MUST READ ARTICLES REGARDING ALIENATION

MUST READ ARTICLES REGARDING ALIENATION

Parental Alienation: Which Diagnosis Should Evaluators Use in Child Custody Disputes? The American Journal of Family Therapy, 30 (2), 93-115. ...

www.drhavlicek.com/must_read_articles.htm

Gardner's Remedies for PAS

            Gardner's "remedy" for purportedly severe PAS is extreme, including complete denial of maternal–child contact and "de-programming" the child through a concerted brainwashing effort to change the child's beliefs that they have been abused (Bruch, 2001; Gardner, 1992a; see also www.rachelfoundation.org). In more than one case, children subjected to these procedures have become suicidal ,and in some cases killed themselves, in reaction to court orders to live with the father they said abused them (Bruch, 2001; Hoult, 2006). In other cases, courts have ordered children into jail and juvenile homes as part of Gardner's recommended "threat therapy" which is the stock in trade of strict alienation psychologists (Hoult, 2006; Johnston & Kelly, 2004a). In one such case, a judge ordered a frail nine-year-old boy seized by three police officers and placed in a juvenile detention facility when he refused to get into his father's car for a scheduled visitation. The son of the father's girlfriend had sexually abused the boy and he had also witnessed the father's violence against his mother. After three days of abuse by the other boys in the detention facility, the boy agreed to cooperate with the court order. The judge concluded that his "treatment" for parental alienation had worked (E. Stark, personal communication, May 2007).
            As commentators have pointed out, PAS is a defense lawyer's dream, because all evidence refuting it can be simply reframed as further evidence of the "syndrome" (Bruch, 2001). In other words, if a child repeats claims of abuse, that is characterized as further evidence of extreme "programming" and brainwashing by the mother. If the mother points to a therapist's opinion that the child has been abused, the therapist is accused of a "folie a trois" (a clinical term from the French for "folly of three") which suggests that all three parties are in a dysfunctional "dance" together (Bruch, 2001). If the mother calls child protection or gathers other corroboration of the allegations, this too is considered further evidence of her pathological need to "alienate" the child from the father. And, if the mother continues to assert that her child needs protection after her allegations have been ignored or deemed unsubstantiated, she is deemed an even more extreme alienator (Gardner, 1987, 1992a).
The Absence of Research Supporting PAS
            While Gardner and PAS have many adherents, particularly among forensic evaluators and litigants, few, if any, researchers have contributed to the literature endorsing PAS. This is presumably because PAS is really Gardner's invention and was not derived from empirical research that can be replicated.  
            PAS' empirical claims are false or unsupported. The claims upon which Gardner based his PAS theory are contradicted by the empirical research. Gardner (1991, 1992b) claimed that child sexual abuse allegations are widespread in custody cases and that the vast majority of such allegations are false. These claims have no empirical basis other than Gardner's interpretation of his own clinical practice. In contradiction, the largest study of child sexual abuse allegations in custody litigation ever conducted found that child sexual abuse allegations were extremely rare (less than 2% of cases) and that approximately 50% of the claims were deemed valid, even when assessed by normally conservative court and government-affiliated evaluators (Thoennes & Tjaden, 1990). Other studies have found such allegations to be validated approximately 70% of the time (Faller, 1998). Moreover, leading researchers have found that "high rates of unsubstantiated maltreatment" in "circumstances that indicat[e] that abuse or neglect may have occurred" are a more prevalent problem than false claims of child sexual abuse (Trocme & Bala, 2005, pp. 1342-44).
            Indeed, empirical research has found that the PAS theory is built upon an assumption which is the opposite of the truth: Where PAS presumes that mothers are vengeful and pathologically "program" their children, it is not women and children, but noncustodial fathers who are most likely to fabricate child maltreatment claims. In the largest study of its kind, leading researchers analyzed the 1998 Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect. They found that only 12% of child abuse or neglect allegations made in the context of litigation over child access were intentionally false (Trocme & Bala, 2005). Notably, they found that the primary source of these intentionally false reports was noncustodial parents (43%), typically fathers; Relatives, neighbors, or acquaintances accounted for another 19% of false reports. Only 14% of knowingly false claims were made by custodial parents (typically mothers) and 2% by children (Trocme & Bala, 2005).  
            Gardner asserted that the reason women lie about child sexual abuse in custody litigation is because "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" (Gardner, 1992b, pp. 218-19), and/or because they are "gratifie[d] vicariously" (Gardner, 1991, p. 25; 1992a, p. 126) by imagining their child having sex with the father. Again, there is no empirical basis or support for these offensive assertions.
            Gardner's pro-pedophilic beliefs. Gardner's underlying beliefs regarding human sexuality, including adult-child sexual interaction, are so bizarre that it is hard to believe that courts would have adopted his theory if they were aware of what he had published. For instance, his writings express the view that all human sexual paraphilias (deviant behaviors) "serve the purposes of species survival" by "enhanc[ing] the general level of sexual excitation in society" (Gardner, 1992b, p. 20; see also Hoult, 2006). These sexual behaviors include pedophilia, sadism, rape, necrophilia, zoophilia (sex with animals), coprophilia (sex with feces), and other paraphilias (Gardner, 1992b; see also Dallam, 1998; Hoult, 2006).
