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Parental Alienations Syndrome
By Dr. Bill Thompson
If you are facing sexual assault charges following a separation/divorce when you always thought you got on well with the child(ren) or you were the better parent
there is a possibility that you are facing the consequences of parental alienation syndrome.
Most children and adolescents want to keep their relationships with both separating and divorcing parents, and want more time than the courts allow. However, some
20 percent do not want contact with the estranged parent. Some will do so because the parent was unpleasant, some because of common separation difficulties [Lund, 1995]; but 1 percent support one parents 'battles' against the other, even when all the
evidence suggests that they used to have a close loving relationship and that the alienated parent has done nothing to deserve it [Gardner, 1987 and 1992]. Most alignments are with mothers against fathers [Lund, 1995; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980;
Johnston and Campbell, 1988; Johnston, 1993], and these children can become psychologically unstable. Children manage better when maintaining affection for both parents [Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980].
Young children do not have to be alienated from a parent to make an allegation; they may have done so as a result of 'confabulation' [see separate guide to
Confabulation], and not every alienated child makes sex assault allegations; however, while awareness of parental alienation quickly made an impact in US divorce courts, it has not been widely recognized or adopted in the UK, especially where it
needs to be: allegations of sexual assault.
This guide draws extensively upon an extensive review by the forensic psychologist Deirdre Conway Rand in 'The Spectrum of Parental Alienation Syndrome.' [American
Journal of Forensic Psychology Vol. 15 No. 3. 1997]. I have added further comments about the meaning of the studies covered, and several observations based upon my own experiences of the phenomena when reviewing sexual assault allegations.
PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME
The phenomenon was identified by child and forensic psychiatrist Dr. Richard Gardner [1985]; it explains how and why a child aligns with the 'alienating' parent to
promote unjustified and/or exaggerated denigration of the other �target� parent.
Defining PAS
According to Gardener, PAS involves several of the following features depending upon the severity:
The child is actively aligned with the alienating parent in a campaign of denigration against the target parent;
Animosity toward the rejected parent lacks the ambivalence normal to human relationships;
The child will assert that the decision to reject the target parent is his or her own choice - what Gardner calls the "independent thinker" phenomenon;
Rationalizations for depreciating the target parent are often weak, frivolous or absurd;
The child reflexively supports the parent with whom he or she is aligned ;
The child expresses guiltless disregard for the feelings of the target or hated parent;
Borrowed scenarios are present, i.e., the child's statements reflect themes and terminology of the alienating parent;
Animosity is spread to the extended family and others associated with the hated parent.
Mild PAS involves some parental programming, minor visitation disruption, the child managing to negotiate the transitions, having a reasonably healthy relationship
with the programming parent, and participating in the campaign of denigration.
Moderate PAS involves more parental programming, increased visitation problems with the child displaying difficulties during transition between homes but not
completely rejecting the target parent.
Severe PAS may involve the mother and child in a pathological bond involving paranoid fantasies about the father. The child exhibits a fanatic hatred of the target
parent, refuses to visit, can make false allegations, and threatens to run away, commit suicide, or homicide if forced to visit the �target� parent.
Gardner believed that while therapy and court sanction could help prevent sever PAS from occurring; once it has developed, the only way to reverse the effects was
to remove the child from the alienating parent and give custody to the alienated parent after a therapeutic placement [Gardiner, 1992]. The latter is needed because whatever the method employed by the alienating parent, it was the child's own active
contribution that made PAS particularly dangerous and destructive for the child: they could develop a long-standing psycho pathology and even paranoia.
Gardiner was not the only one to notice what was happening. Others included Blush and Ross [1987], Jacobs [1988], Johnson and Campbell [1988]; Clawar and Rivlin
[1991], and Turkat [1994]. Despite their differences, all studies came to the same conclusion: some parents were engaging in some form of 'programming' or 'coercive persuasion' to alter the child's perception of the other parent, and that the child
succumbed to the influences. Cartwright, a Canadian psychologist, who studied child support disputes, found that the alienation was gradual, and directly related to the time the alienating parent spent on encouraging the child [Cartwright, 1993]
The rise in parental alienation
Rand believes that PAS followed the change in the mid 1970s when courts stopped giving mothers automatic sole custody and mothers began creating conflicts over
custodial arrangements. As a result, only 29 percent of divorced parents successfully co-parent after filing for divorce [Maccoby and Mnookin, I992]; and the American Bar Association's study, Children Held Hostage, suggested that parental �programming�
of children was practiced to some extent by 80 percent of all divorcing parents, with 20 percent engaging in �programming� at least once a day [Clawar and Rivlin, 1991].
HIGH CONFLICT DIVORCE AND PAS
High conflict divorces (HCD) involve intense and/or protracted post separation conflict and hostility expressed either overtly or covertly through ongoing
litigation, verbal and physical aggression, sabotage or deception are common [Rand, 1997: 30]. In these cases the parents do most of the fighting and the children tend to develop survival strategies to avoid the consequences.
Psychologists like Johnston believe that the nature and form of HCD depends upon the parents' psychological make up which prevents agreements and generates an
endless, sometimes escalating, cycle of action and reaction which promotes and maintains the parental conflict [1993]. The children can exacerbate this conflict by telling each parent what they want to hear and shifting allegiances as and when
required [Johnston, 1993]. The more protracted these conflict are, the more likely PAS is to develop [Maccoby EE, Mnookin, 1992], although PAS can occure without litigation, after litigation, or as a prelude to more litigation [Dunne and Hedrick,
1994]. Unlike HCD, PACS only needs only one egotistical parent determined to prove that they are the 'good' parent and find excuses to punish the 'bad' parent; revenge for the divorce. For the child(ren), PAS can offer one way to resolve the stress
they face in HCD by being in the middle of two parents at war.
Whatever the psychological problems the alienating parent exhibits or the reasons for the children's role, the effects are appalling as Rand's composite scenario
synthesized from real cases demonstrates:
Mr. L had adopted his wife's child from her previous marriage and he and Mrs. L. had a child of their own, a girl who was six years old when Mr. L. moved out of
the family home. During the six months leading up to this precipitous event, Mrs. L. was living in one part of the house with the older child while Mr. L. and his daughter had rooms together in a separate part of the house. The parents hardly spoke
to one another but the children visited back and forth freely with each other and with both parents. Under the circumstances, Mr. L. did not think his wife would object to his leaving, but just in case there was a scene he decided to move out first
and then work out the practical issues with Mrs. L. He left a letter for her and another one for the children, explaining his decision and affirming his desire to make arrangements for visitation and child support. Mrs. L. was furious. She
immediately had the locks changed and successfully blocked her husband's efforts to contact the children by phone or to see them. Both children probably felt betrayed by father and Mrs. L. amplified such feelings by telling the children their father
had abandoned them and did not-care about them at all. She also alleged that he had had numerous affairs during the marriage although Mr. L. always denied that. These allegations may have sprung from the fact that Mrs. L. found out six weeks after
her husband left that he was dating someone. Outraged, she told Mr. L. that he would never see the children again. She and the children began calling Mr. L. and his girlfriend at all hours, screaming accusations and obscenities over the phone until
a restraining order was obtained. When efforts by father's attorney to arrange for mediation between Mr. and Mrs. L. were stonewalled, Mr. L. got a court order for visitation. Three months had passed when his first opportunity to see his children
since moving out was scheduled.
