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PSYCHOLOGY IN THE COURTROOM

SOUND RESEARCH? Maybe not in custody science.

THE CASE FOR ABOLISHING CUSTODY EVALUATORS  By Margaret Dore.

GUARDIANS AD LITEM IN CUSTODY LITIGATION  By Richard Ducote.

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME  By F. Besset.

NEW: WHAT’S WRONG WITH PARENTING COORDINATION?  By liz.  OUTLINE

OVERVIEW: CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATIONS  Reevaluating the evaluators.

IN  THEIR OWN WORDS MORE: THERAPEUTIC JURISPRUDENCE INDEX

JOINT CUSTODY RESEARCH, ISSUES

THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS

THOSE JOINT CUSTODY STUDIES  Debunked.   MORE

JOINT CUSTODY DOES NOT WORK  More research, articles.

MICHAEL LAMB AND JOAN KELLY   Infant custody nonsense.

ATTACHMENT RESEARCH BIBLIOGRAPHY

SHARED PARENTING ADVOCATES DISTORT THE FACTS   (And the law.)

OVERBLOWING THE CHILD SUGGESTIBILITY RESEARCH   The "extremists" are the naysayers.

BAUSERMAN ON JOINT CUSTODY  Rind study co-author does another.

NEW: RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL IN PARENTING PLANS   When it works, when it doesn’t.

JOINT CUSTODY  The opinion of a noncustodial father… and of a CUSTODIAL FATHER

MORE "FATHERLESSNESS" PROPAGANDA  The AAML and the CRC.

CHANGING CUSTODY IN THE TEEN YEARS  A bad idea.

POST-DIVORCE MOVEAWAYS

NEW: POLICY CONSIDERATIONS  By Scott Altman.

LaMUSGA v. LaMUSGA (California) INFORMATION PAGE

THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO TRAVEL  By DiAnn Lindquist.

BRAVER’S ACTUAL FINDINGS Surprise! Kids are fine — with their mothers.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS BY JUDITH WALLERSTEIN, Ph.D., relocation law cases, research

RESEARCH MYTHS AND FACTS

…ABOUT MOTHERHOOD   What the research really says.

…ABOUT FATHERHOOD   What the research really says.

…ABOUT FATHER FAMILIES and MOTHER ABSENCE   Not such great news.

…IN FATHERHOOD PROMOTION What the research really says.

…IN FAMILY COURT and ADR   Forensic failings, systemic fallacies.

DON’T MISS: CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATIONS: LIMITED SCIENCE, FLAWED SYSTEM

…ABOUT PARENTING AND CHILD ABUSE STATISTICS

…ABOUT PARENTING AND CHILDREN’S EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT

…ABOUT WHY PEOPLE DIVORCE  (And why women file more often.)

THE FATHERS’ RIGHTS MOVEMENT fathers, fathers, all about fathers rights

IN THEIR OWN WORDS   The infamous "Pig Page."

MORE OF THEIR OWN WORDS   and   RACHEL ALEXANDER  on father custody.

NATIONAL FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE  New name, same stink.

DECONSTRUCTING FATHERHOOD PROPAGANDA   Wade Horn drivel.

DECONSTRUCTING THE DECONSTRUCTING   liz on Silverstein & Auerbach.

THE CHILDREN’S RIGHTS COUNCIL – It’s about father’s rights, not children’s wellbeing

STALKING THROUGH THE COURTS   An FR insider’s exposé.

WAR OF THE WOUNDS  What’s wrong with the FR movement.

TRISH WILSON’S ARTICLES  Exposing "father’s rights."

WARREN FARRELL AND "FAMILY SEX"

WARREN FARRELLSAID… WHAT!?  WHAT?!!!!

WARREN FARRELL AND LIBEL  The chutzpah of male power.

WARREN FARRELL’S NCP HOLIDAY PARENTING  Learn stalking.

"THE CASE FOR FATHER CUSTODY" An FR activist debates liz.

READ: FATHER’S RIGHTS POLITICS  By Mandy Dunn

"GUERILLA WARFARE"  Or gorilla warfare?

MOTHERHOOD, LAW, AND PUBLIC POLICY mental health

EFFECTS OF PREGNANCY It’s not just an "inconvenience."

AGENDA: RECONCILING MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD, AND FEMINISM

FEMINISTS ON ALIMONY Don’t blame feminists for its demise.

WHAT IS "ATTACHMENT?" Bonding, attachment, research.

WHAT IS A "PRIMARY PARENT?"   Well, if you have to ask…

PRIMARY PARENTS Why they are, and will remain, mostly mothers.

LIZ RESPONDS TO "BE THANKFUL FOR DADS" Whose Dads?

WHEN "EQUAL" ISN’T.  Gender-blind, gender-neutral inequality.

MALE BASHING? Hardly.  A brief review of modern family law politics.

N.O.W.  Getting it right on the father’s rights movement. feminist divorce policy

ABOUT BIAS   Bad thinking and bad science in child custody policy.

WITCH CRAZE TIMELINE Religion is deadly as secular law.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND CHILD ABUSE

CHILD ABUSE Articles and information that cut through the slop.

NEW: WILL HE KILL?   How judges can assess risk.

NEW: 2009 NCJFCJ JUDGES GUIDE   Custody evals in abuse cases.
ALSO SEE: 2007 GUIDE   Addresses PAS issues.

JOAN ZORZA CRITIQUE OF PRIOR  NCJFCJ GUIDE

BATTERED MOTHERS CUSTODY CONFERENCE

MATERNAL ALIENATION  By Anne Morris.

MARGARET DORE on friendly parent provisions.

MOTHERS LOSING CUSTODY TO ABUSIVE FATHERS

COERCIVE-CONTROL   By Dr. Evan Stark.

ABUSIVE MEN AND CUSTODY   What’s fair to children. research on child abuse

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY  Annotated reading list.

UNDERSTANDING JUDICIAL RESISTANCE  By Prof. Joan Meier.

WIFE BEATING   It’s not just "domestic violence." intimate partner violence

YOUNG WOMEN’S VIOLENCE  Myths and facts. intimate partner violence

THE INFLUENCE OF UNDERWAGER  Religion as sexual paraphilia?

UNDERWAGER HEARD FROM AGAIN  Complaints and threats.

