HAP induced Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Most often overlooked is the affect that HAP may have on the psychological health of the person who is the target of HAP.
One of the most often overlooked and least understood of all the outcomes resulting from the exposure to HAP is a disorder referred to as Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, closely related to the more recognized disorder called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This condition affects not just the child involved but all persons who may be the victims of the HAP parent including other parents, siblings and extended family members. The vast majority of those who work in the family court system receive little, if any training, in the complex issue of PTSD or complex PTSD and very rarely consider it as a component when they are investigating the dynamics affecting the family for determining the child’s best interests. Yet, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can be one of the most damaging long term effects of exposure to HAP.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an emotional reaction to an intensely shocking and upsetting experience. Very simply, it is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. This disorder is defined in DSM-IV, the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. For a health care professional such as a medical doctor or psychologist to be able to make a diagnosis of PTSD, the condition must be defined in DSM-IV or its international equivalent, the World Health Organization's ICD-10.
In the earlier version of DSM (DSM-III), a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder required that the sufferer to have faced a single major life-threatening event. At the time when DSM-III was developed, it was thought that PTSD could not be a result of "normal" events such as abuse and
maltreatment, bereavement, business failure, interpersonal conflict, harassment, stalking, marital disharmony, etc. At that time as well, most of the research on PTSD had been undertaken with people who had suffered a threat to life (eg combat veterans, especially from Vietnam, victims of accident, disaster, and other acts of violence or near death experiences). Skyrocketing divorce rates and family breakdown is a more recent social phenomenon and the effects of family breakdown on children and parents was not that much of a concern to investigators when the DSM-III scale was
first developed.
In DSM-IV the requirement was eased although most mental health practitioners continue to interpret diagnostic criterion A1 as applying only to a single major life-threatening event. There is growing recognition that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can result from many types of shocking experience including an accumulation of small, individually non-life-threatening events in which case the resultant PTSD is referred to as Complex PTSD. Dealing with family breakup through the adversarial family court system has been described by many parents as one of the most shocking and emotionally draining experiences of their life which they often have to endure for months and sometimes years. Some of those who have been in the family court system have reported suffering for over 25 years of their lives from conflict and abuse with an HAP parent.
While it has been widely accepted that PTSD can result from a single, major, life-threatening event as defined in DSM-IV, such as a car accident, fire or other natural disaster, there is now a growing awareness that PTSD can also result from an accumulation of many small, individual non-lifethreatening incidents. Being victimized by an HAP parent, although not life threatening in most cases, will often result in varying degrees of PTSD. Because HAP behaviours generally consist of a multitude of non life threatening and sometimes subtle incidences of abuse and maltreatment over a extended period of time, the term Complex PTSD is used. The term Complex PTSD is not in DSM-IV because the definition of PTSD in DSM-IV was derived using only people who had suffered a single major life-threatening incident such as war veterans from the Vietnam war. Dr. Judith Herman of Harvard University suggests that the term, Complex PTSD, effectively describes the symptoms of long-term trauma.
Complex PTSD can potentially arise from any prolonged period of negative stress in which certain factors are present, which may include any of captivity, lack of means of escape, entrapment, loss of privacy, abuse, neglect, betrayal, rejection, bewilderment, confusion, and most significantly, lack of
control, loss of control and disempowerment. It is the overwhelming nature of the events in the adversarial family court process and the inability (helplessness, lack of knowledge, lack of support etc) of the parent or child trying to deal with those events that leads to the development of Complex PTSD. Many children and parents have testified as to the pain and suffering they endured while their matters were being dealt with by the family court system.
Many parents and even some children have committed suicide as a result of exposure to HAP and the failure of the family court system to effectively deal with the HAP. Situations relating to high conflict during divorce and separation which might give rise to Complex PTSD include:
• denial of assess to children
• the loss of custody rights by a loving and capable parent
• inability of a child to communicate with a parent or the parent to communicate with the child
• removal of the child from his/her school and community and other familiar surroundings
• unjust child support orders and the persecution of a parent by child support collection agencies
• inability of a parent to see his/her child at school or to participate in normal school volunteering opportunities
• false allegations
• criminal charges and convictions as a result of false allegations
• harassment and abuse
• paternity fraud
• domestic violence
• stalking
• biased and flawed custody and access reports
• mounting debt as a result of legal costs
• needless and repetitive court delays and adjournments
• requiring a parent to see his/her children under supervised access as a form of punishment when there is really no need for supervision.
