The Medea Complex and the Parental Alienation Syndrome

[Warren DeMontague]

59. Here's my take: One, words like "Syndrome" are way overused.

I think divorce, child custody, etc. cases are inherently messy. And in many situations you have two principals whose word it is against the other, with no corroboration on either side.

I come from a divorced family. I'm of the opinion that in these sorts of situations, it is incumbent upon the adults to act like, again, the adults.

Sadly, it doesn't always work that way. I do think that divorce, child custody, etc. from a legal standpoint ought to be handled on a case-by-case basis. There are crappy moms out there, and stellar dads. And vice versa.

As far as "syndrome" goes, though, I feel it's yet another attempt to slap an authoritative-sounding label on something which is simply common, if unfortunate, human behavior. We see this all the time with the wordy sociological assertions coming from anti-porn crusaders, for instance; the male gaze heteronomative harmful objectification eye of the smuttifying nasty pornification blahblah.

What it boils down to, generally, is a wife who finds a copy of Penthouse under hubby's tool box in the garage, and can't reconcile herself to the fact that Ed sort of likes jerking off to pictures of naked women, and it's a relatively harmless stress-relieving activity with low sociopolitical or environmental impact. (Assuming he cleans up after himself) ... immediately the hunt is on to explain it in the context of some grand conspiracy which has befuddled the brain and re-frimhatzed his fitwardle with code purple erotoxin levels, to make him mistakenly believe he enjoys looking at nude women.

So I'm not ready to ascribe all sorts of syndromes and processes and convoluted yet authoritative sounding byzantine machinations to what is, often, humans being petty or small- in this case, parents letting the acrimony of a divorce situation - from either side - interfere with what is best for their kids.