KARYN GIL v. JOHN A. GIL, A.C. 28760 AND A.C. 25912, PART II: PAS THEORY GONE WILD!

So we have this case where the father, John A. Gil, is repeatedly taking his ex-wife Karyn back to court for trumped up charges of PAS (parental alienation syndrome), stating that she is interfering with his visitation. 

 

In fact, there was no evidence of any kind of interference. but as we all know, there is no need for the Court to have facts in order to draw  absurd conclusions. 

 

Furthermore, it was clear from the beginning that Mr. Gil had mental health issues and he was ordered to go to therapy to deal with them.  However, he refused to cooperate and follow those orders.  What is troubling is that instead of holding him in contempt for violating those orders, the Court saw fit to let the father continue to flout them.  In addition, at the time, the Gil's daughter whom I have called Jane, was also court ordered to have therapy, but John Gil refused to allow her to have any therapy at all--another violation of a court order.

 

Then, as I have stated, father kept this case going for a full fourteen years dragging his ex-wife and their daughter through the Courts trying to make them miserable.  

 

I'd also like to update you as to the situation in the present.  In a recent meeting with Karyn Gil and her daughter, they showed me a legal document that Mr. Gil sent to his daughter last week through an attorney making extensive demands of his daughter.  I'm like, this guy never stops.  And he did this just before Christmas to make his actions even more devastating than they have to be. 

 

This is the story of a man who has an unlimited capacity to abuse and the story of a family court system that appears to have an infinite willingness to allow him to do so.  We can see this in the many hundreds of cases where protective mothers endure legal abuse in the hands of Family Court here in Connecticut. 

For a major example of this capability, consider that during the trial in this case, the Judge had the bright idea to ask Mr. Gil why he continually brought his ex wife to Court.  His answer?  Mr. Gil stated that the reason he kept returning to Court was that he wanted to bankrupt his ex-wife, Karyn Gil. 

 

He also stated that he was doing it so that when his daughter turned 18, he intended to show her the transcripts of the Court proceedings so that she could see what a piece of trash her mother was. 

 

What is ironic here is that this was billed as a case of mother committing PAS.  In fact, the words coming out of this father's mouth are a straightforward indication of his clear cut intention to alienate the mother from the child by destroying the mother's reputation with the child.  In fact, father was the parent alienating the child, not the other way around.

 

You'd think that the Judge hearing this testimony would have immediately shut this case down and ruled in favor of the mother who was being legally abused in this case.  But no, there wouldn't be any such luck.  In Jane's own words, "The fact that in the State of Connecticut someone can get away with an answer like that is beyond comprehension."

Clearly, this was a case in which there was a dire need for an advocate for the child to act in her best interests and protect her from the harm and damage caused by father's legal abuse.  Despite the many failures of the Court in this case, it did take make an effort by appointing Attorney Campbell Barrett of Budlong and Barrett as Guardian Ad Litem in the case. 

 

Unfortunately, Budlong and Barrett is a notorious law firm that has  long been mixed up with numerous cases that have ended up as high conflict cases and is known for its vicious and bullying behavior.  As a case in point, this law firm sent me a threatening letter when I was working the Colleen Kerwick case stating it would sue me for my press coverage of the case.  Following up on that threat, Attorney Kukucka, a member of this law firm, took it upon himself to go the West Hartford police and filed a report in an attempt to get me arrested simply for writing blogs about family court on my website.  These are the extremes this attorney firm is willing to go to in order to silence anyone who exposes its wrongdoing to the public.

At first, Attorney Campbell Barrett appeared to be ready to do his job.  According to Jane, he met with her and told her that if there was ever a time she wanted to call him, she could do so, even if she just wanted to talk about Harry Potter.  According to Jane, he never asked her anything about her situation or her relationship with her mother and father.  Jane does remember telling him she was afraid of her father and didn't want to have any visits with him.

