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Parental Alienation Syndrome
Forensic Psychologist, Deirdre Conway Rand, Ph.D.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY. VOLUME 15. NUMBER 3 1997 /
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THE SPECTRUM OF PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME
( PART I )
Deirdre Conway Rand, Ph.D.
The Parental Alienation Syndrome, so named by Dr. Richard Gardner,
is a distinctive family response to divorce in which the child becomes
aligned with one parent and preoccupied with unjustified and/or exaggerated
denigration of the other, target parent. In severe cases, the child's once
love-bonded relationship with rejected/target parent is destroyed. Testimony
on Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) in legal proceedings has sparked
debate. This two-part article seeks to shed light on the debate by reviewing
Gardner's work and that of others on PAS, integrating the concept of PAS
with research on high conflict divorce and other related literature. The
material is organized under topic headings such as parents who induce alienation,
the child in PAS, the target/alienated parent, attorneys on PAS, and evaluation
and intervention. Part 11 begins with the child in PAS. Case vignettes
of moderate to severe PAS are presented in both parts, some of which illustrate
the consequences for children and families when the system is successfully
manipulated by the alienating parent, as well as some difficult but effective
interventions implemented by the author, her husband Randy Rand, Ed.D.,
and other colleagues.
Dr. Richard Gardner was an experienced child and forensic psychiatrist
conducting evaluations when, in 1985, he introduced the concept of Parental
Alienation Syndrome (PAS) in an article entitled " Recent Trends in Divorce
and Custody Litigation " (1). His work with children and families
during the 1970s led him to write such books as Boys and Girls Book of
Divorce, The Parents Book About Divorce and Psychotherapy with Children
of Divorce. He knew from experience that the norm for children of
divorce was to continue to love and long for both parents, in spite of
the divorce and the passage of years, a finding replicated by one of the
first large scale studies of divorce (2). With this background, Gardner
became concerned in the early 1980s about the increasing number of divorce
children he was seeing who, especially in the course of custody evaluations,
presented as preoccupied with denigrating one parent, sometimes to the
point of expressing hatred toward a once loved parent. He used the
term Parental Alienation Syndrome to refer to the child's symptoms of denigrating
and rejecting a previously loved parent in the context of divorce.
Copyright 1997 American Journal of Forensic Psychology, Volume 15 Issue
3. The Journal is a publication of the American College of Forensic Psychology,
P.O. Box 5870, Balboa Island, CA 92662.
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Gardner's focus on PAS as a disturbance of children in divorce is unique,
although from the mid-1980s on there has been a proliferation of professional
literature on disturbing trends in divorce/custody disputes, including
false allegations of abuse to influence the outcome. At least three
other divorce syndromes have been identified. In 1986, two psychologists
in Michigan, who were as yet unaware of Gardner's work, published the first
of several papers on the SAID syndrome, Blush and Ross's acronym for sex
abuse allegations in divorce (3). Drawing on their experience doing
evaluations for the family court, and the experience of their colleagues
at the clinic there, these authors delineated typologies for the falsely
accusing parent, the child involved and the accused parent. Two of
the divorce syndromes named in the literature focus on the rage and pathology
of the alienating or falsely accusing parent. Jacobs in New York
and Wallerstein in California published case reports of what they called
Medea Syndrome (4, 5). Jacobs discussed Gardner's work on PAS in
his 1988 study of a Medea Syndrome mother, as did Turkat when he described
Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome in 1994 (6). Fathers, too,
can be found with this disorder, as one of the case vignettes below indicates,
but for some reason Turkat has not encountered any.
In addition to articles specifically on PAS and literature which refers
to it, there is a body of divorce research and clinical writings which,
without a name, describe the phenomenon. The literature reviewed
here comes from a number of sources including: practitioners who like Gardner
are seeking to improve the diagnostic skills and intervention strategies
of the courts and other professionals who deal with high conflict divorce;
attorneys and judges who come in contact with PAS cases; researchers like
Clawar and Rivlin who reference Gardner's work on PAS in their large scale
study of parental programming in divorce (7) and Johnston whose work on
high conflict divorce (8) led her to study the problem of children who
refuse visitation, including a discussion of PAS (9). When PAS is
viewed from the standpoint of parts and subprocesses which create the whole,
the literature which pertains increases exponentially, for example: psychological
characteristics of parents who falsely accuse in divorce/custody disputes;
cults who help divorcing parents alienate their children from the other
parent; and psychological abuse of children in severe PAS including Munchausen
Syndrome by Proxy type abuse.
