Excerpt: Assessing the Utility of PAS

Excerpt: 

Assessing the Utility of PAS

Dallam (Id.) exhorts in her review of Gardner’s theories that "all psychological evidence upon which a child’s safety will turn must be subjected to empirical testing".
As we have hopefully made clear, straightforward observation, confirmed by a consensus of experts, reveals that rather than subjecting his theories to scientific review Gardner has published through his own press or in nonscientific journals. Because his theories are based on his clinical observations (not on scientific data) they should be understood in the context of his atypical views concerning parent child relations (For a greater explication on his theories concerning pedophila as a "part of the natural repertoire of human sexual activity" (Richard A. Gardner, M.D., True and False Allegations of Child Sex Abuse, 1992) or that child abuse allegations are "third greatest wave of hysteria" the nation has seen, following the Salem witch trials and the McCarthyite witch hunting for communists in the 1940’s the reader is referred again to the very excellent reviews by Dallam (Stephanie Dallam, The Evidence for Parental Alienation Syndrome: An Examination of Gardner’s Theories and Opinions, Treating Abuse Today, 1998) or Wood (Cherri L. Wood, The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Dangerous Aura of Reliability, 1994).
It would be far better for the courts, in their deliberations as to parental fitness when making custody determinations, to utilize the work of Benjamin D. Garber (FN17). Garber has noted that PAS theory confuses cause and effect, whereas science has demonstrated that a cause can not necessarily be inferred from an effect (In the realm of statistics "correlation does not imply causation". It is often noted, with great fanfare in the press, that fashion hemlines or the winning league in the Super Bowl or the World Series correlate with either a rise or fall in the Dow Jones Industrial average – but that correlation does not imply causation!). 
He cautions that it is very easy for a presumption of alienation "to take on a life of its own without proper consideration of the many alternative (and often more likely) causes of a child’s distress during parental separation and divorce".
That parental conflict and the custodial parent’s ability to function have profound impact on children’s adjustment to divorce has been recognized in legal opinions. For instance, In re: Marriage of Carney (Carney, 598 P. 2nd 37, Cal. 1979) the California Court recognized the child’s need for stability in its primary parenting relationship.
Johnston’s (FN18) research finds that where there is high conflict, or evidence of domestic violence, between the parents, children can deteriorate dramatically.
The ambivalence towards or rejection of one parent may be related to any number of factors (FN19) and not necessarily the psychopathology of one parent.
Among the many alternative factors to PAS for an expert to consider are: 

• (1) developmentally normal separation problems,
• (2) deficits in the non-custodial parent’s skills,
• (3) oppositional behavior,
• (4) high-conflict divorce proceedings,
• (5) other serious emotional or medical problems of one family member,
• (6) child abuse,
• (7) inappropriate, unpredictable, or violent behavior by one parent,
• (8) incidental causes, such as the child’s dislike of a parent’s new roommate or lover,
• (9) alienation by third parties,
• (10) the child’s unassisted manipulation of one or both parents, or
• (11) fears for the absent parent’s welfare.

The value of an expert’s contribution to the courts’ deliberations regarding children’s welfare should be based on clinically sound reasoning formulated from empirically derived data that will serve the best interest of the child and not on unsubstantiated hyperbole.

Footnotes Shortened

FN1: Mathew J. Sullivan, Parental Alienation Processes in Post-Divorce Cases,Association of Family Conciliation Courts Newsletter, Summer 1997, at 4.
FN2: Richard A. Gardner, The Parental Alienation Syndrome and the Differentiation Between Fabricated and Genuine Child Sexual Abuse, 1992.
FN3: Cherri L. Wood, The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Dangerous Aura of Reliability, 27 Loy. L. A. L. Rev. 1367, 1994..
FN4: Frederick Rotgers and Deirdre Barrett, Daubert v. Merrell Dow and Expert Testimony by Clinical Psychologists: Implications and Recommendations for Practice,Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 1996, at 467-474.
FN5: J. A. Gold, M.J. Zaremski, E.R. Lev and D.H. Shefrin, Daubert v. Merrell Dow: The Supreme Court Tackles Scientific Evidence in the Courtroom, JAMA, 270, 2964.
FN6: L. Berliner and J.R. Conte, Sexual Abuse Evlauations: Conceptual and Empirical Obstacles, Journal of Child Abuse and Neglect, 1993, at 111-125.
FN7: See D.C. Moss, Abuse Scale: Point System for Abuse Claims, American Bar Association Journal, 1988 (December 1).
FN8: Stephanie Dallam, The Evidence for Parental Alienation Syndrome: An Examination of Gardner’s Theories and Opinions, Treating Abuse Today, 1998 (March/April), at 25-34.
FN9: T.W. Campbell, Indicators of Child Sexual Abuse and Their Unreliability,American Journal of Forensic Psychology, 1997, at 5-18.
FN10: R. Sherman, Gardner’s Law, The National Law Journal, 1993, August 16.
FN11: Richard A. Gardner, M.D., Evaluate Child Sex Abuse in Context, N. J.L.J., May 10, 1993 at 16.
FN12: Paul C. Gianelli, The Admissibility of Novel Scientific Evidence: Frye v. United States, a Half-Century Later, 80 Colum. L. Rev. 1197, 1205, 1980.
FN13: A. Champagne, D.W. Shuman and E. Whittaker, The use of expert witnesses in American courts, Judicature, 1991, 375.
FN14: Bruce D. Sales and Daniel W. Shuman, Reclaiming the integrity of science in expert witnessing, Ethics and Behavior, 1993, 223.
FN15: Principle A: Competence, and Section 7.02 Forensic Assessment (b) (c) of American Psychological Association, Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct, American Psychologist, 1992, 1597.
FN16: American Psychological Association, Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct, American Psychologist, V 47, 1597, (1992)
FN17: Benjamin D. Garber, Alternatives to Parental Alienation: Acknowledging the Broader Scope of Children’s Emotional Difficulties During Parental Separation and Divorce, New Hampshire Bar Journal, 1996, at 51-54.
FN18: Janet R. Johnson, 

• Ongoing post divorce conflict: Effects of joint custody and frequent access.Am. J. Orthopsychiatry, 1989, 576;
• High conflict divorce. Future of children, 1994, 165-174;
• Children’s adjustment in sole compared to joint custody families and principles for custody decision making, Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev., 1995, 415-419.

FN19: Garber, supra note 39 or K.H. Waldren and D.E. Joanis, Understanding and Collaboratively Treating Parental Alienation Syndrome, American Journal of Family Law, 1996, at 121-133.
By Jerome H. Poliacoff, Ph.D., P.A., Cynthia L. Greene, Esq., and Laura Smith, Esq E-mail: jhppa@aol.com 
Special thanks to Mark Michelson, Esq. whose ideas and suggestions set in motion this article; and, to Philip Boswell, PhD. for his astute editorial suggestions. 

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