FATHER

Archive for the ‘judicial corruption’ Category

Fathers-4-Justice Sault Ste. Marie: Ontario Children’s Aid and Misandry

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, Brainwashed Children, child abuse, Child Custody, Child Support, Children and Domestic Violence, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, custody, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, False Allegations of Domestic Violence, family court, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, Feminism, Fit Parent, Foster CAre Abuse, Foster Care Scam, Freedom, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Marriage, Michael Murphy, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, Parental Rights Amendment, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Restraining Orders, Single Parenting on January 25, 2010 at 4:23 pm

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Ontario Children’s Aid and Misandry

Many men will attest to have seen a bias by CAS Protective Workers who are, it would appear, 95% female and some stridently feminist in their ideology. I can certainly speak to it, and can also say the local Algoma CAS and its sister organization Algoma Family Services, who deal with child mental health issues, have both shown me they care little about fathers. In one case a worker completely ignored my requests for help on the telephone and declared a conflict of interest so she could get out of providing service to me. I went over her head and finally got a supervisor to do her job.MJM

By Susan Longley


Please note concerns regarding  upcoming Ontario conference. (see OACAS web site).

A frightening trend in North American child welfare practice  is the growing alliance between child welfare services and those promoting anti violence against women (i.e. VAW sector).

This alliance has resulted in an increased denigration of male parents and general deterioration in efforts to address the best interests of children. The deeply rooted gender biased ideology of the latter sector remains deeply troubling and in complete  contradiction to male parents attempts to engage with child welfare services involved with their  children. This concern needs to be urgently addressed, partly to maintain service integrity but also to maintain an ethical stance towards families in general.

Male parents are frequently already marginalized from participating in services for their children. There is now an  increased propensity to isolate men even more so from their children’s lives. There remains a blatant contradiction between child welfare services who adopt the polemic and platitudes of the VAW sector. The child welfare mandate remains to enhance family life VAW sector is completely contradictory and opposed to such values.

It has become recently popular for child welfare services and VAW services to adopt certain kinds of inter agency protocols. These protocols are an embarrassment to child welfare practice in Canada. Blatantly unprofessional and academically dishonest theses protocols reflect misandric nonsense rather than legitimate protocol. These so called protocols must be abandoned and exposed for what they are. There are least two CASs in the Toronto region (see Peel CAS protocol with VAW sector)) have adopted such protocols. These agencies are allegedly family service agencies with no endorsement to promote such anti male rhetoric.

A review of these protocols disclose an incredulous gender bias which can only be described as sexism of the worst order. These professionally distasteful protocols are  written in total sympathy with VAW expectations with no accountability to the general public or their respective agency mandates. They contradict not only good social work practice but remain contradictory  to ethical guidelines established by their governing body  OASW.

These so-called protocols allege to address issues related to inter agency service provision and cooperation between public agencies but are in fact nothing more than an ideological treatise intended to alienate men further from appropriate child welfare practice.

These protocols refuse to acknowledges domestic violence in families other than that of men against women. Women remain the perpetual victim and men always the perpetrator. Any mention of domestic violence refuses to acknowledge  women ‘s violence against men. Programmes sponsored by child welfare services for children exposed to domestic violence ultimately define the perpetrator as male.

These protocols never hold women accountable for any acts of child abuse or inter personal violence. The identification of child abuse only mentioned in regard to men.  Any child welfare programmes delivered to “children exposed to family violence” refer to men only. Women are never identified as initiators of any domestic violence even when a so-called family agency is involved.

The suggestion that women may make false complaints regarding domestic violence in order to gain an upper hand on custody and access matters is not acknowledged. That women may fabricate or even lie is considered anathema.  The fact that women account for the majority of child abuse in not even mentioned. That VAW services and child welfare services advocate becoming increasingly involved in controversial custody and access matters remains extremely repugnant. The suggestion that child welfare services become more intrusive regarding access arrangements between children and their fathers is an outright abomination.

Please find a copy of a recent letter sent to Jeanette Lewis, Director of  the provincial OACAS (see web site) outlining my concerns regarding an anticipated conference involving Provincial Child Welfare Services and Violence Against Women Services. The purported agenda is to build understanding and cooperation between the two sectors. My cynical view, as previously suggested, indicates an alternate agenda. The VAW sector is given a further opportunity to impose a particular ideological gender politic on child welfare services.

“I notice with trepidation an anticipated 2010 Toronto conference co sponsored by Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies , The Ontario Women’s Directorate and various Violence Against Women programmes. The theme of the conference being the “Intersection of Women Abuse and Child Welfare Services.”

I was immediately troubled by the tone and wording of the conference details included in the call for papers especially given the propensity for child welfare services in Ontario and in general North America, to adopt a value preference embracing the practice of a certain feminist political and ideological agenda. A social work practice that has increasingly marginalized services to men and boys and a priori assumptions regarding male perpetrators and female victims.

I have outlined a few  of my concerns.
As many researchers have pointed out gender feminist theory has its limitations and family service agencies in particular must always be ethically accountable in providing services to both men and women especially where “best interests” of children are involved. One can already anticipate the usual presenters invited to provide discourse at such matters. It would be extremely naive to expect genuine debate or rational presentation between the sectors involved.  I will assume the usual feminist rhetoric and platitudes will rule the day.

Some academic  integrity needs to be maintained  and that the conference must reject any ideological and gender biased, misandric unbalanced research which has tended to place a certain anti male spin on issues related to woman abuse, child custody and other such politically charged issues.

There has been a long term feminist advocacy in this province (highlighted in proposals of the provincial domestic violence death review  panel and its recommendations ) to have child welfare services acquiesce to the values and political ideology of the violence against women sector.

This is viewed by many as a regressive and extremely ill advised road to go down. It is appears regressive for child welfare services in general, especially since their services have already become suspect for aligning themselves with principles that reject a family orientation and men in particular. Any child welfare services must be dispensed with fairness and remain gender neutral in practice.

I am concerned that any dialogue between CAS and VAW sectors becomes a mere “smoke screen” for advocating CAS become more feminized in their social work practice at the expense of academic and social work integrity. Not that the two sectors cannot collaborate on occasion and cooperate when appropriate in providing in shared client advocacy.


It seems vital and important to acknowledge the value differences between the two sectors and reject the propensity to gloss over the obvious political and ideological conflicts. It is imperative that these conflicts be clearly acknowledged and identified. This remains especially so in reference to mutual  protocols regarding advocacy and support of woman’s issues especially those issues related to custody access and the interaction between service providers regarding male clients and families in general .  It appears to me that the mandates of  the two sectors are severely different and are grounded in often opposed ideological principals. Just a few issues regarding the two sectors come to mind.

Definitions of Abuse and Victimization:

More stringent definition of abuse and victimization in general are required by both sectors. The CAS social workers remain accountable not only to the clients, the best interest of the child but also the court system especially when wards of the court are involved. What is considered abuse in the VAW sector cannot always be validated in the CAS sector.


CAS are obliged to involve male fathers and partners regardless if they have been identified as so called perpetrators or offenders.

Validation

The feminist principle of “validating” the “stories” of violence against women and children has always been troublesome for social workers in the CAS sector. Not to deny supportive advocacy for all clients (a basic social work value)  CAS social workers have always had to depend on not only “clients narratives” but also collaboration efforts to seek alternate sources of  information. The VAW sector do not require such gender neutral language of exploration and context for service. It appears that a higher standard of accountability and transparency is required.

Gender Bias / Male Clients and Partners:

Gender biased practice has been generally the order of the day. Given the long history of feminist advocacy many would argue that CAS have acquiesced far to willingly to certain  feminist theory at the expense of gender neutral practice. This must be recognised and the matter dealt with in an honest and forthright manner. Children’s best interest require addressing issues with both parents where possible.

CAS social workers when in court regarding children’s interests must prove that they have attempted involved both parents (and even other partners as defined as parents ) Fathers and or partners in a parenting role can never be ignored in CAS social work. The issues regarding custody and access assessments during divorce remains a highly contentious one, as do the issues related to counselling of couples where violence has occurred. Protocols regarding children’s access to both parents where domestic violence is disputed also remains highly contentious. These issues must be debated within the reality of both male and female experience.

Academic Research and Domestic Violence Findings:

The academic literature regarding domestic violence has and continues to be long dominated by a certain type of feminist ideology and both the  CAS and VAW sectors have been very much influenced in their practice by certain political views. This must change. The literature is much more divergent in findings and recommendations for practice than previously acknowledged. This is particularly so when discussing woman abuse and domestic violence. The divergent literature has always been available but to many practitioners who accepted certain dissident views were quickly rejected ostracized or threatened.

A modest appeal to Richard Gelles article January 2007 Family Court Review sums up these concerns regarding academic integrity with succinct clarity. Need I mention Don Dutton’s “Rethinking Domestic Violence.”


These are some of my concerns regarding the two sectors having authentic dialogue. This can only be achieved with honesty and respect. Some would also claim an appeal to rational discourse mixed with a modicum of intellectual integrity can also help.

Regards Susan

Fathers-4-Justice Sault Ste. Marie: Ontario Children’s Aid and Misandry.

Austrailian Women Set Up WebSite to Promote More False Allegations in Family Court

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, False Allegations of Domestic Violence, family court, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, fatherlessness, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Marriage, Non-custodial fathers, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, Parental Rights Amendment, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Protective Dads, Single Moms, Sociopath on November 24, 2009 at 1:34 am

After carefully going through this website, I saw this was not about fairness in family court and protecting children’s right to have both parents in their lives.  Australian mums are not into co-parenting.

They believe they own their children and will stop at nothing to steal children.

This website is almost as disgusting as StopFamilyViolence.Org, another waste of tax dollars.

Nope, this is a full out effort to show women, how to lie cheat and steal children through allegations of domestic violence.  They even went so far as to bring out women in bandages and bruises.

The point of this website is to make it appear that the only reason for divorce is because of domestic violence.  We all know this is more of the same nonsense that goes on here in the U.S.

What a load of crock.  Australian mummies.  Guess which one is Annabelle?  She is the one that looks like a pig!

 

22 June 2009 – Canberra – Bandage Parade Protest at Parliament House makes an impact

Safer Family Law Canberra Bandage Parade Rally Concerned parents and professionals gathered in Canberra on Monday June 22, 2009, to protest current family laws.

Sprawling across the lawns of Parliament House, wrapped in bloodied bandages, arm slings seated in wheelchairs, some pushing injured dolls in strollers, the shock-value message was loud and clear – children are suffering at the hands of abusive parents, due to the Family Law Act…more

Family Court Youtube Campaign

Childrens Stories Australian Journalists National Professionals Parents Stories – VIC Parents Stories – SA
Parents Stories – NSW Parents Stories – WA Parents Stories – QLD Childrens Drawings

Safer Family Law | Home.

Dad tales of desperate and defeated, or deadbeat

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, Child Support, child trafficking, Children and Domestic Violence, Domestic Violence, due process rights, False Allegations of Domestic Violence, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, judicial corruption, Liberty, Marriage, Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, Parental Rights Amendment, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Protective Dads, Restraining Orders, Rooker-Feldman Doctrine on November 23, 2009 at 3:45 am

Dad tales of desperate and defeated, or deadbeat

LESLIE CANNOLD

November 22, 2009 – 8:42AM

In recent weeks, I seem to have become a bloke magnet. Two weeks ago at the State Library cafe and one night last week at my usual watering hole, I’ve had men in my ear. Sweet men, sad men, vulnerable men – some recently divorced, others single for years – crooning variations on the same tragic tale. A tale about children they love but no longer see.

Once, I would have called them deadbeat dads. My own parents split when I was young but my father maintained scrupulous contact with my brother and me, and was dismissive of men who didn’t. And I knew the facts: that about 30 per cent of Aussie kids rarely or ever see the father who doesn’t live with them; and that before 1989, when the law gave men a choice about chipping in financially to support their children, only about one-third did.

But as I listened to the stories of these grieving men, the moral issue was no longer clear. There is no shortage of grievances, legitimate and otherwise, when a couple splits. But when fathers want to share care of their children but are granted access only on weekends – leaving the Child Support Agency as the only institution affirming the role of men in their children’s lives post-divorce – something seems amiss.

‘‘I was more than a wallet to those children,’’ the man in the cafe told me. ‘‘I parented them.’’ Later, a diary he had kept of his daughter’s first words and subsequent language development would arrive in the mail: proof of his commitment and grief.

The bloke at the bar, let’s call him Barry, was less certain of what he had to offer to his daughter who is three, no four, no three. He hadn’t seen her in years. ‘‘I don’t even have a place to live at the moment,’’ he confessed. ‘‘Had all my ID stolen a few months ago and been couch-surfing for the past three weeks.’’ I heard the rest of his sentence as if he’d spoken it aloud. ‘‘I wouldn’t be good for her, anyway.’’
‘‘She told me to bugger off,’’ he continued, speaking of his former partner, a girl he’d got pregnant, then agreed to support. He sipped his beer primly before cracking a wooden smile. ‘‘So I did.’’

But here’s the real question. Does the fact that many men feel sad when made to feel surplus to requirements in their own children’s life – disenfranchised by the legal system or their former spouse – mean they’ve been wronged?  Not necessarily. The terrible truth is that when relationships break down, what is in the best interests of children may not be what’s best for men.

Research by Australian researcher  Jennifer McIntosh finds that shared care is not the best arrangement for very young children and only works well for older kids where parents are emotionally mature and get along well. Men incapable of resolving the substance abuse, anger management or emotional issues that can contribute to relationship breakdown in the first place may not be the best influence on children, including their own.

And according to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, there is ‘‘compelling evidence’’ that it is parental conflict and the negative economic consequences of divorce, not fatherlessness per se, that is costly for children of divorce. Deadbeat dads, or desperate, defeated and driven-away ones? You decide.

Do you have a moral issue you need resolve? Send it to Leslie@Cannold.com. All correspondence will be kept strictly confidential.

Dad tales of desperate and defeated, or deadbeat.

Woman Soldier longs for return of her son – Parental Alienation by Father

In Activism, Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, child abuse, Child Custody, custody, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, due process rights, False Allegations of Domestic Violence, family court, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, fatherlessness, Glenn Sacks, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Marriage, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation on November 22, 2009 at 11:14 pm

Soldier longs for return of her son

Mom: In war, law must guard custody

BY KEYONNA SUMMERS • FLORIDA TODAY • November 22, 2009

Fourteen-year-old John Collier Jr. wishes that his mother, Army Lt. Col. Vanessa Benson, would give up this battle.Benson returned in May from a 41/2-month deployment to Afghanistan. While away, she left her 2-year-old with her sister in Panama City and John with his father, her ex-husband, in Rockledge. When Benson got back, John didn’t want to return to his mother in Kentucky, and his father is not making him.

It’s a war of words that’s working its way through the courts, and Benson hopes the case will make it to Congress to better protect custodial parents serving in the military.

“They’re trying to use my deployment against me to change custody,” said Benson, a Satellite Beach native who has had primary custody of John since she and his father were divorced in 2000 in Colorado.

A Brevard County judge twice has ordered the boy to return to her, to no avail. Benson is due in court again next month for a hearing on John Collier Sr.’s motion for temporary custody.

“I’ve spent over $12,000 in legal fees fighting this case down in Florida,” she said. “I’m supposed to have my child back, yet all the judge’s orders have gone unheeded and have gone unenforced by (the judge). How much more money do I have to spend to get an order (the father is) not going to abide by?”

Now remarried to another Army lieutenant colonel, Benson, 39, said she raised John as a single parent for years and allowed her ex-
husband liberal visitation.

In December 2008, Benson and her current husband deployed together with the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, out of Fort Campbell, Ky.

Benson said her family care plan outlined a temporary arrangement in which John would return to her on June 2, after he completed eighth grade in Florida.

However, court records said the boy refused, prompting Benson to touch off a multistate fight for his return.

‘Sick of moving’

Collier and his attorney, Vencil Moore of Cocoa, said the petition for temporary custody has nothing to do with Benson’s deployment and that it centers on her attempt to uproot the boy from Florida against his wishes. They said they filed the motion based on what the boy wants.

(2 of 3)
In an interview with FLORIDA TODAY, John said he has wanted to live with his father since fifth grade, when he also stayed with him part of the time while his mother was deployed to Korea. He said he didn’t want to move with his mother to Kentucky four years ago.John said he wants to complete high school in Florida, where he has a prepaid college plan and might attend school with people he knows.

“I’m just sick of moving all the time,” the teenager said. “I don’t want to go to high school for like two or three years and have to move somewhere else.

“I just want my mom to let me live down here because I’m sick of all this court stuff going on. I want to be able to visit my mom’s house on Christmas, Thanksgiving and all my breaks, but with all this court stuff going on, I won’t be able to see her and my little brother for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“It really hurts because I only get to talk to my mom on the phone.”

‘What he wanted’

Collier, 42, and court records said the boy has threatened to run away and has refused to go with Benson’s parents, who were supposed to take him to the airport in August. Collier said he filed a motion for child support after he claimed that Benson spent 10 days in Florida with her younger son following her return from Afghanistan but did not come to see John.

Collier said he tried to comply with the court order but is now filing for temporary custody because he wants what’s best for his son.

“I’m doing it because I love my kid. It’s what he wanted,” he said. “He’s a normal high school kid, and he’s getting put through the ringer by all this that’s going on. He’s the only one losing in the end.”

‘Outrageous’ battle

Benson conceded that John wants to stay with his father but said she also wants what’s best for her child and his future.

She said she thinks her ex-husband has influenced him with gifts.

It’s “outrageous,” she said, that she has to make a third trip to Florida to prove that she should have custody of her son when she already has two documents ordering his return.

(3 of 3)
“The fact that my ex-husband’s allowed him to think that he’s able to make the choice even though the court says he has to return — his dad’s allowed him to think he’s above the law and can do whatever he wants to do,” Benson said.”After having served in combat — where we were in direct fire, and it was very stressful — why should I have to come back to a court system that’s making me prove why I should get my child back when Florida law clearly states when the service member returns, the child should be returned to the service member?”

Demanding change

Benson is calling for federal legislation that would supply state courts with guidelines on custody rights regarding military parents.

She is frustrated that judges from Florida and Kentucky decided via a closed teleconference that Florida should have jurisdiction, even though she and her son lived in Kentucky for four years.

“A lot of my soldiers are single parents, and it makes them concerned that the laws aren’t there to protect service members when they go off to war. We aren’t able to focus on war when we know we might lose the children that we’ve raised,” she said. “I just want my family back the way it was a year ago before I left for combat, and I’m going to ensure I do what I can to help other soldiers who follow in my footsteps and experience what I’ve experienced.”

Contact Summers at 242-3642 or ksummers@floridatoday.com.

Soldier longs for return of her son | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAY.

Mother Abducts Children; Is Punished! Father Gets Custody!

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, child abuse, Child Custody, Child Support, child trafficking, Children and Domestic Violence, children criminals, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, Department of Social Servies, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, DSM-IV, DSM-V, due process rights, False Allegations of Domestic Violence, fathers rights, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Marriage, Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, Parents rights, Protective Dads, Rooker-Feldman Doctrine, Single Parenting on November 17, 2009 at 2:45 pm

Men also abduct children, too. But Parental Alienation Syndrome is the pariah that hangs around the neck of twice as many moms that steal kids, still. Parental Alienation has nothing to do with “batterers getting custody” or “abusers stealing children” and the hysterical members of what we call the “pig pen” moan and whine about. No, Parental Alienation is a pattern of denigration that one parent uses to tear down and destroy the child’s relationship with the other parent – in 2 of 3 cases the father. That is primarily why the pigs are squealing.

Mother Abducts Children; Is Punished! Father Gets Custody!
Friday, November 13, 2009
By Robert Franklin, Esq.

It’s good to read a story like this one that actually makes sense (Courier News, 11/10/09). It’s not fraught with silly claims or absurd reasoning. No misinformation, no disinformation.

Back in April of 2000, a Kane County, Illinois judge issued an order in the custody case of two children of Crystel Strelioff and her ex-husband Brian Strelioff. From reading the article, it looks like the order gave her custody, him visitation and included a clause prohibiting her from moving out of the jurisdiction without prior court approval.

Crystel did exactly that, though, in 2004, when she moved to California with the children. In February of this year, a Kane County jury convicted her of four counts of child abduction and last Friday she was sentenced to three years in prison less 185 days for time served. She was also required to pay her ex-husband $73,340 in restitution. A family court judge has placed the only child who is still a minor in the custody of Brian Strelioff. A court psychologist described Crystel’s abduction as “a form of parental alienation” aimed at Brian.

How sensible. A mother abducted two children and was actually punished by a criminal court. A family court called the behavior what it was, “parental alienation,” and placed the child in the father’s custody. No one claimed phantom child abuse by the father. No one manufactured any statistics about men relentlessly menacing children. No expert witnesses explained how every act of maternal kidnapping is in some way justified. No one claimed, against mountains of contrary evidence, that parental alienation is a scam cooked up by evil advocates for fathers’ rights.

Think of it: a crime, due process, reasonable punishment and paternal custody.

It shouldn’t amaze me, but it does.
Lisa Scott’s RealFamilyLaw.com
Shared Parenting Advocate/Family Law Attorney Lisa Scott’s RealFamilyLaw.com exposes the truth about what is happening in our family law system. Lisa, the all-time leader in appearances on His Side with Glenn Sacks, says that she was “tired of having her stuff rejected by elitist bar publications and politically-correct newspapers” and decided to start her own website. RealFamilyLaw.com

Does DSM-IV Have Equivalents for the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) Diagnosis?

In adoption abuse, Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, California Parental Rights Amendment, Child Custody, child trafficking, Children and Domestic Violence, children legal status, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, CPS, cps fraud, deadbeat dads, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, DSM-IV, False Allegations of Domestic Violence, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, fatherlessness, fathers rights, federal crimes, Foster CAre Abuse, judicial corruption, MMPI, MMPI 2, mothers rights, Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, National Parents Day, Obama, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, Parental Rights Amendment, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Protective Dads, Protective Parents, state crimes on November 7, 2009 at 6:30 pm

Does DSM-IV Have Equivalents for the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) Diagnosis?

Richard A. Gardner. M.D.
Department of Child Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia University, New York, New York, USA

Child custody evaluators commonly find themselves confronted with resistance when they attempt to use the term parental alienation syndrome (PAS) in courts of law. Although convinced that the patient being evaluated suffers with the disorder, they often find that the attorneys who represent alienated parents, although agreeing with the diagnosis, will discourage use of the term in the evaluators’ reports and testimony. Most often, they will request that the evaluator merely use the term parental alienation (PA). On occasion they will ask whether other DSM-IV diagnoses may be applicable. The purpose of this article is to elucidate the reasons for the reluctance to use the PAS diagnosis and the applicability of PA as well as current DSM-IV substitute diagnoses.