ON GUN CONTROL  The wisdom of Gina Guest.    MORE FROM GINA…

PARENTAL ALIENATION THEORY

First read this:   ARTICLE BY JOAN MEIER ABOUT PAS… and then read:

Joyanna Silberg on:   DOMESTIC VIOLENCE BY PROXY… and then read:

GETTING IT WRONG IN CHILD CUSTODY CASES  Prof. Bruch’s definitive article on the research. 

NAT’L COUNCIL OF JUVENILE & FAMILY COURT JUDGES: IT’S NOT PAS

JENNIFER HOULT’S ANALYSIS   and… NEW:  EVALUATORS the PAS Networks.

THE FRIENDLY PARENT CONCEPT A flawed factor for child custody.  By M.  Dore

PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME: DANGEROUS AURA OF RELIABILITY By C. L. Wood.

RICHARD GARDNER: A SELF-MADE MAN  Very creative therapeutics.

COMPULSIVE TREE PLANTING SYNDROME?   liz to Gardner. bias

PARENTAL ALIENATION "SYNDROME"  Prof. Myers on "PAS."

NEW: RUEDA’S 2004 INTER-RATER RELIABILITY STUDY   Bad science. the religion of fatherhood

FETID FATHERING SYNDROME   Like Malicious Mother Syndrome, but better.

DIVORCE POISON   Cheryl Metellus on Warshak on PAS.

LETTER TO RICHARD GARDNER   By Karen Anderson.

"BUT I’VE SEEN IT!"  NO, YOU HAVEN’T.   There’s no such thing.religion of fatherhood

parenting coordination, custody evaluation

FAMILY COURT ISSUES, ACTIVISTS Divorce reform

OUTRAGES Naming names.  IN THE NEWS  Drops in the bucket.

BLOG BLOG BLOG: BATTERED MOMS LOSE CUSTODY

ADVOCATES FOR NATIONAL GUARDIANSHIP ETHICS AND REFORM

NOW REPORT ON THE COURTS

SMEAR CAMPAIGN   A psychologist versus CA lawyer Robin Yeamans.

2001 JUDICIAL BLUNDER OF THE YEAR AWARD (To put it politely.) research

IS COLLABORATIVE LAW A GOOD IDEA?  Questions raised…

BAD:  ADMITTING SUPERVISED VISITATION RECORDS IN COURT

RUN MOMMY RUN!  By Talia Carner, author of Puppet Child.

Time to get educated. We must change family laws and divorce policies that benefit fathers, mental health practitioners, custody evaluators, guardians ad litem, lawyers, judges, therapists, and others, while doing nothing to benefit children or women, child welfare, children’s education, or the next generation.

Less than a generation ago, married women in some U.S. states did not have the right to manage their own property, and all household property was deemed to belong to the husband upon divorce. More recently, it remained legal in some states for a husband to rape his wife.   (Marital rape is still legal today in nearly every country in the world that bans abortion.)

In 1981, the Federal Work Incentive Program, three out of four of whose participants were women, was required by law to give jobs preference to men, who also received jobs paying an average of 34% more per hour.

Husbands by law routinely were defined as "head of the household."
Hundreds of laws overtly discriminated against women, and thousands of laws discriminated in effect.

Think by now it’s all been "fixed?"   Think again. — liz

THE LIZ LIBRARY ENTRANCE |  RESEARCH ROOMS |  THERAPEUTIC JURISPRUDENCE |  THE READING ROOM

GENDERGAPPERS |  FATHERLESS CHILDREN STORIES |  WOMAN SUFFRAGE TIMELINE |  KIDSITES

Hear liz and tapes of other great shows on the radio,
on Lisa Macci’s "The Justice Hour", WPBR

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Copying in any form without prior written permission is prohibited.
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Parental Alienation Syndrome – What Professionals Need To Know Part 1

by Erika Rivera Ragland1 & Hope Fields

Update – Volume 16, Number 6, 2003

Part 1 of 2

Introduction

The late Dr. Richard Gardner, a clinical professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, coined Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) in 1985, after noticing a “disorder” among patients within his private practice. The “disorder” involves one parent alienating the child against the other parent typically in the context of a child-custody dispute. Dr. Gardner defined PAS as follows:

[t]he parental alienation syndrome is a childhood disorder that arises almost exclusively in the context of child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent’s indoctrinations and the child’s own contributions to the vilification of the target parent. When true parental abuse and/or neglect is present, the child’s animosity may be justified and so the parental alienation syndrome explanation for the child’s hostility is not applicable.3

Absent from this definition is specific reference to sexual abuse allegations, but these are often the “denigration” to which Dr. Gardner referred in his definition. In this context, PAS becomes a litigation tool for the accused parent to discredit the validity of the child’s sex abuse allegations by mounting an attack against the “inducing parent.”

Although PAS may be hailed as a “syndrome” (a group of symptoms that occur together and constitute a recognizable abnormality), in fact it is the product of anecdotal evidence gathered from Dr. Gardner’s own practice.4 The purpose of this article is to briefly discuss the major premises upon which PAS is based, and to identify key weaknesses. Part 2 of this Update considers case law and strategies for meeting PAS defenses.

PAS is based primarily upon two notions, neither of which has a foundation in empirical research.

1. PAS Presupposes a High Rate of False Accusations in Custody Cases

The theory of PAS is based in part on the notion that, within custody disputes, there is a high incidence of false abuse allegations. Dr. Gardner theorized that allegations arising within the context of a custody dispute have a “high likelihood of being false,”5 and went so far as to state that he believed “the vast majority of allegations in this category [divorce cases with custody disputes] are false.” 6 To the contrary, the available research suggests that false allegation rates are not significantly high. For example, a 1990 study by Thoennes and Tjaden evaluated 9,000 divorces in 12 states7 and found that sexual abuse allegations were made in less than 2 percent of the contested divorces involving child custody. Within this group, it appears false allegations occurred in approximately 5% to 8% of cases.8 This study is one of the most comprehensive and least subject to bias and sampling problems, since its sample is so large and representative of the population of those divorcing with custody and visitation disputes.9

2. PAS Presumes a Disadvantage to Women in Child Custody Determinations

Another underlying principle of PAS is that women more often than men resort to making false allegations of abuse in disputed custody proceedings. The theory is that mothers encourage false accusations in order to obtain financial or strategic advantage during custody determinations. 10 The reasoning behind this theory seems to be that, in most jurisdictions, custody determination standards have changed from the “tender years” presumption—a standard which favored women obtaining custody of young children—to the “best interests of the child.”11

