PAS: Psychobabble or a legitimate, legal basis for child custody

"Rambler" wrote in message
...
Meldon wrote:

"Rambler" wrote in message
...

Meldon wrote:

They might. But, again, go back to the definition of PAS.

My guess is, it has broad interpretation when they choose to.

Again, go back to the Gartner description. He lists out things that are
not PAS as well. Given that the courts are somewhat reticient to accept
this, it is hard to make the case ... I know.


Alienation seems to becoming more of a possibility in my case. Time for
research. Thanks for the sign-post and the encouragement.


When I hear some real shockers it's hard not to loose it completely, but
I've encouraged the kid to mention to other adults if there are problems
at
home. The kid has advised me that other people either don't get involved
or
side with the mother. I'm open to suggestions here.

Well, what would you do if it wasn't his Mom but somebody else at school
or something. Part of this is about brainstorming with the kid to help
them overcome this situation ... teaching life skills. At ten, you've
got good material to work with. Sometimes we need to learn to accept
and ignore, other times we need to learn to say things.

A school-yard bully is one thing but when it's a parent the kids tend to
accept their situation as normal and accept it if they think there's no
other choice. All this would take is a few select words on the mother's
part.



It sucks (believe me, I know, I am in the middle of a PAS case now as
the plaintiff) but denigrating the other parent in return, while it
might make you feel better, does nothing for the kid. Kids are
programmed to love both parents, regardless of what the other parent is
doing, and we have an obligation as a parent to help teach our kids how
to handle this type of thing.

Precisely the right thing to do. I agree wholeheartedly. Too bad I can't
rely on the mother to help the kid with any problems. I mean, the mother
just leaves the kid out to dry. I can't imagine what this would do to a
child. I'd be well on the way to the psycho ward by now but I reconciled
the whole damned thing by convincing myself that the god-damned state
has
not left myself or my parents with any method of protecting the kid's
well-being. It's completely contrary to human nature to stand by and
watch
your kid suffer but here I am; pathetic, living proof that force can
change
the heart and mind.

All you can do is what you can do. Something about the serenity prayer.
If it is that extreme, then document it and push for a change of
residential custody. I am in the process of doing that.

I wouldn't dare set foot in family court as a plaintiff unless I had huge
financial resources and even then I might just pass. IMO court just opens
the door to make things worse rather than better. I hope you keep us posted.



The only thing that you can do is correct mis-information ("So you feel
that I did x? That must make you really feel bad about this ... I would
feel bad as well if I thought somebody did that to me ... do you really
think I would want to do that?").

This is a bit of a nightmare for me. If the mother told a whopper, I
would
never know about it.

True, but what you are doing is teaching your kid life skills on how to
cope. If your kid is told a whopper, and if you create an environment
where they know they can come and address this with you, without
recriminations, then that will happen (so they tell me!).

The kid is shutting down. Not emotionally depressed, just seemingly less
willing to talk about anything of that nature. This has been recent and
complicated by an upcoming trial.




When the kid was about 6, I was told that the reason for our break-up
was
because I was violent. I was told only by chance.

The mother uses semantics as a tactical method. Anything related to
"domestic" (the word form when it is expressed to me), is out of bounds.
I
suspect that a similar physiological barrier has been erected in the
child's
mind also. Like, "you know... you can't talk to daddy about .....", and
so
on. She is very skilled in these areas.

Been there, doing that. I communicate directly with the ex on those
things (perhaps not well, but I do so anyway). Lot of threads in
alt.support.divorce about being Dale Carnegie-esque.


I'll follow up on that lead but the implications are that anything
approaching domestic (whatever that means), won't be discussed or at least
less likely to be discussed. I fear the kid will stop giving me any
information whatsoever. As it stands the kid is my only source for knowing
if there's anything wrong.



It's tough, because if you correct the information, then you also open
up a whole other can of worms. For example, in my case, my eldest
daughter is incensed that I am calling her Mom a 'jerk.' She has lashed
out at me numerous times for saying that about her mother, etc. etc.

Yup. Mine is bitch. Kid sometimes hears me mumble and has mentioned it
to
the authorities.

Mine's not nearly so nice, but I don't use that around the kids.

Wow! I fear this stuff might begin to raise its head in my case. I
surely
hope it doesn't. I have to think in terms of counter-affect. In other
words,
how to avoid providing her with fodder. You have learned not to react to
her. I've done well for over 7 years and recently fell into a trap. Now
I'm
fighting a charge of "utter threat". Total farce.

many times we worry about things that never come to pass. If you are
living true and really focused on the kids (and not your own) best
interests, you decrease your chance of having anything substantive happen.