Mental health professionals, family law attorneys, and judges are generally in agreement that in recent years we have seen a disorder in which one parent alienates the child against the other parent. This problem is especially common in the context of child-custody disputes where such programming enables the indoctrinating parent to gain leverage in the court of law. There is significant controversy, however, regarding the term to use for this phenomenon. In 1985 I introduced the term parental alienation syndrome to describe this phenomenon (Gardner, 1985a).

The Parental Alienation Syndrome

In association with this burgeoning of child-custody litigation, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in the frequency of a disorder rarely seen previously, a disorder that I refer to as the parental alienation syndrome (PAS). In this disorder we see not only programming (“brainwashing”) of the child by one parent to denigrate the other parent, but self-created contributions by the child in support of the alienating parent’s campaign of denigration against the alienated parent. Because of the child’s contribution I did not consider the terms brainwashing, programming, or other equivalent words to be sufficient. Furthermore, I observed a cluster of symptoms that typically appear together, a cluster that warranted the designation syndrome. Accordingly, I introduced the term parental alienation syndrome to encompass the combination of these two contributing factors that contributed to the development of the syndrome (Gardner, 1985a). In accordance with this use of the term I suggest this definition of the parental alienation syndrome:

The parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a childhood disorder that arises almost exclusively in the context of child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent’s indoctrinations and the child’s own contributions to the vilification of the target parent. When true parental abuse and/or neglect is present, the child’s animosity may be justified and so the parental alienation syndrome explanation for the child’s hostility is not applicable.

It is important to note that indoctrinating a PAS into a child is a form of abuse—emotional abuse—because it can reasonably result in progressive attenuation of the psychological bond between the child and a loving parent. In many cases it can result in total destruction of that bond, with lifelong alienation. In some cases, then, it may be even worse than other forms of abuse, e.g., physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect. A parent who demonstrates such reprehensible behavior has a serious parenting defect, their professions of exemplary parenting notwithstanding. Typically, they are so intent on destroying the bond between the child and the alienated parent that they blind themselves to the formidable psychological consequences on the child of their PAS indoctrinations, both at the time of the indoctrinations and in the future.

Most evaluators, family law attorneys, and judges recognize that such programming and child alienation is common in the context of child-custody disputes. They agree, also, that there are situations in which the child’s alienation is the result of parental programming. Some object to the use of the term syndrome and claim that it is not a syndrome, but that the term parental alienation (PA) should be used. The problem with the use of the term PA is that there are many reasons why a child might be alienated from parents, reasons having nothing to do with programming. A child might be alienated from a parent because of parental abuse of the child, e.g., physical, emotional, or sexual. A child might be alienated because of parental neglect. Children with conduct disorders are often alienated from their parents, and adolescents commonly go through phases of alienation. The PAS is well viewed as one subtype of parental alienation. Accordingly, substituting the term PA for PAS cannot but cause confusion.

Is the PAS a True Syndrome?

Some who prefer to use the term parental alienation (PA) claim that the PAS is not really a syndrome. This position is especially seen in courts of law in the context of child-custody disputes. A syndrome, by medical definition, is a cluster of symptoms, occurring together, that characterize a specific disease. The symptoms, although seemingly disparate, warrant being grouped together because of a common etiology or basic underlying cause. Furthermore, there is a consistency with regard to such a cluster in that most (if not all) of the symptoms appear together. The term syndrome is more specific than the related term disease. A disease is usually a more general term, because there can be many causes of a particular disease. For example, pneumonia is a disease, but there are many types of pneumonia—e.g., pneumococcal pneumonia and bronchopneumonia—each of which has more specific symptoms, and each of which could reasonably be considered a syndrome (although common usage may not utilize the term).

The syndrome has a purity because most (if not all) of the symptoms in the cluster predictably manifest themselves together as a group. Often, the symptoms appear to be unrelated, but they actually are because they usually have a common etiology. An example would be Down’s Syndrome, which includes a host of seemingly disparate symptoms that do not appear to have a common link. These include mental retardation, Mongoloid faces, drooping lips, slanting eyes, short fifth finger, and atypical creases in the palms of the hands. Down’s Syndrome patients often look very much alike and most typically exhibit all these symptoms. The common etiology of these disparate symptoms relates to a specific chromosomal abnormality. It is this genetic factor that is responsible for linking together these seemingly disparate symptoms. There is then a primary, basic cause of Down’s Syndrome: a genetic abnormality.

Similarly, the PAS is characterized by a cluster of symptoms that usually appear together in the child, especially in the moderate and severe types. These include:

     

  1. A campaign of denigration
  2. Weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for the deprecation
  3. Lack of ambivalence
  4. The “independent-thinker” phenomenon
  5. Reflexive support of the alienating parent in the parental conflict
  6. Absence of guilt over cruelty to and/or exploitation of the alienated parent
  7. The presence of borrowed scenarios
  8. Spread of the animosity to the friends and/or extended family of the alienated parent
  9.  

Typically, children who suffer with PAS will exhibit most (if not all) of these symptoms. However, in the mild cases one might not see all eight symptoms. When mild cases progress to moderate or severe, it is highly likely that most (if not all) of the symptoms will be present. This consistency results in PAS children resembling one another. It is because of these considerations that the PAS is a relatively “pure” diagnosis that can easily be made. Because of this purity, the PAS lends itself well to research studies because the population to be studied can usually be easily identified. Furthermore, I am confident that this purity will be verified by future interrater reliability studies. In contrast, children subsumed under the rubric PA are not likely to lend themselves well to research studies because of the wide variety of disorders to which it can refer, e.g., physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and defective parenting. As is true of other syndromes, there is in the PAS a specific underlying cause: programming by an alienating parent in conjunction with additional contributions by the programmed child. It is for these reasons that PAS is indeed a syndrome, and it is a syndrome by the best medical definition of the term.

In contrast, PA is not a syndrome and has no specific underlying cause. Nor do the proponents of the term PA claim that it is a syndrome. Actually, PA can be viewed as a group of syndromes, which share in common the phenomenon of the child’s alienation from a parent. To refer to PA as a group of syndromes would, by necessity, lead to the conclusion that the PAS is one of the syndromes subsumed under the PA rubric and would thereby weaken the argument of those who claim that PAS is not a syndrome.

The PAS and DSM-IV

There are some, especially adversaries in child-custody disputes, who claim that there is no such entity as the PAS. This position is especially likely to be taken by legal and mental health professionals who are supporting the position of someone who is clearly a PAS programmer. The main argument given to justify this position is that the PAS does not appear in DSM-IV. To say that PAS does not exist because it is not listed in DSM-IV is like saying in 1980 that AIDS (Autoimmune Deficiency Syndrome) did not exist because it was not then listed in standard diagnostic medical textbooks. DSM-IV was published in 1994. From 1991 to 1993, when DSM committees were meeting to consider the inclusion of additional disorders, there were too few articles in the literature to warrant submission of the PAS for consideration. That is no longer the case. It is my understanding that committees will begin to meet for the next edition of the DSM (probably to be called DSM-V) in 2002 or 2003. Considering the fact that there are now at least 133 articles in peer-review journals on the PAS, it is highly likely that by that time there will be even more articles. (A list of peer-reviewed PAS articles is to be found on my website, www.rgardner.com/refs, a list that is continually being updated.)

It is important to note that DSM-IV does not frivolously accept every new proposal. Their requirements are very stringent with regard to the inclusion of newly described clinical entities. The committees require many years of research and numerous publications in peer-review scientific journals before considering the inclusion of a disorder, and justifiably so. Gille de La Tourette first described his syndrome in 1885. It was not until 1980, 95 years later, that the disorder found its way into the DSM. It is important to note that at that point, Tourette’s Syndrome became Tourette’s Disorder. Asperger first described his syndrome in 1957. It was not until 1994, 37 years later, that it was accepted into DSM-IV and Asperger’s Syndrome became Asperger’s Disorder.

DSM-IV states specifically that all disorders contained in the volume are “syndromes or patterns” (p. xxi), and they would not be there if they were not syndromes (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Once accepted, the name syndrome is changed to disorder. However, this is not automatically the pattern for nonpsychiatric disorders. Often the term syndrome becomes locked into the name and becomes so well known that changing the word syndrome to disorder would seem awkward. For example, Down’s syndrome, although well recognized, has never become Down’s disorder. Similarly, AIDS (Autoimmune Deficiency Syndrome) is a well-recognized disease but still retains the syndrome term.

One of the most important (if not the most important) determinants as to whether a newly described disorder will be accepted into the DSM is the quantity and quality of research articles on the clinical entity, especially articles that have been published in peer-review journals. The committees are particularly interested in interrater reliability studies that will validate the relative “purity” of the disease entity being described. PAS lends itself well to such studies; PA does not. One of the first steps one must take when setting up a scientific study is to define and circumscribe the group(s) being studied. PAS lends itself well to such circumscription. PA is so diffuse and all-encompassing that no competent researcher would consider such a group to be a viable object of study. Whether one is going to study etiology, symptomatic manifestations, pathogenesis, treatment modalities, treatment efficacy, or conduct follow-up studies, one is more likely to obtain meaningful results if one starts with a discrete group (such as PAS) than if one starts with an amorphous group (such as PA). One of the major criticisms directed against many research projects is that the authors’ study group was not “pure” enough and/or well-selected enough to warrant the professed conclusions. Studies of PAS children are far less likely to justify this criticism than studies of PA children.

Whereas the PAS may ultimately be recognized in DSM-V, it is extremely unlikely that DSM committees will consider an entity referred to as parental alienation. It is too vague a term and covers such a wide variety of clinical phenomena that they could not justifiably be clumped together to warrant inclusion in DSM as a specific disorder. Because listing in the DSM ensures admissibility in courts of law, those who use the term PA instead of PAS are lessening the likelihood that PAS will be listed in DSM-V. The result will be that many PAS families will be deprived of the proper recognition they deserve in courts of law, which often depend heavily on the DSM.

Recognition of the PAS in Courts of Law

Some who hesitate to use the term PAS claim that it has not been accepted in courts of law. This is not so. Although there are certainly judges who have not recognized the PAS, there is no question that courts of law with increasing rapidity are recognizing the disorder. My website (www.rgardner.com/refs) currently cites 66 cases in which the PAS has been recognized. By the time this article is published, the number of citations will certainly be greater. Furthermore, I am certain that there are other citations that have not been brought to my attention.

It is important to note that on January 30, 2001, after a two-day hearing devoted to whether the PAS satisfied Frye Test criteria for admissibility in a court of law, a Tampa, Florida court ruled that the PAS had gained enough acceptance in the scientific community to be admissible in a court of law (Kilgore v. Boyd, 2001). This ruling was subsequently affirmed by the District Court of Appeals (February 6, 2001). In the course of my testimony, I brought to the court’s attention the more than 100 peer-reviewed articles (there are 133 at the time of this writing) by approximately 150 other authors and over 40 court rulings (there are 66 at the time of this writing) in which the PAS had been recognized. These lists of the PAS peer-reviewed articles and legal citations are frequently updated on my website (www.rgardner.com). I am certain that these publications played an important role in the judge’s decision. This case will clearly serve as a precedent and facilitate the admission of the PAS in other cases—not only in Florida, but elsewhere.

Whereas there are some courts of law that have not recognized PAS, there are far fewer courts that have not recognized PA. This is one of the important arguments given by those who prefer the term PA. They do not risk an opposing attorney claiming that PA does not exist or that courts of law have not recognized it. There are some evaluators who recognize that children are indeed suffering with a PAS, but studiously avoid using the term in their reports and courtroom, because they fear that their testimony will not be admissible. Accordingly, they use PA, which is much safer, because they are protected from the criticisms so commonly directed at those who use PAS. Later in this article I will detail the reasons why I consider this position injudicious.

Many of those who espouse PA claim not to be concerned with the fact that their more general construct will be less useful in courts of law. Their primary interest, they profess, is the expansion of knowledge about children’s alienation from parents. Considering the fact that the PAS is primarily (if not exclusively) a product of the adversary system, and considering the fact that PAS symptoms are directly proportionate to the intensity of the parental litigation, and considering the fact that the court that has more power than the therapist to alleviate and even cure the disorder, PA proponents who claim no concern for the long-term legal implications of their position are injudicious and, I suspect, their claims of unconcern are specious.

Sources of the Controversy Over the Parental Alienation Syndrome

There are some who claim that because there is such controversy swirling around the PAS, there must be something specious about the existence of the disorder. Those who discount the PAS entirely because it is “controversial” sidestep the real issues, namely, what specifically has engendered the controversy, and, more importantly, is the PAS formulation reasonable and valid? The fact that something is controversial does not invalidate it. But why do we have such controversy over the PAS? With regard to whether PAS exists, we generally do not see such controversy regarding most other clinical entities in psychiatry. Examiners may have different opinions regarding the etiology and treatment of a particular psychiatric disorder, but there is usually some consensus about its existence. And this should especially be the case for a relatively “pure” disorder such as the PAS, a disorder that is easily diagnosable because of the similarity of the children’s symptoms when one compares one family with another. Why, then, should there be such controversy over whether or not PAS exists?

The PAS and the Adversary System

The PAS is very much a product of the adversary system (Gardner, 1985a, 1986, 1987a, 1987b, 1989, 1992, 1998). Furthermore, a court of law is generally the place where clients attempt to resolve the PAS. Most newly developed scientific principles inevitably become controversial when they are dealt with in the courtroom. It behooves the attorneys — when working within the adversary system — to take an adversarial stand and create controversy where it may not exist. In that setting, it behooves one side to take just the opposite position from the other if one is to prevail. Furthermore, it behooves each attorney to attempt to discredit the experts of the opposing counsel. A good example of this phenomenon is the way in which DNA testing was dealt with in the OJ Simpson trial. DNA testing is one of the most scientifically valid procedures for identifying perpetrators. Yet the jury saw fit to question the validity of such evidence, and DNA became, for that trial, controversial. I strongly suspect that those jury members who concluded that DNA evidence was not scientifically valid for OJ Simpson would have vehemently fought for its admissibility if they themselves were being tried for a crime, which they did not commit. I am certain, as well, that any man in that jury who found himself falsely accused of paternity would be quite eager to accept DNA proof of his innocence.

The Denial of the PAS is the Primary Defense of the Alienator

A parent accused of inducing a PAS in a child is likely to engage the services of a lawyer who may invoke the argument that there is no such thing as a PAS. The reasoning goes like this: “If there is no such thing as the PAS, then there is no programmer, and therefore my client cannot be accused of brainwashing the children.” This is an extremely important point, and I cannot emphasize it strongly enough. It is a central element in the controversy over the PAS, a controversy that has been played out in courtrooms not only in the United States but in various other countries as well. And if the allegedly dubious lawyer can demonstrate that the PAS is not listed in DSM-IV, then the position is considered “proven” (I say “allegedly” because the lawyer may well recognize the PAS but is only serving his client by his deceitfulness). The only thing this proves is that in 1994 DSM-IV did not list the PAS. The lawyers hope, however, that the judge will be taken in by this specious argument and will then conclude that if there is no PAS, there is no programming, and so the client is thereby exonerated. Substituting the term PA circumvents this problem. No alienator is identified, the sources are vaguer, and the causes could lie with the mother, the father, or both. The drawback here is that the evaluator may not provide the court with proper information about the cause of the children’s alienation. It lessens the likelihood, then, that the court will have the proper data with which to make its recommendations.

Which Term to Use in the Courtroom: PA or PAS?

Many examiners, then, even those who recognize the existence of the PAS, may consciously and deliberately choose to use the term parental alienation in the courtroom. Their argument may go along these lines: “I fully recognize that there is such a disease as the PAS. I have seen many such cases and it is a widespread phenomenon. However, if I mention PAS in my report, I expose myself to criticism in the courtroom such as, ‘It doesn’t exist,’ ‘It’s not in DSM-IV’ etc. Therefore, I just use PA, and no one denies that.” I can recognize the attractiveness of this argument, but I have serious reservations about this way of dealing with the controversy—especially in a court of law.

Using PA is basically a terrible disservice to the PAS family because the cause of the children’s alienation is not properly identified. It is also a compromise in one’s obligation to the court, which is to provide accurate and useful information so that the court will be in the best position to make a proper ruling. Using PA is an abrogation of this responsibility; using PAS is in the service of fulfilling this obligation.

Furthermore, evaluators who use PA instead of PAS are losing sight of the fact that they are impeding the general acceptance of the term in the courtroom. This is a disservice to the legal system, because it deprives the legal network of the more specific PAS diagnosis that could be more helpful to courts for dealing with such families. Moreover, using the PA term is shortsighted because it lessens the likelihood that some future edition of DSM will recognize the subtype of PA that we call PAS. This not only has diagnostic implications, but even more importantly, therapeutic implications. The diagnoses included in the DSM serve as a foundation for treatment. The symptoms listed therein serve as guidelines for therapeutic interventions and goals. Insurance companies (who are always quick to look for reasons to deny coverage) strictly refrain from providing coverage for any disorder not listed in the DSM. Accordingly, PAS families cannot expect to be covered for treatment. I describe below additional diagnoses that are applicable to the PAS, diagnoses that justify requests for insurance coverage. Examiners in both the mental health and legal professions who genuinely recognize the PAS, but who refrain from using the term until it appears in DSM, are lessening the likelihood that it will ultimately be included, because widespread utilization is one of the criteria that DSM committees consider. Such restraint, therefore, is an abrogation of their responsibility to contribute to the enhancement of knowledge in their professions.

There is, however, a compromise. I use PAS in all those reports in which I consider the diagnosis justified. I also use the PAS term throughout my testimony. However, I sometimes make comments along these lines, both in my reports and in my testimony:

Although I have used the term PAS, the important questions for the court are: Are these children alienated? What is the cause of the alienation? and What can we then do about it? So if one wants to just use the term PA, one has learned something. But we haven’t really learned very much, because everyone involved in this case knows well that the children have been alienated. The question is what is the cause of the children’s alienation? In this case the alienation is caused by the mother’s (father’s) programming and something must be done about protecting the children from the programming. That is the central issue for this court in this case, and it is more important than whether one is going to call the disorder PA or PAS, even though I strongly prefer the PAS term for the reasons already given.

In addition, if the court does not wish to recognize the PAS diagnosis there are other DSM-IV diagnoses that are very much applicable in this case. For the alienating father (mother) the following diagnoses are warranted: (the examiner can select from the list provided in the next section of this article). For the PAS child the following DSM-IV diagnoses are warranted: (the examiner can select from the list provided in the next section of this article). With regard to the alienated parent, the mother (father), no DSM-IV diagnosis is warranted. (However, a DSM-IV diagnosis may be warranted, but generally it is not related to the PAS as the symptoms have not played a role in contributing to the disorder).

I wish to emphasize that I do not routinely include this compromise, because whenever I do so, I recognize that I am providing support for those who are injudiciously eschewing the term and compromising thereby their professional obligations to their clients and the court.

Warshak (1999, 2001), has also addressed the PA vs. PAS controversy. He emphasizes the point that espousers of both PA and PAS agree that in the severe cases the only hope for the victimized children is significant restriction of the programmer’s access to the children and, in many cases, custodial transfer—sometimes via a transitional site. Warshak concludes that the arguments for the utilization for PAS outweigh the arguments for the utilization of PA, although he has more sympathy for the PA position than do I. Elsewhere, I have also addressed myself to this issue (Gardner, 2002).

DSM-IV Diagnoses Related to the Parental Alienation Syndrome

Examiners writing reports for and testifying in courts of law can generally find diagnoses in DSM-IV that are immune to the argument, “It doesn’t exist because it’s not in DSM-IV.” These diagnoses are not identical to the PAS, but they have common elements that can justify their utilization. None of them, however, are identical to the PAS and cannot be used as substitutes for it. I present here those that are most applicable and potentially useful in courts of law.

Diagnoses Applicable to Both Alienating Parents and PAS Childrem

297.3 Shared Psychotic Disorder

     

  1. A delusion develops in an individual in the context of a close relationship with another person(s) who has an already-established delusion.
  2. The delusion is similar in content to that of the person who already has the established delusion.
  3.  

This DSM-IV diagnosis is warranted in some of the severe PAS cases in which the programmer is paranoid, and the child’s campaign of denigration incorporates the same paranoid ideation. In a sense, most of the moderate, and even some of the mild cases of PAS, are examples of the folie à deux phenomenon. However, one cannot justifiably consider the mild and moderate cases of PAS to warrant the label psychotic with the implication of complete break with reality. In severe cases we do see bona fide delusions of persecution that can justifiably be considered paranoid. Most often, the delusional system is circumscribed to the alienated parent. It is important to note that this single diagnosis can be applied to both the alienator and the alienated child.

V61.20 Parent-Child Relational Problem

This category should be used when the focus of clinical attention is a pattern of interaction between parent and child (e.g., impaired communication, overprotection, inadequate discipline) that is associated with clinically significant impairment in individual or family functioning or the development of clinically significant symptoms in parent or child.

This diagnosis generally applies to a dyad. Obviously, there are a wide variety of parent-child relational problems that have nothing to do with PAS. In fact, it is reasonable to state that parent-child relational problems probably began with the first families that existed. This diagnosis is an excellent example of the aforementioned principle that none of the DSM-IV diagnoses described here can be reasonably substituted for the PAS. Rather, they are best viewed as disorders that have some symptoms in common with the PAS and may therefore justify being listed as additional diagnoses.

In the PAS situation there is a pathological dyad between the alienating parent and the child and another pathological dyad between the alienated parent and the child. The pathological dyad between the alienated parent and the child is one in which the child is being programmed into a campaign of denigration against the previously loving parent. The child is being programmed to exhibit any and all of the primary symptomatic manifestations of the PAS. With regard to the relationship between the child and the alienated parent, the child exhibits inordinate hostility, denigration, and fear of the target parent to the point where that parent is viewed as noxious and loathsome. Examiners using this criterion do well to emphasize that two separate parent-child relational problems are manifested.

Diagnoses Applicable to Alienating Parents

297.71 Delusional Disorder

     

  1. Nonbizarre delusions (i.e., involving situations that occur in real life, such as being followed, poisoned, infected, loved at a distance, or deceived by spouse or lover, or having a disease) of at least 1 month’s duration.
  2.  

Of the various subtypes of delusional disorder, the one that is most applicable to the PAS:

Persecutory Type: delusions that the person (or someone to whom the person is close) is being malevolently treated in some way

This diagnosis is generally applicable to the PAS indoctrinator who may initially recognize that the complaints about the behavior of the alienated parent are conscious and deliberate fabrications. However, over time, the fabrications may become delusions, actually believed by the programming parent. And the same process may ultimately be applicable to the child. Specifically, at first the child may recognize that the professions of hatred are feigned and serve to ingratiate the child to the programmer. However, over time the child may come to actually believe what were originally conscious and deliberate fabrications. When that point is reached the delusional disorder diagnosis is applicable to the child. Generally, this diagnosis is applicable to relentless programmers who are obsessed with their hatred of the victim parent, by which time the child will have probably entered the severe level of PAS. It is to be noted that when the PAS is present, most often one observes a circumscribed delusional system, confined almost exclusively to the alienated parent. This diagnosis may also be applicable to the PAS child, especially the child who is in the severe category.

