Published February 23, 2007
The Truth About Parental Alienation
EXCERPTS FROM :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.
Gardner defines PAS as follows:
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.
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.
http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/info/custody-abuse/parental-alienation/the-truth-about-parental-alienation
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.
http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/info/custody-abuse/parental-alienation/the-truth-about-parental-alienation
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