Inappropriate syndrome testimony(pas theory, false memory) legal info

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   Malpractice Pitfalls for Therapists kspope.com › ethics & malpractice - Cached Many licensing board cases and civil suits allegeinappropriate or excessive self .... AccommodationSyndrome, Parental Alienation Syndrome, [Wiederholt v.... Use of Inappropriate Syndrome Testimony As early as September of 1989 Dr. Gary Melton and Susan Limber in an article entitled "Psychologists' Involvement in Cases of Child Maltreatment" [American Psychologist Vol. 44, No. 9, pp. 1225-1233] commented on the inappropriate use by therapists of syndromes that are not found in the various versions of Diagnosis and Statistical Manual. There have been a proliferation of such syndromes over the last several years. At this point using syndromes which are not appropriately researched or acknowledged by the profession is below the standard of care. Among the syndromes which are controversial and which should not be represented as accepted in the therapist community are Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome, Parental Alienation Syndrome, [Wiederholt v. Fischer 169 WIS 2d 524, 45 N.W. 2d 442 (1992)], False Memory Syndrome, and Malicious Mother Syndrome. SEE SOURCE Malpractice Pitfalls for Therapists kspope.com › ethics & malpractice - Cached Many licensing board cases and civil suits allegeinappropriate or excessive self .... AccommodationSyndrome, Parental Alienation Syndrome, [Wiederholt v....  http://www.ndaa.org/ncpca_update_v16_no7.html EXCERPTS FROM National district attorneys association "Introduction Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) has created obstacles for child abuse prosecutors. It is crucial for child abuse prosecutors to understand the theory of PAS, and know how to best challenge its legitimacy in court. Part 1 of this article addressed the PAS theory and its inherent flaws. We now turn to the courts’ approaches to PAS, and propose arguments and methods to suppress this unreliable evidence." "Conclusion PAS is an unproven theory that can threaten the integrity of the criminal justice system and the safety of abused children.Prosecutors should educate themselves about PAS and be prepared to argue against its admission in court. In cases where PAS testimony is admitted, it is a prosecutor’s responsibility to educate the judge and jury about the shortfalls of this theory. As more criminal courts refuse to admit PAS evidence, more protection will be afforded to victims of sexual abuse in our court system." http://www.ndaa.org/ncpca_update_v16_no7.html  The Parental Alienation Syndrome: Is It Scientific? by Stephanie J. Dallam, RN, MSN, FNP Dallam, S. J. (1999). Parental Alienation Syndrome: Is it scientific? In E. St. Charles & L. Crook (Eds.), Expose: The failure of family courts to protect children from abuse in custody disputes . Los Gatos , CA : Our Children Our Children Charitable Foundation.  SEE SECTION: Gardner 's Views on Pedophilia [2] Gardner (1992b, pp. 670-71) considers sexual activities between adults and children to be part of the natural repertoire of human sexual activity and suggests that pedophilia may enhance the survival of the human species by serving "procreative purposes" (1992b, p. 24-5). According to Gardner (1992b, p. 593), "pedophilia has been considered the norm by the vast majority of individuals in the history of the world" and "it is a widespread and accepted practice among literally billions of people." In addition, Gardner (1986, p. 93) believes that children are naturally sexual and may initiate sexual encounters by "seducing" the adult. Moreover, Gardner (1992b, pp. 670-71) maintains that sex abuse is not necessarily traumatic; the determinant as to whether sexual molestation will be traumatic to the child, is the social attitude toward these encounters. Accordingly, Gardner (1992b, pp. 593-4) believes that our society takes an excessively punitive and moralistic attitude toward those who act out their pedophilic impulses. In fact, Gardner (1991, p. 26) suggests that "all of us have some pedophilia within us." It should be noted that Gardner's views on pedophilia are at odds with the scientific research on child sexual abuse which has consistently and conclusively shown the negative long-term effects of sexual abuse on children's lives (e.g., Fergusson, Horwood, & Lynskey, 1996; Johnson, Cohen, Brown, Smailes, & Bernstein, 1999; Silverman, Reinherz, & Giaconia, 1996). http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/dallam/3.html http://www.causes.com/causes/659087-safe-child-act-2012  http://www.causes.com/causes/659087-safe-child-act-2012/about  With these provisions the courts can stop sending children to live with dangerous abusers. Instead of pressuring mothers to cooperate with their abusers they can be using their power and authority to require him to stop his abuse if he wants to have a relationship with the children. It is important for legislators and court professionals to understand that children do not need both parents equally. They need the safe parent more than the abusive one and their primary attachment figure more than their other parent. It is certainly high time the courts start making decisions that are truly based on what is really in the best interests of the children.  by Barry Goldstein  http://www.causes.com/causes/659087-safe-child-act-2012/about  Excerpt http://timesupblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/safe-child-act.html  "Parental Alienation Syndrome is not mentioned by name, but the law would bar theories like PAS that have no scientific basis. Furthermore professionals who seek to use such bogus theories would be barred from participating in domestic violence cases. The recent rejection of the campaign to include PAS in the DSM IV because it has no scientific basis should make it easy for PAS to be rejected including when it is used by other names such as parental alienation or just alienation,"  by Barry Goldstein Last month my article was about legislation needed to stop custody courts from routinely sending children into the custody of dangerous abusers. My meeting with a state legislator led to her request that I prepare a proposal that would be the basis of legislation to reform the broken system. I would like to thank Toby Kleinman for her assistance in drafting this proposal. Immediately below will be my proposal for a Safe Child Act and I will then discuss why I think this would make a difference. You are most welcome to post or otherwise use this proposal and this article in support of efforts to reform the system. In fact I hope many people will take the proposal for a Safe Child Act and ask their legislators to sponsor it.  