On the eve of this visit, Mrs. L. called child protective services and accused Mr. L. of sexually molesting their daughter. According to the social worker's notes
Mrs. L. told the social worker that she "knew" while she and her husband were still living together that he was molesting their daughter. The family law judge ordered a custody evaluation which was very thorough and took months to complete. The
evaluator documented a number of instances in which the girl's statements about abuse and hating her father seemed to be strongly influenced by mother's overwhelming anger and that of the older half sibling who was strongly aligned with the mother.
Mrs. L. was diagnosed with a severe narcissistic personality disorder with antisocial features, while Mr. L. was seen by the evaluator as rather passive by comparison and as ambivalent and conflict avoidant. The evaluator was able to hold one
meeting with father and daughter together, during which their loving attachment to one another was apparent. This was the little girl's first opportunity to talk to her father about the feelings engendered by his leaving. As it turned out, it was
also her last opportunity. The PAS intensified such that efforts to convene further father/daughter sessions failed when the child threw tantrums in the waiting room and ran screaming into the parking lot where her mother was waiting. Seven months
after the marital separation, the custody evaluator's report was released. It stated that the alleged abuse had in all probability not occurred but failed to diagnose severe PAS with false allegations of abuse. The evaluator recommended that the
mother retain primary custody and that the girl and her parents each become involved in individual therapy to facilitate father/daughter reunification. Not surprisingly, Mrs. L. arranged for the child to see a therapist/intern who never saw the
custody evaluator's report. Based on input from the mother alone, the therapist treated the girl for abuse by her father instead of providing divorce specific therapy aimed at helping the little girl to adjust to her parent's divorce and to
establish a post divorce relationship with her father. The girl's anger at her father became more extreme with each passing month and defeated the visitations planned by the family mediation center. Finally, a year after the separation, the custody
evaluator was prepared to testify as to the PAS and to make the strong recommendations needed to remedy the situation.
By that time, the father was convinced that nobody could do anything about his daughter's continued expressions of hatred toward him. He also felt daunted by the
prospect of further litigation and an even greater financial drain. He decided to let go, hoping that one day when his daughter was older she would understand and seek him out [Rand 1997: 34-37].
In short, the mother had used various devious and criminal means to alienate the child from her father.
FALSE ALLEGATIONS AND PAS
The quickest way to block access to children is to accuse a parent of child abuse, especially molestation [Stewart, 1991]. Because sex assault is so difficult to
disprove, the accused and alienated parent is forced to expend a considerable amount of time and resources trying to refute the charges while being denied access [Paterson, 1991-2] enabling the alienated parent even more time to achieve their aims.
In many cases, the accused will be held in jail at risk from physical assaults. Lawyers and courts, knowing nothing of HCD or PAS, ensure a high risk of false conviction, as the social workers and police see their task as securing convictions rather
than getting to the truth.
The following case concerns a father who was an officer in the military:
Mr. B was court-martialed after being accused, in the context of divorce, of molesting his wife's 10- and 14-year-old daughters from another marriage. Mrs. B and
the girls accused Mr. B after Mrs. B learned of her husband's second infidelity. A similar sequence took place two years earlier when Mrs. B discovered the first infidelity. At that time, Mrs. B moved out temporarily and called authorities to
report that Mr. B was sexually abusing her daughters. On that occasion, Mrs. B decided to move back in with her husband and withdrew the accusations.
However, on the second occasion the defence got testimony about PAS by a psychologist:
The judge ordered the girls and their mother to participate in an evaluation by the defense expert. The military flew the family across the country several days
before the trial in order for this to occur. A female pediatrician in the military, who planned to testify for the prosecution, accompanied the girls and their mother to the defense psychologist's office. The pediatrician remained in the waiting
room and conversed with the family members and the psychologist at different break points in the evaluation. The PAS expert ascertained that the girls were very attached to Mr. B prior to their mother filing for divorce. [Rand 79]
The biological father ran off when the girls were very young and Mr. B raised them as his own. The molestation accounts given by the girls contained numerous
inconsistencies and were not supported by medical evidence. Documents reviewed by the PAS expert also indicated that the children's account had become more and more exaggerated with time. In the course of the day at the defense expert's once, the
number of incidents reported by the girls went from the six counts with which Mr. B was originally charged, to more than forty-five.
The court permitted Mr. B's expert to testify in regard to PAS with false allegations of abuse. The jury found that the facts of the case conformed to the defense
expert's opinion, and the stepfather was found not guilty.
However, a problem remained; as in most other cases [Johnston, 1988], despite acquittal the father was still regarded as guilty by the social workers involved.
They ignored he fact that the acquittal demonstrated that the alienating parent was psychologically abusing the children by encouraging them to make false allegations.
Even when an alienated, falsely accused, parents' access rights are reinstated, they will have lost valuable time with the child, damaging their relationship:
We can never serve a child's best interest by denying him or her the love and affection of a parent who has himself been victimized by a lie [Patterson, 1991]
Mothers account for 67 percent of false allegations according to one nationwide study, fathers less than 20 percent; the remainder being made up of relatives or so
called professionals [Thoennes and Tjaden, 1990]. As this study appeared in Child Abuse & Neglect no social worker or police officer has any excuse for not considering the possibility of false allegations when faced with a report, especially as the
present Government has a prosecuted wherever possible policy. The Home Office and Department of Health still refuse to consider the issue despite the recent scandals involving San Lazaro (the paediatrician who made up medical evidence) and Professor
Meadows (making claims about cot death that could not be justified).
Many people point out that whereas mother make false allegations, fathers initiate 70 per cent of post-divorce child abductions, which have increased since the mid-1970s in line with the divorce and child custody litigation rates [Huntington, 1986];
but one needs to consider the very different motives involved. Alienating parents who abduct are often deluded by their own propaganda about the target parent and 'kidnap' the child to 'prove' the need to keep them from the 'evil' alienated parent.
Alienated parents are often driven to such drastic action to really save the child from a dangerous alienating parent. The problem is that while alienating parents will make false allegations that are taken seriously by law enforcement and social
service agents in the name of 'child protection', an alienated parent's rationales will not be accepted; and all they achieve is to give the alienating parent yet another excuse. As Clawar and Rivlin [1991] found most would-be abductors felt
frustrated by the support offered to abusing mothers by the legal system and the way in which the alienating parent provokes, agitates, controls, attacks or psychologically tortures the target parent is invariably ignored. Another problem with trying
to suggest that fathers are equally as bad as mothers is that when the alienating parents deliberately move to prevent the father's access it is not considered 'abduction' by the authorities. As a result, the real figures for abduction by alienating
mothers is an underestimate.
Alienating parents have been known to use the hint of sexual abuse to discredit the other parent; a 'virtual' allegation. One mother insinuated sexual abuse by
alleging that the father had shown the child a pornographic videotape which then turned out to be a Hollywood comedy rented from a family video store [Cartwright, 1993].
Once again, the alienating parent's success depends upon and demonstrates the credulity of the child protection services. They fail to note that the allegations
emerge only after many other efforts to exclude the target parent had been tried; although false allegations have also be made to facilitate marital separation.
