Despite its questionable pedigree, Gardner's theory has powerfully influenced custody courts and forensic evaluators. In these venues, it has become a virtual article of faith, albeit a mistaken one, that child sexual abuse in particular, and abuse in general, are widely and falsely alleged by mothers in custody litigation (Alford, 2003; Pearson, 1993).
Unfortunately, a similar inappropriate skepticism has infiltrated even child protection agencies. Many agencies have unwritten or written policies of discounting the credibility of sexual abuse claims when raised in the context of custody litigation. Although Gardner repeatedly asserted that claims raised in this context are mostly false, as noted above, the empirical research refutes that claim. Nonetheless, PAS theory has legitimized stereotypical ideas about vengeful ex-wives, resulting in many child welfare agencies' skepticism toward such allegations when made by mothers in custody or visitation litigation (Lesher & Neustein, 2005; Neustein & Goetting, 1999).
PAS is also regularly invoked in contexts far beyond its original focus on child sexual abuse. It is commonly raised in any custody litigation where either adult or child abuse is alleged and is often raised whenever a mother objects to full shared custody with the father for any reason. At least one expert reports that PAS allegations result in a high rate of custody awards to documented spouse abusers (Childress, 2006).
PAS may be raised by a parent accused of abuse, but it is raised equally often by court appointed custody evaluators who are charged with providing an objective assessment of the children's best interests. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges states:
in contested custody cases, children may indeed express fear of, be concerned about, have distaste for, or be angry at one of their parents. Unfortunately, an all too common practice in such cases is for evaluators to diagnose children who exhibit a very strong bond and alignment with one parent and, simultaneously, a strong rejection of the other parent, as suffering from "parental alienation syndrome" or "PAS." Under relevant evidentiary standards, the court should not accept this testimony. . . (Dalton et al., 2006, p. 24).In one case with which the author is familiar, the court's forensic evaluator posited alienation as an explanation for the mother's and child's sexual abuse allegations after observing a single brief visit in the court supervised visitation center, in which the father and child were observed to be warm and enthusiastic. This evaluator, who was highly regarded by the court as an expert, did not believe that such affectionate interactions would occur if the sexual abuse allegations were true. The research indicates the opposite: One cannot assess the veracity of such allegations by observing the parties' interactions. Most abused children continue to love their abusive parents and crave loving attention from them. Particularly when they know they are in a safe setting, their affection for their parent and the parent for them, may be evident (Anderson, 2005; Bancroft & Silverman, 2002).
Even where no child abuse is alleged, evaluators (and state social workers) may be skeptical of allegations of partner abuse for any number of reasons, including the lack of witness corroboration, the compelling and sympathetic persona of the accused, an unappealing personality of the accuser, the timing of the allegations, and so forth. Alienation then becomes the explanation of choice for why a mother would be making false abuse allegations in a custody case: she is doing it in order to minimize the father's access to the children. This viewpoint presumes, as did Gardner, that many women are vengeful and use child custody to hurt their ex-partners. Evaluators often do not share the views of domestic violence experts, including the beliefs that abuse is often kept secret for years until the family separates and women rarely fabricate abuse. Alternatively, some evaluators and judges fail to see discrete acts of minor violence as serious enough to constitute "abuse" or to signal real risk to the children. Given their lack of understanding of power and control dynamics and reluctance to believe that seemingly decent or nice men genuinely pose a danger to their children, such professionals often turn to alienation as an easy or convenient explanation for the mother's claims of danger.
The tendency to minimize or deny mothers' claims of danger or abuse is powerfully reinforced by the sometimes explicit, and always implicit, emphasis in family courts on the importance of fostering children's relationships with noncustodial parents (Zorza, 1992). As the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges notes, "evaluators may … wrongly determine that the parent is not fostering a positive relationship with the abusive parent and inappropriately suggest giving the abusive parent custody or unsupervised visitation in spite of the history of violence…" (Dalton et al., 2006, p. 25).
Court rulings on admissibility. Very few appellate courts have actually published opinions regarding the scientific validity and admissibility of PAS. The two primary cases (both in New York) that actually analyzed and adjudicated the legal admissibility of PAS in a criminal proceeding found that PAS lacked sufficient scientific validity to meet admissibility standards (People v. Fortin, 2001; People v. Loomis, 1997).
Gardner's website, as well as other PAS adherents' materials (see, e.g., Rueda, 2004), tout over 50 cases in which they assert PAS was found admissible. Custody evaluators and lawyers often rely on these assertions and cite these cases to support their PAS arguments (Licata v. Licata, 2003). However, as of 2006, a thorough review of the cases cited by these sources revealed that not one precedent-bearing decision ruled PAS admissible. Four, not 50, trial level decisions held it admissible, but the appeal of each decision resulted in no ruling on the PAS issue. No published decision exists for several of the purportedly favorable trial court opinions (Hoult, 2006).
Read the full article: Parental Alienation Syndrome & Parental Alienation: Research Reviews By Joan S. Meier
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