A view on "Parental Alienation Syndrome" by psychologist Dorothy Rowe

[grahamg]

I've quoted this lady elsewhere on the forum, but thought it worth posting these views she's expressed on "Parental Alienation Syndrome" here, (views I'd agree with I think):

"The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is a reliable document because the committees of psychiatrists agreed on what disorders should be included.
However, apart from where it deals with demonstrable brain injury, the DSM is not a valid document.

None of the mental disorders included in the DSM has been shown to have a demonstrable physical cause. Psychiatrists might talk about 'chemical imbalance in the brain' and genes that cause depression or schizophrenia, but there is no scientific evidence to support these ideas. The DSM is a collection of opinions. When the committees of psychiatrists change their opinions, a mental disorder might be removed from the DSM and some new one included. Different groups of interested people sponsor a new disorder and lobby for it to be included in a forthcoming revision of the DSM.

For instance, in 1985, an American psychologist, Dr. Richard Gardner, who had specialized in Iitigation involving parents and children, coined the term Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) to refer to the way some of the children of divorcing parents seem to show a preference to stay with one parent rather than the other. The preferred parent is deemed by the rejected parent to be influencing the child in making his choice.

Some of the people who believe in the existence of this disorder have been lobbying the psychiatrists who are responsible for the production of the next revision of the DSM to include PAS in the DSM IV. Parents who battle over the children caught in the parents' divorce always cause their children distress, and children who are distressed often do not behave well, but to say that the children have a mental disorder is monstrously unfair to the children. As no virus or brain lesion can be shown to cause PAS, whether it will be included in the DSM IV depends on the opinions of the men and women who are deciding what will go in the new volume.

Let us hope that none of them has gone through an acrimonious divorce that left them feeling bitter and vengeful, and that all of them really care about children."

 

[grahamg]

My views on the above opinion by the psychologist Dorothy Rowe is that I would not have liked, (or even allowed), anyone to start diagnosing my daughter as suffering from a mental illness.

At the same time I have no doubt her mother's influence was the reason she rejected contact with me, (and she stated this herself to her grandparents aged twenty one). There was over ten years of "successful contact", and I feel my daughter undoubtedly benefitted from this, (and she said "Keep coming daddy" almost every time I dropped her off back at her home, oh along with "I hate you", "You're horrible"!).

 

[grahamg]

This lady has quite a lot to say about parenting, and maybe should be listened to more closely, (a challenging sculptress too):

“Henricson eschews the simplistic polarisations that so often characterise the discussion of morality in the public sphere. Her engaging book combines a subtle and balanced analysis with a convincing case that policy makers can and should do morality better.”

(Excuse legalistic language here), Quote:

"....it has been argued that the long-established welfare principle in English law sits uncomfortably with the scheme of the Convention (ECHR) and may need some adaptation or redefinition (Herring, 1999; Eekelaar, 2002). The chief difficulty is that the welfare principle was authoritatively interpreted to mean that the child’s interests were to be regarded as not only the court’s primary or most important consideration but also the court’s sole consideration (per Lord MacDermott in J v. C [1970] AC 668). All other claims, in particular those of parents, were thought to be subsumed in this one investigation of the child’s welfare and consequently the position was widely taken, not least in the Children Act 1989 itself, that parents did not possess such a thing as independent rights qua parents. This view of the parental position must now be re-evaluated in the light of the ECHR. What the ECHR requires is that parents’ rights and interests be balanced with those of the child, with the child’s rights and interests playing a preponderant role but not an exclusive one."

https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/1859353312.pdf

 

[grahamg]

Clem Henricson's sculptures:
http://clemhenricson.com/sculptures.html

 

[grahamg]

More from Clem Henricson on parental rights, (this links in with the thread topic I believe):

"The (UK) law, as set out in the Children Act 1989, makes clear that the welfare of the child is the paramount consideration in any court decision concerning a child’s upbringing. The Government believes that this principle should be sustained without qualification, in order that there continues to be the clearest possible focus on the needs of children. (Department for Constitutional Affairs et al., 2004)

The issue is whether the child welfare principle should stand alone when contact and residence decisions are made, or whether it should be considered in conjunction with, albeit superseding, a parent’s entitlement to respect for family life. Arguably the latter offers a more open and balanced recognition of the multiple interests – children and adults –- that exist within families and require reconciliation. And the weight of international requirements certainly endorses this approach.

The international conventions make it plain that contact is a right of both children and parents. The State must take reasonable steps to enforce contact orders made by the courts, despite many suggestions by commentators to the contrary, as a matter of international obligation. This has been consistently held by the European Court of Human Rights (see, for example, Hokkanen v. Finland [1996] 1 FLR 289; Ignaccolo-Zenide v. Romania [2001] 31 EHRR 7; Glaser v. United Kingdom [2001] 1 FLR 153; and, most recently, Kosmopoulou v. Greece [2004] 1 FLR 800). Violations of the ECHR for failure to make sufficient efforts to sustain contact are every bit as much about violating the rights of the parent as they are about violating the rights of the child.

