Child Sexual Abuse & Parental Alienation Syndrome Allegations

From Parenting Abused Children: Hope, Healing, and Insight

    The following is a group of excellent links to papers and articles about Parental Alienation Syndrome and how the use of this fictitious syndrome by the Family Courts is harming our nation's children. Does parental alienation exist? Yes, it does. But true Parental Alienation is a far cry from the so-called Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS).

  Point of View

     According to one definition, "Parental alienation syndrome [PAS] is the brainwashing or programming of a child by one parent to denigrate and alienate the other parent."

     PAS, a phrase coined by the late Dr. Richard Gardner, arises almost exclusively during child custody disputes, and primarily focuses on alienation of the child's father, by the mother. It supposedly occurs when the mother alienates the child's affection for the opposing parent, often by accusing the other parent of child sexual abuse.

    God help the mother, these days, who even suggests her child is being abused by an ex-husband. If she does, she stands a good chance of losing her child.

    The PAS theory was developed by Richard Gardner, a psychologist, around 1985. One must note though that Gardner was seen by many as having extreme views and, according to his writings, a perceived acceptance of pedophilia. Gardner committed suicide in 2003.

   According to the late Dr. Gardner, children who accuse their father of sexual abuse, are being force fed lies by the mother, in an attempt to have the children's visitation with their father stopped by the court.

   Dr. Gardner's theory proposes that "' ... the vast majority of allegations in this category [divorce cases with custody disputes] are false.'"

   According to an article by the American Prosecutors Research Institute, entitled Parental Alienation Syndrome: What Professionals Need to Know, the PAS theory is based primarily upon two notions, "neither of which has a foundation in empirical research."

Theory I

   There is a high incidence of false allegations.

    Research, however, does not support his theory. In fact, studies have shown that the incidence of false allegations is very small.

    In a 1990 study by Thoennes and Tjaden, 9,000 divorces in 12 states were studied. It was found that sexual abuse allegations were made in less than 2 percent of the contested divorces involving child custody.

   Out of that two percent, only 5%-8% were determined to be false.

     In her article, Merrilyn McDonald, M.S.W, who does forensic work as a guardian ad litem in Bremerton, Washington, reports that in Australia, studies showed that allegations of sexual abuse were present in only 1.7 percent of custody or visitation dispute cases.

   She went on to write that in Canada, hospital records involving sexual abuse allegations of children were reviewed. The review indicated that "... children of parents involved in custody disputes had as much physical evidence of sexual abuse as children of non-disputing parents."

    "In a study that looked at all reports of sexual abuse received by the Denver child protective services In 1983, child protective social workers reported that 53 percent of allegations were well founded, 24 percent didn’t have enough information to allow substantiation, 17 percent were made in good faith and involved a legitimate concern, but had other explanations, and 6 percent were probably false."

Other studies have indicated that false allegation rates range between 2% to 8%.

  Dr. Gardner developed, what he called, the “Sex Abuse Legitimacy Scale.” Dr. Gardner claimed that this scale can point out falsely accusing mothers and children.

   Jon Conte, editor of the “Journal of Interpersonal Violence,” stated his opinion of the "Sex Abuse Legitimacy Scale": "“Probably the most unscientific piece of garbage I’ve seen in the field in all my life.”

  Dr. Gardner self-published this scale, which has never been subjected to scientific scrutiny or empirical studies.

   It's interesting to note that in his book, True and False Accusations of Sexual Abuse, Gardner wrote, " ...our present overreaction to pedophilia represents an exaggeration of Judeo-Christian principles and is a significant factor operative in Western society’s a typicality with regard to such activities."

Theory Number II: 

   "Women more often than men resort to making false allegations of abuse in disputed custody proceedings."

  Dr. Gardner's theory is that mothers encourage false accusations in order to obtain financial or strategic advantage during custody determinations."

  According to the American Prosecutors Research Institute, "This hypothesis ignores the fact that most sex offenders are indeed men."

   "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, or that post-divorce living conditions or circumstances might render a child vulnerable to sexual abuse... It is a courtroom diagnosis befitting adversaries involved in legal sparring."

  The American Prosecutors Research Institute goes on to state: "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."

  [For Part II, PAS & Case Law, read here]

Does PAS actually exist?  There is no actual "syndrome". It has been debunked by the experts as "junk science." In October, 2005, The American Psychological Association stated (in part):

     "APA's authoritative, Report on Violence in the Family, pointedly criticizes the misuse of PAS in domestic violence cases.

