THE SLOPER TAKE ON PAS, FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH!

Quite frequently, advocates for litigants in family court end up having discussions in regard to Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), i.e. asking whether it exists and if so what can be done about it.  I have been shocked by the draconian punishments PAS activists suggest for people they consider alienators, particularly since, at this time, in my opinion, it is hard to diagnose the  condition accurately.  

 

Others have written to me disagreeing, stating that a diagnosis of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is easy to identify.  One proponent of the theory wrote to me saying that it is possible to be quite accurate in establishing the presence of PAS stating,

 "The way parental alienation is exposed is by the 8 strategies that are used which result in 17 behaviors exhibited by the child". 

However, after spending as much time as I have in family court, I have zero faith in the ability of mental health professionals to observe families and children sufficiently well to observe anything.  So when you talk about strategies and behaviors, the question is, which professional is examining those things and is that professional reliable?  

Do you mean notorious Father's Rights Advocates such as Dr. Kenneth Robson, Dr. James C. Black, Dr. Sydney Horowitz, and Dr. Howard Krieger who do the vast majority of custody evaluations in the State of Connecticut, and for whom there isn't a child molester, or an male abuser they wouldn't embrace?  If so, you've lost my support right there!

Mental Health Professionals are notoriously not reliable in diagnosing anyone.  For more details, read about the study done by the psychologist David Rosenhan as described in his article "Being Sane in Insane Places."  The link is below:

 

http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/rosenhan.html

 

I would particularly assume this is true of Mental Health Professionals who work in the legal system where corruption reigns.

I am not denying that parental alienation exists, perhaps not exactly as PAS proponents currently theorize, but in some form.  Many men as well as women have noted that they have observed the effect of PAS on their children. Women often refer to the phenomenon as Domestic Violence by Proxy.  

 

However, the problem I have with the theory is that PAS as many advocates currently describe it is associated with a well known pedophile--Dr. Richard Gardener, and his theory of PAS, no matter how solid the theory may be, has been used by abusers, particularly child sexual abusers, as the basis for improperly removing children from the care of fit mothers.  

 

Until these issues are addressed in an effective manner, until proponents of the theory acknowledge the ways in which it has been misused--as a means to accuse good mothers falsely--so that it will have credibility when it is used properly, PAS within the context of custody battles will remain a tainted approach. I have read case after case where clearly abusive Fathers have been declared the better parent despite the serious abuse they committed and given sole custody of young children solely on the basis of accusations of PAS improperly levied at the Mother.  

It is well known that when abusive fathers no longer wish to pay child support that they yell PAS and sue for custody of the children and get that custody at least 70% of the time. These are frightening numbers.

My friend, the PAS advocate states, "We also know that the majority of alienation cases are perpetrated by the custodial parent, i.e. the Mom."  Well, who is doing the research?  Can you cite the research?  I know quite enough men who perpetrate Domestic Violence by Proxy (PAS) and clearly they are quite capable of the same behavior.  Isn't the presumption that primarily women are doing this fundamentally gender biased?  After a divorce, there is griping on both sides, we would all agree.  The idea that primarily the women continue on to develop PAS, but not men--I do not find that thought credible.

One thing I would say is that when fathers do not pay child support, I consider that behavior just as damaging if not more so than PAS.  Yet such fathers do not lose access to their children.  Why is it that mental health professionals propose restricting or completely cutting off Mother's access to the children if PAS is thought to be present?  What? Again, a little gender bias here?  Women are absolutely not allowed to cut off access to fathers when they refuse to pay child support.  So it seems that when children have no food, heat, education, clothing, that's ok, but if there is PAS, eliminate Mom? Right.  What a great idea--NOT!

I think it is very revealing that the APA consistently refuses to include PAS in the DSM.  I think such decisions are a clear statement that the Mental Health Profession itself, outside of the sphere of the judicial system, does not consider PAS a credible form of mental illness.  So, making claims that PAS is a mental health condition is false and misleading of anyone who makes such a claim.  PAS and DV by Proxy is behavior that people perpetrate as the result of a decision, as a result of a choice to perform one action rather than another.  Once we understand it as a choice and stop attributing it to some nebulous disease process, I think the solution to this kind of behavior, which destroys and damages relationships within families, particularly in regard to the parent child relationship, will be far more clear.  

The bottom line is, until we stop politicizing this issue, it will be very difficult to establish what we are dealing with when it comes to PAS.  At this point, I feel that we are prematurely drawing conclusions and that we need to do far more research and get beyond the anecdotal in regard to our understanding of this kind of behavior.  

I am also not satisfied that removing a child from his or her relationship with Mom or Dad is a reasonable solution for PAS.  When courts, as a response to PAS, eliminate the other parent who is seen as the perpetrator of PAS from the lives of the children, aren't they doing exactly what they are accusing that parent of, but justification for doing so comes under a different definition as protection the child?  Same action, different excuse!

In other words, If you commit what is essentially PAS, by demonizing the other parent with the label PAS, and then doing exactly what an alienating parent would do, which is eliminate that labeled parent from the lives of the children, what makes you better?

I particularly  deplore placing protective mothers in supervised visitation which indirectly eliminates these mothers from the lives of their children.  It does so because supervised visitation is well beyond what such mothers can afford.  Another reason is because such visitation is simply part of a thinly veiled plan to obtain more documentation to trash the mother.

As a final note, if you see many of the elements of what appears to be PAS, but it turns out there is abuse, "experts" say then it is not a situation of PAS.  But, as we know, the GALs and custody evaluators in the State of Connecticut have a policy of refusing to acknowledge abuse.  As a result, any attempt to make PAS law stronger, no matter how legitimate, puts truly abused parents at risk.  

Until this situation is corrected, and Mental Health Professionals and attorneys stop denying the existence of abuse, both sides will continue to suffer, and this is wrong.  Because I would agree there are situations where PAS is at play and should be stopped.  But until the corruption in family court ends, and women who are being abused obtain the protection they are entitled to, we cannot address the problem effectively as a community because current policies put us at risk of falsely accusing high numbers of women of PAS when they are actually simply victims of domestic violence.

What I see going on here is a situation where the judicial system is playing the politics of "divide and conquer".  They pit the DV abuse advocates against the PAS advocates and let us fight it out, then they gather up all the money and go home. 

What we need to do is fight gender bias against both men AND women.  We need to condemn both DV abuse and PAS, and we need to insist that the Mental Health Professionals and attorneys involved in family court step up to the plate and do the job they are supposed to do.  And, also, I really believe that more research is needed so we can make accurate statements about both abuse and PAS so that we can reduce instances where injustices occur because of the misapplication of the science underlying these concepts.

 

I think it is time for litigants and advocates who want the reform of family court to put aside the gender war which the judicial system is taking advantage of.  We will never have change if we are going to fight among ourselves. 

 

What do we really want? 

 

We want our constitutional rights. 

 

We want the right to due process.

We want court orders enforced.  An order for visitation is an order for visitation, and that's it. 

 

We want to have the decision making in regard to our children based upon real science not fake science. 

 

We want the mental health professionals involved in our cases to think seriously about the best interests of the children. 

We want an end to children for money exchanges. 

 

We do not want mental health professionals or attorneys playing politics or pursuing their own personal agendas or replacing us in our role as parents. 

 

These are concepts that all principled advocates can stand behind, and unite behind.  And we should stand together, because Connecticut needs the strength of all its citizens in order to overcome the corruption and injustice we face in the legal system today.