The Council of Europe’s new Convention on Contact Concerning Children 2003 is more directly explicit about the State’s obligations in this respect. Article 4 of the Convention provides expressly that: ‘A child and his or her parents shall have the right to obtain and maintain regular contact with each other’ (our emphasis). It goes on to provide that: ‘such contact may be restricted or excluded only where necessary in the best interests of the child’. The Explanatory Report to the Convention sets out the limited circumstances under which the State is permitted to restrict or terminate contact. The right of contact may ‘only be restricted or excluded on serious grounds in the best interests of the child (e.g. as a measure necessary to protect the morals or the health of the child, etc.)’ (Explanatory Report, para 8). Article 7 goes on to require judicial authorities, when resolving disputes concerning contact, ‘to ensure that both parents are informed of the importance for their child and for both of them of establishing and maintaining regular contact with their child’ (our emphasis). The Explanatory Report then sets out the thinking behind this provision:

"It aims at making parents realise that Article 4 of the present Convention contains a fundamental right (of the child and his or her parents) to obtain and develop regular contact between their child and themselves." (Explanatory Report, para. 58, our emphasis)

All of this is a far cry from the view, frequently voiced in England (even in Government), that contact is a right of the child but not the parent. Although the UK has not yet signed or ratified the Convention, it may be expected to do so in due course. In the light of the Convention, it will become extremely difficult to justify an official policy that has as its base the assumption that the only objective is to promote the best interests or rights of children. Rather, in order to be consistent with international obligations that recognise the independent rights of parents, the objective of court decisions and mediation in determining contact should be to assist parents in reaching an arrangement for the maximisation of contact with both parents within the practicalities of the individual case. The vulnerability of the child and the child’s need for a stable home environment will remain the overriding concern. And there will of course be some cases, characterised by domestic violence or abuse, where the fundamental rights to contact should legitimately be displaced by the principle of the best interests of the child. But rights for all parties to contact with each other is the starting point and this should be clearly acknowledged."

 

[grahamg]

An obvious question arises because of the differing stances taken by the European Convention on Human Rights, (ECHR), and our UK government's viewpoint:

"Why does the UK government believe parents in this country are less deserving of rights than parents from other parts of European signing up to the convention on human rights"?

 

[Sassycakes]

The only thing I know about Parental alienation is from the family I come from. On my Dad's side of the family, everyone became absent in their Parent's lives. Except for my Dad. Even though his parents didn't want to be bothered seeing him he still kept in contact with them until they passed away. On the other hand, my own son has turned against me and my husband. His reason being was he didn't like us still having contact with his ex-wife. If we didn't keep in touch with her we probably wouldn't have contact with our 2 grandsons, even though he caused the divorce. I will never understand how someone can alienate themselves from their parents. My older brother even did it to our parents.

 

[grahamg]

The thing is, in my view, anyone saying, "I only want what is best for my child", (or "What is best for children in general"), leads both themselves, and I argue every other decent parent, into the situation, of WHO decides what may or may not be in your child's best interests.

All the so called father's rights groups, or parents rights groups, appear to me to be arguing for someone else to decide what's best for your child, because they do not demand a "rebuttable presumption in favour of contact", (between decent parents and their children).

Anyone of us who believes we know what is best for another persons child, where there are no issues of abuse, is in a sense guilty of making the same assumptions, and undermining other parents.

There you are, an argument I've made many times, do we want professionals entitled to stick their noses into every aspect of your role as a parent, and in doing so damage the relationships between parent and child, or do we think this should be resisted?

A fathers rights group in the USA I follow on another social media platform, lauds those fathers who have fought the family law system for years and maybe persuaded them their child should reside with the father. They've almost certainly cost themselves a fortune in legal fees, gone through endless stress, and put their exes through the same, and this somehow makes sense they feel, because they claim it as a victory for the "best interests of children"!

I think all will be scarred by the process, including the children, and professionals need to be kept out of the lives of most children, whose parents fit the description "decent"!

 

[grahamg]

The only thing I know about Parental alienation is from the family I come from. On my Dad's side of the family, everyone became absent in their Parent's lives. Except for my Dad. Even though his parents didn't want to be bothered seeing him he still kept in contact with them until they passed away. On the other hand, my own son has turned against me and my husband. His reason being was he didn't like us still having contact with his ex-wife. If we didn't keep in touch with her we probably wouldn't have contact with our 2 grandsons, even though he caused the divorce. I will never understand how someone can alienate themselves from their parents. My older brother even did it to our parents.

The trouble appears endless doesn't it, following divorce/separation of parents.
I haven't mentioned it above, but "Love" is the key word in all these family breakdown situations, (besides to the obvious way, "love having broken down between them).
Mothers who generally have custody of the child fear the child loving the other parent more than they love them. The prospect of this eventuality, I'm told, leads them to deal with this perceived threat in whatever way they can, (manipulating the child against the other parent being an obvious tactic).
The amount of love given to a child isn't something anyone can overdo in my opinion, and the more you give the more you receive in return. There is a good reason why it takes two dedicated parents to successfully raise a child I believe, and it is this, any faults or weaknesses of one parent can be made up for by the other, and avoiding one or other parent dominating everyone is beneficial too, in the main, and it gives the child better insight into human behaviour!