Despite this auspicious beginning, Attorney Campbell Barrett ended up simply ignoring Jane's needs.  In fact, at the most, he only ever met with her two times.  Also, when Jane eventually did come to a point where she wanted to speak to Attorney Barrett  she called and left messages asking him to return her phone calls, but he never did. 

 

Finally, Jane wrote Attorney Barrett a letter asking him to call as well, but he still failed to contact her in return. 

 

When the case returned to Court, Attorney Barrett accused the mother of making Jane write the letter and he also stated that while Jane had attempted to contact him numerous times "he had no intention of calling [Jane] back."  During cross examination, it became clear that Attorney Campbell Barrett pretty much knew nothing about his child client, not even simple kinds of information such as her age. 

 

Meanwhile, outside of court, the father, John Gil, was continuing to hit Jane and she was forced to comply with substantially increased visitation with him.   

 

Faced with this impossible situation, Jane spoke to her therapist who encouraged her to speak to the GAL and made sure she was able to connect with him.  When she did, Attorney Barrett told Jane that she had to continue visiting her father "or else her mother would get in trouble."  That is when Jane became suicidal. 

 

The therapist was then in a difficult position.  Even though she was a mandated reporter, the therapist was Court ordered to defer the decision as to whether to contact DCF to the GAL.  Since Attorney Campbell Barrett refused to contact DCF himself or allow the therapist to contact DCF, the therapist couldn't do anything to protect her child client. 

As a consequence, after considering her options, the therapist decided to write a letter to the judge explaining that there was an urgent concern and that these visits to the father needed to be stopped.  Thankfully, the judge finally listened to Jane and the visits were terminated.  This same judge later asked the therapist, "Do you believe there was parental alienation in this case?"  And the therapist answered, "Absolutely not."

 

Essentially, Attorney Campbell Barrett refused to advocate for his child client, obstructed any attempt to protect his child client from further abuse, and did whatever he could to promote the father's interests at the expense of the child.  Again, here is another case where quack theories of PAS have caused a mother and child major harm and damage.  When will this scourge end?


RELATED ARTICLES:


Gil v. Gil, Part IV:
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2014/12/karyn-gil-v-john-gil-ac-28760-and-ac_28.html


Gil v. Gil, Part III:
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2014/12/karyn-gil-v-john-gil-ac-28760-and-ac_26.html


Gil v. Gil, Part I:
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2014/12/karyn-gil-v-john-gil-ac-ac-28760-and-ac.html

  

KARYN GIL v. JOHN A. GIL, A.C. 28760 AND A.C. 25912, PART I: THE PAS PARENTING PLAN FROM HELL!

As you can imagine, writing a blog like mine, I end up hearing many stories of tragedy and suffering that have played themselves out in family court.  One case that I have found particularly striking is that of Karyn Gil v. John A. Gil.  This is a divorce case that was filed in 1999, but continued to have activity up until 2013--in essence amounting to 14 years of litigation. 

This is the classic high conflict divorce that frequently plagues family court and provides the subject matter of my website. 

I first met Karyn and her daughter, who is now attending College, when the Task Force was meeting at the Legislative Office Building last year.   Both of them were interested in providing their testimony and telling the Task Force about the injustice they suffered. 

For the sake of privacy, I will call Karyn's daughter, Jane. 

Jane pretty much told me that she is extremely unhappy with her father and that she doesn't want to have anything to do with him.  She told me of a traumatizing incident where he showed up at her high school graduation uninvited.   She said she was absolutely outraged that he came to this event without her permission.  Her primary concern which she expressed to me was how she could obtain a protective order to prevent her father from doing the same thing at her College campus and showing up uninvited again. 

Listening to her speak, I wondered what could possibly have occurred to make this young lady so adamantly opposed to having any contact with her father. 

I'm sure many of you here would think this has to be PAS.  But, in fact, I don't think this is the case.  From what I heard, John Gil did not have a relationship with his daughter well before the divorce took place.  As he acknowledged in court, he had never bonded with the child, not even before both mother and child moved out of the marital home.