This hypothesis ignores the fact that most sex offenders are indeed men.12 It also fails to account for the possibility that the divorce process might liberate an abused child from the heavy burden associated with keeping a secret like sexual abuse,13 or that post-divorce living conditions or circumstances might render a child vulnerable to sexual abuse.14

Although the tender year’s presumption which favored women is largely gone, women are not disadvantaged under the new standard. The “best interests” standard removes gender presumptions altogether from custody determinations.15 It should be noted that some legal scholars suspect a gender bias within PAS theory itself.16

Other Weaknesses: Lack of Peer Review and Recognition by DSM-IV

Dr. Gardner mostly self-published and thus did not generally subject his theory to the peer review process.17 Moreover, PAS is not recognized by any professional associations,18 including the American Psychiatric Association. PAS is also not included within the DSM-IV.

It is also worth noting that Dr. Gardner often expressed disdain for child abuse professionals, labeling them “validators,” theorizing that greed and desire for increased business prompted some sexual abuse allegations, and speculating that parents and professionals alike made some false allegations because “all of us have some pedophilia within us.”19

Conclusion

At best, PAS is a nondiagnostic “syndrome” that only explains the behavior of the child and the mother when there is a known false allegation.20 It is a courtroom diagnosis befitting adversaries involved in legal sparring. It is not capable of lending itself to hard data or inclusion in the forthcoming DSM-V.

In short, PAS is an untested theory that, unchallenged, can have far-reaching consequences for children seeking protection and legal vindication in courts of law.

Prosecutors and other child abuse professionals should educate themselves, their colleagues and clients when confronting PAS in the legal realm. Part 2 of this newsletter will address the case law on this subject. For more in-depth and comprehensive treatment of these issues, contact the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse.

1 Staff Attorney, American Prosecutors Research Institute, National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse.
2 Staff Attorney, American Prosecutors Research Institute, National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse.
3 Richard A. Gardner, M.D., “Does the DSM-IV Have Equivalents for the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) Diagnosis?” American Journal of Family Therapy, 31(1):1-21; also available, http://www.rgardner.com/refs/ar12.html.
4 Richard A. Gardner, M.D., The Parental Alienation Syndrome, at 59 (1992) (noting in the introduction of this book that he termed the disorder PAS after seeing children in his practice whom he believed were “brainwashed by one parent against the other”).
5 Gardner, 1991, p. 4.
6 See Kathleen Coulborn Faller, The Parental Alienation Syndrome: What is it and What Data Support it? Child Maltreatment, Vol. 3, No. 2, May 1998.
7 Thoennes & Tjaden, The Extent, Nature and Validity of Sexual Abuse Allegation in Custody/Visitation Disputes, Child Abuse and Neglect 1990, 14:151-163.
8 Id.
9 Kathleen Coulborn Faller, David L. Corwin & Erna Olafson, Literature Review: Research on False Allegations of Sexual Abuse in Divorce, APSAC Advisor 1993, 6(3), page 9.
10 Richard Gardner, M.D., The Parental Alienation Syndrome, p. 62, 1992.
11 Richard Gardner, M.D., The Parental Alienation Syndrome, p. 61-62, 1992.
12 Faller, Corwin & Olafson, supra note 9, at 10.
13 See Meredith Sherman Fahn, Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse in Custody Disputes: Getting to the Truth of the Matter, Family Law Quarterly, Vol. XXV, No. 2, Summer 1991, page 203 (quoting Sink, Studies of True and False Allegations: A Critical Review, Sexual Abuse Allegations in Custody and Visitation Cases 37, 38 (American Bar Association) (E. Nicholson ed. 1988)). For more information regarding the dynamics of sexual abuse, contact the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse for materials regarding Dr. Roland Summit’s “Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome.”
14 Id. See also Robin Fretwell Wilson, Children at Risk: The Sexual Exploitation of Female Children After Divorce, 86 Cornell L. Rev. 251, 262-263 (2001).
15 See Ex Parte Devine, 398 So.2d 686 (Ala. 1981) (discussing the origin of the tender years presumption and its constitutional infirmities; ultimately abandoning it in favor of the best interests of the child standard).
16 See, e.g., Cheri L. Wood, The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Dangerous Aura of Reliability, 27 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 1367, 1372-73 (1994); Kathleen Niggemyer, Comment, Conceiving the Lawyer as Creative Problem Solver: Parental Alienation Syndrome is Open Heart Surgery: It Needs More than a Band-Aid to Fix It, 34 Cal. W. L. Rev. 567, 576 (1998); Priscilla Read Chenoweth, Don’t Blame the Messenger in Child Sex Abuse Cases, N.J. L.J., April 19, 1993, at 17 (finding that “Gardner’s extravagant and conclusory language, and his obvious bias against women, should be enough to give any judge or lawyer pause before accepting his invitation to disbelieve and even punish the messenger [i.e., the parent reporting abuse by the other parent].” See also Marie Laing, For the Sake of the Children: Preventing Reckless New Laws, 16 Can. J. Fam. L. 229, 274 (1999) (concluding, “much of Gardner’s writing is strongly anti-woman. He states that the claims of women who refuse joint mediation due to violence are somewhere ‘between fabrication and delusion’”). For direct quotes from Dr. Gardner, refer to his 1992 book, The Parental Alienation Syndrome, p. 122.
17 See Cheri L. Wood, supra, note 16.
18 Id.
19 Gardner (1991), page 26. He wrote, “Each time the accusers make an accusation, they are likely to be forming an internal visual image of the sexual encounter. With each mental replay, the accusers gratify the desire to be engaging in the activities that the perpetrators are involved in in the visual imagery.” See also Faller, supra note 6, at 104-105.
20 See Faller, supra note 6, at 111.