Yet, as early as 1986, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Research Unit discovered that sexual assault allegations were appearing in two percent of
family court cases, reaching eight percent in some districts. They suspected that 50 percent of these claims were completely invalid, and that mothers were actively exploiting the legislation that mandates professionals like doctors and teachers
(many of whom couldn't tell real abuse when they saw it) to report any 'suspicion' of child abuse, and they way most countries give legal immunity to anyone making anonymous reports [Thoennes and Tjaden, 1990]. This finding was very close to the 2:1
ratio of true to false allegations reported by the National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect [1988].
Encouraging children to make false allegations is, of course, a form of abuse itself; but the lack of interest in false allegation reflects the sexist nature of
the justice and social service systems in the Anglo-Saxon world - the UK, Canada, the US, Australia, and New Zealand - where men are always seen as predators and women as victims. However, by aiding the permanent destruction of the child's
relationship with the alienated parent, the authorities run the risk that the effect of the allegations will be as harmful if not more so than the alleged abuse [Rand, 1997].
False reports
Not every false allegation is malicious. Over sensitized parents who believe media sensationalism are flooding the child protection system with reports based on
fear, masking the smaller, but still substantial, number of malicious allegations. The proliferation of child abuse 'indicator lists' consisting of common complaints erroneously ascribed to sexual assault does not help either. These lists:
are used by parents and so called professionals to diagnose sex abuse when no such thing has happened. These lists are made up not only of vague symptoms such as
poor self esteem, and conflicting "indicators" such as aggressive behavior and social withdrawal, but numerous common child behaviors such as sexual curiosity and nightmares. Few of these professionals ever consider that the symptoms alleged to
follow abuse are often reflections of the stress the children are placed under by parents using them as pawns in the game against the other parent [Rand, 1997: 27]
Rand is also wary of "good touch/bad touch" lessons in school, which often end in asking the children to report anyone who they think may have touched them in a
'bad' way. Though legitimate abuse claims can emerge in such circumstances, children can also misunderstand and have noe reinterpreted an innocuous cuddle and so on. The possibility of this happening is increased by the fact that the people
conducting these classes are often eager to generate reports. In one case, over half a classes' parents were arrested following such a presentation [Rand, 1997: 27].
Whether the allegation is mistaken or malicious, the obvious sign to look for is whether the symptoms of 'abuse' appear after separation or not. When symptoms like
bed wetting, nightmares, preoccupation with sexual issues etc. occur long after the accused has left the home, it is far more likely that they reflect the pressure being placed upon the child to make an allegation rather than the alleged assault. Yet
social workers and the police are simply too single minded to accept the obvious: the so called protection process can also be abusive as the infamous cases of persistent questioning in Cleveland, Orkney and elsewhere demonstrates.
In every case I have seen where symptoms such as 'bed-wetting' and 'rubbing genitalia' were used to start and justify prosecuting an allegation, these symptoms
always appeared simultaneously with the allegation rather than the alleged period of assault. They were clearly an 'indicator' that the child was being put under pressure to make a false allegation and was being sexualized in the process.
SYSTEM FAILURE
The major problem with all false allegations is not that one parent made a malicious report or that children are being encouraged to do so, but that the so called
child 'protection' system is so obsessed with prosecuting the accused in stereotypical allegations rather than protecting children emotionally abused by alienating parents. There are no polices or safeguards against false allegations.
Many social workers and police officers believe that false allegations do not exist. The reason for this is that during the 1980s, social workers, police officers,
judges and mental health workers were all willing consumers of feminist ideology that "children don't lie about sex abuse", which obviously provides a fertile ground for false allegations. As the very people accepting this nonsense were the same
people that used to ignore children's allegations because they then subscribed to the ridiculous Freudian claim that children fantasize, both beliefs serve to reveal the mentality of such people. But they have done more than merely swapped one stupid
theory for another; they denigrate anyone questioning their simplistic belief systems. The media follows suit as �children abused in satanic ritual� makes a more exciting headline than �gullible
social worker becomes even more gullible�.
Yet there can be no doubt that false allegations of abuse have become a weapon in divorce and custody cases [Stewart, 1991]; and social services or police
personnel can not be excused simply because a child has supported the allegation. Although children do lie, and many more confabulate [see separate section 'Confabulation], the most important factor when a parent secures a child's compliance is the
influence of other people. When social workers, police officers, or feminist therapists accept the accusing parents claim at face value, the child is left with no escape from the parents influence [Clawar and Rivlin, 1991]. In the UK, the child
protection services do not believe a child who denies abuse has occurred when a parent reports it; they claim that the child is 'in denial', and try even harder to elicit an allegation to 'save' the child.
In the US, things are a little better. Congress amended the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act in 1996 to eliminate blanket immunity for persons knowingly
making false reports. Some States have also enacted laws against willful child abuse reports. The California Office of Child Abuse Prevention even includes a section on false allegations in its Guide to investigation methods, and draws readers'
attention to the fact that coaching children during custody disputes is a major problem.
In the UK, the more bizarre or incredible the allegation is the more likely the authorities are willing to believe it, despite the inquiries into the more
scandalous cases - Cleveland and Orkney - clearly demonstrating that such allegations are the inevitable results of poor interviewing techniques and the persistent failure to investigate the origin and history of the allegations. When the failure to
learn the lessons of the major dovetail with the failure to consider the dynamics of PAS or even HCD, due to endemic anti-male and anti-father ideologies in the UK, it is inevitable that the child protection system endorses and condones the
psychological abuse of children.
ALIENATING PARENTS
PAS is not restricted to divorce. In Johnston's study of 'visitation refusers', some 15 percent of high conflict parents were not married. In these cases, the
mother's anger and resentment over the father's failure to married frequently emerged, especially if the father became involved with a new paramour, and/or had custody rights without fulfilling his obligations such as providing child support, and/or
the mother exhibited strong proprietary feelings over the children [Rand, 39].
PAS is not restricted to parents either. It is not unknown for the prime mover behind the attempt to secure sole custody alienating one biological parent to be the
alienating parent's new paramour [Johnston and Campbell, 1988].
Whatever their marital status, the alienating parent can be motivated by any number of reasons:
Inadequacy: PAS has been used to deflect scrutiny from the alienating person's parenting skills or personal problems and is motivated by the fear that they will
now be found wanting when compared to the more loving and capable target [Clawar and Rivlin, 1991].
Separation loss: The alienating parent may be suffering from 'separation vulnerability or attachment conflicts'. Having lost their spouse, they do not want any
further "loss" by sharing a child with the other parent. The alienating parent can also turn to the child to fulfill an emotional need, resulting in what Wallerstein calls the "overburdened child" [cited Rand, 1997].
Revenge: It will come as no surprise that revenge is one of the most common and powerful motivations to alienate a child from the other parent, especially when the
alienating parent has been replaced by a new love object.
Need for Control and Domination: Some people actions are driven by their needs for power, influence, domination and control. Some parents are no different. PAS
provides the dual gratification from the control of both the child and the ex-spouse's visitation and relationship with the child. By forcing the ex spouse to engage in needless court cases, the power hungry parent prove their superiority by ruining
the alienated parents lives. It is not uncommon for a alienating parent's new partner to be exhibit the same needs.
