http://www.slate.com/id/2294831/?from=rss

Mommy Hates Daddy, and You Should Too

The extraordinary fight over "parental alienation syndrome" and what it means for divorce cases.

The competition to get your favorite disease recognized in the bible of mental health, theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, can be as fierce as the talent contest in the Little Miss St. Paul Contest. The American Psychiatric Association is contemplating adding something called "parental alienation syndrome" (PAS) to the new edition of the DSM, scheduled to be published in May 2013, and the question has launched a national lobbying and letter-writing campaign on both sides. That angry letters and editorials might play any part in a debate about mental health and custody disputes probably tells you most of what you need to know about the validity of PAS.

What is parental alienation syndrome? William Bernet, a professor of psychiatry at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and an advocate for its inclusion in the DSM-5, describes it as "a mental condition in which a child, usually one whose parents are engaged in a high conflict divorce, allies himself or herself strongly with one parent, and rejects a relationship with the other parent, without legitimate justification."* There is no doubt that an ugly divorce can affect kids' relationship with their parents or cause children to choose sides, often in anger. In fact, that probably happens more often than not. But Bernet and others who argue for adding PAS to the Sears, Roebuck catalogue of mental health want to see it recognized as a legitimate mental health disorder in order to "spur insurance coverage, stimulate more systematic research, lend credence to [the] charge of parental alienation in court, and raise the odds that children would get timely treatment."

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They want, in other words, to affix a name, some blame, and also a price tag on a broad range of child responses to a custody fight—some perfectly justified and some not—in the hopes of expanding its use in court.

And what's the downside to including PAS in the DSM? Well, for one thing, with a minimum of three participants needed to diagnose it, PAS starts to look less like a mental health disorder than an epidemic. It assumes that one crazy person (the mother) brainwashes a second crazy person (the child) into telling lies about a third person (the father). Just because a lot of parents have experienced blocked visitation and unreturned phone calls doesn't make every instance of that conduct the result of a medical "syndrome." Joan S. Meier, a professor of clinical law at George Washington University School of Law, has explained it this way: "PAS is a label that offers a particularexplanation for a breach in relationship between a child and parent, but insofar as that breach could be explained in other ways, it is not in itself a medical or psychological diagnosis so much as a particular legal hypothesis."

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The most worrisome aspect of the legal fight over parental alienation syndrome may be that it divides supporters and opponents along strict gender lines: As a rule, this is classed as a women's sickness alleged by men. Fathers' rights groups are not solely to blame for the fact that an entire "disease" is predicated on the notion that women are lying liars; the inventor of the syndrome can take responsibility for that. But no hypothesis so rooted in gender bias should be credited by medical science. And because evidence of PAS is so frequently offered to counter maternal allegations of abuse, the experts testifying about PAS can be aiding and abetting a system that takes children from abused mothers and hands them right back to abusive fathers. Once again, this doesn't mean that some parents don't alienate their children in a divorce. It means that PAS is now used to discredit women whenever they claim abuse.

Much of the blame for the biased history of PAS can be laid at the feet of its originator, Dr. Richard Gardner, who developed the theory—from his own practice and without clinical studies—of mothers who foster hatred for their children's father as a ''powerful weapon'' to grab custody for themselves. This wasn't a theory born of objective empirical observation. It was a campaign against mothers rooted in the idea that they regularly lie and then "brainwash" their children into lying about paternal abuse. Because of Gardner's gender-freighted conclusions, it was probably inevitable that men, in the form of fathers' rights groups, would seize upon the battle to legitimize PAS. One of its most famous spokesmen became Alec Baldwin, who wrote practically a whole book on the subject in 2008, arguing paradoxically that corrupt judges and the courts have too much power over custody disputes and that by recognizing PAS, the courts could make the whole child-custody process more fair. (Here is Baldwin describing PAS as something women mainly do to men.)

Supporters of PAS argue largely from personal experience, and their stories are often compelling. But the theory of PAS is not recognized as valid by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, or the American Medical Association. And the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges has published guidelines for custody courts clarifying that "the theory positing the existence of 'PAS' has been discredited by the scientific community. Any testimony that a party to a custody case suffers from the syndrome or 'parental alienation' should therefore be ruled inadmissible and/or stricken from the evaluation report."