Rambler

Let's hope. Thanks again,

I don't have access to the American Psychological Association's
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), and I'm certainly not going to pay
good money for it. So I can't say for sure what's in it. However, a quick
Internet search reveals the following exchange from a Washington Times
account of the trial of one of the Washington-area snipers --

"Arguing yesterday to limit testimony, Mr. Horan [Virginia commonwealth
attorney for Fairfax County] held up a copy of the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Society. "[It] never, never,
never lists indoctrination as a mental disease," he said.
"The only reference to indoctrination, he said, is under the heading of
disassociative disease, a seemingly catch-all diagnosis for which the manual
did not list a set of symptoms. Mr. Horan said the disease is `the ultimate
refuge for mental health scoundrels.'"

So apparently there isn't anything in the DSM about brainwashing.

But to come back to the point at issue, what makes it tough for the APA
to accept the notion of parental alienation syndrome is the absence of any
special interest group within the APA pushing for the inclusion of PAS in
their manual.

The APA CAN change their manual to try to normalize homosexuality, and
they have done so, because a group of homosexual psychologists pushed them
in that direction. They CAN resist the inclusion of a condition that
undermines the notion of women as the victims of men, because feminist APA
members don't like any recognition of this condition. However, they CAN'T
accept parental alienation syndrome, because the victims of this pathology
have no lobbying group within the APA. What goes into the DSM is largely a
matter of politics, not logic or science (even on the very shaky assumption
that psychology is a branch of science).



"GudGye11" wrote in message
...
Just out of curiosity...is there an entry in the DSA for something more
commonly known as "brainwashing?" If there is, then Parental Alienation
Syndrome is simply an extension of that psychological phenomenon. I don't
know
why it's so tough for others to see that fact.


In article , "Kenneth S."
writes:

It's interesting to see that Dr. Paul Fink of Temple University, a
former president of the American Psychological Association, denounces
Gardner's use of the term parental alienation syndrome. It's also
interesting that Gardner's critics say that the syndrome has not yet made
it
into the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

Meldon wrote:

"Rambler" wrote in message
...

Meldon wrote:


"Rambler" wrote in message
...


Meldon wrote:

Well, what would you do if it wasn't his Mom but somebody else at school
or something. Part of this is about brainstorming with the kid to help
them overcome this situation ... teaching life skills. At ten, you've
got good material to work with. Sometimes we need to learn to accept
and ignore, other times we need to learn to say things.


A school-yard bully is one thing but when it's a parent the kids tend to
accept their situation as normal and accept it if they think there's no
other choice. All this would take is a few select words on the mother's
part.

Right, but the thing is how *you* deal with it. Since you have no more
control over your ex than you do a school yard bully, then you have to
deal with the situation similarly. I am not saying the situations are
similar, just how you deal with them is.

I wouldn't dare set foot in family court as a plaintiff unless I had huge
financial resources and even then I might just pass. IMO court just opens
the door to make things worse rather than better. I hope you keep us posted.

Actually, given the lengths of my posts, you probably don't hope I keep
you posted.

Court can open the door to all things horrid, like a pandora's box.
However, that is usually at the beginning stages. Perseverance can pay
off, but perseverance takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

True, but what you are doing is teaching your kid life skills on how to
cope. If your kid is told a whopper, and if you create an environment
where they know they can come and address this with you, without
recriminations, then that will happen (so they tell me!).

The kid is shutting down. Not emotionally depressed, just seemingly less
willing to talk about anything of that nature. This has been recent and
complicated by an upcoming trial.

It may be that your kid is feeling some pressure from you. Relook at
your own actions, and see what you can do to help the child. The child
is shutting down perhaps because of pain, and getting them to open up
and trust you would be important. one way is to make sure that whatever
they say stays with you, is not used in court or to slam the other
parent. As my Dad used to say, "Do what I say, not what I do" because I
can be lousy at that too.

Been there, doing that. I communicate directly with the ex on those
things (perhaps not well, but I do so anyway). Lot of threads in
alt.support.divorce about being Dale Carnegie-esque.

I'll follow up on that lead but the implications are that anything
approaching domestic (whatever that means), won't be discussed or at least
less likely to be discussed. I fear the kid will stop giving me any
information whatsoever. As it stands the kid is my only source for knowing
if there's anything wrong.

Right, but you can't push that. Tough and fine line to walk.

Rambler

Thanks for your advice. At low points it helps to know someone else has gone
through the same meat grinder.