What actually happened here is that this young lady basically observed her father hound her disabled mother through the family court system for 14 years, drain her Mom dry financially, and pound her with legal motions as she tried to defend herself.  Then Jane saw her father continue on to get a completely unjustified contempt judgment of approximately  $30,000.00 against her mother. 

This is my point that I make frequently in my blogs.  When these high conflict divorces occur, do the abusive parties ever consider how it appears to their children.  I mean, seriously, do any of the women think twice when they come home and say, "Boys, girls, I put your Daddy in jail today!"  Or how about the men, "Boys, girls, today I made sure Mommy won't be bothering us ever again--you won't have to have anything more to do with her.  She's out on the street."  

What this young lady saw was that her mother who is disabled and who supports herself and her daughter on a limited disability pension now has to pay considerable legal fees to defend herself and, on top of that, has a $30,000.00 or so judgment that will leave her financially insolvent for the rest of her life. 

What kind of idiot judge would issue an order like that?  Oh, I see, Judge Herbert Gruendel.   

The basis for the judgment against Karyn Gil was that she had interfered in the father's relationship with the child by restricting visitation.  In other words, this was the typical scenario  where the father uses false claims of PAS as a means to take revenge on the mother.  In looking at the specific dates noted in the Motions for Contempt where the father claimed he was denied visitation, each of them were dates where he never showed up or where he stated he didn't want to see the child.  In other words, these charges were completely fabricated.

From what Jane told me, her father was physically and psychologically abusive towards her from a very young age, so I can imagine that visitation would have been problematic from the beginning.  This is confirmed in the Appellate Courts report of  the parenting agreement which stated that "the defendant [i.e. father] would not exercise overnight visitation until the child's psychologist deemed that it was appropriate."  If you already have the child seeing a psychologist at the age of four, and there are overnight restrictions on the father's visitation, clearly there are indications that father is a problem right from the start. 

Still, once the  parenting agreement was signed in 2000, Karyn Gil must have thought that everything was all set.  This is the problem with many people who are in a high conflict divorce.  They have no idea that the seeds of decades long dissension are often embedded in that initial parenting agreement. 

What is interesting to me now that I have been in the system myself long enough is that I can immediately recognize a Parenting Agreement that is a set up for extensive and long term litigation based upon PAS right from the start.  Such agreements usually involve a visitation schedule that is confusing and extremely difficult for the residential parent to follow, and the Gil parenting agreement was no exception to that rule. 

In the Gil Agreement of 1999, father was allowed visitation two days per week.  In the footnote it states, "Under the visitation scheme, the dates and times of the visitation were to be arranged three months in advance, as soon as the defendant received his work schedule.  This scheme was later modified by stipulation of the parties so that the visitation would be arranged thirty days in advance." 

A year later, the agreement was defined further to state that defendant would have the child from 9:00am to 5:00pm on weekends and from 4:00pm  to 7:00pm on weekdays.  The agreement was then modified further to state, "The defendant (father) would provide the plaintiff (mother) with his work schedule with requested days and times for visitation, and the plaintiff would respond with a list of changes based on the child's activities and other commitments." 

Say what? 

To be honest, I have never heard of a schedule like that.  So every month you have a different schedule?  Of course, this kind of visitation schedule inevitably leads to mixups and miscommunications, particularly since you have a couple that isn't getting along.  Then, sooner or later, you have mother hauled back onto the mat  in court because she is "restricting father's access to the child."  Surprise! Surprise! 


And this parenting schedule didn't have to be this way because father had a regular five days on, three days off schedule.  As he stated in court, "I know my schedule forever."  The only intent of a vague, inconsistent, hard to follow parenting schedule is to trap the protective mother and drag her back to court with false charges of PAS. 

I can guarantee you absolutely that in the vast majority of cases where there are eventual accusations of PAS, at the same time you have visitation schedules that are PAS ready in terms of being vague, inconsistent, ambiguous, easily misinterpreted and misunderstood. 