Gardner's long-term scientific credibility was not helped by some of his kookier pronouncements about incest ("intrafamilial pedophilia … is widespread and ... is probably an ancient tradition"), or pedophilia ("It is of interest that of all the ancient peoples it may very well be that the Jews were the only ones who were punitive toward pedophiles."). But he still managed to become the David Barton of child-custody law, having written more than 250 books and articles, cassettes, and videotapes (often self-published) and testified as an expert in approximately 400 cases in more than 25 states.

There are a lot of websites, experts, and emotion invested in this debate. But there aren't two empirical sides. There is science, and then there is passionate non-science. As Paul Fink, a professor of psychiatry at Temple University School of Medicine and a past president of the American Psychiatric Association in Arlington, Va., once said of Gardner, "He invented a concept and talked as if it were proven science. It's not."

That's what makes the current debate over inserting PAS into the DSM-5, which has been going on for years, something of a red herring. It almost doesn't matter. Nobody really believes it's a scientific theory anymore, and Gardner has been all but discredited where it counts. That's what worries Meier most of all: "Courts and experts have stopped talking about parental alienation syndrome and started talking about parental alienation," she says. "By dropping the word 'syndrome' they purport to just be describing a behavior; and that's harder to challenge as inadmissible, even though Parental Alienation is used virtually identically to PAS, with virtually identical quasi-scientific claims and prescriptions."Back when it was a matter of science, opponents of PAS could advance arguments about admissibility and scientific legitimacy. Now it's a conclusory legal term that can barely be refuted.

Even without a scientific basis, parental alienation, like climate denialism, has its own language, passions, and saliency. Right or wrong, recognized or not, most family courts now take PAS extremely seriously. Experts testify, court-appointed advocates offer diagnoses, and family-court judges regularly adopt alienation explanations as a way of rejecting abuse allegations. As Meier wrote in a 2009 article: "Despite the palpably extreme and unbalanced quality of both the PAS theory and the thinking of its author, as well as the lack of scientific basis, the theory has for over a decade become virtually ubiquitous in family courts."

The science just doesn't matter now. Even though no appellate court has found evidence of PAS to meet the scientific standards for legal admissibility, courts admit evidence of precisely the same phenomenon all the time, and by calling it "parental alienation," they achieve the same effect: overlooking allegations of abuse by one parent in order to blame the other for "alienating" the child. In other words, whether science supports them or the DSM-5 ultimately validates them, the supporters of Richard Gardner and parental alienation may have already won. While nobody was looking, a mythical legal argument known as parental alienation may have already taken over family courts.

Correction, May 18, 2011: This article originally misidentified William Bernet as Richard. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

http://www.odysseygroupkansas.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=18

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SAPA (Sexual Abuse Prevention & Advocacy)

The purpose of the program is to serve children, adolescents & their families who are affected by issues regarding inappropriate sexual behaviors. (You mean their is an appropriate child sex behaviors? Ahhh yes we will say we ‘FIXED’ it by shutting the victim down—Victim STOP TELLING—Cured- another success story) The program serves both victims and offenders..

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Contact SAPA

Ellisha M Smith, LMSW
Program Coordinator
785-266-7980

ellisha.smith@us.army.mil

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• » features & benefits

SAPA

Features and Benefits

SAPA has a wide variety of services designed to support the building of successful strategy teams to assist clients in reaching their goals of preventing (the telling of) abuse and the need for out-of-home placements. The primary purpose of each service is to be utilized as part of the client's strategic plan. The program will work differently for each individual, but we have services that can help them in every aspect of their lives. The following is a list of those services:

• Individual Therapy
• Group Therapy
• Family Support Services
• Supervised Visits
• Family Therapy
• In-home Family Therapy

Youth that participate in this program will be able to receive all or as little as one of these services. Each youth's needs are evaluated at the time of intake, based on situation, family input, case worker input, clinician recommendation, and ability to pay for services (Its monetary—it ALL about the money)

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• » more informaton

SAPA: Information

It is our intent to work in a respectful partnership with individuals, families, and other natural and professional supports, using collaborative processes to build upon strengths and abilities, and to help maintain stability and independence through self-directed goals and motivation.

Population that we serve

We serve juveniles under the age of 18 and their family members (the perps who fucked the children inappropriately so we can leave the victims in the house with the offender). We have two different programs that we utilize depending on the age and cognitive ability of the offender.

How treatment is conducted

Treatment (Silencing the Victim) is conducted in the individual and the group setting . Group spaces will be limited, so a client may receive individual services while waiting for a group opening. A juvenile can receive both individual and group services simultaneously.