© 2003 National Center For Prosecution of Child Abuse, American Prosecu

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Richard A. Gardner, M.D., is the creator of the creator and main proponent for the bogus Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) theory. Prior to his suicide, Gardner was an unpaid part-time clinical professor of child psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University . He made his money mainly as a forensic expert. PAS was developed by Dr Richard Gardner in 1985 based on his personal observation, not on scientific study, and on his work as an expert witness often on behalf of fathers accused of molesting their children. Gardner ‘s theory of PAS has had a profoundly detrimental effect on how the court systems in our country handle allegations of child sexual abuse, especially during divorce.  Because Gardner ‘s PAS theory is based on his clinical observations–not scientific data–it must be understood in the context of his extreme views concerning women, pedophilia and child sexual abuse. We provide Gardner’s views so that people can understand the radical, perverse thinking of the so-called "expert" who invented the bogus theory of PAS that has done so much damage.

NOTE: Stop Family Violence does not agree with the views espoused by Gardner – we find them disgusting, offensive,  and most importantly, they are not correct.  Gardner’s views are based in his own perverse thinking, not in anything scientists know, not in anything our laws condone, and not in anything our culture believes. To be clear – pedophilia is not natural, children do not enjoy, ask for or consent to sexual abuse, and mothers are not to blame if fathers commit such heinous acts against their children.
CAUTION: some readers, especially survivors of sexual abuse, may find Gardner’s remarks deeply disturbing.  Indeed, we all should.

On Pedophilia

“The child should be able to pity the father for the curse (in our society) of having pedophilic tendencies.  In other times and other places, he would be considered normal.” 
RICHARD A. GARDNER, TRUE AND FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF CHILD SEX ABUSE  592 (1992).

“He [the pedophile] has also had bad luck with regard to the place and time he was born with regard to social attitudes toward pedophilia.  However, these are not reasons to condemn himself.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, TRUE AND FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF CHILD SEX ABUSE  593 (1992).

“I believe that all of us have some pedophilia within us.” 
RICHARD A. GARDNER, SEX ABUSE HYSTERIA: THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS REVISITED 26 (1991).

“Each time the accusers make an accusation, they are likely to be forming an internal visual image of the sexual encounter.  With each mental replay, the accusers gratify the desire to be engaging in the activities that the perpetrators are involved in in the visual imagery. . Each time we conjure up a visual image of the child being sexually abused, we gratify vicariously our or pedophilic impulses.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, SEX ABUSE HYSTERIA: THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS REVISITED 25 (1991).

“[The pedophile] has to be helped to appreciate that pedophilia has been considered the norm by the vast majority of individuals in the history of the world.  He has to be helped to appreciate that, even today, it is a widespread and accepted practice among literally billions of people.” RICHARD A. GARDNER, TRUE AND FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF CHILD SEX ABUSE  593 (1992).

On Pedophilic Impulses of Judges:

“There is no question that abuse cases are ‘turn ons’ for the wide variety of individuals involved in them, the accuser(s), the prosecutors, the lawyers, the judges, the evaluators, the psychologists, the reporters, the readers of the newspapers, and everyone else involved— except for the falsely accused and the innocent victim . . . Everyone is getting their ‘jollies,’ except the two central figures, who are not only getting little if any sexual pleasure out of the whole thing but whose lives are being destroyed in the process.”  
RICHARD A. GARDNER, SEX ABUSE HYSTERIA: THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS REVISITED 31 (1991)

“Judges are not free from the psychopathological mechanisms. . .  They too may have repressed pedophilic impulses over which there is suppression, repression, and guilt.  Inquiry into the details of the case provides voyeuristic and vicarious gratifications. . .  Incarcerating the alleged perpetrator may serve psychologically to obliterate the judge’s own projected pedophilic impulses.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, SEX ABUSE HYSTERIA: THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS REVISITED 107 (1991).

On Sexual Abuse As Mother’s Fantasy:

In making allegations of sexual abuse, “the mother’s own suppressed and repressed sexual fantasies are projected onto the child and the father.  By visualizing the father having a sexual experience with the child, the mother is satisfying vicariously her own desires to be a recipient of such overtures and activities.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME 126 (1992).

Gardner notes that the mother might see the father as a danger to the child because of her “own unconscious desires to inflict harm on the baby.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME 128 (1992).

States that some people are more afflicted with pedophilia than others and therefore need to indulge in more frequent imagining of sexual acts with children.  Such people are more likely to “produce false sex abuse charges.” 
RICHARD A. GARDNER, SEX ABUSE HYSTERIA: THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS REVISITED 26 (1991).

On Encouragement of Abuse by Mother:

“In some cases the abuse was actually encouraged (overtly or covertly) by the mother in order to use the child as a substitute object for the father’s sexual gratification.  Such mothers view sexual encounters as odious, and the child is used as a convenient replacement – protecting the mother thereby from exposure to the noxious act.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  122 (1987).

“Sometimes, mothers who were sexually abused as children may have set up a situation to increase the likelihood that the father will abuse the child.  They may do this as a way of mastering their own abuse trauma.  They may secretly and/or unconsciously hope that the child’s resistance or successful working through will vicariously enable them to do the same for themselves.  Or, they may have responded to the abuse by frigidity or sexual unresponsivity and use the child as a substitute source of satisfaction for their husbands.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  130 (1987).

“Sexual abuse of some girls by their fathers is sometimes consciously or unconsciously sanctioned by their mothers.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  194 (1987).

“Sometimes the mother’s abuse has resulted in sexual inhibition problems, resulting in their viewing sex as disgusting.  They may then facilitate (consciously or unconsciously) their children serving as sexual substitutes in order to protect themselves from involvement in sexual acts.” 
RICHARD A. GARDNER, TRUE AND FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF CHILD SEX ABUSE 185 (1992).

“[A] mother who is sexually inhibited may view sexual encounters with loathing.  Consciously or unconsciously she facilitates the father’s turning his sexual attentions to her daughter in order to ‘get him off her back’ (or ‘front,’ as the case may be).  In this way, she avoids involving herself in the ‘disgusting’ activities and yet allows ‘the beast’ to gratify his primitive needs and keeps him ‘tamed’ and out of ‘trouble.’” 
RICHARD A. GARDNER, SEX ABUSE HYSTERIA: THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS REVISITED 36 (1991).

On the Vengeful Mother:

“Although the mothers in these situations may have a variety of motivations for programming their children against their fathers, the most common one relates to the old saying: ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’” 
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  86 (1987).

On Children’s Desire/Fantasy About Sex

Gardner writes that the child’s description of sexual activities is a way of coping with wishes.  It is the child’s way of saying, “It is not I who want him to rape me, it is he who wants to rape me.” 
RICHARD A. GARDNER, TRUE AND FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF CHILD SEX ABUSE 129 (1992).