John Gil accused his ex wife of "shorten[ing his] hours of visitation and, on numerous occasions, den[ying] visitation."  Well, that is very easily done when the times change from week to week and month to month and you have a child that occasionally gets tired and doesn't want to go or else has other kid's activities to participate in that, say, run overschedule.  In particular, most children under ten prefer a regular routine and find being randomly passed back and forth from one parent to the other in these changing circumstances very stressful.  Then the kids start to act out during the exchange from one parent to another so then you have the residential parent saying, "let's do this at another time." And since the schedule is open enough for that parent to hang herself, you then have trouble and conflict.

With a vindictive father who is hell bent on litigation, this is a scenario that easily translates into long term litigation within the court system. 

What I don't get is why pick on a disabled Mom with no money to pound away at--you'd think the Court would pick on someone their own size. 

From my perspective, having spent considerable time in court in my day, my ex-husband was repeatedly in contempt for failing to adhere to agreements regarding the children, failure to pay child support, failure to respond to discovery requests--you name it, he did it.  But I was never able to get a judge to rule on a contempt motion against my ex, and I certainly was never able to get him punished or have him pay the multiple thousands of dollars it cost me in legal fees to pursue my divorce.  I'd say the vast majority of high conflict divorce cases are like this -- multiple motions for contempt, but maybe .0005% ever end up with a ruling of any kind, let alone a fine.

Yet this John Gil was able to get a contempt ruling of up to $30,000.00 against his ex wife based upon her violation of a parenting plan that is probably the most difficult to follow in the history of CT Family Court?  Seriously, how did that happen, because I would really like to replicate what he did so I could get some of my money back.


RELATED ARTICLES:


Gil v. Gil, Part IV:
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2014/12/karyn-gil-v-john-gil-ac-28760-and-ac_28.html


Gil v. Gil, Part III:
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2014/12/karyn-gil-v-john-gil-ac-28760-and-ac_26.html


Gil v. Gil, Part II:
http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/2014/12/karyn-gil-v-john-gil-ac-28760-and-ac.html

IN 2012 ARTICLE THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF WOMEN EXPOSES PHONY MENTAL HEALTH DISORDER--PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME!

An article written for NOW states as follows:

"For decades now, many women involved in child custody battles have been victimized in court by the use of a phony syndrome labeled "parental alienation syndrome (PAS)" or "parental alienation disorder (PAD)." Proponents of PAS, predominantly right-wing "fathers' rights" groups, have been trying for years to force legitimacy upon this unfounded theory by pushing for its inclusion in a reference volume used widely in the mental health field. As the deadline approaches for comments on revisions to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), it now appears that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) may bow to political pressure and include PAS/PAD, but under another name.

 

PAS is a tactical ploy used by attorneys whose clients (primarily fathers) are seeking custody of their children. Often these fathers face allegations of domestic violence and/or sexual abuse of their children, and their use of PAS is an extension of years of controlling behavior. It works like this: A protective parent who accuses her/his ex-spouse of harming their child(ren) is deemed mentally ill -- solely by virtue of the accusation. If the child fears the accused parent, the child is said to also suffer the same mental illness of PAS. Ludicrously, the PAS theory holds that the protective parent and child can only be "cured" of their "disease" by being totally separated, with the child placed in the exclusive custody of the feared parent. Only in centuries past could this be thought to improve the mental health of protective parents or their children.
 

It is true that high-conflict divorce and child custody cases can engender intense emotional responses. Many divorcing couples go through a phase of feeling deeply wronged and completely innocent, and they want everyone they know -- including their child(ren) -- to choose their side. For their part, children may go through a phase of "splitting" their parents, lavishing love on one and anger toward the other. Responsible research has shown these phases to be temporary. Describing such behavior as a mental disorder is unjustified.
 

NOW chapters across the country have heard from hundreds of women who have been harmed by PAS accusations in custody cases. Many mothers have lost custody of their children to abusive ex-spouses due to PAS. The APA should not legitimize this theory, which is not used to improve mental health outcomes but merely to discount a child's fear of a hostile or abusive parent, discredit and legally punish the protective parent, cover up abuse and other bad behavior, escape child support payments, and "win" possession of the child.
 

