Those of you reading my blogs on Parental Alienation Syndrome and HB 6085 might have said to yourselves, but when my abuser alienated my child from me in my high conflict divorce wasn't that parental alienation? No. What happened in your situation was Domestic Violence By Proxy.
Parental Alienation Syndrome is a discredited theory developed by Dr. Richard A. Gardner in the 1980s and exploited by father's rights groups in order to pursue their agenda against protective mothers.
In contrast, Domestic Violence By Proxy is a term developed by Alina Patterson, author of "Health and Healing" in order to describe the behavior of a parent who has used domestic violence as a way to abuse and intimidate his spouse and who then uses a child as a substitute when he no longer has access to her. The two concepts are entirely different.
As Dr. Richard Gardner described it, Parental Alienation Syndrome is "a disorder that arises primarily in the context of child-custody disputes. It's primary manifestation is the child's campaign of denigration against the parent, a campaign that has no justification."
According to Dr. Gardner, "the disorder results from the combination of indoctrination by the alienating parent and the child's own contributions to the vilification of the alienated parent." Dr. Gardiner also stated that this alienation could be on purpose "or unconscious on the part of the alienating parent."
Gardiner advocated strictly punishing that parent seen as causing PAS including giving custody of the child to the targeted parent and terminating all contact even to the point of violating that parents' civil rights. And, of course, in the vast majority of cases the parent seen as the alienator was the mother.
As a syndrome, PAS has not been accepted into either the DSM-IV or the proposed DSM-V. It has not been recognized by the AMA or the APA and has been critiqued as lacking a scientific basis, particularly because it is primarily anecdotal and there has been limited research into its validity.
According to The Leadership Council, women in high conflict divorces with abusers often think that the concept of parental alienation applies to what they are experiencing when batterers attempt to use their children against them. In fact, what they are actually experiencing is Domestic Violence by Proxy.
In this situation abusers use their children in a criminal way in order to punish and retaliate against the spouses they once abused. Abusers have learned that when they can no longer harm their spouses, the next best thing is to go after the children. Abusers do this by putting the children at risk either physically or emotionally and wresting custody from their mothers by coaching the children to testify against their mothers, forging documents or providing false testimony against these mothers, or using the court system as a way to oppress them.
In PAS, the actions of the alienating parent are thought to be unconscious, whereas the actions of an abuser in Domestic Violence by Proxy are fully planned in advance, often years in advance, and are deliberate. Whereas in PAS, the child identifies with one parent in a divorce through a subtle process of identification, the child in a situation of Domestic Violence by Proxy suffers a kind of Stockholm Syndrome where the children bend to the wishes of the abuser as a consequence of trauma.
So remember, if your abuser threatens your children or tells them lies about what you think, feel, have said or done (for example, saying you don't love them and never did), if he puts your children in harm's way or damages them to the point that they need ongoing counseling, call a spade a spade, call it what it is, Domestic Violence by Proxy.
There was no alienation, there was violence. You and especially your children were hurt and harmed.
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