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PAS AND ITS CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL CONTEXT
The trends identified by Gardner and others are the result of important
social changes which began to take root and flower around the mid 1970s.
The legal treatment of divorce and child custody shifted from the preference
for mothers to have sole custody and the " tender years presumption " to
the preference for joint custody and " best interests of the child ".
This gave divorce fathers more legal options for parenting their children
and increased the quantity and intensity of divorce disputes as parents
vehemently disagreed over the numerous custodial arrangements now possible.
By the late 1970s, rising concern about parental programming of children
to influence the outcome of disputes led the American Bar Association Section
of Family Law to commission a large scale study of the problem.
The results of this 12 year study were published in 1991 in a book called
Children Held Hostage (7). Clawar and Rivlin found that parental
programming was practiced to varying degrees by 80 percent of divorcing
parents, with 20 percent of engaging in such behaviors with their children
at least once a day. Further discussion of this book appears below.
At the same time as new divorce trends have been emerging, sweeping
social changes have been occurring in society's treatment of child abuse.
Mandated reporting became the law of the land in the 1970s and the procedures
for making reports were simplified such that anonymous reports are now
accepted and acted upon in some states. As the number of suspected
abuse reports practically doubled, so did the number of false and unsubstantiated
reports, according to statistics compiled by the National Center for Child
Abuse and Neglect in 1988 which showed that nonvalid reports outnumbered
cases of bona fide abuse by a ratio of two to one ( 10).
According to some observers, false allegations of abuse in contested
divorce/custody cases have become the ultimate weapon. Judge Stewart wrote
that " Family Courts nationwide are feeling the effects of a new fad being
used by parties to a custody dispute-the charge that the other parent is
molesting the child...The impact of such an allegation on the custody litigation
is swift and major...The Family Court judge is apt to cut off the accused's
access to the child pending completion of the investigation " (11, p. 329).
In response to concerns such as these, the Research Unit of the Association
of Family and Conciliation Courts obtained funding for a study on sex abuse
accusations in divorce/custody disputes (12). Data for 1985-1986
were gathered from family court sites across the country. At that
time, the incidence of sex abuse allegations in divorce was found
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to average two percent, but varied from one percent to eight percent
depending on the court site. Results of this study suggest that sex
abuse allegations in divorce may be valid only about 50 percent of the
time. Many of the court counselors and administrators interviewed
believed they were seeing a greater proportion of such cases than in previous
decades.
Ten years later in 1996, Congress amended the Child Abuse Prevention
and Treatment Act to eliminate blanket immunity for persons who knowingly
make false reports, based on information that 2,000,000 children were involved
that year in nonvalid reports, as opposed to 1,000,000 children who were
genuinely abused (13). In addition, many states have already enacted
laws against willfully making a false child abuse report. In California
where the author and her husband practice, the Office of Child Abuse Prevention
revised their manual for mandated reporters several years ago to include
a section on false allegations in which the coaching of children during
custody disputes is described as a major problem and Gardner's work on
PAS is referenced ( 14).
In the meantime, the 1980s saw a massive campaign to train social workers,
police, judges and mental health professionals in such concepts as " children
don't lie about abuse ". To make up for society's blind eye to child
abuse in the past, professionals are encouraged to unquestioningly " believe
the child " and to reflexively accept all allegations of child abuse as
true. Widespread media attention and a proliferation of popular
books and movies on child abuse continues to suggest that the problem is
widespread and insidious. Parents and professionals alike are enjoined
to be vigilant for what are touted as " behavioral indicators " of sex
abuse. These include the common but vague symptom of poor self esteem,
conflicting " indicators " such as aggressive behavior and social withdrawal,
and child behaviors which may be developmentally normal such as sexual
curiosity and nightmares. Little attention is paid to the fact that
children may develop the same symptoms in response to other stressors,
including divorce and father absence.
Children, too, are being sensitized to abuse, taught about " good touch/bad
touch ". At the end of such a lesson in school, they may be asked
to report anyone who they think may have touched them in a bad way.
