The misuse of parental alienation in Family Court Custody Cases
PAS by any other Name Still Hurts Children
Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) was concocted by Richard Gardner in the 1980s to help wealthy abusers gain custody. PAS was not based on any research but instead on Gardner’s personal beliefs, experience, and biases. Gardner spread the lies with self-published books that he sent to courts across the country.
The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) is the compendium of all valid mental health diagnoses. Gardner sought to include PAS in the DSM-IV, but it was rejected because there is no scientific research to support it. At the same time, the extreme, sexist nature of PAS started to undermine its reputation. The cottage industry of “experts” who made money off this diagnosis was unwilling to abandon their gold mine and decided to call PAS by other names such as alienation, gatekeeping, or parental alienation and to write articles that sought to create the illusion of a more benign approach.
The “experts” aggressively lobbied to include unscientific alienation theories in the DSM-V. Again, the American Psychiatric Association rejected bogus alienation theories because there still is no research to support this fraudulent approach.
More information on Parental Alienation: https://stopabusecampaign.org/campaig...
More information on the Family Court Custody Crisis: https://stopabusecampaign.org/campaig...
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