301.0 Paranoid Personality Disorder

     

  1. A pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:
    1. suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her
    2. is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates
    3. is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him or her
    4. reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events
    5. persistently bears grudges, i.e., is unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights
    6. perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or to counterattack
    7. has recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner
  2.  

PAS programmers who warrant this diagnosis would often satisfy these criteria before the marital separation. A detailed history from the victim parent as well as collaterals may be important because the programming parent is not likely to directly reveal such symptoms. They may, however, reveal them in the course of the evaluation, because they are such deep-seated traits, and are so deeply embedded in their personality structure, that they cannot be hidden. Most people involved in protracted child-custody litigation become “a little paranoid,” and this is often revealed by elevations on the paranoid scale of the MMPI. After all, there are indeed people who are speaking behind the patient’s back, are plotting against them, and are developing schemes and strategies with opposing lawyers. This reality results in an elevation of the paranoid scale in people who would not have manifested such elevations prior to the onset of the litigation. We see here how adversarial proceedings intensify psychopathology in general (Gardner, 1986), and in this case, paranoid psychopathology especially. The PAS child is less likely to warrant this diagnosis. When the severe level is reached PAS children may warrant the aforementioned Shared Psychotic Disorder diagnosis. On occasion, the diagnosis Schizophrenia, Paranoid Type (295.30) is warranted for the programming parent, but such patients generally exhibited other manifestations of schizophrenia, especially prior to the separation. It goes beyond the purposes of this paper to detail the marital symptoms of schizophrenia which should be investigated if the examiner has reason to believe that this diagnosis may be applicable.

It is important for the examiner to appreciate that there is a continuum from delusional disorder, to paranoid personality disorder, to paranoid schizophrenia. Furthermore, in the course of protracted litigation, a patient may move along the track from the milder to a more severe disorder on this continuum.

301.83 Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

     

  1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
    Note:Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
  2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation
  3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self
  4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating).
    Note Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
  5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
  6. affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g. intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)
  7. chronic feelings of emptiness
  8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
  9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
  10.  

Some alienators may exhibit some of these symptoms prior to the separation. However, as a result of the stresses of the separation, the symptoms may progress to the point where the diagnosis is applicable. Criterion (1) is likely to be exhibited soon after the separation because the marital dissolution is generally associated with real feelings of abandonment. Criterion (2) is often seen when there is a dramatic shift from idealization of the spouse to extreme devaluation. The campaign of denigration is the best example of this manifestation of BPD.

Criterion (4) may manifest itself by excessive spending, especially when such spending causes significant stress and grief to the alienated parent. Following the separation, alienating parents may satisfy Criterion (6) with affect instability, irritability, and intense episodic dysphoria. Although such reactions are common among most people involved in a divorce, especially when litigating the divorce, patients with BPD exhibit these symptoms to an even greater degree. Chronic feelings of emptiness (Criterion [7]) go beyond those that are generally felt by people following a separation. Criterion (8) is extremely common among PAS programmers. The tirades of anger against the alienated parent serve as a model for the child and contribute to the development of the campaign of denigration. The stress-related paranoia, an intensification of the usual suspiciousness exhibited by people involved in litigation, may reach the point that Criterion (9) is satisfied.

The examiner should note which of the symptoms are present and comment: “Five criteria need to be satisfied for the BPD diagnosis. Ms. X satisfies four. Although she does not qualify for the diagnosis at this point, she is at high risk for its development. Furthermore, when one lists diagnoses at the end of the report one might note the DSM-IV diagnosis and add in parenthesis “incipient.”

301.81 Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

     

  1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements
  2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
  3. believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
  4. requires excessive admiration
  5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
  6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
  7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
  8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
  9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
  10.  

My experience has been that most PAS indoctrinators do not satisfy enough criteria (five) to warrant this diagnosis. However, many do exhibit three or four of them, which is worthy of the examiner’s attention and should be noted in the report.

Criterion (5) is especially common in PAS indoctrinators. They act as if court orders have absolutely nothing to do with them, even though their names may be specifically spelled out in the ruling. Unfortunately, they often violate these orders with impunity because courts are typically lax with regard to implementing punitive measures for PAS contemnors. As mentioned in other publications of mine (Gardner, 1998; 2001), the failure of courts to take action against PAS programmers is one of the most common reasons why the symptoms become entrenched in the children.

Criterion (6) is often frequently satisfied by the programmer’s ongoing attempts to extract ever more money from the victim parent, but feels little need to allow access to the children. There is no sense of shame or guilt over this common form of exploitation. The programmer’s lack of empathy and sympathy for the victim parent is quite common and easily satisfies Criterion (7). The PAS, by definition, is a disorder in which a programmer tries to destroy the bond between the children and a good, loving parent. In order to accomplish the goal, the alienator must have a serious deficiency in the ability to empathize with the target parent. Criterion (9) is often seen in that PAS indoctrinators are often haughty and arrogant and this symptom goes along with their sense of entitlement. Again, if warranted, the diagnosis can be listed as “incipient.”

DSM-IV Diagnoses Applicable to PAS Children

312.8 Conduct Disorder

  1. A repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior in which the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms or rules are violated, as manifested by the presence of three (or more) of the following criteria in the past 12 months, with at least one criterion present in the past 6 months:
  2.  

This diagnosis is often applicable to the PAS child, especially in situations when the conduct disturbances are the most salient manifestation. Under such circumstances, an examiner who is not familiar with the PAS may erroneously conclude that this is the only diagnosis. Such a conclusion necessitates selective inattention to the programming process, which is the hallmark of the PAS. Once again, we see here how a diagnosis, although in DSM-IV, cannot be used as a substitute for the PAS, but may be used as an additional diagnosis. I will not list here all 15 of the DSM-IV criteria, but only those that are most applicable to the PAS:

    Aggression to people and animals

     

  1. often bullies, threatens, or intimidates others
  2. often initiates physical fights
  3. has used a weapon that can cause serious physical harm to others (e.g., a bat, brick, broken bottle, knife, gun)
  4. has been physically cruel to animals
  5. has stolen while confronting a victim (e.g., mugging, purse snatching, extortion, armed robbery) Destruction of property
  6. has deliberately engaged in fire setting with the intention of causing serious damage
  7. has deliberately destroyed others’ property (other than by fire setting)Deceitfulness or theft
  8. often lies to obtain goods or favors or to avoid obligations (i.e., “cons” others)
  9. has stolen items of nontrivial value without confronting a victim (e.g., shoplifting, but without breaking and entering; forgery)Serious violations of rules
  10. has run away from home overnight at least twice while living in parental or parental surrogate home (or once without returning for a lengthy period
  11.  

As can be seen, most of the 15 criteria for the conduct disorder diagnosis can be satisfied by PAS children, especially those in the severe category. The target parent is very much scapegoated and victimized by PAS children. In severe cases they are screamed at, intimidated, and sometimes physically assaulted with objects such as bats, bottles, and knives. The child may perpetrate acts of sabotage in the home of the victim parent. Destruction of property in that person’s home is common and, on rare occasion, even fire setting. Deceitfulness is common, especially fabrications facilitated and supported by the alienator. Stealing things, such as legal documents and important records, and bringing them to the home of the alienator is common. Running away from the home of the target parent and returning to the home of the alienator is common, especially in moderate and severe cases.

309.21 Separation Anxiety Disorder

     

  1. Developmentally inappropriate and excessive anxiety concerning separation from home or from those to whom the individual is attached, as evidenced by three (or more) of the following:
  2.  

I reproduce here those of the eight criteria that are applicable to the PAS:

1) recurrent excessive distress when separation from home or major attachment figures occurs or is anticipated

4) persistent reluctance or refusal to go to school or elsewhere because of fear of separation

8) repeated complaints of physical symptoms (such as headaches, stomachaches, nausea, or vomiting) when separation from major attachment figures occurs or is anticipated

It is important for the reader to appreciate that the original diagnosis for separation anxiety disorder was school phobia. The term separation anxiety disorder is a relatively recent development emerging from the recognition that the child’s fear was less that of the school per se and much more related to the fear of separation from a parent, commonly an overprotective mother (Gardner, 1985b). DSM-IV recognizes this and doesn’t necessarily require the school to be the object of fear, but rather separation from the home, especially from someone with whom the child is pathologically attached.

It is important to note that the PAS child’s hatred of the victim parent has less to do with actual dislike of that parent and has much more to do with fear that if affection is displayed toward the target parent, the alienating parent will be angry at and rejecting of the child. At the prospect of going with the victim parent, the child may exhibit a wide variety of psychosomatic symptoms, all manifestations of the tension associated with the visit. The distress may be especially apparent when the alienating parent is at the site of the transfer. The child recognizes that expression of willingness or happiness to go off with the alienated parent might result in rejection by the alienator. The separation anxiety disorder diagnosis is most often applicable to the mild and moderate cases of PAS. In the severe cases, the anxiety element is less operative than the anger element.

When applying these criteria to the PAS child, one does well to substitute the PAS indoctrinating parent for the parent with whom the child is pathologically attached. At the same time one should substitute the alienated parent for the school or other place outside the child’s home. When one does this, one can see how most of the aforementioned criteria apply. When the child with a separation anxiety disorder is fearful of leaving the home to go to many destinations, the school is the destination the child most fears. It is there that the child feels imprisoned. In contrast, PAS children generally fear only the target parent and are not afraid to leave the programming parent and go elsewhere, such as to the homes of friends and relatives. In short, the PAS child’s fear is focused on the alienated parent. In contrast, the child with a separation anxiety disorder has fears that focus on school but which have spread to many other situations and destinations.

300.15 Dissociative Disorder
Not Otherwise Specified

This category is included for disorders in which the predominant feature is a dissociative symptom (i.e., a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception of the environment) that does not meet the criteria for any specific Dissociative Disorder. Examples include:

     

  1. States of dissociation that occur in individuals who have been subjected to periods of prolonged and coercive persuasion (e.g., brainwashing, thought reform, or indoctrination while captive).
  2.  

Of the four categories of dissociative disorder (NOS), only Category 3 is applicable to the PAS. This criterion was designed for people who have been subjected to cult indoctrinations or for military prisoners subjected to brainwashing designed to convert their loyalty from their homeland to the enemy that has imprisoned them. It is very applicable to PAS children, especially those in the severe category. Such children have been programmed to convert their loyalty from a loving parent to the brainwashing parent exclusively. Cult victims and those subjected to prisoner indoctrinations often appear to be in a trance-like state in which they profess their indoctrinations in litany-like fashion. PAS children as well (especially those in the severe category) are often like robots or automatons in the way in which they profess the campaign of denigration in litany-like fashion. They seem to be in an altered state of consciousness when doing so.

Adjustment Disorders

The following subtypes of adjustment disorders are sometimes applicable to PAS children:

309.0 With Depressed Mood.

309.24 With Anxiety.

309.28 With Mixed Anxiety and Depressed Mood.

309.3 With Disturbance of Conduct.

309.4 With Mixed Disturbance of Emotions and Conduct

Each of these types of adjustment disorders may be applicable to the PAS child. The child is indeed adjusting to a situation in which one parent is trying to convince the youngster that a previously loving, dedicated, and loyal parent has really been noxious, loathsome, and dangerous. The programmed data does not seem to coincide with what the child has experienced. This produces confusion. The child fears that any expression of affection for the target parent will result in rejection by the alienator. Under such circumstances, the child may respond with anxiety, depression, and disturbances of conduct.

313.9 Disorder of Infancy, Childhood or Adolescence Not Otherwise Specified

This category is a residual category for disorders with onset in infancy, childhood, or adolescence that do not meet criteria for any specific order in the Classification.

This would be a “last resort” diagnosis for the PAS child, the child who, although suffering with a PAS, does not have symptoms that warrant other DSM-IV childhood diagnoses. However, if one still feels the need to use a DSM-IV diagnosis, especially if the report will be compromised without one, then this last-resort diagnosis can justifiably be utilized. However, it is so vague that it says absolutely nothing other than that the person who is suffering with this disorder is a child. I do not recommend its utilization because of its weakness and because it provides practically no new information to the court.

DSM-IV Diagnoses Applicable to Alienated Parents

In most PAS cases, a diagnosis is not warranted for the alienated parent. On occasion that parent does warrant a DSM-IV diagnosis, but its applicability usually antedated the separation and usually has not played a role in the PAS development or promulgation. As mentioned elsewhere (Gardner, 2001), the primary problem I have seen with alienated parents is their passivity. They are afraid to implement traditional disciplinary and punitive measures with their children, lest they alienate them even further. And they are afraid to criticize the alienator because of the risk that such criticism will be reported to the court and compromise even further their position in the child-custody litigation. Generally, their passivity is not so deep-seated that they would warrant DSM-IV diagnoses such as avoidant personality disorder (301.82) or dependent personality disorder (301.6), because such passivity does not extend into other areas of life and did not antedate the marital separation. One could argue that they have an adjustment disorder, but there is no DSM diagnosis called “adjustment disorder, with passivity.” Accordingly, I will often state for alienated parents, “No Axis 1 diagnosis.”

If, indeed, the alienated parent did suffer with a psychiatric disorder that contributed to the alienation, then this should be noted. Certainly, there are situations in which the alienated parent’s psychiatric disorder is so profound that it is the primary cause of the children’s alienation. In such cases, the PAS diagnosis is not warranted. Under such circumstances, this disorder should be described instead as the cause of the children’s alienation.

Final Comments About Alternative DSM-IV Diagnoses for the PAS

As mentioned, the primary reason for using these diagnoses is that the PAS, at this point, is not recognized in some courts of law. They cannot be used as substitute diagnoses for the PAS, but sometimes share in common some of the symptoms. Accordingly, they can be used as additional diagnoses. It is too early to expect widespread recognition because it was not feasible for the PAS to have been placed in the 1994 edition, so few were the publications on the disorder when the preparatory committees were meeting. This will certainly not be the case when the committees meet in the next few years for the preparation of DSM-V, which is scheduled for publication in 2010. None of the aforementioned substitute diagnoses are fully applicable to the PAS; however, as mentioned, each one has certain characteristics which overlap the PAS diagnosis. Because no combination of these alternative diagnoses can properly replace the PAS, they should be used in addition to rather than instead of the PAS. There is hardly a diagnosis in DSM-IV that does not share symptoms in common with other diagnoses. There is significant overlap and often fluidity in DSM diagnoses. None are “pure,” but some are purer than others, and the PAS is one of the purer ones.

At this point, examiners who conclude that PAS is an applicable diagnosis do well to list it in the appropriate place(s) in their reports (especially at the end). At the same time, they do well to list any DSM-IV diagnoses that are applicable for the alienator, the alienated child, and (if warranted) for the alienated parent. Accordingly, even if the court will not recognize the PAS diagnosis, it will have a more difficult time ignoring these alternative DSM diagnoses.

Conclusions

Controversies are likely when a new disorder is first described. This is predictable. The PAS, however, has probably generated more controversy than most new diagnostic contributions. The primary reason for this is that the PAS is very much a product of the adversary legal system that adjudicates child-custody disputes. Under such circumstances, it behooves opposing attorneys to discredit the contribution and to find every argument possible for obstructing its admission into courts of law. And this is what happened with the PAS. The purpose of this article has been to help evaluators involved in such disputes understand better the nature of the controversy and to deal with it in the context of the present legal situation. Like all compromises, the solution is not perfect. None of the additional diagnoses are identical to the PAS, but they do serve a purpose in a court of law in that they are established psychiatric diagnoses that are applicable to PAS alienators, PAS children, and (on occasion) the alienated parent. Ultimately, if PAS is admitted into DSM-V, the main argument for its inadmissibility in courts of law will no longer be applicable and the need for listing these additional diagnoses in courts of law will be reduced.

References

American Psychiatric Association (1994), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition, Revised (DSM-IV). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association.

Boyd v. Kilgore, 773 So. 2d 546 (Fla. 3d DCA 2000) (Prohibition Denied)

Kilgore v. Boyd, 13th Circuit Court, Hillsborough County, FL., Case No. 94-7573, 733 So. 2d 546 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000) Jan 30, 2001

Gardner, R. A. (1985a), Recent trends in divorce and custody litigation. The Academy Forum, 29(2):3-7.

_______ (1985b), Separation Anxiety Disorder: Psychodynamics and Psychotherapy. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.

_______ (1986), Child Custody Litigation: A Guide for Parents and Mental Health Professionals. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.

_______ (1987), The Parental Alienation Syndrome and the Differentiation Between Fabricated and Genuine Child Sex Abuse. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.

_______ (1987), Child Custody. In Basic Handbook of Child Psychiatry, ed. J. Noshpitz, Vol. V, pp. 637-646. New York: Basic Books, Inc.

_______ (1989), Family Evaluation in Child Custody Mediation, Arbitration, and Litigation. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.

_______ (1992), The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.

_______ (1998), The Parental Alienation Syndrome, Second Edition. Cresskill, New Jersey: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.

________ (2001), Therapeutic Interventions for Children with Parental Alienation Syndrome. Cresskill, New Jersey: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.

_______ (2002), Parental alienation syndrome vs. parental alienation: Which diagnosis should be used in child-custody litigation? The American Journal of Family Therapy, 30(2):101-123.

rgardner.com, Articles in Peer-reviewed journals and Published Books on the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). www.rgardner.com/refs

_______, Testimony Concerning the Parental Alienation Syndrome Has Been Admitted in Courts of Law in Many States and Countries. www.rgardner.com/refs

Warshak, R. A. (1999), Psychological syndromes: Parental alienation syndrome. Expert Witness Manual, Chapter 3-32. Dallas, TX:State Bar of Texas, Family Law Section.

_______ (2001), Current controversies regarding parental alienation syndrome. The American Journal of Forensic Psychology, 19(3):29-59.

©2002 Richard A. Gardner, M.D.

Japanese Dads Trying to Start a Fathers’ Rights Wave There | Glenn Sacks on MND

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, child abuse, Department of Social Servies, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, False Allegations of Domestic Violence, Family Court Reform, fatherlessness, fathers rights, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, parental rights, Parental Rights Amendment, Parents rights, Protective Dads, Restraining Orders, Single Parenting, UNCRC, United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on October 12, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Sunday, October 11, 2009

By Robert Franklin, Esq.

OK, so it’s worse in Japan.

As this article shows, Japanese divorce law, while nicely gender-neutral in its wording, results in mothers being the overwhelming majority of custodial parents after divorce (Fox News, 10/8/09).  The real difference between Japanese divorce law and that of the U.S. and other western nations is that, post divorce, only one parent is permitted custody.  That is, there’s no “joint custody,” which in the U.S. typically means one parent with physical custody and the other with visitation rights.

And it should come as no surprise that, in Japan, the parent with custody is the mother in 90% of cases.  That leaves fathers who want a relationship with their children and children who want a relationship with their father out in the cold.  From what the article says, neither seems to have any rights to contact with the other.  One father discussed in the article, Masahiro Yoshida, asked a family court for visitation rights with his daughter and was turned down.  Post-divorce family law places the power to grant or deny father-child contact squarely in the hands of the mother.

Now, that may seem like merely the official version of what happens unofficially here in the U.S.  Indeed, at first blush, it’s possible to say that the Japanese are just more honest than we are.  They prefer maternal custody.  Period.

We, on the other hand, make many plaintive bleats about connecting fathers with children.  We occasionally even acknowledge that children are better off with two parents than one.  But then we turn around and give primary custody to mothers 84% of the time.  (Is that so different from the 90% maternal custody in Japan?)  We make a show of granting visitation to fathers, but then don’t enforce the orders.  So children are denied their fathers just as surely as in Japan, just more hypocritically.

And that’s just one of many ways that we too place almost all power over children in the hands of mothers.  From conception through age 18, any single mother with two brain cells can manage to keep a child from its father legally and without too much effort.

But in fact, even the U.S. seems to be ahead of Japan in fathers’ rights issues.  Fathers here are becoming more assertive about their rights and courts are starting to listen.  The huge mass of sociology about the benefits of fathers to children is becoming more widely known and acknowledged.  The words “equally shared parenting” are becoming common too.

Fathers in Japan are starting to get the message.  As the linked-to article says,

Yoshida has banded together with other divorced fathers to form a support group, one of several that have sprung up in recent years.

A few lawyers and lawmakers have showed support for their cause. A bar association group is studying parenting and visitation arrangements in other countries such as Australia.

That’s a long way from an effective movement, but with the rest of the industrialized world moving in the direction of greater protection for the father-child bond, can Japan be far behind?

Japanese Dads Trying to Start a Fathers’ Rights Wave There | Glenn Sacks on MND.

How Governments Lie about Domestic Violence. | MND: Your Daily Dose of Counter-Theory

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, Children and Domestic Violence, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, custody, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, due process rights, family court, Family Court Reform, fatherlessness, fathers rights, Feminism, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Marriage, Non-custodial fathers, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Protective Dads, Restraining Orders, Rooker-Feldman Doctrine, Single Parenting, Sociopath on September 30, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Monday, August 17, 2009

By Amfortas

Several brilliant expositions have been written about the complex web of lies and corruption that have been inserted insidiously into America through such Acts as VAWA, the Family Law and Child support agencies working in turn through an unholy alliance between Federal and States governments.

A network of misandric, biased, criminal ‘Shelters’ has covered the land with a new and vicious corruption at grass-roots level, purportedly to ‘assist’ women but in fact act as a conduit for corruption and criminality.

I only have to mention Professor Stephen Baskerville’s ‘Taken into Custody’ work for many at MND to understand. Or Professor Carey Roberts’ exposes.

But little gets written about other Anglophile countries. How much is known in MRM circles and outside in the MSM about the corruption in the UK, for instance.

I would like to set some facts down about another, Australia, a huge, continental nation with a very modest population where leftist governments have dominated the various States and now are in control Federally. This wonderful land has been infected with the virus of feminist corruption to the detriment of government, law, Institutions and families, men and women.

The rationale for all of the pertinent Law, the hysteria, the draconian legislations is Domestic Violence.

The most horrendous lies are told about DV. And people seem to believe them. They have been persuaded.

Deliberately Lying about Domestic Violence in Australia.

I am indebted to a Senior Australian Public Servant who must remain anonymous, for some crucial parts of this long and detailed blog entry.

Pick up almost any newspaper on any given day and you will most likely find a by-line claiming: “Statistics show …”; “new survey finds …”; or, “new study proves …”. Often accompanied by embellishments such as “shocking”, “appalling”, and so on.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than on the subject of gender relations and in particular the emotionally charged subject of domestic violence, or it’s substitute “family violence”.