Treatment completion

Treatment is completed based on the client completing the program and the recommendation of the treatment clinician. A certificate of completion will be given to the youth once their program is complete. JJA workers, court services workers, and case managers will receive a monthly report of the youth's progress.

CAN WE SAY? WTF ALREADY? THE YOUTH GETS A CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION—HOW TO STAY SILENT SO WE CAN KEEP MAKING MONEY—HOW TO RAPE YOUR OFFSPRING AND GET AWAY WITH IT. (fuck you Odyssey group)

Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D

Battered mothers in divorce court often look like "swine flu" survivors that haven't realized they are part of an epidemic. These women are in awe over what is "happening" or has "happened" to them and their children.

They go into court expecting "justice" and walk out thinking they missed the boat or those on their ship merely kicked them off. And from here, they franticly reach out merely trying to stay afloat in the wake. They are perplexed as to why and how they end up with supervised visitation and no custodial rights.

The Reality of Family Court

Divorce court is not the place to go to get justice for domestic violence; rather it's the place to go to get a divorce. You are there to seek assistance in splitting up the family estate and tend to the issues pertaining to child custody and visitation.

Now, some people will argue saying that their particular state has laws to protect victims of domestic abuse. Such laws may include statutes that assert a presumption regarding best interest of the children in the context of court-documented domestic violence.

However, even in these states, litigants are granted the right to litigate. And when one plays their hand cleverly, they can jockey custody via the use of the common and customary ploys involving legal domestic and legal psychiatric abuse.

Battered Mothers and the Swine Flu

I liken baffled battered mothers blindly hit by legal domestic and legal psychiatric abuse to uninformed swine flu survivors in the trenches of their flu symptoms. What they have in common is that both of these groups may be living a nightmare and not even realize the epidemic proportions of their condition.

If battered mothers knew of the trends in family court before they stood on the threshold of their proceedings or at a minimum while navigating the system, they could better protect themselves from becoming another statistic...just like those inflicted with the swine flu may have prevented their ordeal with some knowledge of prevention and early care to avoid becoming another H1N1 statistic.

Conclusions for Domestic Violence Survivors in Family Court

You must know the larger picture of domestic violence divorce in addition to your individual vignettes and concerns. You see, this picture is much bigger than you and your children. Appreciate that in order for you to best navigate your proceedings, you will need to be informed about domestic violence divorce, legal domestic abuse and legal psychiatric abuse.

For more information about domestic violence and divorce, visithttp://www.preventabusiverelationships.com/legal_domestic_ab use.php . Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D. helps people nationwide prevent and remedy legal domestic and legal psychiatric abuse. Copyright 2010 Jeanne King, Ph.D. - Domestic Violence Prevention and Intervention

Judicial Abuse

Introduction

Judicial abuse occurs when the effects of law itself are damaging to the person access to justice. In the most severe forms, Judicial abuse often occurs involving the most vulnerable members of our world: Children.

For some time, judicial abuse has occurred across systems and mostly against mothers and children. Considering that it was not that long ago that both women and children were seen and not heard, just as things were improving it seemed as though humanity was finally valuing each and every precious human life.

Out in the public, such things would and do cause enough outrage for a sense of "natural justice". Away from the public eye, these human rights atrocities occur almost unseen and unheard like a thief in the night.

Secrecy

There are laws that prevent survivors from speaking out about their experiences. Whilst it is "for the children", children are not allowed to speak about the proceedings either. The media have written too few articles on the family court.

To bring the case to the media, participants must seek permission from the court itself or face imprisonment. Controversially, fathers rights groups were allowed to heavily voice their stories of "no contact", "falsely accused of child abuse and domestic violence" and few were allowed to challenge that except in utilizing generalist terms and evidence based research.

We are aware that most of these stories are not the case at all but are withheld by law to bring the public the truth.

Family Court

In the process of seeking more time with children and promoting what appears to be the most noble cause, has entrenched the rights of mothers and children in their ability to seek safety from violence.

Heads have been quoted in the media for stating that "family violence is our core business". The propaganda that is spread about the voices of children and their access to justice promotes the profitability in manufacturing child abuse and domestic violence.

They can do something about it, but it is not within their best economical advantage to do so. This will continue until something is done.

Petition:

We, the undersigned, call to the UN to eliminate judicial abuse globally.

Sign the petition

The Stop Judicial Abuse petition to USA, Australia, UK, Canada and all other participating Family Courts that engage in judicial abuse was written by Anonymum and is hosted free of charge at GoPetition.

A Copy of her Mothers day Petition. Lets keep it in the News—we will not let it go silent!