“By the process of reaction formation one can turn [the child’s sexual fantasies] into unpleasant ones and thereby assuage the guilt that would be experienced if the child were to accept the fact that sexual activities are what she wants.   Instead of saying, “ I would love to have some sexual involvement with my father,” she can say, “I hate having a sexual relationship with my father.” 
RICHARD A. GARDNER, TRUE AND FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF CHILD SEX ABUSE  129 (1992).

“[T]he normal child exhibits a wide variety of sexual fantasies and behaviors, many of which would be labeled as ‘sick’ or ‘perverted’ if exhibited by adults. . . Each child is likely to have a ‘favorite’ list of sexual activities that provide interest and pleasure.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, SEX ABUSE HYSTERIA: THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS REVISITED 12 (1991).

Incorporation of fantasies that Gardner believes are “ludicrous or pointless,” such as alleging that the offender put his penis in his or her mouth and did not move it.
RICHARD A. GARDNER, PROTOCOLS FOR SEX-ABUSE EVALUATION 61 (1995).

“Oedipal factors are sometimes operative in the alienation.  A girl who has a seductive and romanticized relationship with her father (sometimes abetted by the father himself) may find his involvement with a new woman particularly painful.  Whereas visitations my have gone somewhat smoothly prior to the father’s new relationship, following the new involvement there may be a rapid deterioration in the girl’s relationship with her father.  Such a girl may say to her father: ‘You’ve got to choose between me and her.’”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  91 (1987).

“The child who has suffered bona fide abuse may very well have enjoyed the experience and will often suffer guilt over such pleasure because the child has subsequently learned that the act is an unacceptable, sinful, or even criminal act.” 
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  114 (1987).

“[Sexually abused children] may have considered themselves fortunate to have had a parent who provides them with such gratification.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  145 (1987).

“Just because a little girl presents a fantasy of her father’s involving himself with her sexually does not necessarily mean that the father did so.  It may be simply a verbalization of a wish.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  157 (1987).

Child as initiator. “At the present time, the sexually abused child is generally considered to be the victim.  I believe that there are situations in which the sexually abused child has been the initiator. . . Many believe that young children do not have strong urges and that they are therefore unlikely to be initiators in any kind of sexual encounter with an adult.  This assumption is not necessary valid.  I have seen many children whom I would consider completely normal who developed strong sexual urges during the first few years of life.” 
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  165 (1987).

On the Wickedness of Children

Calls children “wicked” and writes “what is striking is the degree of sadism that many of these children may exhibit.  In many of these cases I have been impressed by what I consider to be the innate cruelty of these children.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, TRUE AND FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF CHILD SEX ABUSE 119-20 (1992).

“Well-publicized cases of sexual abuse often involve children giving testimony in which they provide the details of their alleged sexual abuses.  These testimonials can also be viewed by children on television – engendering a certain amount of envy for the widespread attention and notoriety that these children enjoy.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  101-102 (1987)

Many [children who fabricate] obtain morbid gratification from the attention that they enjoy, attention they may never have received before.  Some of these children are envious of youngsters whose testimonies have been shown on television.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  109-110 (1987).

“There may be even a morbid or sadistic gratification in the telling of the story.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  113 (1987).

On Therapy with Children Who are Sexually Abused

Special care should be taken not alienate the child from the molesting parent. The removal of a pedophilic parent from the home "should only be seriously considered after all attempts at treatment of the pedophilia and rapprochement with the family have proven futile."
Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics.(p. 537)

The child should be told that there is no such thing as a perfect parent. "The sexual exploitation has to be put on the negative list, but positives as well must be appreciated"
Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics.(p. 572) 

Older children may be helped to appreciate that sexual encounters between an adult and a child are not universally considered to be reprehensible acts. The child might be told about other societies in which such behavior was and is considered normal. The child might be helped to appreciate the wisdom of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who said, "Nothing’s either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics.(p. 59)

"In such discussions the child has to be helped to appreciate that we have in our society an exaggeratedly punitive and moralistic attitude about adult-child sexual encounters"
Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics.(p. 572).

On Therapists

“Parental Alienation Syndrome mothers have a way of finding therapists, almost invariably women, who reflexively join them in their campaign of denigration of the father… [who] in some cases even join the mother’s paranoid delusional system . . . some of these therapists are paranoid themselves.  Other harbor deep-seated hostility toward men, hostility so strong that they will seize upon every opportunity to vent their rage on them.”
Richard A. Gardner, Qualifications of Richard A. Gardner, M.D. for providing court testimony 149 (1992), reprinted in, Kathleen Coulborn Faller, The Parental Alienation Syndrome: What is It and What Data Support It?, 3 CHILD MALTREATMENT 100, 102 (1998).

“I believe that the reluctance by sex-abuse workers to recognize and accept the increasing frequency of fabricated sex-abuse allegations relates to certain psychological factors operative in their career choice . . .  I believe that people who have been sexually abused themselves in childhood are much more likely to enter this field than those who have not had such childhood experiences.”
RICHARD A. GARDNER, THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND THE DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN FABRICATED AND GENUINE CHILD SEX ABUSE  104 (1987).

For even more appaling quotes by Gardner see
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/pas/RAG.html

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Disciplining Divorcing Parents: The Social Construction of Parental Alienation Syndrome

by Francoise T. Bessette

I. Introduction

Using a social constructionist perspective, this thesis explores the development of the concepts of “parental alienation syndrome” and “false allegations” in the context of custody and access, as ‘social problems’. Following Joel Best’s framework for critically analysing social problems, it examines the life course of these concepts through an historical account of Canada’s divorce arena and recent changes to custody and access law. It analyzes the reasoning and motives of the major claimsmakers: the Fathers’ Right Movement, medical experts, the legal arena and the counter-claims of Feminist activists. It examines the role of the supervised access facilitator in the construction of the concepts as ‘social problems’. The theories of psychiatrist Richard Gardner are examined in particular, due to their pivotal role in the advancement of the claimsmakers’ goals. Finally, empirical studies are reviewed and analyzed, demonstrating how the concepts of “parental alienation syndrome” and “false allegations” have mutated and permeated the domain of divorce and access in Western society.

