- Marriage Equality: State by State has a link to Support Equality, a terrific service which allows you to donate money to help pro-gay-marriage candidates to the Massachusetts state congress. This is a great way to help prevent anti-equality forces in Massachusetts from overturning same-sex marriage there; they’re hoping to turn thousands of folks from all over who can afford to give only $5 or $10 into a significant force. (My household donated $25). And 100% of the money goes to the candidates.
- Mom jailed for smoking near her kids.
- Pacific News reports that the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act is keeping a lesbian from the Bankrupcy protections that any straight married couple would automatically get. “The couple was legally married in British Columbia, but a federal bankruptcy judge has ruled that DOMA is constitutional, and that the two women cannot file for bankruptcy as a married couple. That bankruptcy, incidentally, was the result of both partners being diagnosed with cancer. One of the women recently died.” Nice way to protect families, homophobes.
- Ms Musings has an as-usual-excellent post analysing the corporate push behind the “Princess” trend. (Christine also points out that my favorite Disney protagonist, Mulan, is being repackaged by Disney to fit their “Princess” marketing line. Blech.)
- Israel is deporting a British journalist because they don’t like her “her political and ideological beliefs.” The judge admitted that she’s not a “security threat,” but deported her because her reporting might, in an unspecified way, “be used by others.”
- Echidne of the Snakes, in a post I somehow missed, discusses Martha Nussbaum’s views (Martha Nussbaum is also the focus of a recent “Alas” post on Disgust and Prejudice). Here’s a sample:
Nussbaum points out that women have almost always carried some aspects of the disgusting and the shameful by just being born female. This is because women are more closely associated (in some minds at least) to the earthly via the processes of menstruation and giving birth, and because to some men the bodies of women are seen as the depositories of their own bodily wastes, the ever-present reminders of death. If one then combines the repugnance of the female body to such men with the idea of its sexual attractiveness, a base for misogyny may be created.
I am not sure if I find this theory an adequate one, but it is certainly true that many so-called primitive tribes attribute the reason for women’s lower social standing to their ability to menstruate. This ability seems to be viewed as both disgusting and frightening at the same time, which supports Nussbaum’s arguments.
Echidne also discusses Nussbaum’s concept of “dignity,” which according to Nussbaum is the opposite of disgust. Read the whole thing.
- Wicked Thoughts has an excellent post on “the crisis of fat.”
- Does anyone know where I could find the text of the official GOP Platform (which, I think, is currently “in progress”?). This Washington Post article makes it sound as if the “protecting marriage” plank is not only anti-gay marriage, but also anti-Civil Unions. According to the Post, the plank “says same-sex couples should not receive legal benefits set aside for married couples” – which is what Civil Unions do, of course.
- A Washington Blade op-ed rightly criticizes Kerry for doing so much campaigning against same-sex marriage. Couldn’t he have just retreated into a cowardly silence on the issue?
- Wicked Muse, inspired by a post here on “Alas,” is asking for comments on the question “Can Men Be Feminists?”
- Bouncing off of the same discussion, Trish Wilson has a post on “White Guys and Privilege.” Trish’s site is slow loading today, so you may want to look for the same post on XX.
- “Over the Bridge,” a must-read post by an American soldier. Via Respectful of Otters.
- I don’t think anything done by any of the major candidates this close to the election is by accident, or represents emotion overcoming strategy. For instance, Cheney’s recent mild statement in favor of same-sex marriage seems like “compassionate conservative” positioning – not unlike the decision to have some the most liberal Republicans in the nation spotlighted at the Republican Convention, even though they don’t represent the policies Bush will pursue.
Mouse Words has an excellent analysis of how Cheney’s statement was in all liklihood a calculated move to help the GOP.
- Ellen Goodman presents the 2004 Equal Rites Awards, “given annually to those who have done their most to set back the cause of equality.”
- An Ohio poll shows 56% of Ohio voters are in favor of amending their constitution to ban gay marriage and domestic partner benefits. That’s actually pretty good news – support for the amendment is much weaker than many folks expected. When more voters realize that it not only bans gay marriage but also any benefits at all to same-sex couples, it’s possible that support will go down even further. It’s also possible that lawsuits will keep this proposal off the November ballot.
- If you haven’t seen it before, this math puzzle – which appears to prove that 64 equals 65 – is lots of fun. Via Eugene Volokh, who provides an explanation of the trick.
- I just discovered Factcheck.org, an imporessively nonpartisan website which fact-checks ads and claims from both Democrats and Republicans.
- Unfutz has a new survey of all the electoral vote projections. The large majority – including some right-wing sites – find that Kerry is winning. But Bush is gaining in recent polls, and what with the Republican Convention and all, the next couple of weeks will be distressing for Kerryite poll-watchers.
It’s fun looking at all the various electoral college projection sites, and seeing how they vary in design and presentation. My favorite right now is MyDD’s map, which lets you toggle each state’s preferred candidate so you can play “what if” games. Also, they’ve distorted the map so that state size reflects electoral vote total.