"Kenneth S." wrote in message
...
It's interesting to see that Dr. Paul Fink of Temple University, a
former president of the American Psychological Association, denounces
Gardner's use of the term parental alienation syndrome. It's also
interesting that Gardner's critics say that the syndrome has not yet made
it
into the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

Damn good point. Even if it were only a legal countermeasure, it is
countered with immediate and aggressive refute and numbers count.

I think you're touching on a larger subject and that of the state of
science. I believe science is not immune to subjectivity and I would like to
hear from people who work in research, perhaps in a formal setting like
this, to gain some insight in that area. The majority of research I'm
hearing about through the media these days seems fairly one-sided. There
always seems to be a hidden agenda.


Anyone who, over the years, has watched the watched the contortions
within the APA over the addition of syndromes to the DSM will be able to
draw their own conclusions. For years, whether or not syndromes make it
into the DSM has been subject to a highly political process. When changes
to the DSM are proposed, special interest groups of APA members lobby
vigorously in pursuit of their own personal agendas.

Lack of objectivity?



Thus, quite a few years ago, a group of homosexual psychologists were
successful in having the homosexual rights agenda legitimized through
changes in the DSM to "normalize" homosexuality. Then, a few years ago
feminists raised an outcry about a proposed DSM change that they thought
blamed women for their own victimization.

Personal politics!

Of course, science -- or to be more accurate, the public face of science
in the U.S., as expressed through the scientific organizations -- is not
objective. In fact, I think you could argue that the public positions of
scientists in the U.S. are as much dependent on faith, and as much subject
to witchhunts, as organized religion. The scientists who are involved in
public policy debates try to pretend otherwise. However, when you see the
fervor with which they defend what in abstract terms are very dubious
propositions, you can tell this ain't so.

Nowhere is this more clear than in psychology. Its pretensions to
"scientific" status are very shaky because of the difficulty of verifying
its hypotheses and the problem that, when you observe human behavior, it
changes just because it is being observed.

Psychologists are a very atypical class of human being, and in no way
representative of society as a whole. Just to take one example, how many
psychologists do you suppose vote Republican or are members of evangelical
Christian or orthodox Catholic churches? Their personal views OF COURSE
spill over into their supposedly professional positions. And the American
Psychological Association is as much subject to the lobbying of special
interests -- such as homosexuals and feminists -- as is the U.S. Congress.
That reflects itself in what appears as pathologies in the the APA's
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

When heterosexual males, who (as well as the children involved) are the
victims of parental alienation syndrome, have a lobbying group within the
APA, THEN PAS will be incorporated in the manual. Until then, the groups
that are opposed to heterosexual males -- such as feminists and
homosexuals -- will determine what the APA classifies as pathologies.



"Meldon" wrote in message
...

"Kenneth S." wrote in message
...
It's interesting to see that Dr. Paul Fink of Temple University, a
former president of the American Psychological Association, denounces
Gardner's use of the term parental alienation syndrome. It's also
interesting that Gardner's critics say that the syndrome has not yet
made
it
into the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.

Damn good point. Even if it were only a legal countermeasure, it is
countered with immediate and aggressive refute and numbers count.

I think you're touching on a larger subject and that of the state of
science. I believe science is not immune to subjectivity and I would like
to
hear from people who work in research, perhaps in a formal setting like
this, to gain some insight in that area. The majority of research I'm
hearing about through the media these days seems fairly one-sided. There
always seems to be a hidden agenda.


Anyone who, over the years, has watched the watched the contortions
within the APA over the addition of syndromes to the DSM will be able to
draw their own conclusions. For years, whether or not syndromes make it
into the DSM has been subject to a highly political process. When
changes
to the DSM are proposed, special interest groups of APA members lobby
vigorously in pursuit of their own personal agendas.

Lack of objectivity?



Thus, quite a few years ago, a group of homosexual psychologists
were
successful in having the homosexual rights agenda legitimized through
changes in the DSM to "normalize" homosexuality. Then, a few years ago
feminists raised an outcry about a proposed DSM change that they thought
blamed women for their own victimization.

Personal politics!

"Kenneth S." wrote in message
...
...
When heterosexual males, who (as well as the children involved) are
the
victims of parental alienation syndrome, have a lobbying group within the
APA, THEN PAS will be incorporated in the manual. Until then, the groups
that are opposed to heterosexual males -- such as feminists and
homosexuals -- will determine what the APA classifies as pathologies.


This man knows how the system works!

Who or what would fund these lobbyists. The general public through donations
(with no tax deductions, I might add)?