Although some instances of legitimate abuse are detected in this manner,
children sometimes misunderstand the lesson such that a kindly grandfather
going to scoop up his young grandson in his arms, as he had done many times
before, may find the child pulling back from him in horror and accusing
him of " bad touch ".
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Adults conducting these classes are sometimes so eager to find abuse
that in one Southern state, the parents of over half the class were arrested.
The foregoing outline of recent social changes is not meant to imply
that Parental Alienation Syndrome and false allegations of sex abuse in
divorce are synonymous. PAS can occur with or without such abuse
accusations. Although false allegations of sex abuse are a common
spin-off of severe PAS, other derivative false allegations may include
physical abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, or a fabricated history of spousal
abuse. In addition, there seems to be an increase in PAS type cases
of accusations by the alienating parent that it is the alienated parent
who is practicing PAS, a tactic which tends to confuse and neutralize interveners.
PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME
According to Gardner, PAS is a disturbance in the child who, in the
context of divorce, becomes preoccupied with deprecation and criticism
of one parent, which denigration is either unjustified and/or exaggerated.
Gardner sees PAS as arising primarily from a combination of parental influence
and the child's active contributions to the campaign of denigration, factors
which may mutually reinforce one another. Gardner distinguishes between
Parental Alienation Syndrome and the term " parental alienation ".
There are a wide variety of causes for parental alienation, including bonafide
parental abuse and/or neglect, as well as significant deficits in a rejected
parent's functioning which may not rise to the level of abuse. From
Gardner's perspective, a diagnosis of PAS only applies where abuse, neglect
and other conduct by the alienated parent which would reasonably justify
the alienation are relatively minimal. Thus Gardner conceives of
PAS as a specialized subcategory of generic parental alienation.
Since introducing the concept of PAS in 1985, Gardner has written two books
on the subject ( 15, 16), and included a chapter on it in his book entitled
Family Evaluation, in Child Custody Mediation, Arbitration and Litigation
(17).
Depending on the severity of the PAS, a child may exhibit all or only
some of the following behaviors. It is the cluster of these symptoms which
prompted Gardner to consider them as a syndrome.
1) The child is aligned with the alienating parent in a campaign of
denigration against the target parent, with the child making active contributions;
2) Rationalizations for deprecating the target parent are often weak,
frivolous or absurd;
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3) Animosity toward the rejected parent lacks the ambivalence normal
to human relationships;
4) The child asserts that the decision to reject the target parent
is his or her own, what Gardner calls the "independent thinker" phenomenon;
5) The child reflexively supports the parent with whom he or she is aligned
;
6) The child expresses guiltless disregard for the feelings of the
target or hated parent;
7) Borrowed scenarios are present, i.e., the child's statements reflect
themes and terminology of the alienating parent;
8) Animosity is spread to the extended family and others associated
with the hated parent.
In Gardner's experience, born out by the clinical and research literature
reviewed below, mothers are more frequently found to engage in PAS, which
is likened by Clawar and Rivlin to psychological kidnapping (7).
Where PAS with physical child abduction occurs, however, Huntington reports
that fathers are in the majority (18). Gardner recognizes that fathers,
too, may engage in PAS and gives examples in his books. For consistency
and simplicity, though, he refers to the alienating parent as "mother"
and target parent as "father."
According to Gardner, the brainwashing component in PAS can be more
or less conscious on the part of the programming parent and may be systematic
or subtle. The child's active contributions to the campaign of denigration
may help to create and maintain a mutually reinforcing feedback loop between
the child and the programming parent. The child's contributions notwithstanding,
Gardner views the alienating parent as the responsible adult who elicits
or transmits a negative set of beliefs about the target parent. The
child's loving experiences with the target parent in the past are replaced
with a new reality, the negative scenario shared by the programming parent
and child which justifies their rejection of the alienated parent.
In light of these observations, Gardner warned that children's statements
in divorce/custody about rejecting one parent should not be taken at face
value and should be evaluated for PAS dynamics. According to psychologist
Mary Lund, this insight is one of Gardner's most important contributions
because it alerted the legal system, parents and mental health professionals
dealing with divorce to an important possibility which can have disastrous
effects if unrecognized (19).
