Parent Alienation Syndrome Revisited

• NCJ Number: 202791
• Author(s): Lois Achimovich
• Date Published: May 2003
• Length: 10 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Australian Institute of Criminology
• Sale Source: Australian Institute of Criminology
• Publication Format: Document (Online)
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: Australia
• Note: Paper presented at the Child Sexual Abuse: Justice Response or Alternative Resolution Conference held in Adelaide, Australia, May 1-2, 2003; downloaded November 6, 2003.

Annotation

This paper examines the use of the "Parent Alienation Syndrome" in Australian courts to undermine allegations of child sexual abuse, some of which may be true, so as to secure the privilege of unsupervised contact or permanent custody by the parent accused of abuse.

Abstract

The Parent Alienation Syndrome (PAS) was proposed by Richard Gardner in 1987 to account for the apparently burgeoning incidence of sexual abuse allegations in custody disputes in the U.S. family courts. The PAS concept was developed in the context of emerging concerns about false or distorted memories of children regarding sexual abuse by one parent. In the case of PAS, one parent cultivates memories of sexual abuse in the child in order to gain an advantage in a custody dispute and to prevent the other parent from having any contact with the child. The success of the PAS concept in undermining allegations of sexual abuse in child custody cases was supported by a pilot study in the early 1990's by the California Protective Parent Association and Mothers of Lost Children, which found that 91 percent of fathers who were identified by their children as perpetrators of sexual abuse received full or partial unsupervised custody of the children; and in 54 percent of cases, the nonabusing mother was placed on supervised visitation, presumably because of the belief that she was poisoning the child's relationship with her/his father. The study concluded that in essentially every case in which courts place children with alleged abusers, despite substantial evidence of sexual abuse or domestic violence and no evidence of fabrication on the protecting parent's part, it is the PAS that is used by the judge, the evaluator, or the child's lawyer to ignore and discount the abuse evidence and to wrongfully construe all of the child's symptoms as evidence of alienation. Kelly and Johnston have conducted empirically based studies of the dynamics of child custody disputes and concluded that marital and divorce conflicts that focus on the child, as well as high intensity and overtly hostile marital conflict, are well-established predictors of psychological adjustment problems in children. In such a highly charged and bitter conflict, which may involve false or true allegations of child abuse, it is imperative that an effective protocol be established by the family court in order to distinguish fact from fiction and to determine the roots of a child's symptoms. This paper recommends the obtaining of more information on whether residence parents are threatened with losing their children if they do not consent to contact with the other parent in situations of alleged abuse and whether they have been perceived as alienating the child from the contact parent. There should also be protocols for what is basic to an adequate expert opinion, including evidence in the report that the expert has experience with abused children and is familiar with a broad range of literature, including the literature on best practice in assessing child sexual abuse. This paper offers other recommendations intended to provide a more effective assessment of whether allegations of child sexual abuse are true or false in the context of child custody and visitation disputes.