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/79416651/US-Supreme-Court-Sacks-v-Sacks_May-6th-2011

you can get the embed codes at the link above.

There really needs to be a more comprehensive study of the worst places to be a woman that includes domestic violence, custody laws and reproductive choice. Anything that affects a woman's autonomy should be considered harmful.

http://www.alternet.org/news/150878/10_worst_states_to_be_a_woman/

10 Worst States To Be a Woman

By Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet
Posted on May 9, 2011, Printed on May 11, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150878/10_worst_states_to_be_a_woman

In a time of war and record unemployment, the GOP is sending a message: fertile women are the country’s number one enemy, and their freedoms must be quashed at all costs. State Republican (and some Democratic) legislators have introduced nearly 1,000 laws restricting women’s reproductive health access on the state level, and this is on top of decades of reproductive health policies that have made women second-class citizens in many states.

Here are 10 of the worst states to be a woman between puberty and menopause:

1. Mississippi. Mississippi has been such a bad state for women for so long it rarely even gets noticed in the news anymore. Legal and cultural harassment has reduced the number of abortion providers in the state to two, making the abortion rate in the state four times lower than the rest of the country. This doesn’t mean that women in Mississippi don’t need abortions; just that they go out of the state to get the services, making the actual abortion rate much closer to the national average. The demand is surely higher and not being met, as Mississippi is far from the place to go for decent sex education and birth control. Mississippi has the third highest teen birth rate in the country, the fifth highest maternal mortality rate, and fifth highest rate in STD transmissions. Because women can’t say no to childbearing easily, one in three Mississippi children live in poverty.

2. Texas. Thirty-five percent of women in their childbearing years are uninsured in Texas, making the need for subsidized family planning services especially strong in the state. Republican lawmakers responded to this need by slashing family planning funding, while leaving untouched the money the state spends on crisis pregnancy centers, even though these centers offer no real services women need. But even this isn’t enough for the Texas GOP. Republicans are currently concocting a scheme that would dismantle the entire state program dedicated to reproductive health care for low-income women. Just in case there was any doubt left in women’s minds that Texas Republicans hate them, Rick Perry will be signing an ultrasound requirement to get an abortion.

3. South Dakota. Anti-choicers in South Dakota tried to ban abortion in 2006, but the non-misogynist population turned up at the polls and beat the ban back. But searing hatred for ovulating women will not be thwarted so easily! The state then passed a law requiring women to wait 72 hours and subject themselves to a hectoring lecture at a crisis pregnancy center before they can get an abortion. Surprise! It turns out that no crisis pregnancy centers have applied to be official counseling centers. It makes sense, since by agreeing to do so, they’re allowing women to fulfill their paperwork requirements to get an abortion. Letting crisis pregnancy centers become an impassable obstacle to abortion has given misogynist legislators a way to deprive women of any ability to get an abortion while leaving abortion technically legal.

4. Indiana. Not to be outdone by South Dakota, Indiana has gone a step further and moved toward attacking both contraception and abortion access. Gov. Mitch Daniels recently signed a law banning abortions after 20 weeks, and cutting off all federal funding for family planning. Lawmakers claimed they only wanted to attack clinics that also provide abortions, but because of federal non-discrimination policy, the law basically means an end to all federal funding of contraception, as well as STD testing and treatment. Now women in Indiana who rely on Medicaid and Title X subsidies to afford contraception will have to come up with hundreds of dollars they don’t have for contraception, or go without and run the high risk of unwanted pregnancy. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that without these clinics, teen pregnancy would be 21 percent higher and there would be about 3,500 more abortions in the state a year.

5. Oklahoma. Oklahoma legislators looked at how Indiana Republicans are using the specter of abortion to cut off contraception and thinking of ways they can expand on that for brand-new ways to punish women for having working uteruses. Why stop at attacking women not giving birth, when you have women who have babies to punish, as well? With this in mind, the Oklahoma House passed a bill that would eliminate independent contractors from administering Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a federal program that distributes nutrition vouchers to low-income women with children. As usual, Planned Parenthood was cited as the reason, with the GOP claiming the organization is so evil that it’s better to starve babies than allow Planned Parenthood to receive government funding. In practice, the result is one more punishment inflicted on women, this time for having the nerve to have babies who need to eat.

