Parental Alienation

Founding Father of Parental Alienation,
Richard A. Gardner

“Pedophilia has been considered the norm by the vast majority of individuals in the  history of the world," and, "[t]he determinant as to whether the experience will be traumatic is the social attitude toward these encounters.”

Gardner, R. A.. 1992. True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. pp. 592-3, 670. 

“Parental Alienation” is a set of behavioral factors, widely discredited by the scientific community, that mirrors the same behaviors a child victim legitimately exhibits due to intrafamilial child sexual abuse or witnessing domestic violence. Parental Alienation does not meet even the most minimum standards of evidence and should not be admissible in courts. Despite this, Hawaii’s family courts, custody evaluators, GALs, and therapists accept counter-allegations of Parental Alienation as de facto affirmative defenses against allegations or reports of domestic violence or child sexual abuse resulting in high-conflict custody disputes, without the need to provide evidence substantiating the allegations of Parental Alienation.

Parental Alienation was invented in the 1980s by child psychiatrist Richard A. Gardener who testified in support of Woody Allen after the Hollywood director was accused of molesting his young daughter, an accusation she maintains today as an adult, was the truth.

Because of parental alienation, when a protective mother reports domestic violence or intrafamilial child sexual abuse, committed by fathers, the mother has her custody removed without due process, and is then ordered to pay her abuser child support. This is the result of a national campaign led by the Children’s Rights Council (“CRC”) founded by Maryland attorney and global disseminator of the widely-discredited “parental alienation syndrome (PAS),” David L. Levy.

The CRC was a strategically formed front for a religious-fundamentalist fathers’ rights group with a mission to prevent divorce at all costs, even in cases of domestic violence or intrafamilial child sexual abuse, by ensuring father-controlled statutory custodial power, because by controlling the child, one coercively controls the mother. They did this by promoting the ultra-conservative ideal of “presuming” joint custody, which was formerly considered by states as problematic or unlawful in cases of domestic violence or incest.

In the mid 1980s, the CRC initiated a multistate campaign to lobby state lawmakers to codify parental alienation into state custody laws nationwide by requiring that any parent who does not ensure “frequent, meaningful, and continuing” with the other parent is not acting in the “best interests of the child,” even in cases of abuse. See the CRC

Thus, the preference or presumption of joint custody was born (also known as friendly or shared parenting, or equal parenting). With the aid of third parties applying the junk science of parental alienation in custody investigations, these “presumptive” shared parenting laws resulted in the rampant dismissal of reports of fathers abusing their wives and children, despite evidence.

Such father-favored custody determinations revictimizes battered moms and abused children under joint or sole custody awarded to the abusive father, and in some cases, filicide. See Kellie’s story below.

Examining the validity of parental alienation syndrome (Excerpt)

“[Gardner’s] list of eight symptoms [of parental alienation syndrome ‘PAS’ [junk-science] is:

1. The child’s campaign against, and withdrawal from, the targeted parent;

2. Unconvincing rationalizations for the hatred of the targeted parent;

3. The child’s lack of ambivalence toward the targeted parent;

4. The child’s insistence that his/her decision about custody and visitation is his or her own and not influenced by the parent;

5. The child’s automatic support or love for the alienating parent;

6. The absence of guilt regarding the negative feelings for the targeted parent;

7. The child’s use of concepts regarding the targeted parent that are developmentally inappropriate; and

8. A broadening of the hatred to the targeted parent’s extended family. (Pepiton et al., 2012)

In later publications, Gardner (2004) stated that the primary manifestations of PAS involve:

1. The campaign of denigration;

2. Weak, frivolous, or absurd 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. Presence of borrowed scenarios;

8. Spread of the animosity to the extended family and friends of the alienated parent. (p. 83).

These later descriptions are sufficiently different that these might be considered a reformulation of the original theory and give rise to new questions (e.g., what happened to the construct of brainwashing?) as well as how to measure these additional constructs such as ‘independent thinker’ and ‘borrowed scenarios.’

In addition, in 1999 Gardner claimed that PAS was a form of child emotional abuse and that its consequences may be even more detrimental to the child than those of physical or sexual abuse. Again, there are no scientific data to support these assertions.” O’Donohue, W., Benuto, L.T. and Bennett, N. (2016) Examining the validity of parental alienation syndrome, Journal of Child Custody, 13(2–3), p. 115.

What the Scientific and Judicial Experts Say

“Despite the fact that PAS has been used in the courts for over 2 decades, no entity or professional organization has ever endorsed PAS as a syndrome or a disorder; in fact, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association) has continually disregarded PAS. The empirical claims that Gardner made were never validated by actual research data or published in any peer reviewed research journals.” O’Donohue, et al. (2016) 13(2–3), pp. 113–125.

In 2008, the American Psychiatric Association officially stated that:

“[A]ll mental health practitioners as well as law enforcement officials and the courts must take any reports of domestic violence in divorce and child custody cases seriously. An APA 1996 Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family noted the lack of data to support so-called 'parental alienation syndrome,' and raised concern about the term's use.” Statement on Parental Alienation Syndrome (2008)

“Although some accept PAS as admissible evidence in child custody disputes, there have been no well-controlled empirical studies that confirm the phenomenon, nor have a standardized assessment process and specific diagnostic criteria been established for it. Consequently, many critics express concerns about its continued influence on legal proceedings. The syndrome has been dismissed by the American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, and American Medical Association as lacking supporting empirical or clinical evidence and it is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or the International Classification of Diseases.” APA Dictionary of Psychology

In 2006, Senior Judge of Hawaiʻi Family Court, Hon. Ret. Frances Wong, informed judges about the problematic use of PA. Her co-authored publication strongly stated that:

“Under relevant evidentiary standards, the court should not accept this testimony. The theory positing the existence of ‘[PA]’ has been discredited by the scientific community.” Dalton, Drozd & Wong , Navigating Custody & Visitation Evaluations in Cases with Domestic Violence: A Judge’s Guide (2006)

In 2009, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges reaffirmed the 2006 Dalton, Drozd, & Wong guide and further stated:

“[F]athers are 16 times as likely to make false child sexual abuse allegations [than] mothers (21% of accusations by fathers, but only 1.3% of those by mothers) (Bala & Schuman, 1999).” Zorza, On Navigating Custody & Visitation Evaluations in Cases With Domestic Violence: A Judge’s Guide, 6 J. Child Custody 258–286 (2009).

In 2003, the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services Family Violence Prevention Center stated the following in its judges’ guide:

“The ABA's Center on Children and the Law published a statement that friendly parent provisions are inappropriate in domestic violence cases. ‘The “friendly parent” and “frequent and continuing contact” preferences can work together in favor of the abusive parent, who will often appear in court to be the “friendly” parent; the abused parent often wants to limit her own and the children’s contact with the batterer, out of concern for her children’s and her own safety’ …

PAS has been similarly rebuked in the legal community as lacking a legally sufficient scientific foundation and as shifting attention away from possible dangerous parenting behavior … Battering men use custodial access to the children as a tool to terrorize battered women or to retaliate for separation. These considerations led a National Institute of Justice study to conclude that ‘nowhere is the potential for renewed violence greater than during visitation.’” Brigner, A Practical Guide to Competence for Judges & Magistrates, pp. 43-4 (2003).