• lack of willingness by friends and family to “get involved”
• job loss as a result of the stress relating to family court matters
• relocation of a child away from a non custodial parent
A key feature of Complex PTSD is the aspect of captivity. The individual experiencing trauma as the result of the actions of an HAP parent often feels powerless and unable to escape the situation. Many children have testified about how powerless they feel and how they felt nobody was listening to them. With adults, many have testified how there children were taken away from them by the courts, only to see their children abused by another parent or government funded agency such as a child welfare protection agency.
Until recently, little (or no) attention was paid to the psychological harm caused by HAP and the abuse and maltreatment associated with HAP parents. Misperceptions, which are usually the result of the observer's lack of knowledge or lack of empathy still abound with family court workers and child custody assessors: "The child must be behaving this way because of coaching by the noncustodial parent", "young children should be cared for by their mothers not their fathers" and “children need a primary residence with only one parent”
Unfortunately, there is a tendency by those associated with the family court system to blame the victim. Quite often, child custody assessors and child welfare protection workers attempt to justify a child’s behaviours as a fault in the character of the child or as a result of the actions or influences of the non-custodial parent who in many cases is only trying to protect their child from the HAP parent. Non-custodial parents are often labeled as controlling just for wanting to speak to their children on the phone and when children express their wish to live with their non-custodial parent, they are labeled as having been brainwashed by the non-custodial parent. Cases have been documented where children have been taken away for months from another parent and ties with a parent totally severed or in other cases forced into supervised access with a non custodial parent just because they told authorities that they want to spend more time with their non-custodial parent.
Children have committed suicide as a result of the courts and workers not listening to their wishes of wanting to live with a non HAP parent.
One of the most often overlooked and least understood of all the outcomes resulting from the exposure to HAP is a disorder referred to as Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, closely related to the more recognized disorder called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This condition affects not just the child involved but all persons who may be the victims of the HAP parent including other parents, siblings and extended family members. The vast majority of those who work in the family court system receive little, if any training, in the complex issue of PTSD or complex PTSD and very rarely consider it as a component when they are investigating the dynamics affecting the family for determining the child’s best interests. Yet, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can be one of the most damaging long term effects of exposure to HAP.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an emotional reaction to an intensely shocking and upsetting experience. Very simply, it is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. This disorder is defined in DSM-IV, the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. For a health care professional such as a medical doctor or psychologist to be able to make a diagnosis of PTSD, the condition must be defined in DSM-IV or its international equivalent, the World Health Organization's ICD-10.
In the earlier version of DSM (DSM-III), a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder required that the sufferer to have faced a single major life-threatening event. At the time when DSM-III was developed, it was thought that PTSD could not be a result of "normal" events such as abuse and
maltreatment, bereavement, business failure, interpersonal conflict, harassment, stalking, marital disharmony, etc. At that time as well, most of the research on PTSD had been undertaken with people who had suffered a threat to life (eg combat veterans, especially from Vietnam, victims of accident, disaster, and other acts of violence or near death experiences). Skyrocketing divorce rates and family breakdown is a more recent social phenomenon and the effects of family breakdown on children and parents was not that much of a concern to investigators when the DSM-III scale was
first developed.
In DSM-IV the requirement was eased although most mental health practitioners continue to interpret diagnostic criterion A1 as applying only to a single major life-threatening event. There is growing recognition that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can result from many types of shocking experience including an accumulation of small, individually non-life-threatening events in which case the resultant PTSD is referred to as Complex PTSD. Dealing with family breakup through the adversarial family court system has been described by many parents as one of the most shocking and emotionally draining experiences of their life which they often have to endure for months and sometimes years. Some of those who have been in the family court system have reported suffering for over 25 years of their lives from conflict and abuse with an HAP parent.
