ABANDONMENT ISSUES IN RELATION TO PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME

 By Joan T. Kloth-Zanard

What causes abandonment issues?  How do they develop?  How does this 

fear affect people?  And how to deal with it, when it comes to divorce 

and Parental Alienation?

Abandonment issues involve the fear that you will be 

left alone with no one there for you, to hear you, to be friends with 

you, to even care about you.  This is a learned behavior from past 

experiences such as having someone leave and never return, having 

someone lie to the person and now they trust no one.  Abandonment 

issues reach to the depth and core of the person’s heart and soul and 

could be part of a grieving process.  It triggers every imaginable 

emotion they have and creates a devastating fear that causes the 

person to do just about anything to prevent that abandonment from 

happening.  In addition, any action deemed as abandonment such as a 

separation or divorce or even a simple disagreement, will send this 

person into hyper vigilance mode to protect himself or herself from 

any further abandonment by anyone else.  This person’s self-esteem is 

based entirely on being loved, wanted, needed and cared about.  Any 

thing that contradicts this is considered a black mark on them 

personally and preliminary to abandonment by anyone connected to the 

person or event that is causing them to believe they are being 

abandoned.  This is a large part of what we see is going on in 

Parental Alienation and Hostile Aggressive Parenting.

In fact, their own biological reactions to this fear become heightened 

including increases in hormone levels, pulse, heart and more.  At the 

website, www.abandonment.net, they state the following, there is an 

“acute neuro-biologicial crisis,…a rush of stress hormones,…such as 

adrenaline and norepinephine, ….glucocorticoids.  Their brain 

chemistry shifts in response to imminent danger…. causing hyper-

vigilant, obsessively focused, and on edge, as if prepared to sustain 

a life and death battle.”  (www.abandonment.net)  Kind of like the 

flight or fright response where they are in an emergency situation. 

In this heightened state of awareness and fear of being left behind, 

these people fight back to prevent any further losses and 

disappointments.  In a sense, their natural instincts to protect at 

any cost are misdirected by the fear of being abandoned.  They are 

afraid that this loss will be like the black plague and everyone else 

will follow because if the one person they loved and counted on has 

left them, then they themselves must not be any good and so therefore 

everyone else is going to leave them unless they can prove that it was 

not them but the other persons fault.  They work tirelessly to prove 

that they are the perfect ones and that the other person is the weak 

and terrible one.  They work endlessly to maintain the control they 

feel they have lost.  In reality, they are grieving a loss of a 

relationship and cannot process it completely and appropriately.

They are not able to truly grieve this loss because they are too 

afraid that it is contagious or an indication of them not being 

perfect.  If instead, these people could properly grieve this loss of 

the relationship and understand that it does not mean that life cannot 

move forward and continue in a positive way, we might be able to help 

them to get past this fear of abandonment.  As part of a grieving 

process, one needs to go through several stages, i.e. denial, anger, 

bargaining, depression and acceptance.  What seems to happen with 

alienators and people with abandonment fears, they get stuck in the 

2nd stage, that of anger and cannot seem to move forward.  They refuse 

to bargain or work things out with the other person and so can never 

get to the depression step and then acceptance.  If proper grief 

counseling were initiated at the start of a separation or divorce, it 

is quite possible that these type people can move forward from this 

loss and not hang onto this anger that they use against the other 

parent to destroy the relationship between them and their children.

Interestingly, the psychological trauma they perpetuate between the 

children and the other parent causes a grief related to loss.  The 

children are stuck grieving for a parent they cannot have a 

relationship with because it goes against the fear abandoning/

alienating parent’s.  And for the targeted parent, it is the loss of 

relationship with their kids, which they cannot complete because the 

children are still alive but physically dead to them.  It is like a 

living death for both the children and the targeted parent.

As mentioned previously, for the person with Abandonment issues, it 

feels like they are loosing control and that is something they cannot 

have happen.  If they loose control, how are they going to keep from 

loosing the people they love?  How are they going to maintain the 

status quo?  How are they going to continue on in life, if they have 

no control over the lives around them? They believe that in order to 

be a whole person, they have to have control of all the parts of their 

lives including others and how they feel or think about them.  They 

are so self-absorbed and afraid of being found out, that is not being 

perfect, that they must protect their self-image at all costs, hence 

the heightened biological stress related changes of the fright or 

flight response.

Part of this above scenario, also includes the fact that these people 

are terrified that if they are not perfect, that they will be 

abandoned.  Somewhere in their pasts, they experienced a loss and 

equated it to their own inadequacies.  They mistakenly believe that it 

was their own imperfections that caused the loss.  They have no faith 

in who they are.  They do not understand that it is the imperfections 

in each of us that make each of us who we are and why we are all so 

different.  These imperfections are what make life worth living 

because we grow and learn from them and that is what life is about. 

Growing and learning from the world and our experiences.  If we can 

help them to understand that being perfect is really not what life is 

about nor is it the norm, then maybe we can help them to accept the 

beautiful person they can be who gets to move forward in their lives 

with lots of new experiences to grow from.

This fear of being left behind is traumatizing for these people.  Can 

it be resolved?  Well, that depends on the situation.  In a intact 

family, it can be resolved with loving and caring relationships if the 

person with the abandonment issue is willing to work on accepting this 

is their personal fear and does not mean that the whole rest of their 

world is untrustworthy.  But if there is an impending divorce, the 

person is already feeling on the outside.  This person needs to learn 

how to trust and understand that a relationship that falls apart does 

not mean the end of the world and that everyone else will abandon them 

as well.  By teaching them unconditional love and trust in themselves 

and their own abilities to move forward with their lives and gain more 

friends and wonderful life experiences, these individuals can get 

passed this issue of abandonment related to divorce and separation. 

It can take years, but with proper counseling and support, it can be 

accomplished.

Part of the treatment for this person would need to include helping 

them with their insecurities and inability to trust others.  In his or 

her minds, no one can be trusted.  They are living with past 

experiences that they are still angry about and never properly grieved 

about.  Helping them to come to terms with how to know who to trust 

and who not to trust will give them the confidence to be able to 

properly read people and situations.  With this confidence, they will 

be able to have more self-esteem about their own personal abilities to 

protect themselves and well as give them the chance to finally grieve 

about their past losses.

The big question here is how do we get these people to even go to 

counseling to help them work through this, when they believe that 

counseling means they are no good and not loveable.  First, if we can 

teach them to be aware of the biological changes that occur when they 

are overreacting, we can help them to know when to step back, take a 

breath and if necessary call someone to talk to them about how they 

are feeling so that they do not overstep their bounds.  From here we 

can help them to see that though a relationship has ended, it does not 

mean that the memories and experiences from that relationship are gone 

and forgotten.  In fact, maybe being able to recall those memories 

with the person from the failed relationship can help them to see the 

wonderful things that are worth remembering.  And maybe it will help 

them to understand that they are not being left behind because all of 

those wonderful memories will always be with both partners.  From 

there, various conversations can be had about how scared each of them 

is that by this relationship falling apart, it feels like their life 

is falling apart and that moving forward seems out of reach.  This is 

where talks about their future visions and dreams could be useful. 

Helping them to state what their original dreams had been and where 

they can move forward to from here might help give perspective. 

Helping each other to see the positive adventures and experiences that 

could be in their future if they have this chance to separate and move 

forward separately may also be rewarding in this type situation.  If 

one partner cannot think of their future without this person, then 

maybe it would help to ask them about things they have always wanted 

to do but never thought they could do.  Try to help them explore their 

own personal attributes and skills that they have never fostered. 

With just these exercises alone, we are building confidence and 

positive thinking into the future and about who they are or could be.