Safe Child Act  Purpose: Improve the Safety of Children involved in Child Custody Cases Correcting Existing Mistaken Outcomes  What do we do about the tens of thousands of heartbreaking cases in which custody courts have used their standard flawed practices to separate children from safe protective mothers who usually have been their primary attachment figure and sent them to live with dangerous abusers? Courts follow the doctrine of stare decisis in all cases, not just custody or domestic violence. This mean that once they make a decision, it is binding on both parties and cannot be relitigated. There are many good reasons for this practice as constantly retrying cases because one party is dissatisfied with the results would clog the courts and waste resources. We can be sure abusers would take full advantage if they were permitted to. We often see cases in which the court considered allegations of domestic violence or child abuse, found against the mother and then refuse to consider new evidence that with the earlier evidence would prove the father is dangerous. The original decision might be because there was not sufficient evidence or the flawed practices prevented the court from using the evidence to understand the actual situation. The Safe Child Act would provide a solution and create the opportunity for many children to be rescued. The law would say that the findings that custody courts are routinely using bad practices that result in its failure to recognize valid allegations of abuse. Accordingly the passage of the law and the findings and research it is based upon constitute a change of circumstance that would permit victims of the flawed practices to have a new hearing to determine if the custody-visitation arrangement should be changed based upon the improved practices required by the law and the research about children’s safety. Once courts make a mistake and send children to live with an abuser they often refuse to return the child to the safe parent based on continuity. Basically this means that children do better when their lives are not disrupted so there is a strong tendency to leave the child with the custodial parent (of course this does not seem to be an obstacle when they want to remove children from their mothers). Continuity is a valid consideration and reasonable to be included in the factors determining custody. It is not, however a safety issue so that proof of domestic violence, child abuse or primary attachment which are all safety issues would take precedence. This means that courts could not refuse to provide a new hearing or consider evidence of domestic violence or child abuse despite prior denials of the allegations. In the new hearing the courts would have to use the new and improved practices mandated by the law. Hopefully this would discourage courts from continuing to send children to live with abusers because this would only make more work for the court. Most importantly, the law would give protective parents an opportunity to rescue children placed in danger by mistaken court decisions.  ABOUT SAFE CHILD ACT 2012 safe child act 2012  The heart of the proposal is the requirement that professionals used to provide expertise and advice to the court are knowledgeable about the five subjects required for an understanding of domestic violence. These are: 1. Knowing what behaviors are associated with higher risk of lethality or injury. 2. Domestic violence dynamics 3. The effects of domestic violence on children. 4. Recognizing domestic violence 5. Batterer narratives. With these provisions the courts can stop sending children to live with dangerous abusers. Instead of pressuring mothers to cooperate with their abusers they can be using their power and authority to require him to stop his abuse if he wants to have a relationship with the children. It is important for legislators and court professionals to understand that children do not need both parents equally. They need the safe parent more than the abusive one and their primary attachment figure more than their other parent. It is certainly high time the courts start making decisions that are truly based on what is really in the best interests of the children.  by Barry Goldstein          http://www.causes.com/causes/659087-safe-child-act-2012/about by Barry Goldstein Last month my article was about legislation needed to stop custody courts from routinely sending children into the custody of dangerous abusers. My meeting with a state legislator led to her request that I prepare a proposal that would be the basis of legislation to reform the broken system. I would like to thank Toby Kleinman for her assistance in drafting this proposal. Immediately below will be my proposal for a Safe Child Act and I will then discuss why I think this would make a difference. You are most welcome to post or otherwise use this proposal and this article in support of efforts to reform the system. In fact I hope many people will take the proposal for a Safe Child Act and ask their legislators to sponsor it. Safe Child Act  Purpose: Improve the Safety of Children involved in Child Custody Cas  Conclusion  As I discussed last month in my article about legislative proposals, there are other ideas and provisions that could be added to the reforms and some of the ideas in this proposal could be removed if necessary to gain approval. I believe that as long as safety of children is effectively treated as the first priority, this will create the fundamental reforms necessary to alter the frequency of outcomes that place children in jeopardy. It is critical that safety be defined to include not only physical abuse, but also situations that place children at risk. Also critical is the definition of domestic violence both to help courts recognize the coercive and controlling behaviors abusers use and to avoid the mistakes where victims are accused of domestic violence if they strike out in self-defense or frustration. The heart of the proposal is the requirement that professionals used to provide expertise and advice to the court are knowledgeable about the five subjects required for an understanding of domestic violence. These are: 1. Knowing what behaviors are associated with higher risk of lethality or injury. 2. Domestic violence dynamics 3. The effects of domestic violence on children. 4. Recognizing domestic violence 5. Batterer narratives. With these provisions the courts can stop sending children to live with dangerous abusers. Instead of pressuring mothers to cooperate with their abusers they can be using their power and authority to require him to stop his abuse if he wants to have a relationship with the children. It is important for legislators and court professionals to understand that children do not need both parents equally. They need the safe parent more than the abusive one and their primary attachment figure more than their other parent. It is certainly high time the courts start making decisions that are truly based on what is really in the best interests of the children. Barry Goldstein is a nationally recognized domestic violence expert, speaker, writer and consultant. He is the co-editor with Mo Therese Hannah of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, ABUSE and CHILD CUSTODY. Barry can be reached by email from their web sitewww.Domesticviolenceabuseandchildcustody.com  Courts Awarding Custody to Abusers and Domestic Violence Homicides Is There a Connection? »h Parenti parentingnewsnetwork.com The research establishing that the custody court system is broken and has a patt...See More