It is about neither of course.

It is all about women.

Hysteria is carefully stage-managed.

Only lip service is paid to the idea that males might be victims, and then, we are told, they deserve it anyway.

Let me be clear from the start. I do not like domestic violence, just as I do not like muggings, murders, rapes, armed robberies, cats and dogs lying together etc. But rarely is there any need for muggings to be blown out of proportion by including in their statistics the asking for an ice-cream, even when a tantrum follows a ‘no’.

The panic and hysteria generated by falsified and invented Domestic Violence statistics does far more damage to society and to men and women’s relations, than the very small amount of Domestic violence that exists and which is blown completely out of proportion.

Australia does not collect unified data on Domestic Violence. Not directly. Figures get lifted out of context from a variety of ‘official’ documents.

Where do you think they come from?

The most widely cited statistics on the subject in Australia is the Women’s Safety Survey, published in 1996 , that repeats American claims, “One in four women experience domestic violence, within their lifetime”.

There was no Men’s Safety Survey.

The bias was there even before the survey was designed.

It was another ten years, 2006, before a further more inclusive Safety survey was conducted.

This article looks at this biased, anti-male 1996 Survey and other sources which have driven Public Policy in Australia.

I will also show the 2006 survey in some depth and reveal the government’s response.

One in Four Women Abused.

This American claim of ‘One in Four’ ubiquitously applied to most female claims of outrage, first surfaced in the left-wing Feminist Ms Magazine in the 1970’s after a deliberately doctored survey about rape using a self-selected sample of its anti-male readers.

One in Four is a ‘super-term’. It is akin to an hypnotic chant that robs people of control over their thoughts. It is applied to almost anything to do with women.

Being given a glass of wine before sex constituted rape according to that travesty of a survey, commissioned by Ms and conducted by a misandric feminazi ‘Professor’, Mary Koss.

A considerable broadening of what constitutes domestic violence and sexual assault was demanded by feminists in America to access the gravy train of the Violence Against Women Act, (VAWA) and the left-wing President Clinton, the well known sexual assaulter of young women employees, complied.

Clinton sought to make reparation to his feminist harridan of a wife for his own sexual incontinence by punishing every man in America.

He was assisted in this by the then Senator Joe Biden, now the Vice President, an aptly named position for such a twisted mind – who explained how he used to be beaten-up by his sister when he was young, and was making his own Kow-Tow to her continued ‘advice’. Which no doubt was ‘Do it MY way, or ELSE’.

Biden was an architect of VAWA. He cared not for violence against men and may well be a masochist by nature.

VAWA opened the door to a widespread and mendacious catalogue of innocuous behaviours being classified as ‘assault’ and DV in a flood of Advocacy Research.

People in other western countries will recognise the same dirty fingers in the pie-charts of their own bogus and mendacious advocacy research underpinning their own Government Policies.

The “Women’s Safety Survey” (WSS) findings, which uses this sleight of hand, underpins Australian Government policy and legislation in every Australian state jurisdiction – with the exception of Victoria, which now evidently claims that “one in five women are victims of domestic violence”.

This apparently suggests that women would be much safer if they all moved to Victoria. Maybe it is something in the Victorian air.

No “study” is of much value until it has been subjected to peer review. This hasn’t occurred in relation to the Women’s Safety Survey. For a number of reasons, there is an urgent need for independent and thorough research and review.

The WSS study was released under the imprimatur of the Australian Bureau of Statistics but was in fact a creature of the bureaucratically powerful Office of Status of Women which commissioned and directed the survey.

There was significant consternation reported at that time in relation to complaints, by ABS officers – that they were being “bullied” into undertaking unprofessional, and methodologically flawed “advocacy research” – research which is designed to prove the existence of something, whether it exists or not.

Several Executive level officers of the ABS were later ‘re-located’ to ‘re-education’ roles

The notion that one in four women are suffering from domestic violence is alarming and conjures images, at the very least, of black eyes and bruises occurring on an appalling scale.

But it is a lie.

How many Australian’s would know that the survey included such largely irrelevant questions as “Have you ever received an obscene phone call?” .

A phone rings and no one is there. Bogus fear is conveniently generated from a neurotic mind.

Tick the box.

Another sexual assault.

Yeh. Pig’s arse !

It beggars belief that questions like this formed the bulk of the survey.

It has barley any relevance to domestic violence at all.

But…. It’s another male-damning statistic.

But the Office for the Status of Women did not stop there. The determined harridans were intent on spin to beat all spin.

How many would know that the survey report blurred the fact that some 27 per cent of respondents were actually reporting violence caused by other women?

Heck, that’s just over One in Four !

It must have been men that made them do it.

Believe me, you can be convinced.

In fact, you have been.

There were many other seriously disturbing aspects to this survey. For example, it also involved only voluntary participation, which is a key source of survey bias – just as in the Ms magazine survey – as it attracts participants who may have a vested interest the subject matter, a factor that can dramatically skew the results.

In the desired direction, of course.

And, it was a “life incidence” survey, thus inviting the recitation of some event far off in both time and in memory.

The failings of human memory with the passage of time is well recognised by our legal system, which, with very few exceptions, refuses to admit evidence that has been muddied by time and with no corroboration.

Forty years and a bitter divorce can change a memory from someone merely “pushing away” into “he threw me down the stairs”.

Who is there to contradict?

No evidence was even sought.

The law recognises the frailty of old memories but our ever -increasing victim culture does not.

Society would not entertain the concept that someone is currently considered to be a “road accident victim” based on a minor bruise they had incurred in a vehicle accident 20 years ago.

Nor would we necessarily put much faith in a 20-year-old version of how the accident occurred.

Yet this is precisely what such surveys on domestic violence increasingly attempt to encourage for society to accept as reality, current and relevant for domestic violence and assault.

When citing the “one in four” statistic, some domestic violence literature conveniently leaves out the phrase “within their lifetime”, giving a false impression of immediacy; that one in four women are victims, right now, on this very day.

Think about that.

Every shout-at, telling-off, even smack on the legs when we were five years old being counted so that everyone has been the ‘victim’ of abuse.

Moreover, the Women’s Safety Survey did not overtly and clearly say that one in four women were victims of “physical” domestic violence, but included a range of other non-physical and both potentially and actually non-violent behaviours that were then re-classified as “domestic violence”.

It covertly implies it is all physical violence.

A man not handing over his pay-packet to his wife is ‘economic DV’.

No mention that it demanding his wages is extortion.

Him answering that ‘Yes’ her bum does look fat in those jeans, is ‘verbal DV’.

It ‘demeans” and is therefore ‘violent’.

An argument between a couple with both shouting is HIM being violent.

She is simply defending herself by ‘communicating’.

Advocacy research has taken over much of what passes for academic and ‘official’ date collection.

It sets out to provide ‘proof’ for a conclusion already held. It supports a Prejudice.

Why do you think that anyone would want to go to the time and effort to do that?

Show me the Money.

Domestic violence literature, when citing such advocacy research survey findings characterise the one in four statistic as referring to physical violence.

The leaflets handed out by the self-declared socially-conscious commercial retail chain, “The Body Shop”, being a case in point.

It manipulates. It attracts. It drew wannabee socially conscious women customers in to buy fragrant soaps and candles, to ‘support victims of domestic violence’.

Domestic Violence lies sells women’s products.

“After you have been beaten by an unappreciative man, you poor victimized woman, you need to pamper yourself. You deserve it.”

“Oooh, let me have some of those candles, you poor thing, I am a victim, too. Honest.”

“Is that right. Could you take a minute to fill out this survey while I wrap these for you”.

Such ‘women’s goods’ shop chains have no shame in ripping off women by appealing to ‘support for victims’.

Even refugees from Torture and Trauma are roped in. The Refugee resettlement organisations in Australia get Government funds which are then siphoned off to run ‘joint’ appeals with such women’s goodies retail outlets for ‘raising consciousness’. And getting women to fill in surveys.

They only mention women refugees of course. The maimed men do not get to take part. It makes for a fine week’s boost to turnover and the private company ‘bottom line’.

It gets women’s votes too.

Domestic violence literature across the board not only blurs the past with the present but blends quite different and sometimes relatively innocuous behaviours with the abjectly violent, in order to incite a widespread impression that physical domestic violence against women is currently running rampant and unchecked in our community.

The survey gives an Australian flavour to the increasingly Internationalised American charade of a law, the Violence Against Women Act, brought in by the American Cultural-Marxist group, the National Organisation of Women, and pushed through by the efforts of the current American Vice President, Joe Biden.

Such a gender biased law has gobbled up Billions of dollars of American taxpayers money funneled to women’s groups; with nothing at all to male ‘victims’.

Australia is behind with the Dollars but then it is a much smaller tax-base. It is just Hundreds of Millions. With the Global Economic Crisis upon us, it will catch up with some Stimulus Packages for the girls, be sure. Kevin Rudd’s ‘working families’ have had their day and the non-working, single-mother families are on the increase.

No prizes for guessing why.

Right now in 2009 our Great leader, Chairman Mousey Kev is announcing a massive increase in Grants to women. More to the Violence against Women mantra. Our Equality Chairwoman (!) was doing the Press round appearing on TV in July 2009 to rally the media at the weekly Press Club broadcast.

Here we are in the middle of the worst recession, supposedly, since the demise of the Mickey Mouse Club and the girls want what is left of the money.

But, no worry. Chairman Kev will sell the children’s future to pay today’s women.

It buys votes.

Women’s votes.

The Office for the Status of Women is a vast black hole into which taxpayer’s money is poured. It exists soley to benefit Government and the powerful female bureaucrats that run the show, none of which has ever seen a glass ceiling.

The Office channels Policy like Shirley MacLain channels 5000 year old Egyptian Gurus.

A beneficiary has been the Health Departments both Federal and State that have had billions of dollars funneled into ‘Women’s Health’ while dregs are given to men.

But I digress.

The mendacious nature of the now ubiquitous term domestic violence, which brings under its one heading a range of non-physical behaviours is of primary concern. The nuances of context and intensity are increasingly lost in a determined re-interpretation of any kind of marital disagreement, into a paradigm of male “perpetrator” and a female “victim”.

It breaks traditional families apart.

We see a lot of street behaviour that we might regard as offensive or verbally aggressive but in the absence of a physical assault (whether major or minor) we don’t classify it as violence per se.

Yet domestic violence researchers seem to almost salivate over a positive response to, “Has your partner ever yelled at you?”

Tick!

Another female domestic violence victim.

Another man-damning statistic.

Although, “Did you yell back?”, is conveniently never asked.

No one asks the chap of course.

Do you feel like yelling yet?

The WSS surveyed 6000 odd carefully selected women and no men at all.

Gross, dishonest, Gender-biased sampling marks this survey.

Ambiguous and irrelevant questions litter it.

Subterfuge and bribery marks its collection.

Bias runs throughout the findings.

It drives a biased, anti-male Un-Australian Industry that expropriates Public Monies and supports commercial interests.

It drives prejudiced and bigoted Government Policy.

The survey does not like to stand out like a sore thumb as the only data. Let’s look at the other common sources of dodgy data misrepresented by our feminist-driven Government, to convince the Australian public that we have an epidemic of Family Violence which is attributed solely to evil Australian men.

Lies build upon lies.

More lies convince better than just one.

Let us take a look at intervention orders issued by the lower courts as a source of bogus “statistical evidence” of the “magnitude” of domestic or ‘family’ violence.

Let us also will look at Police records of DV ‘Incidents’ and how they are not at all what they seem. Or what the general public is told.

Let us look at the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program which is also misrepresented to the detriment of men and the advantage of the DV Industry.

Wrong and often bogus statistics are deployed, with an apparent intention to deliberately mislead.

Add Wing of Bat and Eye of Lizard to the Pot

Having looked at the uncorroborated, biased and manipulated Women’s Safety Survey let us look now at Intervention Orders and how they are manipulated too.

Most “finalised” intervention orders are finalised simply because they are uncontested. That is, the male “respondent” is persuaded (often bullied) by court officials, such as Deputy Court Registrars, into signing up for a “final” or “permanent” order rather than contest the allegations in court.

The lower courts don’t want any more congestion if it can be avoided.

Men are manipulated. The Bat’s-wing.

Convincing a bewildered “respondent” to sign up for the permanent order on the basis of a “By Consent, Without Admissions“, is not particularly difficult, especially if a solicitor has already advised him that it could cost up to $10,000 if he goes to court.

And further, that he will most likely lose.

The Burden of Proof is laid on the defendant, not the accuser. Proving a negative is plain impossible.

The legal test is not “beyond reasonable doubt” but merely the “balance of probabilities”. This is a very weak civil law test in the context of penalties that could ultimately imprison a respondent, and certainly dispossess him of his assets.

This happens in Tasmania where the ironically misnamed ‘Safe at Home Act’ ensures that male arrest is automatic with no bail on simple female accusation.

He loses access to his home and children and even loses his job because he cannot prove he didn’t do what he didn’t do. Magistrates are badgered by the Safe at Home Act and are increasingly fearful of bad publicity if a violent act should possibly subsequently occur.

As it is quite possible. The catalyst for possible subsequent violence, ironically, is often the faked restraining order allegations in the first place and the trauma of being hauled into court often for the first time in his life. The magistrates are as aware as anyone of the adage, “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb’.

In this instance is ‘hang him just in case he has his eye on a lamb’.

When you are convicted of something you didn’t do, on a false allegation you cannot disprove, you may well want to earn your punishment.

So much for “justice” and the fading jurisprudential notion of the “presumption of innocence”.

Whether a female complainant was ever genuinely fearful or merely a perjurer and liar is more often than not un-explored. And if it is questioned at all, with due compassion and concern for the ‘victim’, the diluted “balance of probabilities” test still renders such findings questionable.

Domestic violence literature increasingly proclaims that domestic violence is a crime. Quite so. Therefore, in any legal action, the criminal law test of “beyond reasonable doubt” should be applied.

It never is.

Given the growing understanding that intervention orders are regularly used as a tactical weapon in achieving favourable custody and property outcomes in subsequent Family Court proceedings, a count of intervention orders as a measure of “violence against women” is virtually meaningless.

Yet such statistics are used for precisely that.

I sat in the Hobart, Tasmania, Family Court and listened as a ‘fearful’ 27 y/o ex-wife of four years marriage accused her poor sod of a ex-husband of 62 from whom she had taken three quarters of his lifetime’s assets, of murdering her previous boyfriend – who in fact had been deported as an illegal immigrant – and of being an International Terrorist. He had been in the Israeli army on National Service 30 years before.

The Judge said she was being ‘fanciful’. No charges of perjury were laid and no investigations ordered for such heinous crimes, And she was awarded the children. Of course. ‘Just in case’.

Over the course of the following three years that man was arrested seven times and spent four nights in jail. He was hospitalized twice. He was arrested on one occasion after she accused him of assault. He had leaned on her car.

Another domestic violence statistic.

Always added, never subtracted when disproven. No one tries to seek truth. It was disregarded at his Court case that he has been run over by a horse and buggy and has a damaged back. He leaned because he was in pain.

Tough.

Which brings us onto the Eye of Lizard.

Another statistic commonly cited by an increasingly frenzied domestic violence Industry is the number of POLICE CALL-OUTS to domestic or family violence ‘Incidents’.

Whether the “incident” involved verbal disagreement between husband and wife or an act of actual violence, we would never know. It is merely noted as an “incident”.

In fact, if the protagonists were two 14 year old brothers arguing on the front lawn that too, would be noted on the official records as a domestic or family violence incident.

These records of “incidents” are then inevitably fed into the ever-swelling “conduit” of statistics that ultimately produces headlines that purport, “alarming new data shows domestic violence against women running out of control”.

The police in any region know who the violent families are. They attend the same people time and time again. The vast majority of citizens are not violent and do not have ‘domestic violence’ in their homes and families.

But when one family chalks up 25 ‘Incidents’ in three months, and 200 families account for 2000 Incidents, it is made to appear that ten times as many men are guilty than are.

The women never are guilty of course. They are made out to be 2000 victims.

The end result is then ever-increasing public funding to combat the ever burgeoning horror of violence against women. Nobody ever delves deep enough to examine how many of these police reported “incidents” actually involved a physical violence or threat of violence or indeed whether a woman was even present at the time.

Leg of Cane-Toad too.

Few if any newspapers or TV ‘expose’ shows ever investigate the amount of public funding to any organisation that puts itself under the “domestic violence umbrella” or else you will instantly understand why this has become a publicly funded “industry” of vast size.

The Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) is yet another supportive source of statistics on so-called “family violence”.

The SAAP gives priority to ‘battered women’.

Love that phrase.

What the SAAP data does not show however, is how many women were encouraged to falsely claim that they were fleeing family violence, or indeed what the nature of the “violence” was, so that they could receive the priority treatment gravy train.

A recent Canberra Times article, lamenting the lack of affordable low cost public housing for poor families, featured a couple with young children who were forced to live in a caravan. A “housing worker” was quoted as suggesting to the mother, “If there was family violence, you could get a house straight away”: i.e. claim you are a female victim and the “world is your oyster”.

Male victims need not apply.

He would not be allowed in her ‘priority’ house.

Using SAAP data as a measure of violence against women is badly flawed because it can be and is misconstrued – again with an apparent deliberate intent – to reflect a statistic illustrating the number of women and children fleeing family violence.

In fact, at this point you might care to watch a short video on just where so much ‘family violence’ actually originates –

Everyday Family Terrorism

http://soundcloud.com/christian-j/everyday-family-terrorism

And while you are in the mood to consider if woman are perfect and blameless and do not ‘do’ anything that could be called domestic violence, try this, from just days ago –

From the Associated Press’ Official: Wedding Fire Was Criminal Act–Kuwaiti Newspaper Says Groom’s Angry Ex-Wife Started Deadly Blaze:

Kuwaiti authorities have apprehended the person suspected of setting fire to a wedding tent and killing 41 people and said Monday the motive was personal. Local newspapers reported the groom’s ex-wife was the arsonist.

Whoops, sorry. Not an Australian statistic there. Unless she seeks refugee status and pops into the Body Shop for some scented candles. Back to Aussie homeless.

SAAP data, in fact, often reflects the large number of homeless men who being so frequently dispossessed by individual chicanery, destructive, psychotic women and Family Court excoriation, are seeking emergency accommodation. They do not get priority of course.

By both omission and commission, Australia is being sold a very gross and socially dangerous statistical lie – one that is serving only the interests of its creators, and those legions who have so readily signed up to the fictional notion that every fourth female face we see each day is secretly living in stark terror and fear of “family violence”.

So, What is the Truth.

Some women unfortunately are victims of ‘family violence’, let’s admit as evidence and acknowledge the fact.

1.2% are according to a rare example of independent University research by Bruce Headly and Dorothy Scott of Melbourne University and David De Vaus of La Trobe.

But that was a non-self-selected, random sample.

1.2%. This tiny percentage, well below the oft cited 25%, needed first aid, so bad was the violence they had experienced at the hands of a domestic partner.

And so did some men.

The same research shows 1.8% for men needing first aid.

A full 50% higher.

Even smaller percentages of both needed a doctor’s attention. But again more men than women. 1.5% men vs 1.1% women.

Moreover, the Headly, Scott and De Vaus summary measure of experiencing a range of forms of assault fails to reveal any preponderance of assaults on women:

4.7% of the sample reported being assaulted ‘in some way’ during the last 12 months; 5.7% of men and 3.7% of women. Not needing any attention to damage though.

They had had a shouting match and called each other naughty names.

Again, that is over half as many men more than women. And so far below the mythical 25%, the 1:4, terribly, awfully suffering women, as to make a total rejection of feminist lies.

What must be untangled – so that effective measures can be put into place – is the real incidence of such violence from the bogus statistical misrepresentations that are serving an entirely different agenda.

The critical issue about DV is all too often overlooked completely; it’s low experience in the community.

  • · 94.4% of people reported in Headly et al, being neither perpetrators nor victims of violence.
  • · 2.5% report both assaulting and being assaulted.
  • · 2.1% report being assaulted but not committing assault.
  • · 1.0% report assaulting their partner but not being assaulted.

No signs at all of 1:4 or 25% anywhere.

This Independent research showed clearly that DV affects a miniscule proportion of the population, and on every measure but one men suffered greater domestic violence from women than women did from men and in greater percentage numbers.

The one measure?

She calls the police far more often.

The mantle of mass victimhood casts a long and very dark shadow that too often conceals the very location of the destruction of truth and where propaganda is given the oxygen for its blowtorch.

The Federal Government spent $73 million on television adverts showing only male perpetrators and only female victims.

Sheer AgitProp.

THAT is domestic violence.

You paid for it with expropriated taxes.

The advertising camapign was labeled “propaganda against men” with many men criticising its negative and blatantly false “stereotypical portrayals”.

One notable Australian commentator described it as ‘the worst piece of deliberate Government black propaganda against a biologically distinguishable group ever seen outside of Nazi Germany”.

Almost all political tyrannies have their origin in segregating societies into the conceptual equivalent of “good and evil”, “angels and demons”, “victims and perpetrators”. “Four legs good, two legs bad”. There is never a middle ground

“Male equals perpetrator”, “female equals victim”.

When liars are afoot in society, in power, their first weapon of choice is statistical “proof” to provide convincing lies.

One has to wonder why intelligent, moral men and women in Australia put up with this. Men are demonized but say little to protect their Reputations and their legitimate interests.

Women’s legitimate interests have been hi-jacked by a clique of destructive, Marxist-Feminist women who spread blatant lies on their behalf, expropriate public monies and claim a bogus high moral ground.

It would be generous to think that this manipulation and bias was just the result of incompetence. But as we can see there is something far darker behind it. It is corruption. It is deliberate.

It is statistical corruption; fiscal corruption; political corruption.

As a result of that bogus 1996 survey, and with the ongoing manipulation and misrepresentation of the three other ‘Official’ statistics discussed above, women fear walking in the street, especially at night. Every husband is regarded as a potential wife-beater. Funds flow to women’s groups.

Domestic Violence advocacy was the fastest growing Industry of the decade following, employing thousands in ‘jobs for the girls, paid from taxpayer expropriations

The Truth is out there – somewhere.

I mentioned before that an Official but Independent and reliable survey needs to be done to establish valid figures for Policy determination.

Following the row between the Women’s Office and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, over Feminist manipulation and bullying, the ABS conducted it’s own survey.

It took ten years to get around to it, mind you.

The results were very different to the bogus ones of the Office for the Status of Women, despite their continued attempts to interfere and manipulate.

The Australian Government has ignored the more relevant ABS findings under pressure from those same feminists who continue to exercise undemocratic control.

The ABS to manage to do a more reliable examination in 2006 which tried to show the truth. At least it didn’t leave out an entire gender this time.