   "... In 1996 a leading task force of the APA published a widely disseminated and relied-upon report: Titled "Violence and the Family,"...The Report states, among other things:

"When children reject their abusive fathers, it is common for the batterer and others to blame the mother for alienating the children. They often do not understand the legitimate fears of the child."

   "Although there are no data to support the phenomenon called parental alienation syndrome ... the term is still used by some evaluators and courts to discount children's fears in hostile and psychologically abusive situations..."

  " ... Family courts often do not consider the history of violence between the parents in making custody and visitation decisions. In this context, the nonviolent parent may be at a disadvantage . . .

   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..."

   "Family courts frequently minimize the harmful impact of children's witnessing violence between their parents and sometimes are reluctant to believe mothers. If the court ignores the history of violence as the context for the mother's behavior in a custody evaluation, she may appear hostile, uncooperative, or mentally unstable. . .

   Psychological evaluators who minimize the importance of violence against the mother, or pathologize her responses to it, may accuse her of alienating the children from the father and may recommend giving the father custody in spite of his history of violence..."

   "... The use of the word "syndrome" and the reliance on expert witnesses to present this evidence in court makes clear that PAS is propounded and applied as a scientific concept.

   Both the scientific basis and the validity of its use in cases concerning abuse have been "thoroughly debunked" by both the APA and numerous other expert sources. "

      According to Dr Elspeth McInnes, author of, Parental Alienation Syndrome: family law's paradigm for child abuse, and a Lecturer at the University of South Australia:

"PAS - invented by American psychologist Richard Gardner - begins from the premise that children who allege serious abuse by a parent are lying and that they are made to lie by an apparently protective parent."

   " Without a publicly funded professional child protection investigative service available to inform the family court, the private adversarial system of family law commonly fails to substantiate allegations of child abuse, thereby systematically producing the outcome that child abuse allegations will be deemed to be false.

    PAS thus offers violent controlling ex-partners a pseudo-scientific set of "symptoms" to deny allegations of child abuse and pathologize the alleging child and protective parent..."

"The popularity of the PAS paradigm survives extensive empirical research findings showing that false allegations of child abuse are very much the exception rather than the rule."

   In their article, Parental Alienation Syndrome: Frye v Gardner in the Family Courts (Parts 1& 2), by Jerome H. Poliacoff, Ph.D., P.A., Cynthia L. Greene, Esq., and Laura Smith, Esq, state:

   "With increasing caseloads and limited time to assess a divorcing parent’s claim for designation as either residential or responsible parent the courts have responded to simplistic accusations which cast blame on one parent in order to make it easier for the other parent to prevail...

   ... Gardner believes that PAS arises almost exclusively in the context of child custody disputes. Gardner further asserts that, while a child contributes to the development of the alienation process, the predominant source of alienation is one parent, generally the mother.""

"Unfortunately, again, too many courts and too many of the mental health professionals upon whom they rely have blithely accepted in toto Gardner’s theoretical writings without the critical examination requisite either under the law or the ethical standards of professional psychological practice."

    "Before accepting PAS as science in family litigation it behooves both the family practitioner and the court to have a clearer understanding of what is more hyperbole than substance...

   The PAS criteria used by Gardner, as noted above, are essentially borrowed from and built upon his earlier (and now widely discredited) test for determining whether children were fabricating allegations of sexual abuse, the "Sexual Abuse Legitimacy Scale" (SAL Scale) (Id.)

The only appellate court to rule on the admissibility of the SAL Scale held it inadmissible because there was no showing that it had "some reasonable degree of recognition and acceptability among the spectrum of scientific or medical experts in the field" (Page v. Zordan, 564 So. 2^nd 500, Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1990)."

Poliacoff, et al, conclude by showing some alternative causes for a child's feelings of alienation towards a parent ( depending on such factors as stage of development):

 

• (1) developmentally normal separation problems,
• (2) deficits in the non-custodial parent’s skills,
• (3) oppositional behavior,
• (4) high-conflict divorce proceedings,
• (5) other serious emotional or medical problems of one family member,
• (6) child abuse,
• (7) inappropriate, unpredictable, or violent behavior by one parent,
• (8) incidental causes, such as the child’s dislike of a parent’s new roommate or lover,
• (9) alienation by third parties,
• (10) the child’s unassisted manipulation of one or both parents, or
• (11) fears for the absent parent’s welfare.