Even though APA reviewers have indicated that they will not be adopting the terms PAS or PAD, women's rights advocates believe they may give credibility to this supposed disorder in another way. Dr. Darrel A. Regier of the DSM-5 Task Force informed NOW Foundation recently that the current recommendation is to have a "Parent-Child Problem designation." Regier did not clarify whether this meant that PAS/PAD could be included under a different name within the "Parent-Child Problem" category. Until this is spelled out, the possibility remains that this discredited syndrome will be legitimized through its inclusion in the DSM-5. Regier declined to share further information or draft language for the "Parent-Child Problem" section. The controversial and highly politicized nature of PAS seems to have resulted in a lack of transparency in the process. It is also worth noting that the DSM has been criticized previously for including mental disorders for which there is insufficient or biased evidence.
 

Inclusion in the DSM-5 of any designation similar to PAS will invite judges and other court personnel -- who may not understand that no valid, empirical evidence exists for such a mental disorder -- to dismiss women's claims of abuse at the hands of their spouses. Children of a violent or sexually abusive parent could be placed at further risk.
 

NOW Foundation opposes the inclusion of the so-called PAS/PAD in the DSM-5 under any name or category. The American Psychiatric Association is soliciting final comments on the revisions to the DSM-5 by June 15. We encourage you to send messages to the APA via their interactive website. Tell the APA that you oppose the inclusion of the so-called parental alienation syndrome in DSM-5 in ANY FORM. Please make sure to emphasize the fact that the American Bar Association has determined PAS to be inadmissible in court because it does not meet evidentiary standards. Accusations of PAS protect real abusers at the expense of women and children who have already been victimized."

DR. RICHARD GARDENER THEORIZED ON PAS WHILE PROMOTING PEDOPHILIA!

HOW ABUSERS USE ACCUSATIONS OF BOGUS MENTAL ILLNESS (PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME) TO SEIZE CONTROL OF THEIR VICTIMS IN FAMILY COURT!

HOW ACCUSATIONS OF PAS AND FALSE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF TWO PARENT HOUSEHOLDS PERPETUATE SPOUSAL ABUSE!

Sara Schoener of the "New York Times" exposes the truth about two parent households and false accusations of PAS:

"AFTER spending two years studying services for domestic violence survivors, I was surprised to realize that one of the most common barriers to women’s safety was something I had never considered before: the high value our culture places on two-parent families.

I began my research in 2011, the year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than one-third of American women are assaulted by an intimate partner during their lives. I talked to women in communities that ranged from a small rural mining town to a large global city, in police stations, criminal courts, emergency shelters, job placement centers and custody proceedings. I found that almost all of the women with children I interviewed had maintained contact with their abusers. Why?"

For more information, please click on the link below:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/opinion/sunday/domestic-violence-and-two-parent-households.html?_r=3&referrer=

ROBERT FRANKLIN GETS IT WRONG ON PARENTAL ALIENATION, HEAPS MORE ABUSE ON A WRONGED MOTHER AND HER CHILD!

Recent studies indicate that when abusive fathers sue for custody in family court, 70% of these fathers end up with sole custody of the children they have abused. 

 

How do they do it?  

 

Apparently, such fathers use false accusations of Parental Alienation Syndrome as a means to wrest custody from fit mothers who are trying to protect their children from abuse.  This is particularly true of what occurred in "Anna Cooper's" case which was recently highlighted in a moving article by Tom Stelloh published in Aljazeera on January 24, 2014 entitled "Do courts use a controversial theory to punish mothers who allege abuse?

See the associated link below:

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/24/does-a-controversialdiagnosishelpfathersdodgeabusecharges.html

Anna Cooper is not the only mother who has reported this happening to her.  Many other mothers have come forward stating the same thing. 