Once again, however, the Feminists managed to interfere and manipulate, and I will show you how. I also show how you can delve into the data collected to bring the Truth into the light of day.

The ABS Personal Safety Survey finally emerged in 2006 and sampled BOTH genders – for a change.

Have a good look at it.

And along with its appearance, the statistical myths and fabrications of feminist’s victimhood, and women’s class oppression , and claims of an epidemic of violence against women – were able to be immediately exposed and contradicted

But the silence was deafening.

Have you heard of the Personal Safety Survey or its findings?

No?

What a surprise. !

Have you heard of 1 in 4 women are victims of domestic violence?

Of course you have.

The silence didn’t last of course as it was soon replaced with a $73 million Government advertising campaign based on the old false results appearing on TV sets nation-wide.

It was like sticking fingers in women’s ears and having them chant “lalalalalala; Men, bad; Women, victims”.

The survey reveals a picture of what any rational person should have assumed about life simply by observation of the world around them and their day to day existence in it.

The survey reveals what most people should have known or should have suspected about the facts of social violence –

it is men rather than women who have the most to fear regarding their personal safety.

It further reveals that the perpetrators of violence, in all their ugly forms and diversity, are not just men, and that the domain of perpetrators includes a significant percentage of women.

There are few surprises in this survey other than it seems to have been conducted with appropriate propriety and adherence to statistical principles.

Almost.

A refreshing breath of almost-fresh air given the lies and spin of so many preceding studies and surveys conducted on this subject.

But before delving into some its facts and figures, there are a couple of points that should be clarified about the survey itself.

As surveys go, it seems to have been done fairly responsibly but with some clear prior interference. It encompassed a sizeable sample of the population – 16,300 adults in total, about 0.1% of the Australian adult population – so its findings could be seen to be a reasonable reflection of what’s really going on in Australia today.

That’s 2 and a ½ times the sample size of the feminist’s survey.

However, for some reason you will instantly recognise, nearly three times as many women were surveyed than men – 11,800 women compared to only 4,500 men.

What a surprise !

The feminists just cannot help themselves, can they?

Ask yourselves; there are 50% women and 50% men in our society. There are usually one man and one woman in a domestic couple.

OK. There are sometimes two men together, and two women together, but rare.

So why a sample that is 75% women and 25% men?

It is better than 100% women and 0% men, as in the 1996 survey, but still only a little better. Half a loaf.

Men’s experiences of personal safety are not deemed as valid as those of women. Did they expect that women’s experiences of violence would be more valid, diverse or significant?

Or was it simply a matter of funding as is implied in the survey’s notes?

Funding controlled by feminists in the bureaucracy?

You get the Report; read it carefully and make your own mind up. Read the notes.

Whatever the reason for it, and there is no fair or justifiable stance that could possibly be taken for this glaring discrepancy, the question remains, why were men relegated to being less than second class respondents?

No one has provided an answer.

You can go figure it for yourself, but perhaps we can hope this imbalance will be addressed in any further surveys where the sex of the respondents is relevant.

For now though, when digesting the results, it must be understood that sample distribution bias still exists .

In fact, in some cases, reflected in the ABS tables, annotations have been made by the statisticians indicating that the data may be of questionable reliability.

Why would that be?

Why would the ABS warn about its own data?

I will tell you in a moment.

Given the importance and far reaching social implications of this survey, this restriction of men’s experiences is a travesty of their rights as taxpayers and citizens of the nation.

Especially as it turns out from the survey results that men are the most severely affected members of society where personal safety and violence are concerned.

This treatment of men is a clear statement by the Government that they see Australian men as being second class and less important than the women of the nation.

Yet, in the Liberal’s defense, – they had achieved Government by then – it must be argued that they are the first and so far only government in Australia to include men in such a survey at all.

Previous Labor governments, which had presided over the totally bogus Women’s Safety Survey, simply didn’t care about the safety of men and only ever conducted safety surveys for women.

This development in itself is at least some consolation for Australian men and was a positive step forward.

Now, the reason for the annotated questioning of the reliability of the data, especially about the men.

You see, the other glaring concern about the production of this ABS survey was the sexist exclusion of men as interviewers.

100% of the interviews were conducted by women.

Only women were employed as interviewers.

No men.

By order of the Feminist bureaucracy.

It is important to realise that by using ONLY female interviewers, it is likely to have led to an underreporting of spousal and partner violence against men by females and an over-reporting of men’s violence against women.

In a national survey of this significance, one could have at least expected squeaky-clean adherence to equal-sex political correctness.

Hah!

Pig’s Arse !

Despite these sexist anomalies the survey reveals for the first time, much important information about personal safety, and the victims and perpetrators of personal violence.

It is a subject, which has long been obscured by the murky fog of feminist advocacy. Prejudice and proving prior expectations have ruled such research.

But against the odds, this survey has revealed and has exposed the feminist lies.

The following statements, derived directly from the ABS survey, are just the initial findings and a fuller investigation by YOU, yourself, of the finer detail is encouraged.

Do not simply take my word.

I will compare the freshly published data to the often-quoted rhetorical statistics of feminist propaganda – and remember this, these are official Australian government research figures and not some trumped up, biased, ideologically prejudiced University Women’s Studies data or those of some politically or gender- biased NGO.

Those rhetorical stats use the 1:4 comparison device, or the ‘per second’ and per day and per week device to hide the real numbers which would look as small as they actually are.

It sounds so much better to say that two women a week are killed by husbands – as the Deputy Prime Minister of the UK is fond of spouting – than to say that 102 women out of a population of 30 million are killed annually by nutters.

Two per week generates more hysteria than 0.00034%

And of course the feminists never tell you that 94 UK men per annum, nearly but not quite two men per week are killed by female spouses.

Facts – the ABS survey has revealed that –

In Australia, men are more than twice as likely as women to be the victims of violence and are being physically or sexually assaulted or threatened, at the rate of up to 2 incidents per second

Women are not the victims of family (domestic) violence anywhere near as often as the quoted 25%, 1 in 4, – nor even 1 in 10, – nor even 1 in 20, but actually 1 in 50

That is to say, 2%

2%

Women are not being raped and sexually assaulted every 26 seconds, as claimed by the Feminists of the Office for the Status of Women, nor even every 90 seconds, as other feminists frequently claim, but are in fact experiencing rape hardly at all.

And even when combined with the lesser sexual assaults, it is at a rate 91% less than that which feminists have previously claimed.

Look at that another way. Feminist claims are exaggerated by at least 10 times.

And this includes both reported and all unreported incidents ‘discovered’ by the survey interviewers.

The ratio of female vs male family (domestic) violence victims in a home is not 99:1, with men very rarely assaulted and women bashed daily, nor 95:5, nor 75:1, nor even 50:1, but is actually …… 2:1

And some of the women are being assaulted in the ‘domestic’ sphere by other women.

These statements above are all calculated from the ABS survey data without corruption. Look at the figures.

Of course there will be some deviation from the survey compared to real life figures, just as in all studies – always read the fine print of surveys – but, remember, nearly three women were interviewed for every one man.

The data for men may have been tainted by the use of only female interviewers, some of whom may even have been staunch feminists, – show me a woman who claims she isn’t and I will show you a lonely one – and together with the sample number bias, resulting in underreporting of men’s experience of family violence as victims.

Let us look closely at some other interesting statistics –

During the previous 12 months in Australia, that is, in 2005,

6.5% of males were physically assaulted.

And 3.1% of females

That is 1 in 15 men compared to 1 in 32 women.

Conclusion: Women are safer.

Attempted or threatened physical assaults were against 5.3% of males and just 2.1% of females.

Conclusion: Women are 2.5 times safer from threats and attempts than men are.

Women can expect greater safety than men can.

There isn’’t a bogeyman down every dark street looking for a woman to assault.

The bogeyman is too busy assaulting men.

In the sexual assault area beloved of feminists and the source of fright, alarm and horror – and endless expropriated taxes for agitprop – the survey indeed finds the figures swing to women being more likely to be sexually assaulted than men are.

But the figures are lower still.

Not 1 in 4 women.

Not 25%, as reported in the bogus Women’s Safety Survey.

It is just 1.6%

1 – point – 6 – per cent reported being sexually assaulted.

Did you hear that? 1.6 %

That’s 1 in 62. Not 1 in 4.

And MEN are sexually assaulted too. 0.6 %.

Threats and attempts at sexual assault are even lower.

0.5% for women and 0.1% for men.

98% of women are perfectly safe and not even under threat of sexual assault.

Sexual assault on women, and even on men, is very low.

Not that such a F.A.C.T. fact makes headlines in the newspapers.

It doesn’t sell.

It doesn’t sell ‘stuff’ like scented candles and soap in the Body Shop.

Why are women being deliberately frightened by the Government?

YOU have to ask your MP.

Deliberately Frightening Women: Neglecting Men.

In conclusion, what does all this mean?

It means that Australia as a nation is the first in the Western world to undertake a survey of adult personal safety and violence based on the sex of the community.

It has both massive and broad implications for social scrutiny and the politics of sex and violence. It stands as a precedent for further world development and application.

It also has immediate application to other Western societies. Australia, being a contemporary Western nation has been subjected, more or less, to the same political influences over the last half century that have been experienced by the USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand and arguably most other European nations.

The data recorded would be directly applicable to other Western societies, more or less and may be quoted as a being from a highly reputable source.

The results of this survey should be seen as the first authoritative sample of non-advocacy research on the issues of Western social violence and in particular, inter-gender personal violence.

The results are both revealing and deeply informative.

Revealing about the incorrectness of previously published feminist advocacy research – and subsequent government information too – and informative about the dire state of violence perpetrated against men in modern civilised Western societies.

The data also provide the basis for a requirement for Western governments to become focused on the safety standards of its men as a top priority and to begin to recognise that there are serious deficiencies in its treatment of men in society.

The survey also amplifies the ludicrous state of Western government’s pursuit of highly expensive anti-violence campaigns and legislation for the least affected victims of personal violence – women – whilst a much more serious problem of violence exists and is being waged against its men.

It also establishes facts that require governments and anti-male NGOs in Australia to immediately rewrite their literature and websites which state false and misleading statistics about personal violence, and in particular, men as overwhelmingly family violence perpetrators. They are not.

The data shows clearly that in the home, in the family, 98.5% of men are safe, law abiding, indeed loving, protective and caring husbands and fathers.

It should also lead to an immediate nation-wide reassessment of family relationship management and Family Law values.

But don’t hold your breath.

It’s no wonder that feminists, the government and the mainstream media in Australia have been so quiet about the release of this new survey.

It exposes a huge raft of feminist baloney, lies and deceptions.

The silence also shows that the Government is deliberately frightening women.

The Government wants women to be frightened of men.

And the media is in the Government’s pocket.

Yes, the truth is out – and out there – somewhere.

But have YOU seen it? Have YOU heard it?

You have now.

This is amfortas.

Ask, Who does the Grail Serve.

This is a written adaptation of three podcasts that I made recently with my colleague, Christian J. Perhaps you might listen to them and send them to others.

Do not waste this long post.

Copy it. Send it on.

Deliberately Lying about Domestic Violence in Australia. Pt.1.

http://soundcloud.com/amfortas1/amfortas-christian-j-lying-about-domestic-violence-part-1

The ‘women’s Safety Survey’ was “uncorroborated, biased and manipulated” ‘Advocacy research’ orchestrated by the Office for the Status of Women and passed off as Bureau of Statistics report. It caused an enormous row, says MRA Amfortas. Manipulated definitions and hysterical claims copied from America made innocuous behaviour criminal. DV sells commercial products to women and expropriates public funds for the fastest growing ‘Industry in Australia.

Deliberately Lying about Domestic Violence in Australia. Pt.2.

http://soundcloud.com/amfortas1/amfortas-christian-j-lying-about-domestic-violence-part-2

Three other sources of ‘official’ data which are routinely manipulated and presented to support DV lies are analysed by Amfortas and compared to Independent University research which completely contradicts the ‘official message’.” It would be generous to think that this manipulation and bias was just the result of incompetence. But as we can see there is something far darker behind it. It is corruption. It is deliberate.”

Deliberately Lying about DV in Australia. Pt.3. The Truth is out there – Somewhere.

http://soundcloud.com/amfortas1/amfortas-christian-j-the-truth-is-out-there-somewhere

Christian J narrates how the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Survey completely contradicted the Government’s 1996 survey. He also points to the attempts by feminist bureaucrats to manipulate by having ONLY female interviewers to bias the results. Results show women twice as safe as men. The Government has thrown a blanket of silence over it. Feminists maintain an undemocratic stranglehold, expropriating public monies for their anti-male ‘Industry’.

Try also.-

Everyday Family Terrorism

http://soundcloud.com/christian-j/everyday-family-terrorism

“When Momma ain’t Happy, Nobody’s Happy”. Amfortas and Paul Elam show how domestic violence and a lot worse are often caused by ‘controlling’ women who are willing to destroy their families to have their own way. Dr Eric Berne’s ‘Games’ are described including the major cause of broken families, the “Let’s you and Him Fight” strategy which uses the Police and Family Courts.

Notes

http://www.mensrights.com.au/page13y.htm

http://www.australian-news.com.au/domestic_violence_statistics.htm

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN AUSTRALIA: ARE WOMEN AND MEN EQUALLY VIOLENT?

Headly, Scott and De Vaus

http://www.kittennews.com/mag/2006/maxponti_06_01_abs_personal_safety_study.htm

Australian safety survey kills feminist distortions
Max Ponti

Stumble It!

How Governments Lie about Domestic Violence. | MND: Your Daily Dose of Counter-Theory.

How Governments Lie about Domestic Violence. | MND: Your Daily Dose of Counter-Theory.

NJ Attorney Challenges Constitutionality of Restraining Orders

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, fatherlessness, fathers rights, judicial corruption, Liberty, Marriage, Non-custodial fathers, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, parental rights, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Protective Dads, Restraining Orders on September 29, 2009 at 9:32 pm

from R.A.D.A.R.

David Heleniak, a Morristown, NJ attorney, has filed a motion on behalf of his client, John Paulsen, to vacate a final restraining order (FRO) on the ground that it violates Paulsen’s constitutional rights.

Heleniak gained recognition on the issue of domestic violence restraining orders with his 2005 law review article The New Star Chamber: The New Jersey Family Court and the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act.” More recently, in Crespo vs. Crespo, Heleniak won a landmark decision in which the Honorable Francis Schultz of Hudson County ruled that the criteria for a FRO must be “clear and convincing evidence” rather than a “preponderance of the evidence.” That verdict made Crespo vs. Crespo a glimmering hope to anyone who was ever hit with a frivolous restraining order – until it was recently overturned by the New Jersey Court of Appeals.

“They were dismissive of the whole idea [that the NJ domestic violence statute could be unconstitutional]” said Heleniak. “In fact, they dealt with some of our best points in a footnote [7], in which they said they were unworthy of discussion. I think they’re hoping the issues go away.”

Heleniak, disappointed with the decision of the Appellate Division, has asked the NJ Supreme Court to take the Crespo case and has forged ahead with Paulsen in a similar action with a motion to vacate a domestic violence restraining order on constitutional grounds in the local Morris County family court.

“I believe their [the Appellate Division’s] refusal to address some of the issues head-on affects their credibility. It just looks like they were ducking,” said Heleniak. “But at some point the issues will have to be addressed at a high level. There are just too many cases out there with the same story – a restraining order handed down without sufficient evidence that ruins a man’s life and the lives of his children.”

Paulsen said that the FRO against him was nothing more than a tactical maneuver to gain an unfair advantage in the litigation process.

“The allegations of abuse against me that gave rise to the FRO were manufactured by my wife to gain a tactical advantage in a divorce that she had decided she wanted months before the allegations were made,” said Paulsen. “In fact, she had surreptitiously had several meetings with her divorce attorney and was using the threat of a restraining order as a means of intimidation within our marriage for over a year before she used it as a first strike weapon in the divorce.”

A recent analysis notes that unwarranted restraining orders create a “ripple” effect that can persist for many years, harming the alleged person’s reputation, legal standing, security clearances, career prospects and financial status. In many cases, it also affects the person’s relationship with their children, often causing devastating and permanent harm to that relationship. (A Culture of False Allegations, http://www.radarsvcs.org/docs/RADARreport-VAWA-A-Culture-of-False-Allegations.pdf.)

False allegations not only damage the individual falsely accused, they also affect other family members who may be barred from seeing a grandchild, nephew, or niece.

Special reports regarding domestic violence restraining orders can be viewed at http://mediaradar.org/radarServices_special_reports.php.


Date of RADAR Release: September 28, 2009

R.A.D.A.R. – Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting – is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of men and women working to improve the effectiveness of our nation’s approach to solving domestic violence. http://mediaradar.org

The Spectrum of Parental Alienation Syndrome (Part I) by Deirde Rand, Piece 2

In Activism, Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, Child Support, child trafficking, Children and Domestic Violence, children legal status, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, Department of Social Servies, Divorce, Domestic Relations, due process rights, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, Feminism, Freedom, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Marriage, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, Parental Rights Amendment, Parentectomy, Protective Dads, Restraining Orders, Rooker-Feldman Doctrine, Sociopath on September 28, 2009 at 3:00 pm

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY, VOLUME 15, NUMBER 3, 1997

THE SPECTRUM OF PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME (PART I) (cont.)
Forensic Psychologist, Deirdre Conway Rand, PhD

In another case, failed separation between mother and daughter, age 4 at the time of the marital break up, was shown to contribute to an escalating pattern of the girl rejecting her father. The onset of PAS in a given family was found to occur before the parents separated, during the actual divorce proceedings, or years after the divorce decree. Dunne and Hedrick describe a two-and-a-half year-old girl whose parents were disputing custody where there had been a long series of allegations by the mother since the early months of her pregnancy. Some of the teens in this sample had enjoyed a lengthy and positive post-divorce relationship with a parent prior to rejecting that parent as part of a PAS scenario.

Lund

Psychologist Mary Lund examined factors in addition to parental programming which can contribute to estrangement between the child and a rejected parent (19). She wrote that the methods Gardner advocates, such as court orders for continued contact, fit many cases and may help prevent the child developing the kind of phobic-like reaction to the rejected parent which can occur when contact is discontinued during long, drawn out legal proceedings. Such legal interventions often form the cornerstone for treatment. In treating these families, Lund integrates Gardner’s work with that of Janet Johnston. She assesses the family in terms of developmental factors in the child which may be contributing, such as normal separation problems among preschoolers and oppositional behavior during preadolescence and adolescence. Deficits in the noncustodial parent’s parenting may also contribute to the problem. In her experience, the hated parent, usually the father, often has a distant, rigid, even authoritarian style which contrasts with the indulgent, clinging style of the loved parent, who may also need help with appropriate parenting. These are risky generalizations, however. In the experience of this author and others, alienating and target parents exhibit a wide variety of personality patterns which do not lend themselves to this type of generalization. In addition, where the father is the alienating parent, it is sometimes he who uses an overindulgent and materially lavish parenting style to overwhelm and override the children’s healthier psychological bond with the mother.

According to Lund, PAS may also develop when the stress for the child of ongoing high conflict divorce becomes too much and the child seeks to “escape” being caught in the middle by aligning with one parent. Therapists, especially individual child therapists, can unwittingly become part of the system maintaining the PAS, such that a court order is required to break up the therapist’s polarizing influence. Ultimately, a combination of strategic legal and therapeutic interventions are required to mitigate the PAS and keep the case manageable.

Cartwright

A Canadian psychologist, Cartwright makes eight points about PAS:

1) PAS can be provoked by conflicts other than custody matters, e.g., child support and relatively trivial differences;

2) alienation is a gradual and consistent process that is directly related to the time spent alienating;

3) time is on the side of the alienating parent, who may engage in a host of delay tactics;

4) slow judgments by courts exacerbate the problem;

5) alienating parents sometimes use the hint of sexual abuse to discredit the other parent, what Cartwright calls “virtual” allegations of sexual abuse;

6) judgments by the court which are clear and forceful are required to counter the force of alienation;

7) children subject to excessive alienation may develop mental illness and

8) successful parental alienation has profound, long term consequences for the child and other family members which are only beginning to be appreciated (24).

As an example of “virtual” allegations abuse, Cartwright describes a mother who insinuated sexual abuse by the father by alleging that he had shown the child a pornographic videotape which in fact was just a Hollywood comedy rented from a family video store. Regarding risk to the child of developing mental illness, Cartwright gives the example of disintegrating behavior by an alienated son, presumably latency age, who tried to poison his father by slipping air freshener into his stomach medicine. Later, the boy ran away during a visit with the father and the police had to be called. The folie a deux literature includes a report in 1977 of a 10-year-old boy who allegedly attempted to burn down his father’s house two years after his parents divorced, apparently as a result of his folie a deux relationship with his disturbed mother (25). Such cases suggest that severe PAS can be indicative of significant emotional disturbance in the alienating parent with a proportionately disturbing effect on the child.

Cartwright poignantly describes the psychological effects on the child of being involved in severe PAS. “The child…experiences a great loss, the magnitude of which is akin to death of a parent, two grandparents, and all the lost parent’s relatives and friends…Moreover…the child is unable to acknowledge the loss, much less mourn it” (24). The child’s good memories of the alienated parent are systematically destroyed and the child misses out on the day-to-day interaction, learning, support and love which, in an intact family, usually flows between the child and both parents, as well as grandparents and other relatives on both sides.

The child may encounter insurmountable obstacles if, later in life, he or she seeks to reestablish relations with the lost parent and his family. The lost parent may be unable or unwilling to become reinvolved. The parent or grandparents may have died. Some of these children eventually turn against the alienating parent, and if the target parent is lost to them as well, the child is left with an unfillable void.

PARENTS WHO INDUCE ALIENATION

Gender

Gardner’s observation that mothers seem to engage in PAS behavior with significantly greater frequency than fathers is born out by divorce research, as well as by the clinical PAS literature. The California Children of Divorce Study found that in a nonclinical sample, mothers were twice as likely as fathers to form PAS type alignments with their children (2). When false allegations of abuse arise, as in more severe manifestations of PAS, mothers also seem to comprise the majority (3, 2628). Mothers constituted 67 percent of the accusers in the nationwide study which revealed that allegations of abuse in divorce/custody disputes were found to be invalid about 50 percent of the time (12). Fathers were the accusers in 22 percent of cases while third parties such as relatives and professionals were the adult initiators 11 percent of the time. Where a third party was the initiator of the allegation, a parent might also believe there was abuse. The numbers reverse when it comes to physically abducting the child, with fathers the abductors from 60 percent to 70 percent of the time (18). There may be gender differences in how men and women go about gaining control of their children and taking revenge on an ex-spouse, with men more inclined to physical kidnapping and women more inclined to social/psychological abduction, which is how Clawar and Rivlin characterized severe PAS (7).