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Gardner emphasizes the importance of differentiating between mild,
moderate and severe PAS in determining what court orders and therapeutic
interventions to apply. In mild cases, there is some parental programming
but visitation is not seriously effected and the child manages to negotiate
the transitions without too much difficulty. The child has a reasonably
healthy relationship with the programming parent and is usually participating
in the campaign of denigration to maintain the primary emotional bond with
the preferred parent, usually the mother. PAS in this category can
usually be alleviated by the court's affirming that the preferred or primary
parent will retain primary custody.
In moderate PAS, there is a significant degree of parental programming,
along with significant struggles around visitation. The child often
displays difficulties around the transition between homes but is eventually
able to settle down and become benevolently involved with the parent he
or she is visiting. The bond between the aligned parent and child
is still reasonably healthy, despite their shared conviction that the target
parent is somehow despicable. At this level, stronger legal interventions
are required and a court ordered PAS therapist is recommended who can monitor
visits, make their office available as a visit exchange site, and report
to the court regarding failures to implement visitation. The threat
of sanctions against the alienating parent may be needed to gain compliance.
Failure of the system to apply the appropriate level of court orders and
therapeutic interventions in moderate PAS may put the child at risk for
developing severe PAS. In some moderate cases, after court-ordered
special therapy and sanctions have failed, Gardner states that it may be
necessary to seriously consider transferring custody to the allegedly hated
parent, assuming that parent is fit. In some situations, this is
the only hope of protecting the child from progression to the severe category.
The child in severe PAS is fanatic in his or her hatred of the target
parent. The child may refuse to visit, personally make false allegations
of abuse, and threaten to run away, commit suicide or homicide if forced
to see the father. Mother and child have a pathological bond, often
based on shared paranoid fantasies about the father, sometimes to the point
of folie a deux. In severe PAS, Gardner has found that if the child
is allowed to stay with the mother the relationship with the father is
doomed and the child develops long-standing psycho pathology and even paranoia.
Assuming the target parent is fit, Gardner believes that the only effective
remedy in severe PAS is to give custody to the alienated parent.
In 1992 he suggested that courts might be more receptive to the change
of custody option if the child was provided with a therapeutic transitional
placement such as hospitalization, an intervention employed with success
by the author and her husband ( see case vignette in Part II ).
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Gardner's original conception of PAS was based on the child's preoccupation
with denigration of the target parent. It was not until two years
later when he published his first book on PAS that he addressed the problem
of PAS with false allegations of abuse. Gardner prefers to view such
allegations as derivative of the PAS, observing that they often emerge
after other efforts to exclude the target parent have failed. Some
of the literature reviewed below, however, indicates that false allegations
of abuse may also surface prior to the marital separation, symptomatic
of a pre-existing psychiatric disorder of the alienating parent which may
not be diagnosed until there is further mental deterioration after the
divorce. Gardner was among the first to recognize that involving
a child in false allegations of abuse is a form of abuse in itself and
indicative of serious problems somewhere in the divorce family system.
Insofar as PAS with false allegations of abuse can result in permanent
destruction of the child's relationship with the alienated parent, it can
be more harmful to the child than if the alleged abuse had actually occurred.
Gardner supports joint custody for those parents who can sincerely
agree on it and have the ability to fulfill this ideal. Research
by Maccoby and Mnookin suggests that about 29 percent of divorced parents
are successfully to-parenting three to four years after filing (20).
Gardner opposes imposing joint custody on parents in dispute and between
whom there is significant animosity. For these families, Gardner
recommends that a thorough evaluation be conducted to develop a case specific
plan with the right combination of court orders, mediation, therapeutic
interventions, and arbitration.
HIGH CONFLICT DIVORCE AND PAS
High conflict divorce is characterized by intense and / or protracted
post separation conflict and hostility between the parents which may be
expressed overtly or covertly through ongoing litigation, verbal and physical
aggression, and tactics of sabotage and deception. Clinical and
research literature suggest that Parental Alienation Syndrome is a distinctive
type of high conflict divorce which may require PAS specific interventions,
just as the problems of divorced families have been found to respond to
divorce specific interventions rather than to traditional therapies.
In their book on children caught in the middle of high conflict divorce,
Garrity and Baris treat PAS as a distinctive divorce family dynamic, devoting
two chapters to PAS, one on understanding it and the other on a comprehensive
intervention model (21 ).