MEDEA Syndrome: The need for revenge is taken to an extreme in Medea Syndrome [Cartwright, 1993; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980]. This label, drawing on ancient
mythology, uses the analogy to refer to the way modern alienators seek to gain revenge against former spouses by killing the relationship between the other parent and the child: The Medea syndrome has its beginnings in the failing marriage and
separation, when parents sometimes lose sight of the fact that their children have separate needs [and] begin to think of the child as being an extension of the self...A child may be used as an agent of revenge against the other parent...or the anger
can lead to child stealing [Wallerstein and Kelly, cited in Rand, 1997: 42]
"Embittered-chaotic" parents: described by Wallerstein and Kelly, may also fall in the revenge category. They act out their intense anger in a disorganized but
chronically disruptive way bombarding the children with the raw bitterness of their feelings about the ex-spouse and the divorce.
Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome: Yet another of the many new 'disorders' which beset psychology, this label is meant to describe a special class of
alienating parent engaging in a relentless and multifaceted campaign of aggression and deception against the ex-spouse who is effectively being punished for the divorce. The obvious difference between PAS and DRMMS is that the later tends to
concentrate upon the outcome - excessive litigation, and malicious false reports actions against the ex-spouse and the means employed such as lying and deception - rather than the actual motives and psychological dynamics which lead to them. However,
despite the ridiculous label, Turkat's research is useful for quantifying what complaints are made by alienating parents. Examples have included claiming an ex-spouse was using illegal drugs at work, and filing numerous false complaints with the
authorities against the ex-spouse's new partner.
The way in which all these types of malicious parent can successfully use the resources of law enforcement agencies for their personal vendettas to punish and
harass the ex-spouse, while effectively violating the law themselves, should raise questions about the quality of those employed in law enforcement and child protection agencies, their training, and the agencies' real agenda. Billions of dollars and
pounds are being wasted by governments who willingly fund official support for personal vindictiveness in the name of child protection. These agencies' failure to consider, let alone detect, such behaviour by accusing parents not only reveals their
general incompetence, but also how child protection agencies actually promote and aid child abuse.
Mr. C's suspiciousness and verbal attacks on his wife finally drove her to file for divorce. As on previous occasions, Mr. C. threatened that if she would not
reconcile he would win custody of their four-year-old daughter and make sure the mother never saw her again. In the past, Mrs. C. had relented, fearful that Mr. C. would fulfill his threats, but this time she stood firm. Mr. C. filed for sole custody
based on false allegations that the mother was unfit. When these allegations were not upheld, the father made up new ones. Within a year of filing, Mrs. C. became engaged to another man. Mr. C. succeeded in breaking up the engagement by accusing the
fiancΓ© of sexually abusing the child. He had the police arrest the fiancΓ© at the mother's home. When child protective services informed the mother that they would take her daughter away for
failure to protect, the mother canceled her engagement, terrified that Mr. C. would make good on his threat to take her daughter away. When police and child protection investigation of the sex abuse allegations resulted in a finding that no abuse
occurred, Mrs. C. proceeded with her wedding plans. Father raised allegations of sex abuse against Mrs. C.'s new husband in family court and succeeded at one point in gaining temporary custody. Primary custody was returned to the mother after the
court ordered evaluation found the allegations to be without merit and the father to be emotionally disturbed and pressuring the child to report abuse. During his visitation time, the father and a male friend continued to interrogate the girl about
abuse by the stepfather and as time went by she felt increasingly pressured to meet their expectations. Away from the father's influence, however, the girl enjoyed her family with her mother and stepfather. She stated to several different therapists
that she had only accused her stepfather of molesting her to please her father and his friend. In the meantime, Mr. C. and friend continued to make abuse reports against the stepfather, creating significant distress for Mrs. C., her new husband and
the child. Eventually, when the girl was 10, the father succeeded in getting the juvenile court to take jurisdiction and give him custody, although medical examination of the child did not support the increasingly serious accusations. Mrs. C. was not
allowed to see her daughter. When she tried to contact the therapist who was now seeing the girl for sex abuse by Mrs. C.'s new husband, the therapist was rude and refused to speak with her. The mother was tortured by reports from a series of child
protection workers which indicated that her daughter was acting out in bizarre and often self-destructive ways. At the age of twelve, she was picked up by the police for prostitution and had to be psychiatrically hospitalized. Several professionals
who were involved when the mother had custody wondered if Mr. C. was deliberately destroying his daughter so as to get revenge against the mother. Mr. C. was able to retain custody, however, by focusing the attention of authorities on allegations of
sex abuse against the stepfather [Rand, 1997: 42-44]
It is clear that the real damage to the child in this example was not caused so much by Mr. C., though he was clearly engaged in an obsessive campaign of revenge,
but by the so called 'professionals' who, once again, demonstrated their total incompetence by taking a second, third, and forth set of allegations seriously after the first was demonstrated to be false. They are to blame for encouraging the father
to intensify his vengeful campaign; with a disastrous result. A child's life was ruined because the authorities act without thinking the moment a sexual abuse allegation is made.
I had an almost identical case in Wales several years ago, except that the alienating parent was a step mother, and the biological father was charged with sexual
assault of the step-daughter. Further charges were soon laid concerning his own teenage daughter due to an obsessive social service child protection team which forced her to 'admit' she had been molested. Following my report, and a recantation by the
biological daughter, the charges were dropped, but the allegations were still used by the social services to object to his regaining custody. When the family court judge finally dismissed the allegations, actually defying the social services to
challenge my report's findings, it transpired that the social services had no means to united child and parent following a false allegation. It was too late anyway: the innocent father was promptly murdered by local 'nonce haters' and his daughter
became a drug addicted prostitute.
Not all cases end so badly. A male psychologist once published an account of his own experience at the hands of his ex-wife [Spiegel, 1986]. Accusing him of
sexually abusing their young daughter, the mother had no difficulty in arranged for the police to arrest him at his office in front of his clients and staff. Having also arranged for newspaper reporters to be present, pictures of the psychologist's
humiliation at being handcuffed and hauled off to jail were widely broadcast. The father fought back and eventually obtained joint custody after the court found that mother's extreme efforts to sever the father's relationship with his child were
detrimental and stripped her of sole custody. But "all's well that ends well" does not apply to these cases. The emotional, physical, and financial cost is crippling; does anyone really recover from such an experience, especially when the real
abusers are so rarely punished.
SAID Syndrome
Blush and Ross's psychological profiles of accusing mothers and fathers in what they called 'Sexual Allegations in Divorce' [1987] provides some useful insights
into PAS. Mothers acting the role of the "fearful victim", manipulating popular images of spousal abuse victims, to secure sympathy and support from others who readily believe the alienated parent is a monster are very common. Others take advantage
of the rampant sexism in the child protection agencies to use their knowledge of abuse issues to impress the authorities that there must be something wrong. This is hardly difficult to achieve when many people would be convinced by the simple
question 'why would the social services and/or police be involved if there was nothing wrong?' A third group of alienating parents are clearly suffering from psychological pathology such as borderline personality and/or histrionic traits and often
really believe their hate filled fantasies about the other parent. When the accusing parent is male, they often exhibit a mental rigidity involving an obsessive need to be "correct", and they were invariably hypercritical of their wives while the
marriage was still intact.