Never Married

Parents may engage in PAS behavior even if they were never married. In Johnston’s study of children who refuse visitation, she found that from 6 percent to 15 percent of the high conflict parents she studied were not married (9). In the author’s experience, one of the contributing factors to PAS with some of these couples is the mother’s anger and resentment over the father’s refusal to marry her, an effect which is exacerbated if the father becomes involved with a new partner. A mother in this position may have particularly strong proprietary feelings, similar to what Clawar and Rivlin describe (7), infuriated by the unfairness of joint custody laws which grant the father rights to a relationship with his child without his having fulfilled his obligations with respect to the mother.

New Partners

Johnston found that the new partner of either parent could be the primary instigator of efforts to gain custody of the child (8). Something similar happens when a divorcing parent joins a cult which actively strives to get the child from the noncult member parent, with the cult fulfilling the role of new partner in a sense, as shown in one of the case vignettes to follow.

Narcissistic Vulnerability

Johnston found that to varying degrees, one or both of the parents in high conflict divorce may be narcissistically vulnerable, lacking a well-established self identify and relying on primitive defenses such as externalization, denial and projection (8). The need of one or both parents to protect and defend themselves against narcissistic injury is at the root of many high conflict divorces. This may be a motivating factor for PAS in some cases, a dynamic described by Wilhelm Reich almost 50 years ago (29) when he foretold how parents of certain character types would seek to defend themselves against narcissistic injury in divorce by fighting for the child, using the technique of defaming the partner in order to alienate the child from that parent.

Need to Conceal Parental Deficits

According to Clawar and Rivlin, the campaign to alienate the child from the other parent is sometimes used to deflect unwanted scrutiny of the programming parent’s personal problems, for example alcohol, drugs, neglectful parenting, physical and sexual abuse, criminal involvement, or socially unaccepted life-style (7). Sometimes parents engage in PAS behavior out of fear that they will be found wanting when compared to the more loving and capable target. The literature on false allegations in divorce/custody disputes often makes the point that the accusation helps the accuser level the playing field, so to speak.

Vulnerability to Separation and Loss

A factor in some high conflict divorces is the presence in one or both parents of specific underlying vulnerabilities to loss and conflicts around attachment and separation (8). A PAS scenario can develop when a troubled parent who was rejected in the divorce copes with loss and loneliness by turning to the child to fullfill emotional needs, resulting in what Wallerstein calls the “overburdened child ” , discussed in Part II. For some parents, the divorce reactivates separation issues from earlier losses such as previous divorce, kidnapping or death of a child, or the loss of other family members. Such a parent may engage in PAS to defend against further “loss,” that of having to share the child with the other parent. Some parents have long standing personality problems with separation and individuation. The ongoing conflicts over the child engendered by PAS help ward off feelings of loss and abandonment by maintaining the relationship with the ex-spouse. PAS can also be used by keep the other parent hostilily engaged, as in Medea Syndrome (4, 5) and Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome (6, 30).

Revenge Clawar and Rivlin found that revenge was one of the most common and powerful reasons for parents to engage in alienating behavior (7). The personality makeup of some parents is such that revenge seems like their only viable option in response to feeling wounded by the divorce. The desire for revenge can be further kindled if infidelity is discovered, the alienating parent is left for someone else, or finds themselves immediately replaced by a new love object in the life of the parent who left.

Need for Control and Domination

Some alienating parents are driven by overriding needs for power, influence, domination and control (7). Engaging in PAS may provide the dual gratification of maintaining power, influence and control over the child and vicariously over the ex-spouse whose visitation and relationship with the child is frustrated by the alienating parent’s control maneuvers. Needs for domination and control are sometimes acted out by abducting the child and using it to taunt and torment the frantic target parent. In addition to mothers and fathers, a new partner can be the one with inordinate needs for power, domination and control. For example, a mother may become involved with a new partner who first seduces her away from her relatively weak husband and then acts as a sort of one-on-one cult leader to mother and child, who are both programmed and brainwashed into compliance and submission.

Medea Syndrome

The need for revenge is taken to an extreme in Media Syndrome (4, 5). “Modern Medeas do not want to kill their children, but they do want revenge on their former wives or husbands-and they exact it by destroying 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” (5). The “embittered- chaotic” parents described earlier by Wallerstein and Kelly may also fall in the revenge category (2). These parents act out their intense anger in a disorganized but chronically disruptive way which bombards the children, rather than protecting them, with the raw bitterness and chaos of the angry parent’s feelings about the ex-spouse and the divorce.

Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome

Turkat would have done better to call this disorder “Malicious Parent Syndrome,” but be that as it may, this disorder describes a special class of alienating parents who engage in a relentless and multifaceted campaign of aggression and deception against the ex-spouse, who is being punished for the divorce (6, 30). Contrary to Turkat, the author has encountered several cases in which the father was the malicious parent, as illustrated in the case vignette at the end of this section. Discussing PAS by name, Turkat classified PAS as a moderate form of visitation interference as compared with Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome. The parent with the latter disorder uses an array of tactics including excessive litigation, alienating the child from the target parent, and involving the child and third parties in malicious actions against the ex-spouse. Lying and deception are routinely used. A malicious parent might arrange to have the ex-spouse investigated for use of illegal drugs at work or file a complaint with authorities against the ex-spouse’s new partner. Malicious parents are often successful in using the law to punish and harass the ex-spouse, sometimes violating the law themselves but often getting away with it. Their efforts to interfere with the target parent’s visitation are persistent and pervasive, including attempts to block the target parent from having regular, uninterrupted visitation with the child and from having telephone contact, as well as trying to block the target parent from participating in the child’s school life and activities.

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 fiance of sexually abusing the child. He had the police arrest the fiance 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 a 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.

Long before Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome was identified by Turkat, a male psychologist, whose ex-wife undoubtedly exhibited the disorder, wrote a book about his ordeal (31). Accusing him of sexually abusing their young daughter, the mother arranged for the police to arrest him at his office in front of his clients and staff. She also arranged for newspaper reporters to be present so that pictures of the shocked psychologist 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.

Personality Characteristics of Parents Making False Accusations of Sexual Abuse in Disputes

Wakefield and Underwager undertook a systematic review of divorce/custody case files to examine and compare the characteristics of 72 false accusers, 103 falsely accused parents and a control group of 67 parents disputing custody but without allegations of abuse (28). Criteria for determining whether a parent had falsely accused included a finding by the justice system that there had been no abuse. Of the three groups, the falsely accusing parents were much more likely to have been diagnosed by a professional as exhibiting a personality disorder including mixed, unspecified, histrionic, borderline, passive-aggressive or paranoid. Approximately one-fourth of the false accusers did not exhibit significant pathology, while most of the parents who were disputing custody without abuse allegations were assessed as normal. Some of the false accusers were so obsessed with anger toward their estranged spouses that this became a major focus of their lives. They continued to be obsessed with abuse despite negative findings by mental health professionals and the courts, similar to what is found in cases of delusional disorder and Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. The relationship of falsely accusing parents with their children was often characterized in the record as extremely controlling and symbiotic. Two were Qiven a formal diagnosis of folie a deux between parent and child. Several exhibited extremely serious dysfunction, such as unpredictable bizarre behavior, belief that they possessed supernatural powers and delusions of grandeur. These authors found more similarities than differences between mothers and fathers who falsely accused, with mothers very much in the majority.

SAID Syndome

Blush and Ross have come up with three psychological profiles for mother false accusers and a typical profile of father accusers (3, 26, 27). Mothers tend to present as “fearful victim,” “justified vindicator,” or to some degree psychotic. The “fearful victim” presentation involves manipulation of social image around a specific theme to which others respond with sympathy and support, such as child abuse or spousal abuse. The “justified vindicators” initially present as intellectually organized with a knowledgeable, even pseudo-scientific sounding agenda, similar to what Clawar and Rivlin report regarding self righteousness as an important motivation of some programming parents. Women in the third group present with a combination of borderline and histrionic features, which interact with the stress of the divorce to impair the mother’s reality testing and significantly interfere with her functioning, sometimes to the point of a psychotic or quasi-psychotic presentation. Similar to Wakefield and Underwager’s findings (28), mothers in all three categories tend to be histrionic in presentation, so emotionally convinced of the “facts” that no amount of input, including from neutral professionals, can dissuade them from their perceptions. According to Blush and Ross, the typical profile for father accusers is one of intellectual rigidity and a high need to be “correct,” possibly male counterparts of the “justified vindicator” presentation among mothers. By history, these men were hypercritical of their wives while the marriage was still intact, quick to suspect them of negligence and to accuse their wives of being unfit mothers. Gardner’s work is referenced in the second and third SAID syndrome articles by these authors (26, 27).

Accuser and Accused Dyads

Important information about a programming parent using false allegations of abuse is to be found in the particular choice of accused. The study reported by Thoennes and Tjaden showed that the battle goes beyond simply mothers against fathers and vice versa (12). Parents were found to accuse not only each other but the other’s new partner, or relatives such as grandparents or the new partner’s teenage son. A parent who accuses the ex-spouse’s new partner may fulfill a number of goals simultaneously, expressing feelings of jealousy, revenge, and trying to keep the child from forming a positive attachment with the new parent figure. Accusations against the target parent’s relatives may provide a combination of revenge, allegations that are difficult for the ex-spouse to defend since they are not directly against him or her, and a means to exclude the relatives from post-divorce involvement in the child’s life. The accuser can set up a devastating conflict for the target parent by accusing his teenage son from a previous marriage or the new partner’s teenage offspring from a previous union. This has the effect of forcing the target parent to “choose” between his child involved in making the allegation and another child whom he loves and is responsible for. This enhances the alienating parent’s ability to convince the child that daddy does not care.

The Delusional Parent

Rogers refers to PAS in her report on five divorce/custody cases in which the falsely accusing parent, all mothers in this sample, suffered from delusional disorder (32). The children were subjected to undue influence to get them to accept the accusing parent’s psychotic belief and concomitant rejection of the other parent in a severe PAS scenario. Where the child succumbed, a diagnosis of shared paranoid disorder, otherwise known as folie a deux might also be made. According to Rogers, the first stages of the mother’s delusional disorder were present to some degree during the marriage and exacerbated parental conflicts prior to the separation. However, these subtle signs were not immediately discernible as a psychiatric illness and were only recognized in retrospect, as the mother’s symptoms became worse in the course of the divorce and its attendant disputes. One of the severe PAS cases reported by Dunne and Hedrick appears to be an example of the mother developing delusional disorder. The “subtle signs” were expressed as suspicions during her pregnancy that the father would molest the child, similar to a case encountered by the present author in which suspicions harbored by the mother even before the child was born prompted her to abduct the child a few months later. According to Rogers, the mothers who became delusional were usually the main caretakers for the children. In two cases they were awarded custody during the first round of custody litigation, before more noticeable deterioration in their parenting capabilities had occurred. With continued custody litigation, the intractable nature of their mental illness became apparent and the court gave custody to the father in four of the five cases.

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy

Some cases of PAS, especially those with false allegations of abuse, may have important features in common with Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSP) in which parents fulfill their needs vicariously by presenting their child as ill (23). In cases of “classical” MSP, parents repeatedly take their children to doctors for unnecessary, often painful tests and treatments which the physician is induced to provide based on the parent’s misrepresentations. “Contemporary-type” MSP occurs when a parent fabricates an abuse scenario for the child and welcomes or actively seeks out repeated abuse interviews of the child by police, social workers and therapists (23). The concept of contemporary-type MSP elaborates on the idea put forth by Sinanan and Houghton that new types of MSP behavior will evolve in parallel with the evolution of new medical and social services, e.g., the child protection system (33). MSP parents may change or come up with new “symptoms” for the child so as to better elicit the desired response from a particular care provider or an institution offering specialized services. Thus, the same child may be receiving attention simultaneously for fabricated physical symptoms from several medical providers and for fabricated sex abuse from therapists and public agencies who specialize in abuse. Careful evaluation and thorough investigation of sex abuse allegations which turn out to be questionable or false will sometimes bring a parent to the attention of authorities for practicing “classical” as well as “contemporary- type” MSP (34).

As with PAS, MSP is most often practiced by mothers, although fathers and other caretakers are sometimes found to engage in the behavior. MSP parents maintain their psychic equilibrium through control and manipulation of external sources of social gratification, including the child and care providers who serve children. Medical and other care providers are sometimes referred to as the “third party participants” in the MSP, because of their importance in carrying out the parent’s agenda, including false allegations of abuse. There are at least four different presentations where MSP and PAS overlap: 1) an MSP mother may, during the marriage, add false allegations of abuse to the child’s fabricated physical symptoms, thus precipitating the divorce; 2) 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, maintaining the symbiotic bond with the child and preserving the freedom to continue the MSP behavior; 3) a parent dealing with the losses and stress of divorce may respond with MSP type behavior to obtain social support from the child and care providers; 4) an alienating parent may exhibit MSP type behavior by manipulating the child’s medical care for the primary purpose of furthering the alienation agenda (35).

In PAS with features of MSP, the alienating parent may gain legal authority to control and determine whom the child sees and what treatment is given. The child may be taken to the doctor after visits with the target parent for fabricated or induced symptoms which are attributed to abuse and neglect by the other parent. The child is likely present while the alienating parent makes this negative presentation about the other parent to the doctor, who inadvertently lends support to the denigrating account by listening to it, asking questions and examining the child. The target parent may be rendered ineffective to stop this cycle because providers retained by the alienating parent, and who take her assertions at face value, often refuse to talk to the target parent or allow the target parent access to child’s medical records. The result for the child is what Rand calls MSP type abuse. Rand expands Meadow’s formulation of MSP as a complex form of emotional abuse by applying Garbarino’s five types of psychological maltreatment. Research on MSP shows that it sometimes overlaps with other forms of abuse and neglect (36).

Parental Child Abductors

According to Huntington, post-divorce parental child stealing has been on the increase since the mid-1970s, paralleling the rising divorce rate and the explosion of litigation over child custody (18). An abducting parent views the child’s needs as secondary to the parental agenda which is to provoke, agitate, control, attack or psychologically torture the other parent. It should come as no surprise, then, that post-divorce parental abduction is considered a serious form of child abuse. Psychological maltreatment may predominate or be accompanied by physical abuse and neglect. Abducting parents take the idea that the child would be better off without the other parent to an extreme. Clawar and Rivlin found that would-be abductors often felt frustrated in their efforts to gain access to their child through the legal system and felt “forced” to abduct the child (7). Sometimes, they became so convinced of the terrible scenario they were broadcasting about the target parent that they felt no “choice” but to flee with the child and go into hiding. In order to win the child’s cooperation in maintaining concealment, the abductor must continue to brainwash the child with fear of the target parent and what would happen if the target parent should find the abducting parent and child.

CONCLUSION TO PART I

Review of this first portion of relevant literature and research indicates that Gardner’s concept of PAS has been increasingly discussed and referred to since he introduced the term in 1985. Research on divorce since the early 1980s has been progressively converging with Gardner’s work. Johnston’s studies of high conflict divorce in particular suggest that it is not sufficient to lump PAS with high conflict divorce in general. In its more severe forms, PAS is clearly distinctive. It is also more destructive for children and families and can be irreversible in its effects. As the section on alienating parents indicates, the divorce population includes a significant proportion of parents who have’ psychological problems and disorders. The degree to which such problems are expressed in efforts to alienate the child from the other parent has to be evaluated in the total divorce context, including psychological factors of the child and character and conduct of the target parent. Severe PAS is destructive irrespective of the gender of the alienating parent.

Part I attempts to integrate Gardner’s work on PAS with the relevant literature and research under the following topic headings: The Child in PAS; The Target/Alienated Parent in PAS; PAS and its Third Party Participants; Attorneys on PAS; Forensic Evaluation and PAS; and Interventions for PAS, including strategic combinations of court orders and therapeutic interventions, appointment of a Special Master, appointment of a Guardian ad Litem, changing custody, use of hospitalization and other transitional sites to facilitate custody changes, and the appropriate application of sanctions to help certain programming parents to better act in their children’s best interests.

Whether or not one chooses to use Gardner’s terminology, the problems posed by these cases to families, professionals and the courts are very real. Reluctance to consider Parental Alienation Syndrome by name, along with the diagnostic and interventions it entails, tends to contribute to the perpetuation of the problem in a variety of ways. Like any other label, that of PAS has the potential to be misapplied and misused. Whether or not it is the appropriate diagnosis in a given instance must be determined based on facts of the case, corroborated historical evidence and data from multiple sources. An appropriate diagnosis of PAS, including level of severity as Gardner recommends, can make the difference between allowing a case to go beyond the point of no return or intervening effectively before it is too late.

REFERENCES

1. Gardner R: Recent trends in divorce and custody litigation. Academy Forum 1985; 29:2:3-7

2. Wallerstein JS, Kelly JB: Surviving the breakup: how children and parents cope with divorce. New York, Basic Books, 1980

3. Blush GJ, Ross KL: Sexual allegations in divorce: the SAID syndrome. Conciliation Courts Review 1987; 25:1:1-11

4. Jacobs JW: Euripides’ Medea: a psychodynamic model of severe divorce pathology. American Journal of Psychotherapy 1988; XLII:2:308-319

5. Wallerstein JS, Blakeslee S: Second Chances. New York, Ticknor & Fields, 1989;

6. Turkat ID: Child visitation interference in divorce. Clinical Psychology Review 1994; 14:8:737-742

7. Clawar SS, Rivlin BV: Children Held Hostage: Dealing with Programmed and Brainwashed Children. Chicago, American Bar Association, 1991

8. Johnston JR, Campbell LE: Impasses of Divorce: The Dynamics and Resolution of Family Conflict. New York, The Free Press, 1988

9. Johnston JR: Children of divorce who refuse visitation, in Nonresidential Parenting: New Vistas in Family Living. Edited by Depner CE, Bray JH, London, Sage Publications, 1993

10. National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect: executive summary: study of national incidence and prevalence of child abuse and neglect. Washington DC: Department of Health and Human Services 1988, Contract 105-85-1702

11. Stewart JW: The molestation charge. California Family Law Monthly 1991; 7:9:329-335

12. Thoennes N, Tjaden PG: The extent, nature, and validity of sexual abuse allegations in custody visitation disputes. Child Abuse & Neglect 1990; 12:151-63

13. National Council on Children’s Rights: CAPTA revised to provide relief for false allegations. Speak Out for Children, Fall 1996/Winter 1997

14. State of California: The California Child Abuse Neglect Reporting Law: Issues and Answers for Health Practitioners, 1991

15. Gardner RA: The Parental Alienation Syndrome and the Differentiation Between Fabricated and Genuine Child Sex Abuse. Cresskill, NJ, Creative Therapeutics, 1987

16. Gardner RA: The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals. Cresskill, NJ, Creative Therapeutics, 1992

17. Gardner RA: Family Evaluation in Child Custody Mediation, Arbitration, and Litigation. Cresskill, NJ, Creative Therapeutics, 1989

18. Huntington DS: The forgotten figures in divorce, in Divorce and Fatherhood: The Struggle for Parental Identity. Edited by Jacobs JW, Washington DC, American Psychiatric Association Press, 1986

19. Lund M: A therapist’s view of parental alienation syndrome. Family and Conciliation Courts Review 1995; 33:3:308-316

20. Maccoby EE, Mnookin RH: Dividing the Child: Social and Legal Dilemmas of Custody. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1992

21. Garrity CB, Baris MA: Caught in the Middle: Protecting the Children of High-Conflict Divorce. New York, Lexington Books, 1994

22. Dunne J, Hedrick M: The parental alienation syndrome: an analysis of sixteen selected cases. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 1994; 21:3/4:21-38

23. Rand DC: Munchausen syndrome by proxy: a complex type of emotional abuse responsible for some false allegations of child abuse in divorce. Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 1993; 5:3:135-155

24. Cartwright GF: Expanding the parameters of parental alienation syndrome. American Journal of Family Therapy 1993; 21:3:205-215

25. Tucker LS, Cornwall TP: Mother-son folie a deux: a case of attempted patricide. American Journal of Psychiatry 1977; 134:10:1146-1 147

26. Ross KL, Blush GJ: Sexual abuse validity discriminators in the divorced or divorcing family. Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 1990; 2:1:1-6

27. Blush GJ, Ross KL: Investigation and case managementissues and strategies. Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 1990; 2:3:152-160

<!–

28. Wakefield H, Underwager R: Personality characteristics of parents making false accusations of sexual abuse in custody disputes. Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 1990; 2:3:121-136

–>

28. Wakefield H, Underwager R: Personality characteristics of parents making false accusations of sexual abuse in custody disputes. Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 1990; 2:3:121-136

29. Reich W: Character Analysis. New York, WR Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Noonday Press, 1949

30. Turkat ID: Divorce related malicious mother syndrome. Journal of Family Violence 1995; 10:3:253-264

31. Spiegel LD: A Question of Innocence. Parsippany, NJ, Unicorn Publishing House, 1986

32. Rogers M: Delusional disorder and the evolution of mistaken sexual allega lions in child custody cases. American Journal of Forensic Psychology 1992; 10:1:47-69

33. Sinanan K, Houghton H: Evolution of variants of the Munchausen syndrome. British Journal of Psychiatry 1986; 148:465-467

34. Meadow R: False allegations of abuse and Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Archives of Disease in Childhood 1993; 68:4:444-4.47

35. Jones M, Lund M, Sullivan M: Dealing with parental alienation in high conflict custody cases, presentation at conference of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, San Antonio, TX, 1996

36. Bools CN, Neale BA, Meadow SR: Co-morbidity associated with fabricated illness (Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy). Archives of Disease in Childhood 1992; 67:77-79

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Deirdre Conway Rand, Ph.D. practices clinical and forensic psychology in Mill Valley, California. She specializes in complex forms of emotional abuse, such as severe Parental Alienation and Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. She is the author of articles on the latter and of two chapters in the book, Spectrum of Factitious Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association.

Back to Part 1

The Spectrum of Parental Alienation Syndrome (Part I) by Deirde Rand, Piece 2.

The American Conservative » Married to the State

In Activism, Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, child abuse, Child Custody, Child Custody for fathers, Child Support, child trafficking, Children and Domestic Violence, children legal status, children's behaviour, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, custody, deadbeat dads, Department of Social Servies, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, due process rights, Family Rights, Feminism, Foster Care, Foster Care Scam, Freedom, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Liberty, Marriage, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, parental rights, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Protective Dads, Protective Parents, Restraining Orders, Rooker-Feldman Doctrine on September 27, 2009 at 8:44 pm

Married to the State

Digg!Digg Stumble Upon Newsvine SlashdotSlashdot Add to Mixx!Mixx Diigo Google
Delicious Reddit Facebook

How government colonizes the family

By Stephen Baskerville

In 1947, with the baby boom in its infancy and few disposed to hearing of family crisis, Harvard sociologist Carle Zimmerman saw the long-term reality: the family had been deteriorating since the Renaissance and was nearing the point of no return. Whenever the family shows signs of dysfunction, Zimmerman observed, “the state helps to break it up.” During the 19th century, “law piled on law, and government agency upon government agency” until by 1900 “the state had become master of the family.” The result, he wrote in Family and Civilization, was that “the family is now truly the agent, the slave, the handmaiden of the state.”

