This is a particular group of rejected parents who are almost always men. On interview and further investigation, these fathers are those whose children have been systematically removed from them by the mother of their children, often before the family separation occurred. Common themes in the landscape of the lives of these men are physical and emotional abuse at the hands of their ex partner and an inability to speak to others about what has happened to them.