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How “Parental Alienation Syndrome” is Used Against Mothers And Children Who Allege Child Sexual Abuse by Trish Wilson

PAS is set up in such a way that regardless of what the child or mother may do or say, all behavior and statements will not be believed. Either the children and mother are delusional or they are lying. Karen stated that the court appointed evaluator for the children believed that the children’s therapists — those not appoint ed by the court — were “abusing them by believing them,” which fits in beautifully with treatment for PAS. http://www.feminista.com/archives/v1n2/wilson.html 

The Truth About Parental Alienation Syndrome And The American Psychological Association compiled by Trish Wilson

 When children reject their abusive fathers, it is common for the batterer and others to blame the mother for alienating the children. They often do not understand the legitimate fears of the child. http://members.aol.com/asherah/meier1.html 

Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Paradigm for Child Abuse in Australian Family Law by Dr. Elspeth McInnes 

     "I want to begin by drawing attention to the public acknowledgement at the highest levels of Family Law reform and administration in Australia of a continuing systemic failure to protect children from serious abuse."

  use in divorce proceedings are the product of vengeful and vindictive mothers.

   ""Both the Family Law Council (2002) report titled ‘Family Law and Child Protection’ and the Family Court’s Magellan Project (Brown et al. 1999, 2001) have recognised that children who are subject to serious abuse are not protected from continuing abuse in the current Family Court system."

   "Interim orders are made without reference to histories of domestic violence and allegations of abuse, which are treated as untested and therefore unreliable (Altobelli 2001). The trivialisation, disbelief and dismissal of child abuse allegations is underpinned by a presumptive paradigm that allegations of child ab

 http://www.unisa.edu.au/hawkeinstitute/hpw/documents/mcinnes-parental.doc  

Expert Dr. Robert Geffner: Courts Under the Thrall of Dangerous “Parental Alienation Syndrome” Myth Award Custody to Violent, Abusive Parents

 Child abuse experts Dr. Robert Geffner warns that “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) is junk science – a psychiatric “disorder” that isn’t recognized by any mental health or medical association, isn’t supported by research, and hasn’t even been published in established peer-reviewed professional journals.

 But PAS has been used by the courts to award sole custody of hundreds of children to the parents accused of sexually or physically abusing them.Worse is a process that turns justice on its head by demonizing the parent who is trying to protect their child and has made statements about them being abused.

   “Many professionals connected with the courts are operating under the influence of and acting on a dangerous myth. PAS is fictitious, but the life-long damage it has inflicted on countless children is only too real,”

   Geffner says. Both children who are exposed to intimate partner violence and those who are physically or sexually abused often are affected throughout their life span if the abuse is not recognized and treated.

  Many adults experience symptoms ranging from anxiety, sleeplessness, and panic attacks to a recurrent inability to trust other adults and form stable relationships but don’t connect those problems to their childhood history of abuse. http://www.alliant.edu/wps/wcm/connect/website/News+and+Events/News+Center/News+Releases/June+2006+-+Expert+Dr.+Robert+Geffner:+Courts+under+thrall+of+dangerous+%22Parental+Alienation+Syndrome%22+Myth+Award+Custody+to+Violent,+Abusive+Parents 

Parental Alienation Syndrome: When is ‘Parental Alienation Syndrome’ a False Allegation?

There is no protection, under the PAS theory for children who have actually sufferred physical, sexual or emotional abuse, due to such abuse being virtually impossible to ‘prove’, due to the childs age and general legal disbelief of children’s disclosures…

  We are aware of situations where protective fathers have been denied contact for many convoluted and unjust reasons, and where residential fathers have systematically alienated children from the non residential mother. However,parental alientation SYNDROME has not been an issue in those situations.       http://www.kidsindistress.org.au/parental-alienation-syndrome.htm 

Fighting Over the Kids: Battered spouses take aim at a controversial custody strategy.

…according to one 2004 survey in Massachusetts by Harvard’s Jay Silverman, 54 percent of custody cases involving documented spousal abuse were decided in favor of the alleged batterers. Parental alienation was used as an argument in nearly every case.

This year the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges denounced the theory as “junk science,” and at least four states have passed legislation to curtail its use in custody cases involving allegations of domestic violence. “It’s really been a cancer in the family courts,” says Richard Ducote, an attorney in Pittsburgh who has represented abuse victims in custody cases for 22 years.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14870310/site/newsweek/  

The Truth About Parental Alienation

 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.

   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:And the 1996 Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential“

  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.”           