 

However, Instead of showing outrage at this kind of fraudulent behavior on the part of abusive fathers, Attorney Robert Franklin, an extremist father's rights advocate, has used Anna Cooper's willingness to come forward as a excuse to direct a personal attack against her in a blog entitled "Al Jazeera Channels NOW, Gets It Wrong on Parental Alienation."

See the associated link below:

https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/21563-al-jazeera-channels-now-gets-it-wrong-on-parental-alienation 

 

No, Attorney Franklin.  Aljazeera didn't get it wrong.  You did!

So what is this Parental Alienation Syndrome that abusive men have been using in widespread custody switching schemes?  Parental Alienation Syndrome is a theory proposed by psychiatrist Dr. Richard A. Gardener which claimed that some parents try to undermine their children's relationship with the other parent, typically the noncustodial parent, by making false allegations about that parent, most often in the form of abuse allegations. 

 

Further, according to Tom Stelloh, author of the original Aljazeera article, Dr. Gardener theorized that "custody-related fabrications [of abuse] constituted a kind of hysteria" and described the mothers he accused of parental alienation syndrome as being "sadistic" animals who "literally fight to the death in order to safeguard their progeny."  Their goal, he wrote was "the total elimination of the father." 

 

Dr. Richard Gardener's recommendation on how to deal with so called parental alienation, i.e. immediately switching custody to the father and denying the mother all access to the children, is quite striking.  

 

Essentially, his recommendation, in an interesting role reversal, was to have the court order the father do to the mother exactly what the mother was accused of doing--in other words cut the mother off from all access to the children.  How ironic! If children need both parents, how is it acceptable to eliminate the mothers from the lives of the children, particularly if they have acted as primary custodians of those children up to that time?

Anna Cooper became a victim of this theory when she reported that her son, Ben, was showing signs of sexual abuse. As journalist Tom Stelloh explained it, "Ben returned from a visit with his father--who had a four-days-a-week custody arrangement--with bruises and abrasions that he couldn't explain.  After returning from another visit, Ben asked Cooper for help going to the bathroom.  When she discovered blood on his toilet paper, she rushed him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with anal fissures." 

 

The child's pediatrician, Dr. Richard Whelan, later confirmed that sexual abuse had occurred as did Dr. Eli Newberger, founder of the child-protection unit at Boston Children's Hospital, and also Dr. Joyanna Silberg, a psychologist and child-trauma specialist at  the prestigious Sheppard Pratt hospital in Maryland. 

 

Once the sexual abuse was diagnosed by experts in the field, Ms. Cooper expected that her son would be protected from this abuse.  Instead, she faced an extensive coverup starting with the child's GAL.  In her words, "[Ben] came home from his father's house with his anus torn to bloody shreds, and an infection in his penis that went untreated because [GAL] Maureen Murphy threatened my son's pediatrician, tampered with evidence, his medical documents, perjured herself, and removed my ability to get medical care for my child." 

 

Continuing further, she stated, "I watched in horror as the infection went systemic while I was disallowed, under threat of never seeing my son again, even to seek medical treatment for his injuries, all so Murphy [the GAL] could prevent documentation of his badly infected genitals." 

 

As a result of this kind of obstruction (and this is just one example--there were others), Ms. Cooper was unable to present to the Court vital information in regard to the abuse of her child and ended up being accused of--you guessed it--Parental Alienation Syndrome and placed on supervised visitation.  Then, since she could not afford to pay for that visitation, she ended up being denied all access to her child.  At this point, she has not seen him in over a year.

It is not surprising, then, granted the widespread abuse of the diagnosis and its general lack of foundation in any kind of legitimate science, that the American Psychiatric Association has not included the diagnosis of Parental Alienation Syndrome in the DSM-5 despite considerable pressure from men's advocacy groups.  

 

Not only did they determine that there was no scientific basis for the syndrome, opponents of the diagnosis were concerned that, as I have reported, it was being used in family court as a means to take custody from parents who allege abuse, particularly protective mothers. 

