Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) Information

[CJane]

****I've asked Mary to make this a sticky.

Before making claims of "PAS" or "Parental Alienation Syndrome", one should consider the following:

PAS was "created" by Dr. Richard Gardner in the mid-80s. He defined the syndrome as follows:

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)."

This theory is not based on any actual scientific studies, or empirical evidence, but simply on Dr. Gardner's observations of and involvement in custody cases.

Dr. Gardner believed that PAS existed in more than 90% of the cases he was involved in.

*** Just think about that for a minute. In 90% of the cases he was involved in, he believed that the Mother was "programming" the child to hate the Father using allegations of sexual abuse. Extreme opinions with no empirical basis should always raise a red flag.

Dr. Gardner, prior to his suicide, self-published several books using the publishing company he owned - Creative Therapeutics.

When one is considering Dr. Gardner's theory of PAS one must also consider his views on abuse.

From Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited

There is a bit of pedophilia in every one of us. (p. 118)

...intrafamilial pedophilia (that is, incest) is widespread and ... is probably an ancient tradition... (p. 119)

He [the abusing father] has had bad luck with regard to the place and time he was born with regard to social attitudes toward pedophilia. However, these are not reasons to condemn himself. (p 119)

The removal of a pedophilic parent from the home "should only be seriously considered after all attempts at treatment of the pedophilia and rapprochement with the family have proven futile. (p 119)

Pedophiles who abuse children outside of the home should first be given the opportunity for community treatment. "If that fails then and only then should some kind of forced incarceration be considered" (p 119)

One of the steps that society must take to deal with the present hysteria is to 'come off it' and take a more realistic attitude toward pedophilic behavior." (p. 120)

Judges too may have repressed pedophilic impulses over which there is suppression, repression, and guilt. Inquiry into the details of the case provides voyeuristic and vicarious gratifications .. Incarcerating the alleged perpetrator may serve psychologically to obliterate the judge's own projected pedophilic impulses (p 107)

The mother is psychologically gratifying [her own sexually inhibited needs] with the visual imagery that the sex abuse allegation provides. (p 36-37)

The Draconian punishments meted out to pedophiles go far beyond what I consider to be the gravity of the crime. (p. 118)

From: True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse

Pedophilia has been considered the norm by the vast majority of individuals in the history of the world. (p. 592-3)

It is because our society overreacts to it [pedophilia] that children suffer. (p 594-595)

Pedophilia may enhance the survival of the human species by serving "procreative purposes." (p 24 - 25)

Sex abuse is not necessarily traumatic; the determinant as to whether sexual molestation will be traumatic to the child, is the social attitude toward these encounters. (p 670 - 671)

Special care should be taken not alienate the child from the molesting parent. (p 537)

The child should be told that there is no such thing as a perfect parent. "The sexual exploitation has to be put on the negative list, but positives as well must be appreciated" (p 572)

Older children may be helped to appreciate that sexual encounters between an adult and a child are not universally considered to be reprehensible acts. The child might be told about other societies in which such behavior was and is considered normal. The child might be helped to appreciate the wisdom of Shakespeare's Hamlet, who said, "Nothing's either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." (p 549)

In such discussions the child has to be helped to appreciate that we have in our society an exaggeratedly punitive and moralistic attitude about adult-child sexual encounters. (p 572)

If the mother has reacted to the abuse in a hysterical fashion, or used it as an excuse for a campaign of denigration of the father, then the therapist does well to try and "sober her up". Her hysterics ... will contribute to the child's feeling that a heinous crime has been committed and will thereby lessen the likelihood of any kind of rapproachment with the father. One has to do everything possible to help her put the "crime" in proper perspective. (p. 576 - 577)

Perhaps she can be helped to appreciate that in the history of the world his behavior has probably been more common than the restrained behavior of those who do not sexually abuse their children. (p 585)

He must learn to control himself if he is to protect himself from the Draconian punishments meted out to those in our society who act out their pedophilic impulses. (p. 585 - 592)

Therapy with the father should not be spent focusing on the primary problem (I.e., sexual molestation). Instead, therapy should be spent "talking about other things" as the goal of therapy is "to help people forget about their problems" (p. 585 - 592)

In written testimony on HR3588 - Proposed revision of the child abuse prevention and treatment act (CAPTA) (Public Law 93-247), Gardner proposed the following:

* Abolish mandated reporting of child sexual abuse.
* Do away with immunity for reporters of child abuse.
* Create federally-funded programs to assist those claiming to have been falsely accused of child sexual abuse.

Also, consider that PAS is no longer considered credible in court OR mental health circles.

The construct of PAS is unscientific, composed of a group of general symptoms with no empirical basis. (It has been said that it is nothing more than a scientific-sounding way of saying that a mother is vengeful and mendacious [Caplan, 2004]). In spite of this, PAS is often used to discount allegations of abuse, particularly in custody disputes, so that the [abuse] accuser’s sanity and parenting ability are questioned, and the rights of the “alienated” parent become the focus of the case, rather than the needs of the child.


Major professional bodies, including the American Psychological Association, have discredited PAS on the grounds that it is misused in domestic violence cases and that there is no scientific evidence of such a “syndrome.” The more recent APA Online document Issues and Dilemmas in Family Violence (Redirect Page), particularly Issue 5, describes the tendency of family courts to miminize a context of violence, falsely accusing the mother of alienation and granting custody to the father in spite of his history of violence. The National Council on Juvenile and Family Court Judge’s 2006 manual states that “parental alienation syndrome or PAS has been discredited by the scientific community” and “should therefore be ruled inadmissible” (p. 19). A number of prominent figures, including Dr. Paul J. Fink, past president of the American Psychiatric Association and president of the Leadership Council on Mental Health, Justice, and the Media, and Professor Jon R. Conte of the University of Washington Social Welfare Doctoral Faculty have also discredited PAS and its lack of scientific basis (see Bruch, 2001).


Because of the use of PAS as a tactic by many CSA perpetrators to influence decision makers and the court system, abused children have been placed in the hands of their abusers (Childress, 2006). It is estimated that “over 58,000 children a year are ordered into unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents following divorce in the United States” (Abuse and Custody Disputes: scientific and legal issues) and that PAS was used in a large number of these cases.


Recent arguments to include PAS in the DSM-V as a differential diagnosis of oppositional defiant disorder, or as an example of a relational disorder (e.g. Bernet, 2008), are lacking in empirical basis, provide false claims related to reliability and validity, and are potentially harmful to children and families.

Think very carefully whether the fact that your ex dislikes you, maybe talks negatively about you occasionally, maybe is disrespectful to or about you, and maybe doesn't really "encourage" a relationship between the children and you -- all of which are definitely negative behaviors -- rises to the level of what PAS is described as.

And then carefully consider whether you really want to align yourself with someone like Dr. Gardner and his many "theories" of human behavior.

 

[liandrajade]

awesome post and GREAT information....