While it has been widely accepted that PTSD can result from a single, major, life-threatening event as defined in DSM-IV, such as a car accident, fire or other natural disaster, there is now a growing awareness that PTSD can also result from an accumulation of many small, individual non-lifethreatening incidents. Being victimized by an HAP parent, although not life threatening in most cases, will often result in varying degrees of PTSD. Because HAP behaviours generally consist of a multitude of non life threatening and sometimes subtle incidences of abuse and maltreatment over a extended period of time, the term Complex PTSD is used. The term Complex PTSD is not in DSM-IV because the definition of PTSD in DSM-IV was derived using only people who had suffered a single major life-threatening incident such as war veterans from the Vietnam war. Dr. Judith Herman of Harvard University suggests that the term, Complex PTSD, effectively describes the symptoms of long-term trauma.
Complex PTSD can potentially arise from any prolonged period of negative stress in which certain factors are present, which may include any of captivity, lack of means of escape, entrapment, loss of privacy, abuse, neglect, betrayal, rejection, bewilderment, confusion, and most significantly, lack of
control, loss of control and disempowerment. It is the overwhelming nature of the events in the adversarial family court process and the inability (helplessness, lack of knowledge, lack of support etc) of the parent or child trying to deal with those events that leads to the development of Complex PTSD. Many children and parents have testified as to the pain and suffering they endured while their matters were being dealt with by the family court system.
Many parents and even some children have committed suicide as a result of exposure to HAP and the failure of the family court system to effectively deal with the HAP. Situations relating to high conflict during divorce and separation which might give rise to Complex PTSD include:
• denial of assess to children
• the loss of custody rights by a loving and capable parent
• inability of a child to communicate with a parent or the parent to communicate with the child
• removal of the child from his/her school and community and other familiar surroundings
• unjust child support orders and the persecution of a parent by child support collection agencies
• inability of a parent to see his/her child at school or to participate in normal school volunteering opportunities
• false allegations
• criminal charges and convictions as a result of false allegations
• harassment and abuse
• paternity fraud
• domestic violence
• stalking
• biased and flawed custody and access reports
• mounting debt as a result of legal costs
• needless and repetitive court delays and adjournments
• requiring a parent to see his/her children under supervised access as a form of punishment when there is really no need for supervision.
• lack of willingness by friends and family to “get involved”
• job loss as a result of the stress relating to family court matters
• relocation of a child away from a non custodial parent
A key feature of Complex PTSD is the aspect of captivity. The individual experiencing trauma as the result of the actions of an HAP parent often feels powerless and unable to escape the situation. Many children have testified about how powerless they feel and how they felt nobody was listening to them. With adults, many have testified how there children were taken away from them by the courts, only to see their children abused by another parent or government funded agency such as a child welfare protection agency.
Until recently, little (or no) attention was paid to the psychological harm caused by HAP and the abuse and maltreatment associated with HAP parents. Misperceptions, which are usually the result of the observer's lack of knowledge or lack of empathy still abound with family court workers and child custody assessors: "The child must be behaving this way because of coaching by the noncustodial parent", "young children should be cared for by their mothers not their fathers" and “children need a primary residence with only one parent”
Unfortunately, there is a tendency by those associated with the family court system to blame the victim. Quite often, child custody assessors and child welfare protection workers attempt to justify a child’s behaviours as a fault in the character of the child or as a result of the actions or influences of the non-custodial parent who in many cases is only trying to protect their child from the HAP parent. Non-custodial parents are often labeled as controlling just for wanting to speak to their children on the phone and when children express their wish to live with their non-custodial parent, they are labeled as having been brainwashed by the non-custodial parent. Cases have been documented where children have been taken away for months from another parent and ties with a parent totally severed or in other cases forced into supervised access with a non custodial parent just because they told authorities that they want to spend more time with their non-custodial parent.
Children have committed suicide as a result of the courts and workers not listening to their wishes of wanting to live with a non HAP parent.