My interest in the topic of parental alienation began in the late 1990’s through my work with court ordered supervised access. My work began through a chance meeting with Jane Grafton, the woman responsible for introducing this service to Vancouver and is now called as an expert witness on matters of supervised access. She started doing the work in the mid 1980’s at the request of her husband, a child advocacy lawyer. His clients wished to have their ex-partners, who were court ordered to be supervised during parental visits, supervised by a neutral party because of concerns of bias and denial of wrongdoing by members of ex-partners’ immediate family and/or close friends. Within a few months Grafton’s business swelled to maximum capacity and she had established a supervision house with several employees. It soon became apparent that specific training was needed to serve the many types of family situations that were referred by the courts for supervision. Karen Flynn, a colleague of Jane Grafton, developed a course under the auspices of the Burnaby School District Adult & Continuing Education to fill this gap. Sixteen women, including myself, enrolled in the initial course, in October 1997, offering a certificate providing the credentials needed to work as a supervisor in contested child custody and access cases involving court-ordered supervised access orders. I was one of two of the first class who completed the program successfully. The course focused on preparing future supervisors to recognize incidents of child endangerment during visits with their non-custodial parent and to write reports of these visits for the use in family court by judges and lawyers.

The course followed the guidelines set by the International Visitation Network 1 and was sanctioned by the BC Ministry of the Attorney General (Burnaby School Board Brochure, undated). Informing much of the course material were two concepts that will be central to this thesis: parental alienation (also referred to as parental alienation syndrome or PAS) and false allegations of sexual abuse. Together these concepts were said to define weapons of vindication ex-partners used against each other. Parental alienation was defined as “one parent (alienating parent) brainwashing their child/ren against the other parent (hated parent)”. False allegations of sexual abuse carried this alienation process to the courts and the custody hearings in addition to poisoning their children’s minds. Parental alienation appears as gender neutral but in fact most of the elaboration and research dwells on how mothers alienate children from their fathers. The false allegation notion is almost always explicitly about how mothers raise such charges against fathers.

Click here to read the full article.

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by Jeff Fecke

One would think that Alec Baldwin would be pretty clear on why his daughter hates him.  When you go about leaving messages calling your child a "rude, thoughtless little pig" who needs you to "straighten your ass out" — well, that’s pretty good grounds for hatred right there.  After all, while it’s possible that Baldwin got angry with his daughter for the very first time ever, it’s a good deal more likely that this was but a taste of what he’s capable of.  After all, when you’re leaving messages for your non-custodial daughter during a messy divorce proceeding, you’re usually going to try to be on your best, not worst behavior.

Aside from being a personal problem, Baldwin’s tirade — leaked, unfortunately, by someone on his ex-wife’s side — was a public-relations nightmare.  Baldwin may have boldly asserted that he didn’t care that his daughter was a child, but most feeling human beings certainly did.  And so it was that Alec Baldwin boldly went onto the talk show "The View" to apologize. 

Or, you know, attack the victim.  Whatever.

Baldwin did pay lip service to the idea that he screwed up, but focused mostly on so-called "parental alienation," blaming ex-wife Kim Basinger for turning his daughter against him.

"What you learn in parental alienation is that affection for the alienated parent or loyalty to the alienated parent is portrayed as betrayal of the custodial parent. And that parent communicates in very subtle and not-so-subtle terms that this person is not a part of my life and I don’t want anything to do with them and I don’t want you to, either," he lamented.

The fact that his daughter could possibly feel loyalty toward her mother because Baldwin occasionally says she lacks the brains or decency of a human being doesn’t seem to have entered his mind.  Instead, he’s adopted the low whine of the Men’s Rights Movement, a loose-knit organization of ex-husbands who feel aggrieved and put-upon by the whole world, which is working against them to ensure that their children hate them.

Baldwin has the usual routine down.  He stated on "The View" that he was considering quitting his lucrative gig on NBC’s "30 Rock" to write a book about parental alienation.  That this would reduce his income–and child-support payments–was left unsaid, but hovered nicely in the background. 

Of course, in his rambling diatribe on "The View," Baldwin barely mentioned his daughter, save to make a point against his ex-wife.  He did complain that women actually get angry, though. 

"Things have changed so much since I was a child, and things like this would happen," he bemoaned, "and a woman might go and have lunch with her friends or go see her family, or she might go to the country club or to a group she was involved with and tell people what she was feeling about what was going on."

Today, vents Baldwin, "a person presses one button and the whole world knows that’s happened to you."

And that’s true, I suppose.  If I leave a verbally abusive message for my daughter on my ex-wife’s answering machine, she’ll be able to play it for anyone who wants to hear it.  She might even share with people at work, where she goes to work, as opposed to the country club, where she’d go if this was 1956, and we all lived in Leave-it-to-Beaverland.

Now, in some ways it’s bad that this message got out.  Not bad for Baldwin –I could care about him — but bad for his daughter, Ireland, who is the actual victim here, and who didn’t necessarily need the world knowing that her father was a jerk.

But to blame Basigner for releasing the tape is to remove blame from Baldwin for abusing his daughter.  And make no mistake about it–this was abuse.  You don’t tell your kids that they’ve humiliated you, that they’re rude and thoughtless, that you’re getting on a plane to straighten them out.  You certainly don’t scream it like you’re rabid. 

There are parents who try to turn their kids to their side, and there is a case to be made that men are undervalued as parents, just as women are undervalued in the work force.  But it’s never the poor schlubs who care for their kids who end up screaming about parental alienation.  It’s generally the narcissistic abusers, the men who are enraged not that their exes are working against them, but that their exes dared to leave in the first place.  Reread the "country club" statement, and tell me that Baldwin is talking about the situation with his daughter.  He isn’t.  He’s talking about how his wife wouldn’t have left him 50 years ago, that she would’ve vented at the country club and then come home to be at his side.  And he’d convieniently ignore that perhaps, just perhaps, that wasn’t healthy and wasn’t right, and perhaps — just perhaps — a man who would verbally abuse his 11-year-old daughter may not have shown even that much compunction about verbally abusing her mother.  And that her mother in that case had every right and reason to leave.

It’s not the fault of society that Alec Baldwin is an abuser, not the fault of the divorce, not the fault of his ex-wife and certainly not the fault of his daughter.  It’s his fault, and his responsibility.  I understand why he doesn’t want to look in the mirror. Abusers rarely do.  But that’s where the fault lies.  He can blame his ex all he wants, but if his ex-wife is really trying to turn his daughter against him, she has no greater ally than him.