These profiles are reinforced by the results of Wakefield and Underwager's review of divorce/custody dispute case files comparing the personal characteristics of
72 false accusers, 103 falsely accused, and a control group of 67 parents disputing custody without any allegations of abuse emerging [1991]. They found that accusing parents were much more likely than the accused to have been diagnosed with a
personality disorder, including mixed, unspecified, histrionic, borderline, passive-aggressive and paranoid types. Only 25 percent of the accusers appeared free of any major form of psychopathology. In direct contrast, the accused parents rarely
exhibited any psychopathology at all. Some of the accusers were so obsessed and consumed with anger toward their estranged spouses that this became a major focus of their lives and their obsessions continued even after courts had found the
allegations to be completely unfounded. Needless to say, these parents tended to be extremely controlling with the children.
The Delusional Parent
Rogers research [1992] suggests that many accusing parents suffered from delusional disorders during their marriage and that this often contributed to the
conflicts which eventually lead to the separation. In one case described by Rand the mother's delusional disorder first appeared as irrational suspicions during her pregnancy. Believing that the father would molest the baby, she abducted the child a
few months later. The major difficulty in such cases is that despite their behaviour they are still given initial custody because mothers are seen as children's main caretaker. As a result, the system provides the opportunity to encourage PAS.
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
The exposure of Professor Meadows' bogus evidence came a little late for the 350 women humiliated and jailed for murdering their babies when many did not, and will
lead many now dismiss any diagnosis of MSP. This would be a mistake; MSP exists and mothers engaging in MSP should be held to account. Meadows real problem was to include cot death within the MSP rubric when he should not have done. The real problem
with MSP is that it is grossly overused by doctors when they are confronted with an uncommon disease or symptoms that they know nothing about. As a result it has been exploited by the social services to remove even more children from perfectly good
homes.
However, back in 1993, when Rand was considering all the facets of PAS, she suggested that PAS shared some features with MSP [Rand, 1993]. We both agree that in
real MSP cases, parents repeatedly take their children to doctors for unnecessary, often painful tests and treatments, which the physician is induced to provide by the parent's misrepresentation of the problem when they are secretly poisoning the
child. This facet of MSP - the frequency and number of unusual illnesses - should enable anyone to distinguish between real and false cases of MSP. Real MSP is persistent, and usually involves the mother broadcasting her sacrifice for her
chronically ill child too, being a means to elicit sympathy and admiration for a 'long suffering' mother. Why doctors spent a decade pinning the MSP label on single illnesses when they simply could not work out what was wrong with the child can be
explained by society's obsession with child abuse; and this is where the similarities come in.
When MSP meets PAS, a parent fabricates an abuse scenario involving the alienated parent and presents a child with a common non abuse symptom like bruising knowing
that gullible police officers, social workers and therapists will make an erroneous connection between abuse and the symptom. In one case I worked on, I was very suspicious that a mother - who certainly forced her two children to make allegations
against an estranged husband who had discovered her committing incest with a cousin - had destroyed the female child's hymen knowing the pediatricians would immediately suspect the accused father and that their 'diagnosis' would then be used as
evidence that the abuse had taken place, even though the story told by the children was logistically impossible having been generated by the mother and her 'new' boyfriend. However, such ruses would not work if the professionals concerned paid as
much attention to the possibility of false allegations as they do to 'the seriousness of the allegation' and only look for evidence confirming the allegation. While alienating parents are clearly responsible for the false allegation, it is the
support that they receive from official agencies that ensures that the child suffers. Rand also draws attention to how many social service personnel quickly develop a personal animosity towards the falsely accused parent as they play at Β�child
saving� irrespective of the evidence and help facilitate the alienating parent's false allegation agenda.
Rand suggested that there are at least four forms of MSP and PAS that overlap:
an MSP mother may, during the marriage, add false allegations of abuse to the child's fabricated physical symptoms, thus precipitating the divorce;
where the MSP parent feels angry or rejected in divorce, manipulating the child's medical care and involving the child in false allegations of abuse may serve
multiple functions including revenge and preserving the freedom to continue the MSP behavior;
a parent dealing with the losses and stress of divorce may respond with MSP type behavior to obtain various forms of support from the child care providers;
an alienating parent may exhibit MSP type behavior by manipulating the child's medical care for the primary purpose of furthering the alienation agenda .
In PAS, as with MSP, the alienating parent may gain legal authority to control and determine whom the child sees and what treatment they are given. Quite
deviously, the child may be taken to the doctor after visits with the target parent with fabricated or induced symptoms which are then attributed to abuse and neglect by the target parent who will then have no defence. Given the way child protection
procedures rely upon 'the verbal history', the doctor will accept the alienating parent's negative presentation about the target parent and thereby lend authoritative support to a false allegation [see Rand, 1997, 47-48]. As the Shieldfield nursery
case demonstrates, some pediatricians, like Lazaro, far from undertake any investigation will even make up diagnostic reports to fit 'the history' in order to generate evidence that is not there.
Uncovering pathology
One of the major problems trying to assess the alienating parents' mental state is that the psychological tests used for ordinary clinical diagnoses may not be
good enough to expose PAS. Stahl suggests that many of the evaluations undertaken in custody disputes will not detect the pathology of an alienating parent [1994] because the evaluator does not adopt a longitudinal perspective and compare information
provided by the parties involved with data from other sources. Although the American Psychological Association (APA) published Guidelines for Child Custody Evaluations in Divorce Proceedings [American Psychologist, 1994], many custody evaluators do
not use them [Montgomery, 1997].
THE ALIENATED PARENT
It has been argued that a parent's likelihood of becoming a target increases when the alienating parent:
sees them as responsible for the break-up
discovers that they have been unfaithful
discovers that they have becomes involved with a new partner soon after the separation [Clawar and Ravlin, 1991].
Leaving a marriage precipitously may also incur an increased risk. However, a review by Nicholas [1997] only found significant correlations between a child's
alienation activity and two aspects of the targeted parent's behaviour:
withdrawing or temporarily giving up on the child;
becoming irritated and angry with the child for exhibiting the alienating behaviors.
This clearly suggests that the targeted parent can have little effect when an alienating parent is determined; and although it is only an impression, based on a
couple of dozen cases from my files, one of the most bemusing aspects of PAS is how far the real character of the accused belies the allegations: nice parents are far more likely to be accused than bad ones, the same as care workers and teachers.
Exactly why this happens is a matter of speculation; though one possibility is that the accusing parent knows that they have little to fear as a result. While they will play 'dirty', they know that the accused will not; and one of the reasons for
that, as we have seen, is that accusing parents often suffer from some form of psychological pathology [Wakefield and Underwager, 1990].
Not only do the falsely accused tend to display passive or dependent features while their ex spouse is histrionic [Blush and Ross, 1987 and 1990]; Sanders, an
attorney who represents fathers in PAS type cases, reported that she often found her clients to be emotionally and financially stable individuals who, prior to the separation, often functioned as the primary parent for their children [Sanders, 1993].