Rev. Anne Grant: The discredited ‘Parental Alienation Syndrome’

"Abusers with money or other forms of influence, skilled at terrorizing their families, easily gain the upper hand. Their children, suffering nightmares and stomach ailments, refuse to visit them. The abusive parent charges the protective parent with “brainwashing” the children, and wins sole custody…

   The so-called Parental Alienation Syndrome, touted by many in the Rhode Island Family Court, has been discredited by the American Psychological Association and, recently, by both the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the Children’s Legal Rights Journal. 

 For more than a decade, I have witnessed the devastating effects of this strategy in Rhode Island courtrooms and families.

   Abusers often pride themselves on a no-nonsense parenting style that may appeal to judges. They typically show little concern for their children. Some pursue the children to torment their ex-partner or to avoid paying child support.

   Some force the children to deliver intelligence on the ex-partner, for protracted litigation against the protective parent. Threatened by a brutal, angry, demanding parent, the children frequently suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and worse."

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20060627_ctgrant.184a360.html

Modified July 23, 2007 9:33pm

 

Comments

[carlos]

Sigh.. these articles get so tiring. This should not a gender issue though it seems to me the author wants to make it one. Parents lie and alienate during custody proceedings. There is no surprise there. Alienation is real and children that are sufficiently alienated can turn against the alienated parent and make false allegations. It may be fair to say that this only happens in a small minority of cases, but if you claim it is completely "junk" science you have, quite literally, thrown the baby out with the bathwater. I have no doubt that some abusive men have used PAS to take children from their mothers just as some mothers have alienated their children from their fathers and lodged false allegations of abuse. In a contested divorce the reality of parental alienation should be considered and anything and everything that the parents say that is conflicting should be viewed as suspect. I know of children that have been alienated against their mothers as well as children that have been alienated against their fathers. I hope someday we can take the gender politics out of child custody issues but I think I will not see that day in my life time.

[Mother of true vision]

Children can only learn what they are bought to see. When there is in fact child abuse occurring it is only logical to have the facts determined to decide truth! PAS in the correct context with reasonable facts given to show truth of ones theory behind it may in some situations hold truth. However when PAS is even brought into the picture as a possible reason for a child's allegations, it is not the child that needs to be looked at as much as the adults that enabled this possibility to have arose in the first place. If it is looked at through facts of the matter and all pre and post evidence is submitted odds are you will not find your answer in theory as child abuse is not a theory it is an actual event. A child even being directed to pursue such a horrible task of siding between parents is child abuse in itself. Something was done wrong long before PAS even came into the picture to enable a child to possess such an terrorizing ability. Being a mother to a child that has indeed been abused by his father and also being very blinded through eyes of disbelief this topic is very touchy for me. As I was being told our child himself for so long and I was not listening as I could not believe one could do such a horrible thing to a child, especially one that I at one time thought I was in love enough to bear this same child with. I do not see myself as naive however in my situation I have seemed to be. Bottom line without my story that would take an entire website, it is fault of ones actions somewhere and it is not theory at all. Look at the facts, truly take the time to dig and look at what you are REALLY dealing with. Workers faced with PAS as a possibility have only seemed to weaken our system. I feel when it is determined in such a short amount of time they have only grasped this PAS theory as an easy way out of doing the actual work of fact founded conclusions, this is however only my opinion so take this as you will however when there is an actual event in any situation it is only fact of something that has made this come about. Thank about it!

[Solomon]

Gardner's theories have been ruled out. It has been admitted by a psychologists - even one trained by Gardner. But the quack psychologists still keep trying to blame the mother. Why not call it the "forbidden apple theory". That no matter what problem occurs, there will be a man there to blame the women.
PAS is a male entitlement philosophy. No matter how bad the dad is, there will be some quack willing to explain away the bad behavior and force a child to endure more of it.
With the prevalence of these twisted ideas, there is no relief for victims of abuse. Victims of psychopaths are forced to endure years of abuse until a chld reaches 18. The mothers and the children do nothing but suffer with quacks who force them to endure contact with their abusers.

[Katie]

http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=2879#comment-551660

The True Abuse/False Alienation Scam
by Katie Stanton

There are false allegations of fictitious syndromes going on all over the country and around the world. Horrifically abusive men, armed with lots of money, use false allegations of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) as a strategy to annihilate their families.

Instead of doing this physically, these abusers are using family court to inflict the damage. The men who claim to be "alienated" often will repeatedly call in false abuse reports on the mother, which is ignored in court proceedings and by the PAS-accusing evaluator.