Today we might regard 1947 as a golden age for the family. Without perceiving it, each generation has become acculturated to family deterioration and added to it. We now accept as normal what would have shocked our grandparents: cohabitation, illegitimacy, divorce, same-sex marriage, daycare, fast-food dinners. Indeed, shocking the previous generation is part of the thrill of filial rebellion.

What should shock even the liberal and the young—but today does not much disturb even the conservative and the old—are destruction of constitutional protections and invasions of personal freedom and privacy by the government’s family machinery. Some four decades ago, the Western world embarked on the boldest social experiment in its history. With no public discussion, laws were enacted in virtually every jurisdiction that ended marriage as an enforceable contract. Today it is not possible to form a binding agreement to create a family.

Few stopped to consider the implications of laws that shifted the breakup of private households from a voluntary to an involuntary process. Unilateral divorce involves government agents forcibly removing legally innocent people from their homes and seizing their property. It inherently abrogates not only the inviolability of marriage but the very concept of private life.

The most serious consequences involve children. Through involuntary divorce, a legally unimpeachable parent can be arrested for seeing his own children without government authorization. He can be charged with domestic violence or child abuse, without evidence that he has committed either crime. He can be hauled before a judge for not paying child support without proof that he actually owes it. He can even be arrested for not paying an attorney or psychotherapist whom he has not hired. No formal charge, no jury, no trial required.

To justify this repression, the divorce machinery has generated hysterias against fathers so inflammatory that few dare question them: child abuse, wife-beating, nonpayment of child support. The accused parent simply loses his family and finds himself abandoned, with everyone terrified to be associated with an accused “pedophile,” “batterer,” or “deadbeat dad.”

Our passivity before repression this serious is stunning and the starkest example yet of the erosion of that civic virtue that has been integral to American political thought since before the founding of the Republic.

Conservatives have labored this idea into a cliché. We preach that people must be more virtuous, less selfish, and more devoted to the public good. But these exhortations earn us nothing but contempt when we remain silent in the face of real tyranny, which, as usual, has appeared where we least expected it and are least equipped to resist it. Instead of resisting, we lament a decline in “culture” and declare there is very little we can do.

But as Linda McClain writes, families are “seedbeds of civic virtue” and “have a place in the project of forming persons into capable, responsible, self-governing citizens.” The family is where parents and children learn to love sacrificially, to put others’ needs before their own desires, to sacrifice for the welfare and protection of the whole. If this does not begin with one’s own home and loved ones it, does not begin at all. People unwilling to sacrifice for their own flesh and blood will not do so for the strangers who comprise their country. In the family, children learn to obey authorities other than the state—God, parents, clergy, teachers, coaches, neighbors. By accepting these, some of whom they love, children learn that government is not the only authority and is one that can and must be limited.

Conservatives have recently been eager to declare marriage and the family to be “public” institutions, largely in response to homosexual insistence that families are purely private and therefore may be defined according to the whims of individuals. But it is more precise to say that the family mediates between the public and the private, ensuring each its proper sphere. In the family children learn to distinguish and defend private life from encroachment by public power. Involvement in public affairs, which is important, begins as an extension of private responsibilities as parents, homeowners, neighbors, and parishioners. Citizens participate in public life as amateurs with a stake in their families, homes, and communities, not as professionals with a stake in a government program or ideology.

Children raised without intact families do not as readily absorb concepts such as family privacy, sacrificial love, parental authority, limited government, or civic virtue. For their rules and values come not from parents but from government officials, who have ultimate sovereignty over their lives: courts, lawyers, social workers, forensic therapists, public-school bureaucrats, and police. These are the figures they must obey rather than their parents. Thus children whose authority figures are government officials cannot distinguish the private from the public and come to see the public sphere as a realm not of civic duty and community leadership but of abstract ideology, government funding, professional employment, career advancement, and state power, in whose growth they acquire a vested interest.

It is no accident that the traditional family is described as patriarchal and that civic virtue traditionally suggested masculinity. It is also no coincidence that fathers are the ones marginalized by family decline.

Enormous attention has been devoted to the crisis of 24 million fatherless children, a phenomenon directly linked to every major social pathology from violent crime to substance abuse and truancy. Because these ills justify almost all domestic government spending, fatherlessness has resulted in a huge expansion of state power. The Obama administration aims to promote virtue with programs preaching “responsible fatherhood” and nagging men to practice “good fathering.” The Bush administration used similar schemes to argue for the importance of marriage. The result is the same: bewailing other people’s moral failings at taxpayer expense.

There is certainly truth in the connection between fatherhood and civil society. “Fathers play a key role in developing and sustaining the kind of personal character on which democracy depends,” writes Don Eberly of the National Fatherhood Initiative. Government therapy, on the other hand, cannot create virtue because it requires no sacrifice. Federal funding only gives officials incentives to perpetuate problems, so it is hardly surprising that not only have these programs done nothing to improve either fatherhood or marriage, they have exacerbated the breakdown of both.

Eberly’s point connecting fathers and freedom contains a larger truth. While families require sacrifice from all members, it is fathers whose sacrifice may extend to their very lives. Children deprived of their fathers by state officials therefore lose more than a parent. They lose the parent who connects them with the civic order. When the father protects and provides for his family, he will resist the state’s efforts to assume those roles. Under his leadership, the family is a force for limiting state power.

The single mother does not resist the state’s encroachment. On the contrary, she is our society’s principal claimant on a vast array of state services, without which she cannot manage her children. When the state usurps the roles of protector and provider and disciplinarian, the state becomes the father.

This is the story of modern politics: increasingly centralized police, plus the regulatory and welfare states that also promise various forms of protection. These paternal—and increasingly maternal—substitutes brought massive bureaucracies, fulfilling Tocqueville’s prophecy that democracy would lead to increasingly bureaucratic intrusion into private life. These agencies expanded by creating problems to solve. As police functionaries, they had to create criminals and newfangled, nonviolent crimes that most people (such as juries) could not understand and required “experts” to adjudicate—crimes that were safe for female police, crimes that could be committed only by men.

Fathers whose children are taken away by state officials do not heroically rescue them or organize opposition to the divorce machinery because the enervating power of the bureaucratic behemoth makes resistance pointless. Men are thus politically neutered and, as a result, often despised by their own children and the rest of us.

That most people do not regard these practices as tyrannical may be the most alarming aspect of all. Government agents seize control of children and property of vast numbers of law-abiding citizens through literally “no fault” of their own, and we accept it because of jargon that makes it all appear banal: “custody battle” and “division of property.” Fidelity to one’s word—let alone one’s spouse—is disdained. Basic civilities become irrelevant because family members can be made to obey through court orders. Family wealth—traditionally used to leverage both obedience from children and limits on government—is useless for both purposes. In divorce it is simply confiscated.

So vast numbers of children now grow up believing from the earliest age that it is normal for government officials to assume control over their family life, to order their parents about as if they were naughty children. This is causing more than social chaos. It is destroying our freedom and our will to defend it.

Stephen Baskerville is associate professor of government at Patrick Henry College and author of Taken into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family. A longer version of this essay will appear in The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy.

<!– –>

16 Responses to “Married to the State”

The American Conservative » Married to the State.

Reforming Family Law: What You Can Do Right Now – Reform Family Law Now

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, Department of Social Servies, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, family court, Family Court Reform, federal crimes, Foster Care, Foster CAre Abuse, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, Marriage, mothers rights, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Restraining Orders on September 14, 2009 at 1:00 am

Reforming Family Law: What You Can Do Right Now

by Andrew J Thompson

I began my weekly broadcast this past Tuesday through Talkshoe.com on the Get Your Justice Live network with Lary Holland.  For the rest of this week my office has been overwhelmed with the question: so what do we do now?

I’ve been receiving calls and emails from every corner of the the country from people in tragic situations of their own, shaped by the misuse of the family law system and lack of access to true justice.  This isn’t a problem easily attacked on a case-by-case basis.  If it was, we would have had reform a long time ago.  It’s a problem that demands people bring their cases and make themselves heard in a set of unified voices.

In the past, the system has worked against families systematically and – at least in terms of acting in a destructive manner – efficiently.  Meanwhile, we have been fighting it one-by-one and ineffectively.  It’s time for us to become systematic and efficient in attacking a whole system that has been trampling families’ rights for too long.

I’m creating a new vehicle to enable the system we need to accomplish these ends.  Essentially we need to gather key bits of information from every person within our constituency, to begin sorting out the potential classes of litigants and joinder of claims.

The information we need is straightforward and pretty simple:

  • Basic personal information: name, home address, email and phone;
  • A very succinct description of the facts giving rise to your own claim;
  • The specific Constitutional rights you would assert to be violated;
  • A very brief statement of the remedy you believe would resolve your own issues.

As we learn where the commonality become individual situations can be clearly defined, we can then proceed to put together a class petition, and other claims, primarily in family court.

This is the beginning.  We also need considerable help carrying out the tasks we must in order to succeed.  So we need people to self-identify skills or abilities they have, i.e. legal research, IT skill, administrative support, database management and administration, etc.  With a number of us working together, we will be able to attack the problem more quickly, in essence, to create a rapid response team and legal coalition of activists who will help move our mission forward at “all deliberate speed” – that’s a quote from the United States Supreme Court, by the way.

We also must keep in mind that reform won’t be achieved without costs.  We need help with funding!  If every person will contribute just what they can, we will reach our destiny sooner.  If most of us will trade in a small fraction of what we would have to pay for other legal representation and chip in a few hundred dollars toward the costs, we will move ahead very far and very fast.  If everyone of us contributes at least a few dollars, we will show the tribunals we face that we are committed, serious and irrepressible as a unit.  If just a few people are able to step forward and fund the largest share of the costs, we will show those who would deprive us of our rights that we are entirely capable of taking them on step-by-step throughout intense litigation.

We can bring about the change we need through the civil rights litigation that may be the only avenue of hope for real change in the time we need.  All of our children are growing up fast.  As each day passes, we lose one day in their tender young lives to play the roles we should in helping them be the people we want them to be, and keeping the relationships with their parents in tact in the way they should be able.

Forms will be added to the site very soon.  In the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach our office via email at: info@reformfamilynow.org.  Tomorrow’s a new day with much hope and expectation!  We hope to hear from you soon.

Reforming Family Law: What You Can Do Right Now – Reform Family Law Now.

Are You Guilty of Parental Alienation?

In Alienation of Affection, child abuse, Child Custody, Child Custody for fathers, Child Custody for Mothers, Children and Domestic Violence, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, CPS, Department of Social Servies, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, family court, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, Freedom, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Marriage, motherlessness, mothers rights, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, parental rights, Parents rights, Restraining Orders, Rooker-Feldman Doctrine, Single Moms, Single Parenting on September 11, 2009 at 8:40 pm

Are You Guilty of Parental Alienation?

Friday September 11, 2009

Some parents work over-time at alienating their children from the other parent. Some are guilty of parental alienation and don’t realize what they are doing. Whether or not you are deliberately alienating your child from the other parent the result will be the same. Your child will be damaged emotionally.

A divorcing parents first concern should be the welfare of the children. Children need two parents who are 100% invested in making sure that child’s needs are met. You may not like your ex but you should never allow that to get in the way of taking care of your child.

Below is a list of behaviors parents do that purposefully or unwittingly alienate a child from his/her other parent:

1. Sharing information about the divorce. I NEVER talked to my children about the specifics of any legal divorce issues I had with their father. I was dumbfounded a few months back when in court with my ex over custody of our youngest. I looked over at my youngest and his father and the child had his father’s files, files pertaining to legal issues and was reading them.

I think I’m safe in assuming that those files were full of negative information about me. What purpose other than trying to shed a negative light on me could my ex have for showing the files to my son?

2. Withholding contact information. Parents have a right to know how to contact their child. Withholding email addresses or phone numbers is a clear attempt to interfere with a parent’s right to communicate with his/her child. If your child doesn’t want to talk to the other parent fine. The other parent still has a right to leave messages and write emails. They have the right to let that child know, that they are loved.

3. Allowing your child to decide whether or not to visit the other parent. This is another one that played a role in my divorce. I’m the guilty party. My ex angered my children. He did some very hurtful things and they had a right to be angry. My children were in therapy, the therapist told me to not force them to visit their father.

I was torn. Part of me knew that they needed their father, part of me was afraid of damaging them by forcing them to spend time with someone who had hurt them. I called my ex MIL and she said, “don’t make them see him until he behaves like a father.”

Guess what, the therapist was wrong, my ex MIL was wrong and I was wrong for not forcing them to visit and build a relationship with their father. I’ve recently realized that I allowed my children to make a choice based on emotion not logic.

I was the parent; it was my place to be the logical one. Instead, I let emotion win out and unwittingly did my children and their father harm. If your child is angry and refusing to visit the other parent do everything you can to promote visitation. Don’t give your child power and control over a situation they are viewing through eyes that are clouded by eomtional pain.

4. Saying negative things about the other parent. If you’ve got a beef with your ex, keep it to yourself. Don’t say negative things to your child or to anyone in front of your child. Something as insignificant as, “your father never shows up on time,” sends a negative message to your child about the other parent. Keep such thoughts out of reach of tiny ears!

Whether you are purposefully or unwittingly exposing your child to parental alienation it is time to stop and think about what it means to your child. Parenting after divorce means being hyper aware of the consequences of your words and actions have on your children.

Are You Guilty of Parental Alienation?.

The 40th Anniversary of “No-Fault” Divorce | Catholic Exchange

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, Child Custody, Child Custody for fathers, Child Support, Children and Domestic Violence, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, Department of Social Servies, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, Feminism, Foster Care, Freedom, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Liberty, Marriage, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation on September 7, 2009 at 11:46 pm

The 40th Anniversary of “No-Fault” Divorce

September 5th, 2009 by Judy Parejko Print This Article Print This Article ·// ShareThis

On September 5, 1969, Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Family Law Act, launching California as the first state in the nation with ‘no-fault’ divorce.

The law quickly took hold elsewhere, including Iowa, which followed California’s lead six months later.

By 1971, Colorado, Florida, Michigan and Oregon had no-fault divorce laws and within fifteen years the law had spread nationwide.

Most policy analysts agree that no-fault divorce has weakened the “traditional family since one person could now end the marriage unilaterally.” Some say it threw open the door to “marriages” of same-sex partners, since adultery – which has a particular definition – was taken off the law books. Same-sex partners are not capable of adultery and hence, could now qualify for divorce on the basis of “breakdown” of the relationship.

Who were the key players in this family policy revolution? Who were the ‘villains’ and were there any ‘heroes’?

Some might name Governor Reagan as the biggest villain since he could have blocked the bill by vetoing it. He himself had been divorced-against-his-will by his first wife, actress Jane Wyman and he considered himself a family man. Although his name will be forever linked with no-fault divorce, it turns out that he may be the only who has expressed regret about his role.

Late in life, Reagan confessed to his oldest son, Michael that, signing the bill was one of the worst mistakes he ever made in public office. Michael tells the story about his father in Twice Adopted .

While Reagan had a prominent visible role, the man who was probably the most responsible for this bill worked behind the scenes and his story is not well-known.

Assemblyman James A. Hayes from southern California was self-described as the bill’s author. By the time he attained the role of Assembly Judiciary Chairman, his wife had already filed for divorce on the ground of ‘cruelty.’ Hayes’ new role on the Judiciary Committee provided him with an opportunity that he used to his personal advantage.

With the implementation of no-fault divorce on January 1, 1970, the rules of the game abruptly changed, turning the tables on all pending cases, including that of Hayes’ wife. As a result, Hayes was able to reduce his ‘damages’ in the final settlement. The newspapers later reported that his wife and four children did not fare so well and turned to food stamps.

Hayes claims he coined the term “irreconcilable differences” because he didn’t like the proposed term, “breakdown” — it sounded too negative.

Hayes had to convince Reagan to sign the bill, and during their one-hour meeting Hayes found the job challenging. Reagan wanted to veto the bill, but Hayes pressed him to sign it by ticking off the names of those who were ‘on board.’ In fact, in Hayes reflections on that period, he made it sound like everyone was on board.

Hayes even claimed that he worked with representatives of the Catholic Church and that the Archdiocese of Sacramento was particularly supportive.

In 1969, Republicans controlled the political scene in California, with Reagan just having defeated Pat Brown, a Democrat. Republicans also controlled the senate and assembly. The Republican Party would later take on the title of the “Party of Family Values.”

Iowa, which was the next state to enact no-fault, was also Republican-controlled with its own popular Republican governor, Robert Ray, signing the bill.

By all accounts, there were few if any heroes. Most policymakers were ‘sold’ on the bill, but when looking at previous accounts, it’s not clear whether they really understood what it the bill would do. Most accounts portray it as a “mutual consent” type of measure, but in reality, it was not. Only one party needed to bring a divorce action knowing that the “State” would assure them of the outcome.

Looking back at what we now know, is this fortieth anniversary begging some questions?

One question might be whether there was deception in the process. Would a similar law be possible today if the story got out that the main player had such a strong personal vested interest? At the time, the media did not report on the divorce lawsuit filed by Hayes’ wife.

Secondly, would Catholic Church officials have endorsed this bill if they’d known the full truth about it — that it would quickly turn into “unilateral divorce-on-demand” with the state doing a yeoman’s job for the one filing for divorce, leaving the other party defenseless in such a lawsuit?

In Iowa, some legislators labeled the bill an “attorneys’ bill” because they could see the benefit to members of the bar but no benefit to families.

One of the bigger questions that Catholics and other Christians might consider is this: How did the State obtain such sweeping jurisdiction over this God-ordained institution? Is marriage merely a civil institution? Does pre-marital instruction, along with promises to live up to church teachings mean anything?

For Catholics, where does the Church’s canon law fit into the picture? And, where are the “church courts” that could hear cases falling within the her jurisdiction?

Do the Canons and teachings in Catechism apply only “after the fact” –- once the divorce is finalized? Or, are these elements meant to be a strong buffer, bringing couples back to their vows and to the teachings of the Church?

“Jurisdiction” is loaded with implications. Under whose jurisdiction do we place ourselves? Canon law is written for “The People of God.”

Most people who are intent on filing for divorce will seek the jurisdiction of the civil court. The first step is usually hiring an attorney to prepare the paperwork. But, what if it didn’t work that way?

Maybe Church officials should be prepared to assert jurisdiction when approached. Why should we be limited to only one jurisdiction? We are asked to make a commitment to church teachings at the front end of marriage. Why shouldn’t we ask church leaders to provide a forum like the one Paul talks about in 1 Cor. 6:1?

St. Paul admonishes us about bringing lawsuits against our brothers. We are supposed to be able to settle things amongst ourselves, using a fair and just process.

We could learn how to set up church governance in such a way that those who stray to the civil arena could be called back. They could present their complaints and have them heard amongst those who are properly trained. In the beginning, very few would know how to hear a case and provide a fair and just process. But, we could learn.

Instead, too many members of the flock now find themselves disillusioned after receiving a summons for divorce from the civil court, turning to ask for help from the Church, and then being turned away. Just because we don’t know how to do it now, doesn’t mean we can’t learn. There’s an opportunity here. Will we respond?

Most churches have so many committees doing various things. Why not one more committee: the Complaints and Adjudication Committee?

Judy Parejko is the author of Stolen Vows: The Illusion of No-Fault Divorce and the Rise of the American Divorce Industry and is now compiling, A Concise History of No-Fault Divorce in the United States. Her research is primarily focused on the intrinsic policy implications of laws that have been drafted by an organization of lawyers operating as the A.B.A.’s drafting arm: the Uniform Law Commissioners.

The 40th Anniversary of “No-Fault” Divorce | Catholic Exchange.

Parental Alienation & Grief « It’s Almost Tuesday

In Best Interest of the Child, child abuse, Child Custody, Child Custody for fathers, Child Support, Children and Domestic Violence, children legal status, children's behaviour, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, due process rights, family court, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, fatherlessness, fathers rights, federal crimes, Freedom, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Liberty, Marriage, motherlessness, mothers rights, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, Parentectomy, Parents rights on September 4, 2009 at 6:15 am

Parental Alienation & Grief

The parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a disorder that arises primarily in the context of child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent’s indoctrinations and the child’s own contributions to the vilification of the target parent.

The primary person responsible for the induction of a parental alienation syndrome (PAS) in a child is the litigating parent who hopes to gain leverage in a court of law by programming in the child a campaign of denigration directed against a target parent.

In most cases alienated parents are relatively helpless to protect themselves from the indoctrinations and the destruction of what was once a good, loving bond. They turn to the courts for help and, in most cases in my experience, have suffered even greater frustration and despair because of the court’s failure to meaningfully provide them with assistance.

It is the author’s hope that increasing recognition by the judiciary of its failures to deal effectively with PAS families will play a role in the rectification of this serious problem.

(Excerpted from: Gardner, R.A. (1998). The Parental Alienation Syndrome, Second Edition, Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.)

by Dr. Barbara Steinberg

Q: A parent who has been alienated from his or her child’s life experiences extreme loss. Often we are asked by a targeted parent, “How do I deal with his on-going pain?”

A: First, know that you are not alone. There are others, both mothers and fathers, who have similar experiences, and who are in deep agony over the loss of contact and meaningful relationship with their children.

Second, know that you are not crazy. In our culture we are not encouraged to experience our grief. We are taught to be strong, to rise above it, to tough it out, to get over it and get on with life. Sometimes that is wise counsel if we linger in our pain, and our outrage becomes the complete focus of our life affecting our work, our social life and our spirit. However, the loss of a child whether by death or by exclusion from that child’s life is beyond the realm of most parents’ ability to cope.

In the beginning of an alienation process, we believe, as parents, this is not really happening. We deny that the other parent of our child is capable of these vengeful acts, and we choose not to believe our child, whom we love deeply, would ever treat us in such a hurtful ways.

Denial is the strongest emotional defense mechanism we have at our disposal, and it is the one on which we rely the most. For most parents, because they truly want contact and relationship with their child, their denial does not hold up under time or with the reality of the disconnection they experience.

Third, many parents feel confusion, which suggests they are not able to identify and process the bunch of emotions; they are experiencing in their gut. Usually, these can be separated into feelings of deep sadness, intense anger, extreme outrage, and desperate blame.

To keep from being overwhelmed by this internal “bucket of worms,” many parents detach from the situation that they believe is an act of self-preservation. Some bargain with them using the following logic, “My child will get what’s happened when he/she turns eighteen so I’ll just wait.” Both strategies are akin to whistling in the dark.