This could easily explain why Dunne and Hedrick found that children recovered from PAS faster and better when the alienated parent was given custody [Dunne and Hedrick, 1994]. As they exhibit significantly less emotional disturbance than the
alienating parent, despite what they have been forced to go through [Rand, 58], they are more emotionally stable to help the child. As Lampel [1986] discovered: a child placed with the previously rejected parent for six to eight weeks demonstrates a
marked reduction in symptomology.
THE CHILD IN PAS
Johnston and Campbell's research into HCD found alignments between children and one parent in up to 40 percent of 7 to 14 years olds studied [Johnston and
Campbell, 1988]. Five years later, Johnston [1993] found 43 percent of the children were in strong alignments and 29 percent in mild alignments. Similar ratios were uncovered by Lampel, when studying latency-age children in custody evaluations
[1996]. These children also tended to be angrier, less well adjusted, and less able to conceptualize complex situations. While they expressed greater self confidence, this may reflect the relief they could obtain by opting for one parent over the
other as opposed to feeling "caught in the middle" of parental conflicts.
However, before assuming PAS is involved, one needs to consider the 'normal' reasons why some children reject a separated parent and how these can also be
exploited by an alienating parent:
2 to 3 year olds often exhibit separation anxiety when the mother is absent for a short time even in normal circumstances as their sense of time is developed
enough to understand that they will soon be reunited with her.
3 to 6 year olds in high conflict divorces tended to shift their allegiances from one parent to the other depending upon which parent they are with at the time
because they have yet to learn to entertain two conflicting points of view. They can easily become confused and inadvertently generate problems by telling different parents what they think the parents want to hear.
6 to 7 year old children are more likely to suffer from loyalty conflicts and worry about hurting their parents' feelings. These conflicts reflect children's
growing sense of morality and their increased capacity to see things from another person's perspective.
7 to 9 year olds, having begun to develop the capacity to imagine how their parents view them but still feeling the cognitive dissonance (confusion) of their
parents' conflicting views, can easily decide to resolve such conflicts by aliening with one parent against the other because the loyalty conflict is too much.
9 to 12 year olds are particularly likely to form strong PAS alignments with one parent as they try to "resolve" the loyalty conflicts. This is hardly helped by
the adults tendency to expect more from children of this age, viewing them as "old enough to take a stand" in parental disputes.
Some aligned teens develop the capacity to take a more objective, independent stance; however a significant proportion are unable to withdraw from the parental
dispute and maintain a position of rejection and denigration toward the target parent throughout their adolescence for various reasons [Johnston, 1993, cited Rand 1997: 42-43].
Some of the strongest alignments, with consistent rejection and denigration of the alienated parent, are found in the 9 to 12 year old age group. It has been suggested that they make even stronger alliances with the more emotionally dysfunctional
parent because they perceive a need to protect a parent who is clearly depressed, panicky or needy, or because they wish to avoid the wrath or rejection of a powerful, dominant parent [Johnston, 1993, cited Rand 1997: 44].
These extreme aligned children often exhibit disturbed, bizarre and/or destructive behavior [Johnston, 1993]; and it is not unusual to find them making more and
improbable charges by themselves. Various psychological reasons have been offered to explain why they do this. Barnet suggests they are engaging in pseudologia fantastica [Barnet, 1993] which would explain the implausible nature of many allegations.
Ditrich believes allegations are a psychological defence against the pain of an unbearable situation [Ditrich, 1991]; however, Johnston and Roseby suggested an even more fundamental problem:
Rather than seeing this syndrome as being induced in the child by an alienating parent, as Gardner does, we propose that these `unholy alliances' are a later
manifestation of the failed separation-individuation process in especially vulnerable children who have been exposed to disturbed family relationships during their early years [1997, cited Rand 45-46] ,
The obvious problem with that explanation is that not every child who lives in a disturbed family relation goes on to engage in PAS. Rand is skeptical of these
intra-familial psychological explanations, especially as they are theoretical and are not based on psychological tests of the children. There is no doubt that persistent questioning or coaching, which generate confabulation, could produce the sever
mental conflicts seen in children ascribed to 'separation-individuation'. We know that children harassed by social services to make allegations exhibit very similar symptoms and become unable to distinguish between reality and what has been suggested
to them by overenthusiastic child protection personnel.
However, pre and post divorce psychological explanations need not conflict; on the contrary, failed separation-individuation could explain why some children
exhibit the more extreme forms of parent alienation due to the child's vulnerability and accommodation to the alienating parent, whereas the other children do not, despite experiencing similar circumstances.
On the other hand, recognizing the existence of such factors could never explain why PAS leads to making specific allegations. Those who deal with the legal
manifestations of alienation find copious evidence of substantial alienating activity on the part of the alienating parent in severe PAS. For example, in the case of Mr. and Mrs. L, quoted above, the custody evaluator and others observed that the
mother deliberately timed her abuse reports to block the father's impending access and made denigrating remarks about Mr. L in front of the child. Mrs. L was the person responsible for these actions and the subsequent impact on the child's
relationship with the father.
THE CHILDS ACTIVE CONTRIBUTION
Alienated parents do not like to believe that the child is actively involved in PAS, but Rand suggests that children tend to engage in three forms of PAS
behaviour:
passive complying in order to placate the alienating parent,
agreeing 'taking care of' an angry, disturbed, or otherwise troubled
parent with whom the child is aligned,
active manipulating conflicts between the parents for the feeling
of the power this gives them
Some children, of course, will be so 'psychologically battered' they would comply with any demands. Atmospheres of stress, tension and aggression, which one finds
in HCD, have long been recognised as breeding grounds of psychological difficulties which undermine the development of a sense of self and social competence. Garbarino and colleagues have defined five possible explanations:
Having had their relationship with both parents undermined, the child fears rejection and abandonment by the alienating parent if they express positive feelings
about the other parent or the people and activities associated with the other parent.
The child is bullied or verbally assaulted into being terrified of the target parent and/or fearing that contact will bring retribution by the alienating parent.
Psychological abuse of this type may be accompanied by physical abuse.
As the alienated parent is emotionally unavailable, the child suffers real feelings of neglect and abandonment by the target parent.
The alienating parent isolates the child from normal opportunities for social relations and interactions with the target parent, and the relatives and former
friends on that side of the family. In severe PAS, this social isolation sometimes extends beyond the target parent to any social contacts which might foster any autonomy and independence.
The child is socialized by the alienating parent into lying, manipulation, and aggression toward others, or behavior which is self destructive [Garbarino, et al
1986]
Regardless of the relative contributions to the PAS by the alienating parent or the aligned child, most studies also emphasize the possibility of a 'mutually
reinforcing feedback loop' which then becomes resistant to outside influences.
Older children can have even more problems. Whether they are compensating for the powerlessness they feel because of the divorce or exploiting the situation, young
adolescents can easily add to their complaints about a 'target' parent to exploit the alienating parent's motives. Ironically, this means that the alienating parent will begin to loose control and the child's alienating behaviour can take on a life
of its own. While younger children would soon learn that one tends to get what they want if they support the fabrications, older children can use false allegations to induce a complicit response from the alienating parent [Rand, 1997].
Facilitating such behaviour, as social services do, is certainly not good for individuals concerned. It can destroy familial relationships in later life (no doubt
explained away by the alleged abuse), corrupt sexual attitudes by repeated discussions of illegal or deviant sexuality, and engender a tendency to engage in deceit and manipulation for the purpose of harassment and persecution of others; but that is
not all.