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In high conflict divorce without significant PAS, the parents do most
of the fighting while the children manage to go back and forth between
homes, maintain their own views and preserve their affection for both parents.
They cope by developing active skills for maneuvering the situation or
by adopting a survival strategy of treating both parents with equal fairness
and distance (8). Periodically, children may exacerbate parental
conflicts by embellishing age appropriate separation anxieties, telling
each parent things the parent wants to hear and shifting their allegiance
back and forth between the parents. Nevertheless, they avoid consistent
alignment with one parent against the other and are able to enjoy their
time with each parent once the often difficult transition between homes
has been accomplished.
In high conflict divorce with significant PAS, the children are personally
involved in the parental conflict. Unable to manage the situation
so as to preserve an affectionate relationship with both parents, the child
takes the side of one parent against the other and participates in the
battle as an ally of the alienating parent who is defined as good against
the other parent who is viewed as despicable. In a study of 175 children
from high conflict families, Johnston found that chronic hostility and
protracted litigation between the parents contributed to the development
of PAS among older children (9). In other words, where the system
is unable to settle and contain parental divorce conflicts, the children
may be at increasing risk for developing PAS as they get older. Johnston
acknowledges that her findings support Gardner's contention that as many
as 90 percent of children involved in protracted custody show symptoms
of PAS.
A large scale study of patterns of legal conflict between divorce parents
three to four years after filing contained them significant finding that
the most hostile divorce couples were not necessarily those engaged in
the most contentious legal battles (20). This suggests that PAS may
occur not only in the context of litigation but may develop after litigation
has ceased, or proceed a new round of litigation after many years, supporting
what Dunne and Hedrick found in their clinical study of severe PAS families
(22).
According to Johnston, high conflict divorce is the product of a multilayered
divorce impasse between the parents (8). Often, the impasse has its roots
in one or both parents' extreme vulnerability to issues of narcissistic
injury, loss, anger and control.
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These vulnerabilities prevent a satisfactory divorce adjustment and
feed an endless, sometimes escalating cycle of action and reaction which
promotes and maintains parental conflict. The parents are frozen
in transition, psychologically neither married, separated or divorced,
a pattern which may pertain even when only one parent is significantly
disturbed. Using Johnston's model, PAS can be viewed as an effort
by one parent, with the help of the children, to " resolve " the divorce
impasse with a clear-cut understanding of who is good , who is to blame
and how the parent to blame should be punished. The following vignette
illustrates this. Like the other case examples interspersed throughout
this article, it is a composite scenario synthesized from real cases encountered
by the author and her colleagues.
Mr. L had adopted his wife's child from her previous marriage and he
and Mrs. L. had a child of their own, a girl who was six years old when
Mr. L. moved out of the family home. During the six months leading
up to this precipitous event, Mrs. L. was living in one part of the house
with the older child while Mr. L. and his daughter had rooms together in
a separate part of the house. The parents hardly spoke to one another but
the children visited back and forth freely with each other and with both
parents. Under the circumstances, Mr. L. did not think his wife would
object to his leaving, but just in case there was a scene he decided to
move out first and then work out the practical issues with Mrs. L. He left
a letter for her and another one for the children, explaining his decision
and affirming his desire to make arrangements for visitation and child
support. Mrs. L. was furious. She immediately had the locks changed
and successfully blocked her husband's efforts to contact the children
by phone or to see them. Both children probably felt betrayed by
father and Mrs. L. amplified such feelings by telling the children their
father had abandoned them and did not-care about them at all. She
also alleged that he had had numerous affairs during the marriage although
Mr. L. always denied that. These allegations may have sprung from
the fact that Mrs. L. found out six weeks after her husband left that he
was dating someone. Outraged, she told Mr. L. that he would never
see the children again. She and the children began calling Mr. L.
and his girlfriend at all hours, screaming accusations and obscenities
over the phone until a restraining order was obtained. When efforts
by father's attorney to arrange for mediation between Mr. and Mrs. L. were
stonewalled, Mr. L. got a court order for visitation. Three months
had passed when his first opportunity to see his children since moving
out was scheduled.
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On the eve of this visit, Mrs. L. called child protective services
and accused Mr. L. of sexually molesting their daughter. According
to the social worker's notes which were obtained during subsequent litigation,
Mrs. L. told the social worker that she " knew " while she and her husband
were still living together that he was molesting their daughter.