- USA Today has a decent article on the “marriage gap.” Some stats: Among all women who are registered voters, 45% favor Bush, 50% favor Kerry. Among married women, 54% favor Bush, 41% Kerry. Among unmarried women, it’s 35% Bush, 60% Kerry.
Unsurprisingly, there’s been a lot of well-intentioned but sometimes off-target get-out-the-single-woman vote efforts. Wicked Thoughts has a good discussion of the issue, and of the ickiness.
- Doctors use man’s back to grow new jawbone. Cooooool.
- Excellent Mouse Words post puts what’s at stake in the Social Security fight into perspective: Greenspan wants your parents to move back in with you.
- Some very high-quality Supreme Court Blogging over at Balkinization. In a pair of posts, Jack Balkin describes how Roe v Wade just barely survived Rehnquist’s attempts to overturn it in the 1989 Webster case and then again in the 1992 Casey case.
Meanwhile, Balkinization guest blogger Mark Tushnet (father of Eve) describes how the conservatives on the Court are divided among themselves, and how the liberals are not. I found this bit of the latter post particularly interesting:
[Justice Stevens, the leader of the Court’s liberals, has benefited from] Rehnquist’s insistence that each justice end up with an equal number of majority opinions at the end of each Term. When the Court’s unanimous, or nearly so, Rehnquist will assign the “dogs” to some of the liberals. When the liberals manage to get a majority, Stevens can “use up” an opinion assignment, thereby restricting Rehnquist’s options as the Term goes on. (One effect, for example, is that Rehnquist is forced into giving more assignments to Scalia and Thomas than he would [probably] like — because those two justices are more likely to draft hard-edged conservative opinions that will lead O’Connor or Kennedy to have second thoughts.) - Want more links? Check out the latest Pacific Views blog round-up.
Barry’s BlueSky- Untitled April 27, 2024I don't get the New York Times "mid TV" article. The article complains - at great length - that most TV shows aren't chancy or trailblazing, and admits at the end that there's a small number of more challenging shows. When has that not been the case?
- Untitled April 27, 2024Seinfeld's so right! Other than Ghosts, Abbot, Young Sheldon, Sunny In Philadelphia, What We Do In The Shadows, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Unstable, Animal Control, Bob Hearts Abishola, Letterkenny, Nora From Queens, Lopez v Lopez, and a zillion others, no sitcom had new episodes in 2024.
- Untitled April 27, 2024I'm not sure if Jill Stein said "homeland" or "Poland," but either way I'm not sure what she intended. It sounds to me like she began a point in reply to the heckler, decided halfway through a sentence not to engage with him further, and as a result never finished her point, whatever it was.
- Untitled April 27, 2024I'm enough of a nerd to enjoy reading people's ideas for better formats for Presidential debates. But keep in mind the underlying problem; it's that candidates have strong incentives to negotiate for watered-down formats, and debates can't happen without their cooperation.
- Untitled April 27, 2024Solidarity from U.S. students matters more to some Palestinians than I ever would have dreamed. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6OsxlbsSjD/
- Untitled April 26, 2024Thread [contains quote post or other embedded content]
- Untitled April 27, 2024
“Over the Bridge” is a great letter. Please read it. The Army has a serious morale and discipline problem — this letter exemplifies the crux of that problem. Commanding Officers lying to protect their career. I would never offer a grant of immunity to a Commanding Officer to testify against his troops. That is just appalling. If the CO needed immunity to testify — the first thing I would do is draw up charges against him, he is guilty of somethin’!
I can say even in the most conservative service (Marines) there was wide failing support President Bush. More specifically his advisors, the “Don” and Wolfman. They were bad for the service in 1984 and 1990 and they are bad for the service now. But, who else are you gonna present with the keys to the toybox but “Uncle Rummy” and “Cus’n Wolf”. The growing discontent with the Pres and drumbeats for his ouster were completely destroyed when the Democrats nominated Kerry. A collective Holy Sh_ _ was heard throughout the military world and the sentiment became now what?
Barry, your link to Ellen Goodman’s article is fragged. It goes to a nonexistent page on your blog. I like that series she does every year. I’m sure it’s a scorcher this year, too.
Thanks for the plugs, too. Speaking of a mom being jailed for smoking in front of her kids, there’s a rise coming in the trend to penalize moms who “badmouth” dads. “Friendly” parent theory is part of the reason some moms are losing custody of the kids these days. This business of one parent “badmouthing” the other doesn’t affect fathers – only mothers. It’s an offshoot of the old PAS and alienation concepts, but now it’s affecting even more moms with custody. Plus, I think there’s a rising trend in grandparent’s rights cases in the U. S. as well as the U. K. and Australia.
Whoops! Thanks, Trish, I’ve fixed the fragged link.
“This business of one parent “badmouthing” the other doesn’t affect fathers – only mothers.”