These same men will attempt to "coach" the child to say bad things and make false allegations against the mother. When the child reports the father for his abuse (including parental alienation tactics), the father falsely claims alienation by the mother. It is a reign of terror, with the child as the ultimate victim.

There are some of the frequently elements of the abuse/false alienation scam. These behaviors often start during the relationship--they're not something that occurs as a result of divorce, but instead are often the reason for the divorce. They are:

Abuse frequently either begins or escalates during pregnancy.

Abuse can be physical and/or sexual.

Threatens to take the children if the victim mom leaves.

Threatens the life of the mom and/or children.

Extremely emotionally abusive and controlling.

Coercive control is constant.

Stalking.

Harassment by any means possible, phone, email or any other means of communication. Communications are with the intent to inflict emotional distress.

False accusations of infidelity.

Interferes with wife/mom's work.

Keeps mom and kids from having friendships with other people, and relationships with her own family, wants to only be with his relatives and friends.

Financial abuse (may incur bills and refuse to pay any, forces mom/wife to take on debt to keep family afloat while simultaneously undermining work of wife/mom).

Wife/mom will try to get help for husband/dad, and NOT immediately leave. Wife/mom will refuse to prosecute, only to later have this be extremely detrimental.

CPS involvement due to domestic violence and child abuse reports called in by people other than the mom. Mom will be terrorized with every report because she is at risk of losing kids to CPS.

Abuse against child that child discloses to mom while still married or in relationship. Mom will choose to work with dad on this personally.

Mom gets threatened by CPS with failure to protect while married or in relationship.

Visitation may be stopped for valid reasons.

Child is a pawn, the ways and means of continuing the abuse on the mother while inflicting great harm on the child.

Child will often be abused in front of mother intentionally during exchanges.

Child exchanges are just another opportunity to inflict harm on mom and child in any way possible. Calling all day, changing times, changing locations, repeatedly and obnoxiously.

Father refusing to return child from visitation.

Father will often have wealthy parents (and usually highly abusive and controlling father).

Father's parents will also engage in the terrorizing of mom and kids, and will also make threats and file false reports. Father's parents function like tag team of bullies.

Father will have visitation, then falsely claim that he was denied visitation. (Valid reasons for schedule changes are claimed to be "alienation.")

Father will receive phone calls, and school correspondence, then falsely claim that the calls were not long enough or meaningful enough, etc and that he did not receive ENOUGH information from school or may falsely claim that he received nothing when opposite is true.

Mother will comply with every order in great detail, while father disobeys, but father will file for false contempt claim in order to commit custody exchange fraud.

Father only needs to lie to psychologist, who then does nothing to corroborate any information, and psychologist will come to court and falsely accuse parental alienation without any evidence. Courts will listen to paid expert and vilify the protective parent to the delight of the abuser.

Father is expert at "crazy-making" This behavior distorts reality and destroys the possibility of honest communication. This is a very effective device to increase confusion and insecurity in the victim. It also makes the victim mom have to continuously defend in court.

In these cases, of course the child is fearful of the father. The children will be telling the truth, and the psychotic father is claiming they are lying. He forces the children to undergo evaluations and reunification therapy in efforts to have these psychologists "brainwash" the children into believing the father's alternate version of realty.

The children are tortured by unethical lawyers and psychologists profiteering off the case under the direction of the abuser dad, who is usually a very skillful and charming liar. The litigation will go on endlessly, as the protective parent desperately tries to shield the child.

This tactic of the true abuser using false allegations of alienation is an extreme form of emotional battering, and is a way of continuing to inflict abuse. The child will resent the true abuser even more, because of the hell they are being put through in order to exact revenge on the mom. False allegation of this fictitious syndrome--Parental Alienation Syndrome--is a fraud and needs to be exposed.

[peter]

Hi there. It just so happens I am one of the 2-8%. I am fighting a child sexual abuse charge at the moment. The reason this is so, My mother has started proceedings in the family court to get some access to my two children. The week after my daughter aged eight has made a statement to the police saying I sexualy assaulted her four years before, when I had my last contact with her and my son. Since seperation I have been served with three AVOs been charged with breaching an AVO,all of which were dismissed. My ex wife was also reprimanded by the police prosicuter not to waste police resources again. But here she is doing it again, and I have to defend myself again this time at a lot of expence. My point is she has programed my children to hate me and my family and to make all sorts of unbeleivable accusations. Unfortunatly for me the system must act. After my ex had me charged for breach an AVO I thought it would be best to sever all contact in fear of it happening again. When mum told me what she was planning to do I told her she would only get me in trouble. Dont you hate it when your right. For this reason I would like to think PAS would be taken very seriuosly. It could be the deciding factor for keeping inocent loving fathers out of 25 year sentences.