The family law judge ordered a custody evaluation which was very thorough
and took months to complete. The evaluator documented a number of
instances in which the girl's statements about abuse and hat mg. her father
seemed to be strongly influenced by mother's overwhelming anger and that
of the older half sibling, who was strongly aligned with the mother.
Mrs. L. was diagnosed with a severe narcissistic personality disorder with
antisocial features, while Mr. L. was seen by the evaluator as rather passive
by comparison and as ambivalent and conflict avoidant. The evaluator
was able to hold one meeting with father and daughter together, during
which their loving attachment to one another was apparent. This
was the little girl's first opportunity to talk to her father about the
feelings engendered by his leaving. As it turned out, it was also
her last opportunity. The PAS intensified such that efforts to convene
further father/daughter sessions failed when the child threw tantrums in
the waiting room and ran screaming into the parking lot where her mother
was waiting.
Seven months after the marital separation, the custody evaluator's
report was released. It stated that the alleged abuse had in all
probability not occurred but failed to diagnose severe PAS with false allegations
of abuse. The evaluator recommended that the mother retain primary
custody and that the girl and her parents each become involved in individual
therapy to facilitate father/daughter reunification. Not surprisingly,
Mrs. L. arranged for the child to see a therapist/intern who never saw
the custody evaluator's report. Based on input from the mother alone,
the therapist treated the girl for abuse by her father instead of providing
divorce specific therapy aimed at helping the little girl to adjust to
her parent's divorce and to establish a post divorce relationship with
her father. The girl's anger at her father became more extreme with
each passing month and defeated the visitations planned by the family mediation
center. Finally, a year after the separation, the custody evaluator
was prepared to testify as to the PAS and to make the strong recommendations
needed to remedy the situation.
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By that time, the father was convinced that nobody could do anything
about his daughter's continued expressions of hatred toward him.
He also felt daunted by the prospect of further litigation and an even
greater financial drain. He decided to let go, hoping that one day
when his daughter was older she would understand and seek him out.
CHILDREN HELD HOSTAGE: DEALING WITH PROGRAMMED AND BRAINWASHED CHILDREN
By the late 1970s, judges, parents, and mental health professionals
involved with divorce were so concerned about parental programming that
the American Bar Association Section on Family Law commissioned this 12
year study of 700 divorce families (7). Clawar and Rivlin found that
the problem of parental programming was indeed widespread and that even
at low levels it had significant impact on children. Data from multiple
sources was analyzed including: written records such as court transcripts,
forensic reports, therapy notes and children's diaries; audio and video
tapes of interactions between children, their parents and others related
to the case; direct observations, such as children with parents and clients
with attorneys; and interviews with children, relatives, family friends,
mental health professionals, school personnel, judges and conciliators.
Gardner's work on PAS is referenced at the beginning of Clawar and
Rivlin's book (7), but the authors take issue with what they represent
as his position, that less severe cases need not be a cause of great concern.
They found that PAS can result from a variety of complex processes, whether
or not one parent engages in a systematic programming campaign and whether
or not alienation is the programming parent's goal. Parental alienation
is only one of a number of detrimental effects. According to this
study, even well meaning parents often at tempt to influence what their
children say in the custody and visitation proceedings. Mild levels
of parental programming and brainwashing seem to have significant effects.
Clawar and Rivlin anchor their work in 30 years of literature on social
psychology and the processes of social influence, variously referred to
in the literature as thought reform, brainwashing, indoctrination, modeling,
mimicking, mind control, re-education, and coercive persuasion. These
terms describe a variety of psychological methods for ridding people of
ideas which authorities do not want them to have and for replacing old
ways of thinking and behavior with new ones. For the purposes of
research, Clawar and Rivlin ascertained the need for more precisely defined
terminology. They selected the words " programming " and " brainwashing
". They defined " program " as the content, themes, and beliefs transmitted
by the programming parent to the child regarding the other parent.
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" Brainwashing " was defined as the interactional process by which
the child was persuaded to accept and elaborate on the program. Brainwashing
occurs over time and involves repetition of the program, or code words
referring to the program, until the subject responds with attitudinal and
behavioral compliance.
