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Parental Alienation Syndrome Although fathers' rights groups allege that Parental Alienation Syndrome refers to the divorce-induced situation where one parent has caused the child to express hatred toward the other parent, most (legitimate) family court reform advocates understand that PAS actually refers to a litigation strategy used to give specifically abusive men an advantage in family court.

The term PAS was originally coined as a legal defense of child molesters by Dr. Richard Gardner. Gardner, who has (self)published works on legitimizing sexual paraphilias, has since committed suicide.

www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume5/j5_2_8.htm http://cincinnatipas.com/dr-richardgardnerautopsy.html

PAS is used exclusively by fathers' rights groups, attorneys and court organizations -- not mental health practitioners -- because it is not an actual psychological disorder. PAS is a legal strategy used to switch custody to men in any situation where the mother expresses justified concern about the father's ability to parent safely and responsibly.

PAS methodology calls for (mis)handling abuse cases as high conflict custody disputes. This is accomplished when allegations of abuse are dismissed as false and mothers' attempts to protect, or even parent, their own children are pathologized. Use of PAS "threat therapy" has been linked to at least one child's death (Nathan Grieco) and to the punishment of children in mental institutions for reporting abuse:

http://www.post-gazette.com/custody/partthree.asp www.sfweekly.com/issues/2002-12-18/news/feature.html

While it is widely accepted that use of PAS conceals a deviant agenda in the guise of fathers' rights, there are court reform activists who believe that PAS concurrently reflects a financial corruption scheme.

Legal

In the United States, approximately 40 percent of children live without their own biological father. Most of these cases reflect situations where the father is incarcerated, abusive, or abandoned the family. According to the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, "usually judges are not required to make a finding of domestic violence in civil protection order cases."

Legal systems usually require the views of the child to be known to the court. For example, in the UK there is a welfare checklist which the court must follow (The Children Act 1989 s.(3)) The first item on the list is to establish "the ascertainable wishes and feelings of the child concerned (considered in the light of his age and understanding)." Fathers' rights campaigners claim that the courts do not try to detect whether the mother has alienated a child against their father and consequently the father is unjustly excluded from the life of their child. Lady Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the Family division, (i.e. the top UK family court judge) stated in (Re L, V, M, H (Contact: Domestic Violence) 2 FLR 334 at 351):

There is, of course, no doubt that some parents, particularly mothers, are responsible for alienating their children from their fathers without good reason and thereby creating this sometimes insoluble problem. That unhappy state of affairs, well known in family courts, is a long way from a recognized syndrome requiring mental health professionals to play an expert role.

Some father's rights groups have lobbied for acceptance of the parental alienation syndrome in the family courts in the United States, or have sought acceptance for parental alienation as a legal concept to be applied in custody cases. (There is scholarly controversy regarding the difference between 'parental alienation syndrome' and 'parental alienation'. Some critics suggest that 'parental alienation syndrome' cannot be refered to as a 'syndrome' since it does not appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, nor is the syndrome recognized by the American Medical Association, or the American Psychological Association. Advocates of the concept have largely side-stepped this debate by simply referring to it as 'parental alienation.') Parental alienation and 'parental alienation syndrome' have been readily accepted by father's groups who believe that there is a persistent pattern of falsified allegations of abuse made by women against father's in custody cases.

Women's advocacy groups argue that the syndrome is gender-biased or biased in favor of non-custodial parents. See e.g. Zorza, 'Friendly Parent' Provisions in Custody Determinations, 26 CLEARINGHOUSE REV. 921-25 (1992). Gardner has been generally criticized for having formulated a theory based upon a number of false assumptions. An interesting general critique can be found at . Although 'parental alienation syndrome' is often raised by the parent who does not have primary caretaking responsibilities (statistically more likely to be fathers), in practice,'parental alienation syndrome' is a concept which can be raised by parents of either gender.

Courts have generally declined to rely upon the 'parental alienation syndrome' as the basis for a child custody determination. See e.g. In the Interest of T.M.W, 553 So. 2nd 260, 262 Fla. Dist. Ct. App., 1988. Critics of 'parental alienation syndrome' generally point out that it is not a generally accepted theory within the scientific community and that it lacks a widely agreed upon definition, firm diagnostic criteria, and empirically based research studies. Warshak, Richard A., "Current Controversies Regarding Parental Alienation Syndrome", American Journal of Forensic Psychology, Volume 19, No. 3, 2001, p. 29-59.

In order for a scientific theory to be accepted in the courts of the United States, the trial court must find under the state or federal rules of evidence that the theory can be admitted on scientific grounds. See generally Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Many courts have failed to recognize parental alienation as admissible under evidentiary standards set forth in either Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013, 34 A.L.R. 145 (D.C. Cir. 1923), or Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993).

Books

• The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals by Richard A. Gardner, Creative Therapeutics; 2nd edition (March, 1998) ISBN 0933812426
• Parental Alienation Syndrome in Court Referred Custody Cases by Janelle Burrill, Dissertation.Com. (October, 2002) ISBN 1581121490
• Divorce Poison: Protecting the Parent-Child Bond from a Vindictive Ex by Richard A. Warshak, Regan Books (March 1, 2003) ISBN 0060934573

See also

• Parental alienation
• Children
• Divorce
• Family law
• Visitation

Further reading

• SPARC Parental Alienation Information Archive
• Richard Gardner and Parental Alienation Syndrome archive of Newsday.com assessment of the future of PAS
• Dr. Gardner's publications on the PAS
• All of Dr. Lowenstein's publications on the PAS

External Links

• www.OurFamilyWizard.com - Tools to help divorced parents share information, schedules and expenses

http://www.helpstoppas.org/

• Parenting