Alienation Explanations

Alienation is called the process by which an individual becomes an outsider himself, which is strange, who has lost control over himself.

In this sense, alienation is a process of transformation of consciousness that can occur both in a person and in a community. As a product of alienation, people behave in a manner contrary to what was expected of them because of their condition or nature.

Hence, alienation is also synonymous with alienation, which means being out of self, losing control of oneself.

The word, as such, comes from the Latin alienatĭoalienatiōnis, which means ‘action and effect of alienating’.

Alienation in Philosophy

Hegel designated as alienation the estrangement or distancing of the subject n relation to himself. Ludwig Feuerbach, on the other hand, used the concept of alienation to explain the religious phenomenon in which the human being renounces his own nature in favor of that of a being in which he recognizes God. Karl Marx, on the other hand, related alienation to his theory of the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalist.

Alienation according to Karl Marx

Marx interprets the concept of alienation as the operating relationship of the capitalist system in which the worker is not considered as a person in himself, but based on his economic value, as a workforce for the multiplication of capital, that is, the worker represents only a certain amount of money.

Alienation in Psychology

For Psychology, alienation is a mental state that is characterized by the loss of the feeling of one’s identity. That is, alienation implies the loss of self-consciousness, of the individual’s ability to recognize himself in the world.

Parental alienation

With the name of parental alienation a syndrome is known that consists of a child, apparently unjustified, denigrates, insults and constantly rejects one of his parents. As such, it is considered a psychopathological disorder present in children who have undergone a kind of “brainwashing” by one of their parents, whose purpose is to destroy the child’s emotional ties with the other parent.

It is common in divorce cases, where one of the parents tries to take full custody of the child. However, it is not yet recognized by the scientific community as a pathological disorder.