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Parental Alienation
Parental Alienation Syndrome: Calling Moms Nazis
The outrage of replacing therapy with "experimental" anti-brainwashing methods
Posted August 10, 2016
Though it is not in the DSM-V, "Parental Alienation Syndrome" has a nice ring to it. We can all think of parents who don’t speak kindly about their exes, and it’s hard to find that quality very admirable or philosophical. But Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) is not a criticism of such talk. It is also not the same as the description of a parent as “estranged.” Nor is it anything like a disorder that can be be diagnosed or operationalized by science. I would suggest that the whole idea is premised on taking children to be so emotionally unintelligent that they cannot tell who loves them, but I think the facts are more pernicious than that.
Both the use of PAS in Family Courts and the origin of PAS are pernicious in the extreme. Its origin is horrific, a psychologist who observed his own clients argued that mothers are likely to over-react to what he considered to be normal parental behavior, sexual molestation.
“PAS was developed by Dr Richard Gardner in 1985 based on his personal observations and work as an expert witness, often on behalf of fathers accused of molesting their children. Gardner asserted that PAS is very common and he saw manifestations of this syndrome in over 90% of the custody conflicts he evaluated--even when abuse allegations are not raised (Gardner, 1987, p. 67). Gardner (September 6, 1993) claimed that PAS is "a disorder of children, arising almost exclusively in child-custody disputes, in which one parent (usually the mother) programs the child to hate the other parent (usually the father)." (Link for more.)
PAS would be the perfect defense for a a regular-old domestic abuser, too. (The term "domestic violence by proxy" seems an apt one, when estranged parents use Family Courts to complete their work.) Given PAS, the “protective” parent is considered the cause of a child’s revulsion at the “other” parent. How convenient, right? Can you imagine an abusive person failing to figure out that this is the perfect excuse for not bonding with their children? (For more on the published claims of PAS advocates, see here.)
Sadly, PAS advocates have had a surprising amount of luck gaining the favor of Family Court attorneys and Judges. Yet it is not easy to find out what Parental Alienation Syndrome "experts" do, when Family Courts order them to hire "transporters" to take children to hidden locations (hotel rooms) by force, to perform "anti-brainwashing" techniques on these children of divorce.
We can see what they write. We can be astounded by what they pretend to know and also admit that they do not know. We realize that they refer to the care-taking, loved parent, as a "pathogen." We know they charge tens of thousands of dollars for "reunification" programs (legally they cannot be called "therapy") which take place in hotel rooms. We know they have decided children might need to have no contact with the parent they love in order to get better.
Yet what exactly Is done to the children in the hotel-room “deprogramming” has been hard to determine. The workers are unlicensed and go to great lengths to refuse being deposed. In letters from attorneys, anti-PAS "techniques" are called proprietary, unsharable because there is just that much profit to be made off of their top-secret methods.
It was not until court documents were released in the case of the “Judge Who Jailed Children of Divorce” that we could learn that a court-mandated program involves an unlicensed High School graduate showing Nazi videos to Jewish children while referring to the "protective" parent as a Nazi. (See court document above.)
Can we expect any PAS-supporters to point out the hypocrisy? Of course not.
How can something like this happen? Corrupt judges might do anything their friends, arguing before the court, ask. But what gets a court-appointed guardian for the children (GAL in the document above) to stake his reputation on such "methods"?
If it is not malice, it must be the money. Everyone involved in this system makes a fortune, and the "protective parent" is forced, on pain of jail, to pay it all.
But it can also be malice. "Parental Alienation Syndrome" is so very useful to a Judge who wants to punish one parent without any evidence of abuse and gain the support of casual observers while doing it. For example, the judge who jailed children for PAS gained her legal community's support (though she was found guilty of misconduct). Local papers like the Oakland Press and Detroit Free Press, published endlessly (even opinions from sports reporters) on how and why they approved of what the Judge had done to these children. PAS sure fits the bill for people with an incredible animus towards divorced mothers.
It is one thing when an abuser cannot stop due to a personality disorder. It is one thing to marry someone who turns out to have such predilections. It is another thing for us to allow methods like these the imprimatur of the Justice System.