 

It didn't help that Dr. Richard Gardener generated additional controversy on his own by appearing to use the diagnosis to condone pedophilia having made such statements as, "At the present time, the sexually abused child is generally considered to be the victim, though the child may initiate sexual encounters by 'seducing' the adult." or "There is a whole continuum that must be considered here, from those children who were coerced and who gained no pleasure (and might even be considered to have been raped) to those who enjoyed immensely (with orgastic responses) the sexual activities."

 

Despite these very serious problems with the PAS diagnosis and its lack of inclusion in the DSM-5, in his recent blog on the subject, Attorney Robert Franklin states that Parental Alienation Syndrome must exist because he says it is in the DSM-5 but not under that specific name. 

 

Ok, so what he actually means is that many of the truly fanatical proponents of Parental Alienation Syndrome refused to accept the fact that the DSM-5 didn't include PAS so what they did was pick and peck through the book and found a few embellished diagnoses which they state friendly editors clandestinely included in the DSM-5 so that litigants wishing to claim PAS could have something legitimate to use in Family Court.  If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you as well! 

 

Attorney Franklin also mentions some book by Dr. Robert Bernet which he claims "contains some 700 citations in contemporary science on parental alienation from over 40 countries..." and he also mentions that PAS has been "recognized in at least 500 law cases and numerous statutes." 

 

Likewise, I am sure, discredited diagnoses such as Recovered Memory Syndrome or Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personality disorder) also generated considerable attention in their day, but that still didn't make them any more legitimate. 

 

This is not to say that there are not anecdotal situations where one parent viewed the other as alienating him or her from the children, but this does not make such observations scientific, or articles based on such observations scientific.  There is no doubt that many of us have had the other parent interfere with our access to our children.  Still, that is simply bad behavior, not necessarily mental illness of any kind. 

 

It never fails that with every decade there are new social movements and theories which generate a whole new bunch of quack ideas and fads that seem really legitimate at the time, but which eventually fade out, hopefully without causing too much damage to the rest of us. 

 

I believe that PAS is one of them.

Attorney Robert Franklin faults Anna Cooper for contributing to the Aljazeera article anonymously.  But you can be sure that if she used her own name, he would criticize her for inappropriately exposing her child to public scrutiny.  Damned if you do, and damned if you don't!

Attorney Robert Franklin further states that Anna Cooper's case is not credible because "court appointed experts [plural]" found the allegations of abuse to be untrue.  Yet, the only court appointed expert he mentions is Dr. Kenneth Robson.  

 

Since Attorney Franklin isn't from Connecticut, I can understand he wouldn't be familiar with Dr. Robson, but those of us who do live in Connecticut are very familiar with this psychiatrist's notorious reputation for malfeasance in child custody cases throughout the State. 

 

Not only did Dr. Kenneth Robson deny that there was sexual abuse in Ms. Cooper's case, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he also denied that there was sexual abuse in the Linda Wiegand case where the father was accused of sexually abusing her two boys--Ben and Jon. 

 

When the Massameno Report came out in 1998 confirming that the abuse had occurred, the Institute of Living where Dr. Robson worked was sufficiently convinced of his wrongdoing that they chose to sever their relationship with him. 

 

I am personally aware of a recent case in the last few years in which Dr. Robson was again the custody evaluator.  In this case the mother also accused the father of sexually abusing their children.  In his evaluation, Dr. Robson denied that the sexual abuse had taken place and insisted that the father was a loving father.  He then recommended sole custody to the father. One year later, DCF removed the children from the home permanently based upon the sexual abuse of the children. 

 

As an additional note, even though the Institute of Living discontinued its relationship with Dr. Kenneth Robson, up until at least 2011 Robson continued to represent himself fraudulently as being affiliated with the Institute of Living even though he hadn't been for many years.

Attorney Robert Franklin states, "Again, for the umpteenth time, those who claim parental alienation to be a fiendish ruse by abusive fathers to wrest custody from "protective mothers' cannot come up with a single instance in which that actually occurred." 

 

Ok, well I just gave you three. 