THE EFFECTS ON THE CHILDREN
Whether the PAS is mild, moderate or severe, however the effects of alienation are mediated by age and temperament [Rand, 50], PAS will almost invariably produce
psychological and social difficulties as the case of S demonstrates:
At 13, S was a socially isolated girl who believed she was stupid. She spent recesses alone because the other kids did not accept her. She got "D" grades in
school. For as long as she could remember, her mother told S she was incompetent and unlivable. S's mother would tell her, "Even your baby half sister is smarter than you are". S hadn't seen her father in 10 years. Her parents separated when she
was only a few months old. Her father quickly found a new partner and remarried. Although S's mother tried to stop father's contact with the girl, father and his new wife visited with S regularly until she was three. At that time, mother was
successful in persuading child protective services to stop the visitation based on allegations of sexual abuse.
Father turned to the family court for help. A custody evaluation was conducted which exonerated the father of abuse charges and indicated that the mother was
using the abuse allegations to prevent the child from having a relationship with her father. After several years of family law litigation, the judge ordered reunification and appointed a reunification therapist. For the next three years, the
efforts of the reunification therapist and family court mediator were thwarted by the mother. The father became depressed and entered individual therapy.
A break in the case came when S's father was referred to a PAS expert for consultation. The family mediator, reunification therapist and the court were interested
in the expert's input. The judge ordered mother and daughter to meet with father's PAS expert to facilitate the father/daughter reunification. The court also threatened the mother with sanctions when she refused to cooperate with the reunification
plan. The reunification team, which now included a guardian ad litem for the child, planned to gradually reacquaint S with her father. The more gradual approach proved unsuccessful. The child remained hostile and staunchly aligned with her mother.
The team agreed that a different approach was needed. The PAS expert held a meeting with the reunification therapist. The expert established rapport with S, who
was guarded but responsive. He asked S questions and gave her information which made her curious about her father. S indicated that she was interested in exploring the contradiction between her belief that father molested her and her lack of any
actual memories of molestation. This opened the door for the expert to provide age appropriate education about the concepts of thought reform and "brainwashing", as well as the problem of "false positives" when abuse is alleged. S was surprised and
pleased that the expert thought her smart enough to learn about these adult concepts. For the first time, she indicated she was willing to participate in a meeting with her father.
Despite the mother's continued efforts to interfere, a one day visit between S and her father went forward when S was 13. The team agreed that the PAS expert
should be present at father's house. The girl was thrilled by the interest shown in her by her father and step mother, whose desire to please her contrasted sharply with how her mother treated her. The expert had to intervene once when father and
stepmother set reasonable limits and S exploded. When the reunification plan called for overnight visits to begin, S's court ordered individual therapist gave the girl her pager number, with instructions to call day or night if problems arose. S
called to say that she didn't want to go back to her mother's. The therapist then had to set limits with S, reminding her that everyone, including S, had to adhere to the parameters of the reunification plan. S encountered intense anger from her
mother each time she returned home.
One day, S took the risk of telling her mother that she wanted a relationship with her father. The mother slapped S and told the girl that she hated her and that
the rest of mother's family hated S too. In spite of mother's efforts to punish and intimidate S, the girl's relationship with her father and stepmother grew and the girl began to blossom. For the first time, S began receiving above average marks in
school. She made friends and became involved with a boyfriend. The mother tried to persuade S to get pregnant so that she could have the baby. When S was at her father's, her mother maintained secret contact with her, encouraging S's impulsive,
angry outbursts and telling her daughter to run away, which S did several times. As time went by, the reunification team and the court recognized that the mother's treatment of S amounted to serious psychological abuse, interspersed with episodes of
physical abuse. The mother refused to participate in treatment or otherwise modify her behavior and the court eventually gave custody to the father. In defiance of court orders, the mother continued her secret undermining of S's placement with the
father until S had a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized.
The father and stepmother became so discouraged that they considered allowing S to resume living with her mother. The reunification team, backed by the judge, took
the position that this was not an option. The team continued to provide coordinated services in support of S's placement with the father, and to offer outreach to the mother. By age 16, S was doing well on a consistent basis. S remained troubled by
her mother's rejection and unwillingness to change but continued to hope that someday her mother would get help [Rand, 1997 51-3; my emphasis]
The problems described are not uncommon. As the 12 year American Bar Association study of 700 divorced families found even low level 'programming' can have a
significant impact on the children. One does not even need systematic programming towards alienation; even 'well meaning' parents' attempts to influence what their children said in custody and visitation proceedings had significant adverse effects [Clawar
and Rivlin, 1991]. One alienated son attempted to poison his father by slipping air freshener into his stomach medicine; another, 10-year-old, boy attempted to burn down his father's house [Tucker and Cornwall, 1977]. Once alienation has occurred,
the child may also encounter insurmountable obstacles if they ever try to reestablish a relationship with the lost parent; and when, as may happen, they eventually turn against the alienating parent, they are left with no one.
Noncompliance by the child, even a failure to live up to the parents' expectations, could lead to anything from subtle psychological punishments such as withdrawal
of love to direct corporal punishment [Clawar and Rivlin, 1991]. In one case Rand encountered, the alienating mother went so far as to handcuffed her son to the bedpost because he refused to continue making allegations against the father [Rand, 35].
THE ROLE OF THIRD PARTIES
PAS targets are not restricted to the alienated parent. False allegations have been made against the alienated parent's new spouse, paramour, relatives,
grandparents, and even other children in order to stop the child maintaining old or forming new relationships [Thoennes and Tjaden, 1990] One of the most disruptive is an allegation against a target parent's or new partner's teenage son [Rand, 46]
forcing the alienated parent to choose between their own and step children. In HCD, the spouses' family and social networks can become incorporated into the dispute too [Johnston and Campbell, 1988]
However, the most important third parties are the child protection personnel who become involved in the allegations. In the UK, mental health workers, like social
service personnel and the police, are far too quick to take allegations at face value; and few accused parents have ever found Guardian ad litem truely independent. They usually share the same ideological outlook as the social service department that
employs them, and invariably 'confirm' the allegations, even when all the evidence points to the contrary. In one high profile case I was involved with in Scotland, the children's 'safeguarder', who is supposed to present the children's interests,
appeared to be having a lesbian relationship with the Head of the Social Services in charge of the case. The police are only interested in securing a prosecution. Any one asked to 'independently evaluate a case, will find that if they fail to support
the social service line they are unlikely to be employed again.
In the US, where 'validating abuse' has become a growth industry [Gardner, 1991], it is not difficult for a parent seeking to strengthen their position in legal
proceedings to find a private practice 'validator' who sees their job as getting the child to articulate the 'hidden' abuse by subjecting children to repeated interviews; more than 20 is not uncommon [Stewart, 1991]. In most cases, therapists will
simply reinforce the alienating process by believing what the alienating parent tells them [Lund, 1995]. No child will stand a chance.
Ceci and Bruck [1993] have spent a decade demonstrating the effects of even mildly suggestive questioning can quickly led a child to make or repeat false or
inaccurate reports, which means no report should be taken on face value unless and until the conditions surrounding the report are investigated.