© 2007 Minnesota Monito

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The Truth About Parental Alienation

by Irene Weiser

The truth about parental alienation, custody and abuse.
Proponents of Parental Alienation portray parental alienation as a destructive family dynamic, usually manifesting during custody battles, in which one parent purportedly turns the child’s sentiments against the other parent.  Failure to recognize and correct this dynamic by ensuring that the child has a relationship with both parents, they claim, will cause great harm to the child.

Indeed, nothing can be further from the truth.  Parental Alienation is a discredited, pseudo-psychological theory whose application in custody determinations has caused great harm to children.

Background

Parental Alienation Syndrome was first described in 1985 by the pro-pedophilia  psychiatrist Richard Gardner, at a time when the epidemic of child sexual abuse in our country was first being recognized.

Gardner defines PAS as follows:

The parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a disorder that arises primarily in the context of child custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent’s indoctrinations and the child’s own contributions to the vilification of the target parent . . .

Gardner proposed that most allegations of child sexual abuse in custody proceedings were false – that a bitter or vindictive parent had planted such suggestions into the child to turn the child against, or alienate the child from, the other parent.  The remedy, Gardner held, was to punish the accusing parent and award custody to the parent the child rejected.  
There is no empirical evidence for the existence of PAS , Gardner’s theory has not undergone peer review, and PAS has never been accepted by the American Psychiatric Association for inclusion as a clinical diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.  Nonetheless, the theory of PAS has been increasingly relied upon in family courts and its logic extended to apply not only to situations where child sexual abuse was alleged, but to any allegations of family violence.

Tragic Consequences

The results of its acceptance in family court have been tragic.  
Parental Alienation fails to recognize that a parent or child may have legitimate reasons for having antipathy toward the other parent; it rejects out of hand the idea that allegations of abuse could be true.  Thus, instead of investigating allegations of abuse, PAS turns the focus of the court’s investigation onto the motives of accuser. Evidence of animosity toward the other parent is regarded as evidence of PAS. As a result of this "through-the-looking-glass" thinking, when courts award visitation or custody to the parent the child has an aversion to, in many instances, the courts are awarding custody to abusers.  
Some children placed in the custody of their abusers have committed suicide; others have run away, and countless others have endured the abuse and are permanently traumatized..  In recent years, children placed in custody of their abusers have been coming forward to tell their stories and to warn of the harms of PAS.

PAS Discredited in Mental Health and Legal Communities

This past year (2006) the American Bar Association’s Children’s Legal Rights Journal published an article that undertook a comprehensive analysis of the scientific, legal and policy issues involved in the evidentiary admissibility of Parental Alienation Syndrome, and found that there was no support for its use.

“PAS’s twenty-year run in American courts is an embarrassing chapter in the history of evidentiary law. It reflects the wholesale failure of legal professionals entrusted with evidentiary gatekeeping intended to guard legal processes from the taint of pseudo-science…. As a matter of science, law, and policy PAS should remain inadmissible in American courts.”
Jennifer Hoult Esq, The Evidentiary Admissibility of Parental Alienation Syndrome: Science, Law, and Policy, 26 Child. Legal Rts J. 1 (2006).

Also this past year, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges published a judges bench book that also found no scientific or legal basis for admission of parental alienation. Further, it cautioned:

The discredited "diagnosis" of "PAS" (or allegation of "parental alienation"), quite apart from its scientific invalidity, inappropriately asks the court to assume that the children’s behaviors and attitudes toward the parent who claims to be "alienated" have no grounding in reality. It also diverts attention away from the behaviors of the abusive parent, who may have directly influenced the children’s responses by acting in violent, disrespectful, intimidating, humiliating and/or discrediting ways toward the children themselves, or the children’s other parent.
Navigating Custody & Visitation Evaluations in Cases with Domestic Violence: A Judge’s Guide, 2006, pg 24)

In 2003, the National District Attorneys Association’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse stated that

Although PAS may be hailed as a "syndrome" . . . in fact it is the product of anecdotal evidence gathered from Dr. Gardner’s own practice. [...] PAS is based primarily upon two notions, neither of which has a foundation in empirical research. […] PAS is an untested theory that, unchallenged, can have far-reaching consequences for children seeking protection and legal vindication in courts of law.”

And the 1996 Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family states that

Although there are no data to support the phenomenon called parental alienation syndrome, in which mothers are blamed for interfering with their children’s attachment to their fathers, the term is still used by some evaluators and courts to discount children’s fears in hostile and psychologically abusive situations.[pg 40] Family courts often do not consider the history of violence between the parents in making custody and visitation decisions. . . . Psychological evaluators not trained in domestic violence may contribute to this process by ignoring or minimizing the violence and by giving inappropriate pathological labels to women’s responses to chronic victimization. Terms such as "parental alienation" may be used to blame the women for the children’s reasonable fear of or anger toward their violent father. [pg 100]

Statistics

Multiple studies confirm the grim reality that at least 70% of contested custody disputes involve domestic violence.  Further, there is considerable overlap between domestic violence, child abuse and incest.  Multiple studies show that the majority of men who abuse their wives or girlfriends also abuse the children.  At least half of incest perpetrators also committed domestic violence, and daughters of batterers are 6.5 times more likely than other girls to be victims of incest.

Conclusion

It is time for law guardians, evaluators and judges to stop believing in the myth of Parental Alienation, and instead investigate the abuse that protective parents and children allege.

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by Carol S. Bruch

As American courts and legislatures continue their enthusiastic ventures into family law reform, they make frequent use of theories and research from the social sciences. This essay focuses on developments in child custody law stemming from Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), a theory propounded in 1985 that became widely used despite its lack of scientific foundations.

The discussion highlights theoretical and practical problems with PAS, provides a similar discussion of more recent proposals labeled Parental Alienation (PA), and concludes with recommendations for lawyers and judges who must evaluate these and similar developments.

To read this article (pdf), click here

© 2001 Family Law Quarterly

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Parental Alienation Syndrome Revisited

by Dr. Lois Achimovich

I. Introduction

Those attempting to come to grips with the issue of child abuse in the context of determination of contact and residency issues are not operating in a social vacuum.