 

I will also add to that four, my own case, one in which, among other things, my ex husband deliberately medically neglected my children.  When I went to the GAL and reported to her what was going on, she answered me by saying, "They all say they are being abused."  In other words, using the all or nothing language of Attorney Franklin, "all" mothers who say they are being abused are making it up. 

 

During the course of my divorce, which took several years, my ex continued to abuse me and also continued to medically neglect my children.  The GAL, my own attorneys, the trial court did nothing to stop any of it.

 

Why? 

 

Because they were programmed to believe that any mother who seeks to protect herself or her children is just trying to get back at her ex husband, or simply attempting to parentally alienate the children from their father. 

 

In other words, as Attorney Robert Franklin so eloquently stated in his article "Of Teflon and Velcro:  Constructing a High-Impact Narrative", the myth overcame the reality, and for the Court and all the professionals involved in my case, the fact that my ex was abusing me and that he was causing damage to my children's health which could have lifelong consequences for them, meant nothing in the face of the concern that the legal system clearly felt was ten times more important, i.e. their naïve investment in a fake mental health diagnosis that is so lacking in credibility it isn't even included in the DSM. 

 

What a travesty! 

 

Not only are there the cases that I have detailed up to this point, I am contacted on a regular basis by mothers with well documented cases of domestic violence who are being accused falsely of having Parental Alienation Syndrome. Despite the frequent statements to the contrary, judges and attorneys throughout Connecticut are well aware of Parental Alienation and use the diagnosis freely as a means to switch custody from mothers who have long acted as primary caretakers of their children to fathers with histories of abuse.

This happens despite the fact that, as far as I know, Judges have no statutory basis for doing so.

 

Even where there has been no abuse and no alienation, but father now wants custody, the slightest hint that the mother may have been critical of the father or let an ill considered remark slip in an unguarded moment is enough to cause that mother complete loss of custody, despite the fact that she has been primary caretaker of the children for many years.  See the many cases I have reported on my blog under the label "cases in the news" for examples of that.

 

The additional irony, of course, in this highly contentious debate, is that as long as men's rights advocates continue to deny the existence of abuse, there is no way to establish whether Parental Alienation Syndrome truly exists or not because the definition has been corrupted. More specifically, Parental Alienation Syndrome can only exist absent abuse, but if you maintain a rigid policy of denying that abuse exists, there is no way to establish whether you have a legitimate case.

I have tremendous sympathy for parents who have genuinely experienced situations where the other parent has blocked their access to their children, and who use the language of Parental Alienation Syndrome in order to explain what happened to them.  Again, ironically, Anna Cooper is one such parent who could easily claim that kind of languaging.  But attempting to legitimize a theory which is being used on an ongoing basis to enable abusive parents to continue to abuse their children--that is simply unacceptable. 

USING CONNECTICUT CASE, ALJAZEERA DEBUNKS CONTROVERSIAL THEORY OF PARENTAL ALIENATION!

Parental Alienation as voodoo science invented solely with the purpose of removing protective mothers from the lives of their children, and handing those children over to their abusers.  For more information, see the article below:

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/24/does-a-controversialdiagnosishelpfathersdodgeabusecharges.html

"PARENTAL ALIENATION" IS NOT A MENTAL HEALTH DISORDER!" A HUFFINGTON POST ARTICLE REPORTS!

"NEW YORK -- Rebuffing an intensive lobbying campaign, a task force of the American Psychiatric Association has decided not to list the disputed concept of parental alienation in the updated edition of its catalog of mental disorders.

 

The term conveys how a child's relationship with one estranged parent can be poisoned by the other parent, and there's broad agreement that it sometimes occurs in the context of divorces and child-custody disputes.

 

However, an acrimonious debate has raged for years over whether the phenomenon should be formally classified as a mental health disorder by the psychiatric association as it updates its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for the first time since 1994.

 

The new manual, known as DSM-5, won't be completed until next year, but the decision against classifying parental alienation as a disorder or syndrome has been made."

 

For more information, please click on the link below:

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/parental-alienation-is-no_n_1904310.html

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.