NewsSurgeon Wins Joint CustodyOct 27, 2006 Columbia Professor Of Child Psychiatry, Dr. Richard Gardner, author of the 1992 book, The Parental Alienation Syndrome, testified as expert witness on behalf of a local trauma surgeon on Wednesday, March 19, 1997 in Vista, California, confirming the diagnosis of Parental Alienation Syndrome ["P.A.S."] for the surgeon's three daughters. Kidnapped by their mother to New York in 1995, on the pretense to surgeon of a Disneyland outing, the children ages 7, 3 and I were reunited with their father in 1996. Mom then continued with court efforts to move back to New York with them claiming Surgeon was "O.J." while proudly presenting for the Nicole Brown Simpson foundation to 'protect her children from their father'. On March 26 the Court denied mom's move request and awarded joint physical custody of the girls to dad. First identified in 1988 by Dr. Gardner in his seminal work on the subject, False Abuse Claims And Parental Alienation Syndrome, P.A.S. has been identified with increasing frequency in local custody cases. At a reception for Dr. Gardner hosted by Dr. Linda Hirschberg in Del Mar and sponsored by attorneys Jean Skripek and Peter Mueller, Dr. William J. Dess introduced Dr. Gardner to an assemblage of San Diego doctors and lawyers to whom Dr. Gardner addressed remarks concerning the identification and treatment of PAS. Since the early 1980s Dr. Gardner had recognized PAS symptoms among families breaking up in court where the kids excluded a "hated" parent describing scenarios of complaints that appeared to be suspiciously frivolous. The author, who has testified throughout the world about P.A.S. as well as about false claims of sexual child abuse, explained that PAS is, itself, child abuse and prescribes rigorous treatment protocols to curb the alienator's denigrating efforts. He endorses cooperation between the treating therapist and the judge to promptly discipline offending parents to discourage persistence of the campaign of denigration. He also encourages therapeutic opportunities for the children to obtain the best antidote - namely protected opportunities for the children's healthy experience with the denigrated parent as a reality check response to the false denigration scenarios managed by the denigrating parent. Rather than a bias against women, Dr. Gardner's recognition that 90% of the P.A.S cases identified have been induced by mothers has a socio-legal origin. He believes that the enactment of new legislative policies following modem studies recognizing the importance of both parents in child rearing after divorce is responsible for the new phenomena. Particularly significant has been the joint custody preference enacted by most state legislatures since the late 1980s. That paradigm shift, Dr. Gardner believes, has caused more distress to mothers who experience anxieties of uncertain parenting expectations, predisposing them more than the more recently enabled fathers to resort-consciously and unconsciously- to alienating tactics. These moms are also reacting to scenarios of loss of full contact with their children. Rather than a gender predisposition, PAS is seen as one reaction by some mothers to a perceived disadvantage in custody cases now illuminated by policies prioritizing frequent and continuing contact by kids with both parents. The effects of P.A.S. can be particularly damaging to young children who have not yet bonded with the denigrated parent. For them Dr. Gardner sees little hope for healthy bonding especially where recent California cases appear to enable custodial mothers to freely relocate outside the family's home territory. It was in just such a case that Dr. Gardner came to San Diego to testify. Father, a trauma surgeon throughout the marriage, had agreed to let mom take the children on a trip to Disneyland during July 1995. Without notice, mom instead flew the kids with her visiting parents to her parents' New York home and resisted a return for five and one half months until ordered to return by the court. Convincing court officials upon her return that dad was a child abuser and wife beater, she then requested a trial on her right to relocate to New York permanently with the children - an infant, a toddler and a kindergartner. The Court ordered temporary custody to mother, and scheduled a psychological evaluation. Mother continued her campaign of denigration during the clinical interviews and testing and explained to the evaluator that dad had often struck her and emotionally abused the children. Finding mom's abuse claims greatly exaggerated, the court's psychologist detected multiple symptoms of PAS in the children correlative to Dr. Gardner's first book on the subject published in 1988. Because court's expert had not read Dr. Gardner's 1992 book, The Parental Alienation Syndrome, he was not aware of many insights updating Dr. Gardner original work. Further, court's expert admitted during his cross-examination that he had not formally diagnosed PAS in his published report for the court, because he had been loathe to speak of the doctrine in view of his perception of political pejoratives that accompany the perception of the PAS doctrine by some women's rights organizations. The court's expert admitted that that he had identified PAS but had been "loathe " to diagnose it fearing an apparent gender bias. At trial Dr. Gardner testified that PAS had been accurately detected, with mother's denigration in the moderate to severe category amounting to child abuse. Also prognosticated was that mom's feelings of hatred for dad were so long-standing and intense, that if permitted to relocate with the children, she would continue to alienate the children. Following the move away, the kids would have little antidotal experience with doctor's good parenting to counter mom's denigrating tactics. At best, Dr. Gardner testified, the children would come to regard their father as an uncle whom the family had outcast. Dr. Gardner has written several addenda to his 1992 book to update his research data on P.A.S. In his most recent 1994 addendum he notes frequent misinterpretation of P.A.S. by specialists who diagnose it where brainwashing only is detected: "Because the disorder involves the combination [of parental programming combined with the child's own scenarios of denigration], I decided a new term was warranted [to] encompass both contributory factors. It was the child's contribution that led me to my theory about the etiology and pathogenesis of this disorder [and] is of importance in implementing the therapeutic guidelines described in this book." Dr. Gardner explained that in surgeon's case, mom's severe denigration had caused only a mild disorder because dad was allowed regular 'antidotal' contact. |
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