6. Kansas. Kansas went from being a pretty bad place to be a woman to a hellhole rapidly, between the murder of Dr. George Tiller in 2009 and the recent election of devout misogynist Sam Brownback as governor. The murder emboldened the radical anti-choice movement, as it resulted in the closure of Tiller’s clinic and proved to them that terrorism does work. Because of this, anti-choicers in the area moved to terrorizing Dr. Mila Means, a Kansas family doctor who was discovered receiving training to provide abortion. So far, Dr. Means has been unable to find relief from the harassment campaign at her office and her home, and a federal judge refused to issue a restraining order against Angel Dilliard, an anti-choice fanatic who has been threatening Dr. Means’ life.

Despite the atmosphere of fear and violence, Gov. Brownback is giving the terrorists what they want by signing more abortion restrictions into law, and pushing to strip family planning funding from women who depend on it.

7. Minnesota. So much for “Minnesota nice.” The much-ballyooed unwillingness to be confrontational was shoved aside by Minnesota legislators who are all too willing to simply ignore court rulings that restrain misogynist legislation. Legislators sent a big F-you last week both to the supreme courts of the nation and their own state by passing two laws that have already been deemed illegal by the courts. One, a ban on abortions after 20 weeks, violates the Supreme Court’s ruling that abortions can only be banned after viability. The other, a law banning public funding of abortion, violates the Minnesota supreme court ruling that found that such a ban violates women’s right to equal treatment under the law. Minnesota Republicans may not confront you on most things, but they’re willing to take it to the mat to deprive women of basic equality.

8. Georgia. Last year, reproductive justice advocates beat back a bill that would require doctors to “screen” women of color having abortions for some kind of pressure to abort because of race. By inventing a non-existent problem (women of color aborting because of racism) legislators would have put doctors in a position where providing abortion to any woman of color could result in jail time, which could make the service only available to white women. The bill didn’t pass, but it did end up kicking off a nationwide frenzy of anti-choicers attacking the reproductive rights of women of color specifically while pretending to be concerned about racism.

In reality, Georgia is a terrible place for women of childbearing age, especially women of color. The state has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, and maternal mortality disproportionately affects women of color. Real concern for the well-being of women of color would start with doing something about the maternal mortality rate, not feigning concern about their reasons for abortion.

9. Arizona. Race-based abortion restrictions may have failed in Georgia, but unfortunately, such a law recently passed in Arizona, a state that can’t even pretend that it’s not run by a bunch of wild-eyed racists. The “concern” for women of color aborting because of racism is laughable in a state where the legislature basically accused President Obama of not being a real citizen on no real evidence besides his appearance and in which it’s now the law for the police to harass Hispanic citizens for their papers. Of course, Arizona ignores the real problems facing women of its state -- 23 percent of women of child-bearing age are going without insurance coverage; the state has the third highest teenage pregnancy rate in the country; and 23 percent of Arizona children live in poverty. In light of all this, the safe assumption is race-based abortion laws are about making it that much harder for women of color to get abortions, which makes these laws not anti-racist, but just plain racist.

10. Louisiana. Louisiana has a ban on abortion on the books in case Roe v. Wade is overturned, as well as a host of other restrictions on abortion that have reduced the number of providers to seven in the state. Despite this, a Louisiana legislator has introduced a bill to ban abortion, apparently on the theory that if you pass the same illegal law over and over, it might just take. In addition, Gov. Jindal has indicated support for laws that would put additional restrictions in place for women of color seeking abortion, modeled on the abortion law in Arizona. As in Georgia, the concern for women of color is a centimeter deep; the state ranks 46th in maternal mortality and there’s no evidence that Republican legislators are lifting a finger to save the lives of women who do have their babies.

Amanda Marcotte co-writes the blog Pandagon. She is the author of It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments.

© 2011 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/150878/

[w1]

It already had it for children over age 5 in the divorce and custody guidelines.
Guess now its birth to 4 ever.

April 7th, 201, Bill Signed by Gov Brownback has biased wording against Kansas mothers, see page 8, line C

""and there shall be no presumption that it is in the best
interests of any infant or young child to give custody or residency to the
mother.""  

"Mother"? Really? Couldn't this have been worded as "either parent"???

 
http://kslegislature.org/li/b2011_12/year1/measures/documents/sb38_enrolled.pdf

FYI, Kansas Constitution gives mothers equal rights to their children.

Constitution of the State of Kansas

Article 15.—MISCELLANEOUS

6: Rights of women. The legislature shall provide for the protection of the rights of women, in acquiring and possessing property, real, personal and mixed, separate and apart from the husband; and shall also provide for their equal rights in the possession of their children.