When I began psychiatry 35 year ago, sexual abuse was not on the agenda. Wives did not get battered – and if they did, they deserved it. Physical abuse of children had only just been recognized in 1962 and Kempe was shouted down when he presented his first paper.

My awakening with regard to the sexual abuse of children came as late as 1985 when I was the family therapy consultant to an inpatient unit. Three girls came in with parasuicidal behaviour.

Over the weeks they were in hospital, each disclosed that her father was having sex with her – the word abuse in this regard was not regular currency.

I remember shock and disbelief. How could I have missed this for so many years. Why hadn’t patients told me? Did they give me clues I’d missed? And more importantly why aren’t our professional organisations shouting from the rooftops that this is happening?

Firstly, psychiatry has never admitted it has missed anything.

Secondly, the profession still minimises sexual abuse and other traumas in its engagement with its clients’ symptoms. For instance a glance at the annual report of the Beyond Blue project, headed by Jeff Kennett, government funded to deal with the burgeoning incidence of depression and suicide in the Australian community, reveals little attention being paid to child abuse, poverty, racism and unemployment as antecedents to psychiatric problem.

Thirdly as Thomas Szasz once said, if Freud had stuck to his guns, there would have needed to be a social revolution, not the invention of psychoanalysis. The same can be said of the recent fin desiecle.

In a recent publication, Finkelhor observed the decrease in CSA reports in the last ten years and postulated that some may have been frightened out of reporting because of the unlikelihood of being believed.3 He also countenanced other possibilities – for example that CSA was less common and that early intervention had been more successful.

Advocates for children who have been sexually abused have been on the ropes under this onslaught, which has not just come from the psychology and psychiatry professions, but also from academics like Elaine Showalter 4 and Ian Hacking5, who talk of mass hysteria perpetrated by social workers and women’s advocates and juxtapose this with the studied thoughtfulness of the distinguished grey eminences of the psy-professions. And for a while it looked like we might be heading for a new Dark Ages in trauma studies.

In family courts, the ramifications of recognising abuse as a reason for supervising or aborting contact have led to laws which are ambiguous, expert opinions which are not based in science and outcries from parents of both sexes about the unfairness of the system. The concept of alienation has gained ascendancy in family courts around the world particularly over the last five years. While most professionals familiar with the courts’ workings recognise that children can and do side with one or other parent, especially in the early stages of separation, little was done to research this. Indeed most of the papers written address Parent Alienation Syndrome, not parent alienation, and distinguished researchers in the field have only just turned their attention to the problem.

Click here to read the full article.

© 2003 Presented at the Child Sexual Abuse: Justice Response or Alternative Resolution Conference

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National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Rejects PAS

National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. (2006). Navigating Custody & Visitation Evaluations in Cases with Domestic Violence: A Judge’s Guide (2nd edition). Reno, NV: NCJFCJ. (download PDF)

From page 24

Parental Alienation and the Daubert Standard: on Syndromes and Behaviors

In contested custody cases, children may indeed express fear of, be concerned about, have distaste for, or be angry at one of their parents. Unfortunately, an all too common practice in such cases is for evaluators to diagnose children who exhibit a very strong bond and alignment with one parent and, simultaneously, a strong rejection of the other parent, as suffering from "parental alienation syndrome" or "PAS".[52] Under relevant evidentiary standards, the court should not accept this testimony.

The theory positing the existence of "PAS" has been discredited by the scientific community.[53] In Kumho Tire v. Carmichael , 526 U.S. 137 (1999), the Supreme Court ruled that even expert testimony based in the "soft sciences" must meet the standard set in the Daubert [54] case. Daubert, in which the Court re-examined the standard it had earlier articulated in the Frye [55] case, requires application of a multi-factor test, including peer review, publication, testability, rate of error, and general acceptance. "Parental Alienation Syndrome" does not pass this test. Any testimony that a party to a custody case suffers from the syndrome or "parental alienation" should therefore be ruled inadmissible and/or stricken from the evaluation report under both the standard established inDaubert and the earlier Frye standard.[56]

The discredited "diagnosis" of "PAS" (or allegation of "parental alienation"), quite apart from its scientific invalidity, inappropriately asks the court to assume that the children’s behaviors and attitudes toward the parent who claims to be "alienated" have no grounding in reality. It also diverts attention away from the behaviors of the abusive parent, who may have directly influenced the children’s responses by acting in violent, disrespectful, intimidating, humiliating and/or discrediting ways toward the children themselves, or the children’s other parent. The task for the court is to distinguish between situations in which children are critical of one parent because they have been inappropriately manipulated by the other (taking care not to rely solely on subtle indications), and situations in which children have their own legitimate grounds for criticism or fear of a parent, which will likely be the case when that parent has perpetrated domestic violence. Those grounds do not become less legitimate because the abused parent shares them, and seeks to advocate for the children by voicing their concerns.

52 "Parental alienation syndrome" was introduced by Richard Gardner and was primarily associated with child sexual abuse allegations in the context of contested child custody cases. For more information, see Bruch, supra note 28.

53 According to the American Psychological Association, "… there are no data to support the phenomenon called parental alienation syndrome …" AM. PSYCHOL. ASS’N., supra note 2, at 40.

54 Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993).

55 Frye v. U.S., 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923).

56 These are federal standards, but many states adhere to them at least generally and should still exclude any proffered evidence of "PAS".

© 2006

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Parental Alienation: A Rational Approach

by Joan Meier

The fact that divorcing parents often badmouth each other to the children can not justify the damage done to abused and endangered children by PAS and PA accusations.  

A more rational and fair approach would follow these steps:

1.  Assess abuse first

2.  Require evaluators to have genuine expertise in both child abuse and domestic violence.

3.  Once abuse is found, do not consider alienation claims by the abuser.

4. Do not base any finding of alienation on unconfirmed abuse allegations or protective measures taken by the preferred parent.

5. Evaluate alienation claims only if:

i) actual abuse has been ruled out.

ii) the child is actually unreasonably hostile to the other parent and resistant to visits, and

iii) there is active alienating behavior by the "aligned" parent.

6.  A finding of alienation should require at minimum that the parent consciously intends the alienation and specific behaviors can be identified.

7.  Limit remedies for confirmed alienation to healing the child’s relationship with the estranged parent.   

© 2009 NY State Office for Prevention of Domestic Violence Newsletter

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