            Further, Gardner claimed that women's physiology and conditioning makes them potentially masochistic rape victims who may "gain pleasure from being beaten, bound, and otherwise made to suffer," as "the price they are willing to pay for gaining the gratification of receiving the sperm" (Gardner, 1992b, p. 26).
            Regarding pedophilia, Gardner argued expressly that adult-child sex need not be intrinsically harmful to children. He claimed that adult-child sex is beneficial to the species, insofar as it increases a child's sexualization and increases the likelihood that his or her genes will be transmitted at an early age (Gardner, 1992b). Contrary to his own claim that most sexual abuse claims in the context of custody disputes are false, Gardner also claimed, with equal lack of basis, that "probably over 95%" of all sex abuse allegations are valid, because "sexual activities between an adult and a child are an ancient tradition" a "worldwide phenomenon" and "has been present in just about every society studied, both past and present" (Gardner, 1992b, pp. 47-48). Gardner viewed Western society as "excessively punitive" in its treatment of pedophilia as a "sickness and a crime" (Gardner, 1991, p. 115).   He attributed this Western "overreaction" to the influence of the Jews (Gardner, 1992b). Gardner opposed mandated reporting of child sexual abuse, and specifically described a case in which he successfully persuaded a mother not to report a bus driver who had molested her daughter. He contended that reporting the molestation would "interfere with the natural desensitization process, would be likely to enhance guilt, and would have other untoward psychological effects" (Gardner, 1992b, pp. 611-12; see also Dallam, 1998). Gardner's perspective on adult-child sexual interaction can be summed up in his reference to Shakespeare's famous quote: "'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so'" (Gardner, 1991, p. 115).
            Gardner's attitude toward paternal child sexual abuse was evident in an interview in which he stated that a child who tells his mother he has been sexually molested by his or her father should be told "I don't believe you. I'm going to beat you for saying it. Don't you ever talk that way again about your father" (Waller, 2001). 4
            Sole empirical study of PAS does not validate the concept. Only one study has been published that purports to empirically verify the existence of PAS. This study sought to assess the "inter-rater reliability" of PAS, or the extent to which different observers can consistently identify PAS (Rueda, 2004). The study built directly on Gardner's criteria, taking for granted that those criteria reflect PAS. It then measured the degree to which a small sample of therapists agree on whether five case scenarios presented to them reflect those PAS criteria or not (Rueda, 2004). Many of the therapists surveyed refused to fill out the questionnaire and some expressly stated they didn't believe PAS existed. This study thus simply presumed rather than proved the key question: Is the concept of PAS actually a disorder caused by a malevolent aligned parent's efforts, or is it simply a reframing of a child's alienation caused by real abuse and/or other conduct by the alienated parent? Notably, the author himself admits that the findings did not "differentiate PAS from parental alienation" (Rueda, 2004, p. 400). Since "parental alienation" is merely a factual description of behavior that is both more innocuous and common (see section below) than "PAS" purports to be, this admission essentially negates the usefulness of the study.
            PAS has been rejected by scientific and professional authorities. The dominant consensus in the scientific community is that there is no scientific evidence of a clinical "syndrome" concerning "parental alienation." Leading researchers, including some who treat "alienation" itself as a real problem, concur that "the scientific status of PAS is, to be blunt, nil" (Emery, Otto, & O'Donohue, 2005, p. 10; see also Gould, 2006; Johnston & Kelly, 2004b; Myers et al., 2002; Smith & Coukos, 1997; Wood, 1994). The Presidential Task Force of the American Psychological Association on Violence in the Family (APA, 1996) stated 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 (p. 40).

Dr. Paul Fink, past President of the American Psychiatric Association, describes PAS as "junk science" (Talan, 2003, line 9). Additionally, a psychiatrist heading up the revision of the profession's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual stated that PAS "would never be taken seriously in DSM… It isn't a mental disorder" (Talan, 2003, lines 34-5).
            Echoing the scientific consensus, a leading judicial body, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, published guidelines for custody courts stating:

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 (Dalton, Drozd, & Wong, 2006, p. 24).

            The American Prosecutors' Research Institute and National District Attorneys' Association have also rejected PAS (Ragland & Field, 2003). And, despite more than one attempt by Gardner and other adherents of PAS, PAS has not been accepted into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the encyclopedia of recognized psychological disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association (N. Erickson, personal communication, May 16, 2007). At most, PAS is a conclusory label that offers a particular explanation for a breach in the relationship between a child and parent. However, insofar as the same condition can stem from numerous other legitimate reasons, it is not in itself a psychological diagnosis so much as a purely legal claim or argument (Hoult, 2006).