Fourth, targeted parents want to know how to deal with these strong emotions in healthy ways because if allowed to remain unreleased, they often gain a life of their own and emerge at inappropriate and inopportune times toward others who do not understand or deserve the depth and intensity of the feeling.

Sometimes, these emotions are held internally. In an attempt to self-medicate the resulting pain, the targeted parent turns to addictive behaviors or substances. Eventually, if strong emotions are held internally for a long period of time, they can convert into physical problems, which plague the individual for the remainder of his/her life.

So the dilemma remains, what do I do with my pain? Keeping a journal or diary is helpful, but strong emotions require active self-interventions. Many parents report feeling relief from their deep sadness by allowing themselves to cry and scream.

If you believe this might assist you in your process, to avoid embarrassment, it is wise to isolate yourself perhaps in a quiet, natural place so you can grieve in an unrestrained and unobserved way. It is also helpful to take a sequence of your child’s pictures so you can activate your feelings of loss.

Intense anger is a physical activator so you will need to participate in a focused activity such as bowling, driving golf balls at a range or hitting balls in a batting cage. A less expensive approach is throwing ice cubes at a sturdy wall, an activity, that parents report, gives a sense of relief and release from ever tightening bands of anger.

Outrage describes a parent who feels misunderstood so there needs to be some attention paid to “telling your story.” The problem is finding a receptive listener who has the patience and energy to hear the saga of hurt, frustration and humiliation more than once. Targeted parents can tell their story into a small tape recorder; they can write their story by hand into a journal, a loose-leaf notebook or a diary. They can use a word processor and store it on computer disc, or if they are creatively inclined, they can write poems to their children. Some parents have already published their story in books and poetry.

Of importance here is the intention to alleviate the outrage of misunderstanding that, as a parent, you are unimportant, even nonessential in your child’s life. Also, it is important that you be heard, and that you remind yourself that you are still a parent by keeping your child’s pictures around you. Another approach is to involve yourself in the parenting role with other children as a Godparent, as an involved uncle or aunt, as a Big Brother or Big Sister. Validating yourself as a parent can go a long way to heal feelings of outrage.

Finally, desperate blame is probably the most difficult bereavement issue to process. Some blame is justifiable: the other parent, the other parent’s family, the legal and social services system, your child, yourself. However, the only one under your jurisdiction of control is yourself so this is the part that you work with in three separate ways. First, it is critical, regardless of the attitude and reception from the other parent, from the other parent’s family and from your child that you stay in positive contact with them. Civility and cordiality in face-to-face contact is essential regardless of what is said in your presence or behind your back. In addition, sending your child cards, letters and little packages on unimportant days is appropriate. Also, communicating with your child by telephone, by e-mail and by facsimile can be effective. If you have completely lost contact with your child, then set your priority to find him/her and restore contact at least by distance. If this is impossible, then collect items and memorabilia in a special box or trunk reserved for your child and the possibility of future contact.

Second, become active as a citizen for positive change, and learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the system you blame for preventing you from having parenting opportunities with your child. This action may not change the disposition of your situation, but you may make the system a better place for other targeted parents and their children.

Third, for your sake and for the sake of your relationship with your child, it is imperative that you forgive the other parent. Notice there was no mention of forgetting what has happened, or how you have been treated, but again, for restoring your emotional balance and your ability to cope with life challenges in healthy ways, you will need to forgive the alienator.

For some, this is a spiritual journey, and for others the path is a secular one. What is important is that you go about this process in a unique way that you believe will work for you so the specter of losing your child is diminished, and your health and well being are in restoration.

Rate This

Quantcast

//


Parental Alienation Syndrome: How to Detect It and What to Do About It « Fathers’ Rights

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, Child Custody, Child Support, Children and Domestic Violence, children legal status, children's behaviour, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, custody, deadbeat dads, Department of Social Servies, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, due process rights, education, family court, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, fatherlessness, fathers rights, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Marriage, motherlessness, mothers rights, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, parental rights, Parental Rights Amendment, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Restraining Orders, Sociopath on August 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Parental Alienation Syndrome: How to Detect It and What to Do About It

Posted by madcap on August 23, 2008

Over the past few weeks I have been doing research on Parental Alienation. For the past eight years my children have been victims of an Obsessed Alienation process perpetrated by their mother. I have been aware of this the whole time, but did not realize the severity and the depth of damage that was happening. I thought mom would be unsuccessful as long as I remained in my children’s lives. What I have been learning however, is that this is hardly ever the case. The power in immersing the children in an environment of “hate dad” is far too strong for children to overcome. In my case, the majority of the children’s time was spent in the Alienation environment.

This is one article that was of great assistance in helping me realize the severity of my own situation. I wish I would have sought a court order allowing me to take my children to counseling a long time ago.

http://thoughtsongod.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/parental-alienation-syndrome-how-to-detect-it-and-what-to-do-about-it/

THE FLORIDA BAR JOURNAL, VOL. 73, No. 3, MARCH 1999, p 44-48

Parental Alienation Syndrome:
How to Detect It and What to Do About It

by J. Michael Bone and Michael R. Walsh

Although parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a familiar term, there is still a great deal of confusion and unclarity about its nature, dimensions, and, therefore, its detection.(1) Its presence, however, is unmistakable. In a longitudinal study of 700 “high conflict” divorce cases followed over 12 years, it was concluded that elements of PAS are present in the vast majority of the samples.(2) Diagnosis of PAS is reserved for mental health professionals who come to the court in the form of expert witnesses. Diagnostic hallmarks usually are couched in clinical terms that remain vague and open to interpretation and, therefore. susceptible to argument pro and con by opposing experts. The phenomenon of one parent turning the child against the other parent is not a complicated concept, but historically it has been difficult to identify clearly. Consequently, cases involving PAS are heavily litigated, filled with accusations and counter accusations, and thus leave the court with an endless search for details that eventually evaporate into nothing other than rank hearsay. It is our experience that the PAS phenomenon leaves a trail that can be identified more effectively by removing the accusation hysteria, and looking ahead in another positive direction.

For the purpose of this article the authors are assuming a fair degree of familiarity with parental alienation syndrome on the part of the reader.(3) There are many good writings on PAS which the reader may wish to consult now or in the future for general information. Our focus here is much more narrow. Specifically, the goal is twofold. First we will describe four very specific criteria that can be used to identify potential PAS. In most instances, these criteria can be identified through the facts of the case, but also can be revealed by deposition or court testimony. Secondly, we wish to introduce the concept of “attempted” PAS; that is when the criteria of PAS are present, but the child is not successfully alienated from the absent parent. This phenomenon is still quite harmful and the fact of children not being alienated should not be viewed as neutral by the court. Full Article:

3 Responses to “Parental Alienation Syndrome: How to Detect It and What to Do About It”

  1. hyposomnia said

    August 25, 2008 at 5:57 pm I can tell you that in some situations (though not many, I’ll give you) the perpetrator can easily be the father. I have been living it for the last year and unfortunately, my ex (like yours, it sounds) has a lot of connections/acquaintances – that is to say, he seems to know everybody – though he’s not close to many people – because when that happens, people figure him out.

    I’ve had to deal with threats of the children being taken, of him sending my step-daughter (who has lived with me for 8 years – only a few of which he has been around) overseas. He has contacted every member of my family in an attempt to turn them against me. He has contacted my employer in attempts to get me fired. He has contacted every member of the school faculty at the kids’ schools. Everytime I let my guard down – another attack is around the corner.

    My 6 year old comes home with new words and phrases that I supposedly am: not a Christian, gay – anything he can come up with.

    And the unfortunate thing is, I’ve tried to cooperate, to tell him I’m all for open visitation and I don’t want child support – but I think it’s really just a game to him. It’s not about the kids – it’s about if he wins or loses.

    http://hyposomnia.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/maturity_vs_instinct/

  2. Jackie Zeune said

    October 2, 2008 at 3:31 am My name is Jacqueline. I live in Powell Ohio with my soon to be ex-husband and my 5 year old son.
    Ray and I are going through a divorce. Ray has filed for a divorce and exclusive occupancy of our marital home
    as well as Residential and Custodial custody of our 5 year old son.

    In the past year my son has been brainwashed to a major degree against me by his father.
    Beginning with last year when Ray and i were seperated and I lived in another residence and we
    shared custody of our son.

    Ray exposed Garret to friends that spoke openly negative about me in front of the child.
    Ray exposed Garret to a church congregation and a pastor who spoke openly about personal
    issues regarding me in front of our (then 4) year old son.

    Garret has been fed negative words, thoughts etc regarding myself and my unwillingness to particpate in
    the church Ray has chosen to attend.
    The church is pastored by Reverend Leroy Jenkins. He is a preacher who has been in prison for over 10 years in his past. He practices faith healings.
    My son was told by his father that Reverend Jenkins parted a tornado around a tent revival and all in the tent were saved. My son is 5 and recounted that story to me as if he were present. (HE WAS NOT), he got angry with
    me when I told him i did not feel that the story was true.

    My son has been exposed to other females in our home and Garret is encouraged by his father to develop bonds
    and relationships with these females while many of their ages are under age 23. My husband is 53 years old.
    I am 41 years old.

    My sons father made a 57 minute video with a young girl age 22 encouraging my child to bond and have a full
    relationship with her. She has slept here in the home with my son. My husband financially supported this girl
    and gave her funds to fix her car, she did laundry here in the home all the while I was never even told of her exsistence. My first introduction to her was my sons father telling me my son wasnt coming for a scheduled visit with me because he wanted to stay and play with Dee. I had no idea who this person was or even that she had intimate exposure to my child at all.

    My son no longer wants me to read him a bed time story. He kicked and screamed and yelled i want daddy
    because I wanted to read him a night night story. His father stood and said nothing other then (Garret , Go get it over with and then Daddy will come and put you to bed and read to you).

    He no longer wants me to take him to school. He cried all the way to school when I wanted to take him.
    The morning of that incident Ray stood and argued with me in front of Garret about me taking my son to school until my son began to cry and my son was very upset while his dad never did comfort him or reassure him or
    give positive feedback for me taking him to school.

    Last Christmas although we were seperated and living in seperate homes, I included Garret’s father
    in Christmas am in my home and encouraged him to see his son open Christmas Gifts. Ray in turn refused me
    entry into his home to see Garret open gifts here at the marital home.

    Ray has allowed a 19 year old from Korea and his girlfriend to sleep together in front of my son and even
    with my insistence he refused to ask them to sleep seperate. My son questioned it to me and thats how
    i found out the girl had been living in the marital home with my son for almost a month.

    My son will not bath with the appropriate amount of water because his father has told him how much water he should use even when I am bathing him. (I bath him EVERY DAY).

    He will not answer direct questions about where he and his father have been without looking at his father before answering and in many cases he still will not answer.

    I am gravely concerned for my son and If Ray is able to achieve this level of Alienation with Garret while I am in the home what will be the results of my sons mental health if Ray is success ful in removing me from the home and from my child.

    I continue to love and offer my child a safe, loving environment however he will not receive me as a parent.

    can you please help me, offer me some assistance or guide me to an appropriate place before my son
    becomes damaged mentally long term.

    thank you
    Jacqueline

  3. December 21, 2008 at 9:40 pm […] Parental Alienation Syndrome: How to Detect It and What to Do About It […]

Leave a Reply

3

timesofmalta.com – Family has to be at root of any debate on divorce – PM – timesofmalta.com

In due process rights, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, fatherlessness, fathers rights, Feminism, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Marriage, motherlessness, mothers rights, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, parental rights, Parental Rights Amendment, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Sociopath on July 27, 2009 at 6:19 pm

Family has to be at root of any debate on divorce – PM
The point of departure for any discussion on divorce should be the consensus that the family is the most important structure and value in Malta, the Prime Minister said this afternoon.

He said that based on this undoubted fact, one could then discuss how to strengthen the family structure and also address the realities which people in the country were facing.

Dr Gonzi made his brief comment when he received the members of the Today Public Policy Institute, who presented him with their recent report entitled: For Worse, For Better: Re-marriage After Legal Separation.

The report says divorce legislation has become an urgent necessity and laws to regularise cohabiting couples are no substitute.

The Today institute also presented Dr Gonzi with a yet unpublished report on the affordability of Malta’s social security system. The lead author was Joseph F.X. Zahra.

Referring to it, Dr Gonzi said the issue of affordability was a challenge which had been long coming and which the country needed to discuss and tackle away from partisan politics.

The presentations were made by Martin Scicluna, director general, The Today Public Policy Institute

See also:

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090516/local/think-tank-proposes-divorce-law

timesofmalta.com – Family has to be at root of any debate on divorce – PM.

Tories want parental rights bill scrapped

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, Child Custody, Child Support, children criminals, children's behaviour, Civil Rights, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, fatherlessness, fathers rights, Feminism, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Marriage, motherlessness, mothers rights, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, parental rights, Parental Rights Amendment on July 24, 2009 at 6:20 pm

Tories want parental rights bill scrapped

‘Party resolution’ downplayed

Some grassroots Conservatives want the government to scrap its controversial new protection for parental rights in the Human Rights Act.

At an annual general meeting Thursday night for Progressive Conservatives in Education Minister Dave Hancock’s riding, Edmonton-Whitemud, members passed a motion to put Bill 44 back on the agenda when the party meets in Red Deer in November.

The government voted in changes to the Human Rights Act earlier this month which recognize gay rights and create new protection for parents to pull their kids from classroom lessons dealing with religion, human sexuality or sexual orientation.

Critics fear teachers and school boards could be brought before human rights commissions if they misstep under the new rules.

While Hancock said early in the spring debate he believed such parental rights belonged in the School Act, he defended the new law alongside Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett.

Hancock was not present for the final vote in the legislature. He said Friday his association’s resolution came as no surprise because some members had long been passionate about the bill.

The Bill 44 resolution may not make it to the party’s official agenda in November, depending on what items are brought forward by other constituencies.

If the resolution to scrap parental rights were ultimately passed, the onus is only on the government to respond to the motion, not act on it.

“The government is a government for all Alberta, so it’s not dictated to by party resolution,” Hancock said.

Tory Ken Chapman said the resolution could send an important message from the party to the government.

But “if it doesn’t pass it will be a very important message to progressives.”

Tories want parental rights bill scrapped.

California Family-law Makeover

In Alienation of Affection, Best Interest of the Child, Child Custody, Child Support, children criminals, children legal status, children's behaviour, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, CPS, cps fraud, deadbeat dads, Department of Social Servies, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, family court, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, fatherlessness, fathers rights, Feminism, Freedom, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, Liberty, Marriage, motherlessness, mothers rights, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, parental rights, Parental Rights Amendment, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Restraining Orders, Rooker-Feldman Doctrine, Sociopath on July 23, 2009 at 8:12 pm

Family-law makeover

Opponents of California’s family-law system take their battle to the Legislature
By Ted Cox
More stories by this author…
Read 26 reader submitted comments

This article was published on 06.25.09.

Michael Newdow thinks California’s family-law courts are broken. He’s not alone.

PHOTO BY KYLE MONK

Michael Newdow is no stranger to controversy. First, in 2000, he filed a lawsuit against the Elk Grove Unified School District in an attempt to ban the Pledge of Allegiance, arguing that the phrase “under God” was an endorsement of religion. Then, in 2006, he attempted to have “In God We Trust” removed from U.S. currency. At the end of 2008, Newdow filed a suit to keep Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. from uttering “so help me God” at the conclusion of President Barack Obama’s inaugural oath.

For various reasons, all three lawsuits were dismissed. But that hasn’t kept him from focusing on a new target: the family-law system.

“The entire family-law system is unconstitutional,” Newdow told SN&R. “It deprives people of their rights to their relationships with their children.”

In 2005, 2006 and 2007 Newdow informed the speaker of the Assembly of his intent to file suit under California Code of Civil Procedure Section 526(a), which allows taxpayers to file grievances against government waste.

“You waste incredible amounts of money,” said Newdow. “People spend millions of dollars—literally—on individual cases that should be going towards the family.”

The complaint names as defendants California Superior Court Judge James Mize, Presiding Judge Eugene Balanon, State Attorney General Edmund Brown, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Controller John Chiang.

But when Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg’s office responded to his notice, suggesting that Newdow send his complaint to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he decided to hold off. In the meantime, he’s looking for additional plaintiffs.

“Maybe I’ll file it anyway,” Newdow said. “I doubt the Legislature will do what I want.”

Newdow believes that pitting two parents against each other from the outset of custody cases just sets the stage for trouble.

“My argument is that that’s why we have custody battles and custody wars, because we set things up to be that way,” he said.

Like Newdow’s previous cases, the chance that he could revamp the family-court system by way of a taxpayer complaint is a long shot. But reform is needed; ask just about anyone who’s trudged through the legal muck of child-custody disputes, and you’re certain to hear a horror story.

Connie Valentine is a founding member and current policy director of the Sacramento-based California Protective Parents Association. CPPA was formed 10 years ago partly to deal with what she calls abuses in the family-court system. In those 10 years, Valentine’s organization has assisted with thousands of cases. She said that the biggest problem in family-law court is a lack of oversight.

“When there’s no effective oversight, things fester and abuse of power can occur without any ability to change it,” she said. “The reason that there is no effective oversight is that most of the people who are involved in family court do not have lawyers. And if you do not have a lawyer, that means you don’t have money.”

Having no money in the family-court system, explained Valentine, means you can’t file costly appeals to challenge court rulings.

Valentine said that a second pressing problem is the unregulated cottage industry of mediators and other professionals who hold enormous sway over court rulings.

“The court has, in good faith, decided that they need assistance,” Valentine noted. “One judge is not enough to handle all the problems that they’re seeing.” The solution has been to hire mediators that hear cases and make recommendations to the court. “Now if it’s a good mediator, that may not be such a bad thing if they’re balanced and unbiased,” she continued. “But if you happen to have a bad mediator who’s biased and decides they like one person over the other—because of their looks or their gender or their persuasiveness—then you’ve got big problems, because the judges rely tremendously on their mediators.”

Another problem, said Valentine, is that children often don’t have a direct say in custody cases. Instead, attorneys report on behalf of minors. Oftentimes what the attorneys report conflicts with what the children themselves say. The solution is to let children speak directly with the judge.

“A 4-year-old in criminal court can testify against their abusers,” Valentine said. “We can certainly take children and talk to them in family court.”

Family-law attorney Barbara Kauffman feels another problem is a lack of uniform training in domestic-violence and child-abuse issues among judges and court appointees. “There are theories being taught that are all over the map,” she said.

Kauffman recounted one instance where she sat in on a training session taught by a fathers’ rights advocate. Judges and mediators were in attendance. “He was spouting off about how most domestic violence is mutual. And [the judges and mediators] were just sitting there raptly listening to this.”

Efforts are underway to fix these and many other problems.

State Sen. Mark Leno has asked the Legislature’s Joint Legal Audit Committee to investigate Sacramento and several other counties’ family courts. The audit will look at, among other things, the criteria used to assign mediators to cases.

Assembly Bill 612, sponsored by Jim Beall, would eliminate the use of controversial theories—namely Parental Alienation Syndrome—from family-court proceedings. Adherents of PAS argue that one parent alienates their child against the other. PAS opponents argue the theory is unscientific and is often used to place children into the hands of abusers.

A.B. 375 would prohibit courts from using last-minute ex parte hearings to determine child custody, except in cases where the child is in immediate danger.

A.B. 1050 “would require the family court to consider and give due weight to the wishes of a child in making an order granting or modifying custody, if the child is of sufficient age and capacity to form an intelligent preference as to custody or visitation.”

Of course, reforming the system itself isn’t the only problem. As Kauffman, puts it, “In family law, everybody’s on their worst behavior. There is an incentive to lie about finances, about children.”

With attorneys, mediators and child psychologists collectively raking in millions of dollars in fees for their services, there’s an invested interest in making custody cases as nasty as possible.

Newdow’s case, even if it seems far-fetched, may simply be effective in the way it calls attention to a broken court system.

“The things that happen to these people are absolutely horrific, but it’s such a typical thing. That’s what’s so amazing,” said Newdow.

At stake here is more than just winning legal battles.

“Every parent, if you gave them the choice of being paraded around naked on a leash or losing their right to be a parent to their kid, all of [them] would say, ‘Hey, take my clothes off right now,’” said Newdow.

Contact us about this story

RELATED LINKS:

SN&R > Local Stories > Family-law makeover > 06.25.09.

My take on Intimate Partner Violence Domestic Violence – Communicationhelper

In child trafficking, children legal status, children's behaviour, Childrens Rights, Civil Rights, Divorce, Domestic Relations, Domestic Violence, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, fatherlessness, fathers rights, judicial corruption, kidnapped children, National Parents Day, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Relocation, parental rights, Parental Rights Amendment, Parentectomy, Parents rights, Restraining Orders on July 23, 2009 at 7:09 pm

Put Dads back in the Family?  Someone Needs to Talks to Obama About Why man-hating Feminists have lied to create Legislation that Abuses Children

My take on Intimate Partner Violence Domestic Violence

I read with interest the three letters in the Wednesday July 22nd Boston Globe, “Domestic Violence Victims.” It is true that both men and women are victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) and that women initiate IPV as much as men, but women are killed at a much higher rate than men. All IPV is unacceptable, against men and women.

David Adams in his letter correctly details that “over the 30 year period ending in 2005, the proportion of American female victims relative to males increased from 55 percent to 78 percent. The question we all need to ask is; what has caused this spike over the past 30 years and what has changed in society to cause this rise?

I believe I understand what has fueled this rise. Commensurate with the rise in IPV, has also been the rise in kids raised without a father in the home.


Over those same 30 years, according to the CDC, we went from 9% of households without a dad in the house, to today’s number of over 28%, some 20 million of our nations children without a dad in the house.
Now these numbers, and the rate of IPV, are about to explode, with in 2007 40% of all new births were to unwed mothers.

If we truly want to reduce IPV in this country, we have to bring back stable families and bring fathers back into kids lives.

It will take more than Dr. Prucell Jr’s suggestion to modify male behavior. The behavior of boys and girls who become men and women, can’t be modified without having the opportunity to have a true male role model in the house, rather than outside the home.
The social experiment of demonizing men and fathers and throwing them out of kids lives has back fired on the woman, and men, who we want to protect.

Till everyone recognizes the role that a man plays in a kids developing lives, both women and men, as adults, will no longer be safe.

We need to bring back dads. NOW.

Dr. Peter G. Hill
687 Wellesley Street
Weston, MA 02493
781-772-2501
cell 617-763-3370

Boston Copley Square Chiropractic304 Columbus AvenueBoston, MA 02116617-536-9119www.chirohill.comTwitter: Chirohillwww.communicationhelper.comwww.blogspot.communicationhelper.com781-325-1848Twitter: Commhelper
What’s for dinner tonight? Find quick and easy dinner ideas

Communicationhelper: My take on Intimate Partner Violence Domestic Violence.