Parents who are preoccupied with suspicions of abuse by the other parent often question their children repeatedly too. In divorce this can begin with a parent
questioning the child after visitation about a rash, a bruise, or bathing at the other parent's house. Everson cites a typical case of a six-year-old-boy who produced more and more elaborate accounts of abuse in response to the attention and support
he received from his mother as they 'discussed' his 'memories' of abuse each night at bedtime [Everson, 1997].
It does not help when, as in the US, it is often the alienating parent who selects the child's assessor [Campbell, 1992]. In many cases the assessor subsequently
helps maintain the mother's induced PAS [Lund, 1995; 308-316] as the therapist plays 'child savers'. They can even become embroiled in a �shared paranoid disorder� with the aligned parent and
child [Gardner, 1992]. Too many 'professionals' also compromise themselves by adopting an "us versus them" mentality and use 'therapy' sessions to "validate" allegations of abuse against the target parent, rather than helping the child adjust to the
divorce and maintain affection for both parents [Campbell, 1992]. As many children can feel annoyed at a separating parent, child therapists predisposed to making negative inferences about significant others in the child's life can easily reinforce a
child's sense of anger and blame toward a target parent [Campbell, 1992]. They may even give the child the lead. In US cases transcripts of therapy sessions demonstrate that therapists are only too happy to teach children how to make abuse
allegations and reinforced the child's expressions of hatred toward the target parent [Underwager and Wakefield, 1989].
Yet even research demonstrating why they do this does not discuss why; for the reason is seen as insulting. Its not: its the truth. Most therapists, child
protection personnel, and social workers are not very intelligent. They merely repeat what they have been taught and possess no critical faculties. When this is wedded to an ego enhancing ideal such as 'saving children' from evil paedophiles, they
become obsessed with proving allegations. They believe them all, even when they get as absurd and ridiculous as 'satanic abuse' allegations did. Concepts and activities like PAS are simply too complicated for them.
The ability of alienating parents to mobilize the child protection system to support their abusive agenda is alarming. In the case of Mr. and Mrs. C. [quoted
above], most of the child protection workers rejected any possibility that such events could happen despite copious evidence to the contrary supplied by the mental health professionals involved. Social workers are all too often mesmerized by 'the
seriousness of the allegation', fail to research case backgrounds, miss the significance of standard tactics such as an alienating parent moving from one county or state to another, to begin another investigation into the abuse allegations to secure
support for terminating the target parent's contact with the child [Jones et al. 1996].
IN COURT
In the US, lawyers have been aware of PAS for over a decade [Sanders, 1993; Palmer, 1988; Goldwater, 1991; Ward and Harvey, 1993; Waldron and Joanis, 1996; Walsh
and Bone, 1997; Hindz et al. 1994; Sullivan and Jones, 1996; Jones et al. 1996; Barovsky et al. 1997]. As a result of their good work, family law judgments have been adding to a growing body of case law recognizing the existence and dangers of
parental alienation [Tolbert, 1990; and Palmer, 1988; Waldron and Joanis, 1996; and Walsh and Bone, 1997; Wood, 1994; and Turkat, 1997]. The judgment in Schutz v. Schutz is often quoted to demonstrate how objective observers can easily see behind PAS
if they only look. The judge in that case made the following observation:
The Court has no doubt that the cause of the blind, brainwashed, bigoted, belligerence of the children toward the father grew from the soil nurtured, watered and
tilled by the mother. The Court is thoroughly convinced that the mother breached every duty she owed as the custodial parent to the non custodial parent of instilling love, respect and feeling in the children for their father. Worse, she slowly
dripped poison into the minds of these children, maybe even beyond the power of this Court to find the antidote [Palmer 1988; 361-362, cited Rand, 1997]
In Florida, the courts do not hesitate to consider the role of PAS where the challenging parent can present credible proof and evidence of incidents in which the
other parent has been practicing alienation and visitation interference, deceit and manipulation.
Judge Vernon Nakahara in Alameda County, California, cautions family law judges to be aware that as well as the child, the professionals upon whom the court relies
may also be "brainwashed" by the alienating parent, be it the attorneys, family court services and private counselors. As a result, courts should not simply accept the opinions of various professionals employed without testing and critically
evaluating them in the court [Rand 73].
If and when non ideological social workers can be found they can help contain the alienating parent's behavior, as the following case illustrates:
Mr. H successfully alienated his 11-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter from their mother after learning of mother's desire to divorce. Prior to the separation,
the mother was the primary parent. A court ordered custody evaluation found her parenting ability to be average. Father and the children used the mother's new significant other as a rationale to vilify her [Rand 77]
The siblings played off each other and supported each other's extreme and hysterical protestations of hatred against their mother. The children did not see their
mother for a year. A Special Master was appointed who referred the family to a PAS expert for treatment. When the therapist informed the children of his intention to hold a co counseling interview with them and their mother, the 11-year-old boy
became physically ill. Despite the therapist's efforts to persuade father and children of the need for a meeting with the mother, they refused to participate. The Special Master ordered such a meeting and still the father refused.
Finally, the PAS therapist contacted CPS and made a suspected child abuse report against the father for severe psychological abuse in conjunction with his
alienating behavior. The social worker who talked to the father and children was supportive of the therapist's concerns and agreed to back him up. The therapist, too, met with the father. He told Mr. H his reasons for the suspected abuse report and
informed him that CPS was prepared to intervene, possibly removing the children from his home, if he did not turn the PAS situation around within a few months. The therapist gave Mr. H. Gardner's book on PAS to read and told him that he was acting
in this manner with his children. When father tried to tell the children that they had to rebuild their relationship with their mother and begin visitation, the children became angry and combative. The father became frightened that he would have
problems with CPS and might be dragged into family law court by the children's mother. Mr. H worked harder to turn he situation around. The CPS worker met with the children twice and continued to advise the father of the gravity of CPS' concerns.
Soon, the children were able to begin visitation with their mother every other weekend. After several months, visitation was increased to every other week with each parent. The father needed a great deal of support to remedy the situation and the
mother was in a position to help him. As a result, a moderate degree of co-parenting became possible and CPS formally closed the case. At two year follow-up, the children were doing well with both parents, a "win-win" solution for everyone
involved, due to the willingness of CPS to work with the PAS expert [Rand, 78]
SUMMARY
Gardner's 'discovery' of the role of PAS in custody disputes in general and false allegations in particular and parallel research suggests that when there is
evidence of an apparent complete rejection of a once cared for parent and evidence of a manipulative mother the possibility of PAS should be considered and negated before taking allegations on face value, particularly when they contain bizarre and
implausible features. This applies to criminal as well as family law proceedings [Mapes, 1995]; especially when, as Garbarino and Stott note, adult misinterpretation and misunderstanding of children's statements has reached crisis proportions in
legal proceedings of all kinds [1992].
PAS and HCD have obvious implications for investigations into both the origin and validity of children's sexual assault allegations when they emerge during divorce
and custody disputes. Whenever children are vehement in their rejection of a parent, the possibility of PAS needs to be considered both for itself, and as a possible influence behind the allegations. If this possibility is not recognized; far from
being saved from a sexual abuser, the child protection service would be handing a child over to an emotional abuser.
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