Parental Alienation Syndrome in Court Referred Custody Cases

In my opinion Parental Alienation is when an "alienating" parent makes up lies about the other parent that result in the alienation from the targeted parent. If on the other hand, the comments are truthful and serve as to protect the children from a real danger then it's not alienation. The distinction being whether or not the alienating parent is being truthful or not, and whether or not the there is a real danger to the kids. For example, if a Mother tells her child that the Father has a criminal record of violent crimes when in fact he has no such record. Then she tells the children that they are in danger if they stay with their Father even though there has never been an incident of violence toward the children, the children will still often refuse to believe the evidence and go along with the words of the Mother by refusing to see their Father. (note: I am using Mother for the purpose of this discussion - one could easily use the Father as the "Alienating" parent). The Mother creates an irrational fear in the minds of her kids against their Father. This fear results in the children no longer being comfortable to be with the Father, the kids have been alienated from their own father based on lies. A Mother's words are powerful in the mind of her children. If she is willing to lie to them, it could result in a unnecessary fear of the Father. So if the claims of the mother can be disproved as not factual then she is guilty of parental alienation. If she is simply protecting her children against a factually dangerous Father, then she is not guilty of alienation.

So-called Parental Alienation Syndrome has never been accepted by any professional body, and has been debunked by the American Judge's Association and the National District Attorney's Association. It is commonly used by abusive men to take children away from their mothers. Any psychologist that buys into this sham syndrome should be investigated for bias in custody evaluations they have done.

Until you've been a victim of a vengeful parent trying to completely phase out the children's father (or mother), until you've tried to tell your story and no one believes you or until you've been stonewalled from seeing your own children for years, you cannot possibly know how hurtful PAS is to entire families. It would be irresponsible and ignorant to dismiss this very real phenomenon as junk. With one false accusation, one spouse can destroy the other spouse's life; this is what the PAS parent desires to do, and sadly, at times, the court system goes right alond with it.