Regards: A loving heartbroken Dad.

[fzaner]

Dr. Ira Turkat says there isnt enough scientific evidence to say that parental alienation exists or doesn’t exist in the magazine for lawyers of divorce but I think he thinks it does exist. And remember that some people make false charges that there is parental alienation when it isnt true. Hard to know what really goes on behind the scenes
See: http://iraturkat.com/ and http://childcustodybattle.info/

[Jo]

Thanks for posting this info. I imagine you'll have more hits with Baldwin's book coming out.
PAS is touted by the fathers righters, the "abusers lobby." They also claim MMS- Malicious Mother Syndrome and SAID - Sexual Abuse Claims in Divorce. Of course, they are NEVER at fault! It's always the evil women. It's a modern-day witch hunt, leaving many abused women and children in its wake.

[Dean Tong]

Parental alienation is oftentimes the underlying psychological dynamic behind the making of false abuse allegations.

[Ms. Baldwin]

My guess is that both sides in these matters are valid. I have evidence of the exact behaviors of Parental Alienation occurring, but I also acknowledge that some people use it as a tool, when they are abusive. SO rather than trying to pin either side with being "wrong", realize that each situation has to be looked at, to determine what is going on. Parental alienation is quite real, regardless of terminology.

[cat]

So what do you do when you r daughter tells you she was abused by her fathers room mate, you turn him in, your daughter (who by the way is 6!) testifies and her father defends the room mate!!!! Their latest theory is that I made this up to take her away. I would never put any child, especially my own thru what she had to go thru (police, doctors, STD testing, court, etc). He gets to say all these awful things about me - and protect the guy who molested his daughter without any consequences!!!

[P.Singleton]

Visit ParentalAlienation.Ca if you need to help a child suffering from
parental alienation. Ask for Joe Goldberg at 905-481-0367. These are the people that know how to rescue and protect children from this form of abuse !

[Marianne Hamilton]

My children were taken from me on the basis of the PAS. My daughter tried to kill herself at age 6 and at age 9. The child protection and the child solicitor refused to return her GPs phone calls about calling the mental health team in on the basis that her abusers contact rights were more important.
In Hobart Tasmnaia, PAS is used almost automatically and at the hearing a few days after my children were sized from me in a refuse, my daughters father asked the judge to not tell me about the hearinga nd to not let me give an affidavit to the court. The Judge agreed and to this day I dont know the reasons apart from when I got my ex husbands affidavit months later.

My daughter is in a very bad way.Without money and for 10 years I have been trying to get her the help she needs. My ex dumped my 13 year old son after having him seized from me at the age of 13 (Hewas not his child) as my ex then said that he didnt want him after all so he dumped him at an airport as to spite me he first tried to get my son into fostercare. It was in retaliation because my children told about his abuse and because he had said that no woman left him and got away with it.

Hobart's rules are made up as they go along.
Marianne Hamilton

[Azazel616]

Oh one more thing for u 2 chew on. It's a new syndrome for you 2 debunk. It's called 'Lying Litigant Syndrome', or LLS for short.

[Azazel616]

Opps, my bag. Strike the crit, for using it against women. Still stand on you buying into the hype, on the against side. I've read his work and would have to say it's credible. It's more or less an issue of terminology. However, being used in court as a custody strategy (IMHO)has discredited his work. Back to the drawing board for you!

[Azazel616]

I guess the real issue is calling an apple an orange. There is such a thing as 'Conditioned Response', and for that matter 'Conditioned Fear'. Sadly, what is missed in this article is this 'technique' is used in court against women as well. Let's call it Brainwashing. But of course that's bunk, right? I suppose we should debunk that as well. I suppose that we should tell the military that 'boot camp' conditioning is 'bunk' too. The fact is that any dissolution hearing where allegations of abuse are made should be dealt with as if both parents are guilty. One w/ abuse and one w/ neglect, probably both are guilty of abuse. Also, your observations are obviously biased toward gender, not very professional at all. Correlation Does Not Equal Causation! BTW, both my sister and I are classic 'Gardner' cases. For both of us, it destroyed our relationships w/ our parents. Perhaps the children should be taken into consideration. Just a thought..