According to Clawar and Rivlin, the influence of a programming parent
can be conscious and willful or unconscious and unintentional. It
can be obvious or subtle, with rewards for compliance that were material,
social or psychological. Noncompliance may be met with subtle psychological
punishment such as withdrawal of love or direct corporal punishment, as
illustrated in the case vignette of S in Part II. The author encountered
another case in which the alienating mother handcuffed her son to the bedpost
when he was 12 years old and the boy asserted he was not willing to continue
saying his father had physically abused him. The Clawar and Rivlin
study found that children may be active or passive participants in the
alienation process. As the case of the 12- year-old boy suggests,
the nature and degree of the child's involvement in the PAS may change
over time.
This study identifies the influential role of other people in the child's
life, such as relatives and professionals aligned with the alienating parent,
whose endorsement of the program advances the brainwashing process.
In a general way, these findings appear to replicate Johnston's research
on high conflict divorce which identified the importance of third party
participants in parental conflicts (8). Rand noted the influence
of so-called " professional participants in Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
type abuse which in divorce can overlap with PAS (23).
Clawar and Rivlin identify eight stages of the programming/brainwashing
process which culminates in severe Parental Alienation Syndrome (7).
Recognizing the power imbalance between parent and child, they view the
process as driven by the alienating parent who induces the child's compliance
on step by step basis:
1 ) A thematic focus to be shared by the programming parent and child
emerges or is chosen. This may be tied to a more or less formal ideology
relating to the family, religion, or ethnicity;
2) A sense of support and connection to the programming parent is created;
3) Feeling of sympathy for the programming parent is induced;
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4) The child begins to show signs of compliance, such as expressing
fear of visiting the target parent or refusing to talk to that parent on
the phone;
5) The programming parent tests the child's compliance, for example,
asking the child questions after a visit and rewarding the child for "
correct " answers;
6) The programming parent tests the child's loyalty by having the child
express views and attitudes which suggest a preference for one parent over
the other;
7) Escalation/intensification/generalization occurs, for example, broadening
the program with embellished or new allegations; the child rejects the
target parent in a global, unambivalent fashion;
8) The program is maintained along with the child's compliance, which
may range from minor reminders and suggestions to intense pressure, depending
on court activity and the child's frame of mind.
CLINICAL STUDIES OF PAS
According to Gardner and seconded by Cartwright, Parental Alienation
Syndrome is a developing concept which clinical and forensic practitioners
will refine and redefine as new cases with different features become better
understood (24). This section reviews the work of practitioners who,
like Cartwright, seek to elaborate on Gardner's work by contributing their
own knowledge and experience from work with moderate to severe PAS cases.
Dunne and Hedrick
Practicing in Seattle, Washington, Dunne and Hedrick analyzed sixteen
families who met Gardner's criteria for severe PAS (22). Although
the cases show a wide diversity of characteristics, the authors found Gardner's
criteria useful in differentiating these cases from other post-divorce
difficulties, lending support for the idea that PAS has distinctive features
which differentiate it from other forms of high conflict divorce.
Among the severe PAS cases examined, some involved false allegations of
abuse and some did not. Children in the same family sometimes responded
to the divorce with opposing adjustments. For example, the oldest
child in one family, a 16-year-old girl, aligned with her alienating mother
while her 12-year-old brother's desire for a relationship with his father
led to the mother finally rejecting the boy.
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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 pre-schoolers
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.
38 / RAND: THE SPECTRUM OF PARENTAL ALIENATlON SYNDROME
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.
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39
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, 26-28). 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
40 / RAND: THE SPECTRUM OF PARENTAL ALIENATlON SYNDROME
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 ( italics added ).
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 full
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY, VOLUME 15, NUMBER 3, 1997
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fill 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
42 / RAND: THE SPECTRUM OF PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME
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.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY VOLUME 15 NUMBER 3 1997/ 43
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
44 / RAND: THE SPECTRUM OF PARENTAL ALIENATlON SYNDROME
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.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY, VOLUME 15, NUMBER 3, 1997
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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
46 / RAND: THE SPECTRUM OF PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME
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
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY VOLUME 15 NUMBER 3 1997 / 47
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 dif
ferent 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
48 / RAND: THE SPECTRUM OF PARENTAL ALlENATION SYNDROME
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
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49
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 II 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.
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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.
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