Trish, can you explain what you mean. Are you saying fathers are not affected by abuse, or are you saying only fathers abuse, or are you saying abusive women are the only parents who lose custody?
Surely you are suggesting that a parent who abuses the other parent of their child in front of or to a child should not have custody and primary responsibility for that child. I understand that you may have intended to write something else, you do not actually believe that only abusive mothers lose custody of their children, that would be absurd.
>>Plus, I think there’s a rising trend in grandparent’s rights cases in the U. S. as well as the U. K. and Australia
Didn’t we have a SCOTUS ruling on grandparents rights? Grandparents don’t have rights “as grandparents”?
My understanding is the individual states rewrote the laws afterwards to permit some rights under certain circumstances — such as the parents dump kids on the grandparents for significant periods of time, and then they come back and reclaim them. However, as a general rule, grandparents don’t have automatic rights.
I think what Trish is saying is that only women are losing custody/threatened with loss of custody for bad mouthing dad. That dads bad mouth moms and aren’t affected with loss of custody/visitation. For example, when the child refuses to visit dad and keeps refusing, and mom doesn’t force the child to go (or feels she has good reason to refuse, such as suspected abuse) she may be penalized, even if there is no real proof that she did anything concrete. But if the child is then given over to the father, and refuses to see the mother, nothing is done. It is obviously the childn’s desire.
Rachel — as someone who works in family law. The law is equally applied. If a parent abuses the other parent in front of the child the parent will lose the child.
It is typically a loss of custody and not a loss of visitation rights. The parent must go through counseling and visitation is generally supervised until a green light is given from the counselor that the parent understands the damage caused by their actions.
Abusive wives is an emotionally charged issue that does not get any light. Our culture villifies men who are abused so the amount of abuse that goes on is rarely known. For many years women have been taught, in essence, they cannot be abusive. Articles and studies will cite “abusive husband” and or “abusive relationships”. The slap in the face or the nagging wife who regularly makes fun of her husband’s habits to her friends. Rarely if ever will you hear a study or article referring to help for men with “abusive wives”. That is not because it does not happen or is rare. Abuse by wives is very common, but it is dismissed by men with statments such as “yes dear”, “the boss” and other lighthearted deflections.
There was a tragic case during my career where a woman was brutally beat up by her husband. It was an awful case because of the damage that was done. During the trial the defense brought testimony from her “friends” who testified she verbally abused him for years. They said he was a good mild manner man. One had even seen him back down from a fight he easily could have won, just because “he would have hurt the guy too bad”. I guess for years she told her friends that he was not good in bed, in front of him she called him “little willie”, she constantly berated him for only being a grocery store butcher (since he did not have his own meat to beat he had to play with someone elses). It all came to head when she told him, because she was mad at him, that his best friend had a bigger “di_ _” and it felt good. He got upset and put her in the hospital.
His response was wrong and for that, of course, he was convicted of spousal assault, but he only recieved probation. I guess the jury felt her actions mitigated his guilt. I debated this with my friends and we pondered, how many abuse cases could we prevent if there was more information/action regarding wife verbal abuse.
The bottom line is that PAS is the first step in recognizing verbal abuse for what it is — abuse. If it is recognized then the abuser can get the help they need before further abusing their child or thier ex/spouse.
Jstevenson, Rachel pretty much explained what I was talking about. The late Richard Gardner, who coined Parental Alienation Syndrome, wrote that 90% of his PAS caseload was mothers. The “diagnosis” (it’s invalidated junk science) was heavily skewed against mothers, as are all of the various forms of alienation/”friendly parent” rulings out there. It’s biased against mothers and very harmful towards them. It’s even more harmful towards children.
Lucia, yup, you’re thinking of Troxel v. Granville. That ruling protects fit parents decision making abilities regarding their children from third-party interference, such as demands for court-ordered visitation from grandparents. The CA Supreme Court decision went against Troxel.
Trish,
90% of all cases are against mothers is probably an accurate and fair statistic. The reason is that 90% of mothers get primary custody of their children. From my experience, I would even say that number is conservative. Out of 200 or so divorce cases, most of which had children, I did not have one case of paternal primary custody. One of my cases, the father got custody, but that was because the mother refused to leave the boyfriend who put her in the hospital several times.
I have to disagree with you regarding PAS being junk science. The experts I have seen during family law conference debates were agenda neutral. The only ones who stated it was junk science, had a specific agenda. Personnally I think most “pyscho” analysis is junk science, but that is my personal opinion. You have to provide some substance to your position that it is biased against women. All of my cases regarding PAS — both father and mother were based on the facts.
Regarding the statement that the father can withhold visitation without a court order is poppycock. Perhaps in Uganda or Saudi Arabia where Rachel practices law, but in all U.S. jurisdictions — if you withhold visitation of a child under the age of 10 you will be held in contempt of court. The child’s desires come into play after age ten, and it is fair on both sides.
Just because judge’s are now evenly applying the law, i.e. not ruling for the mother in all cases of child custody and visitation (tender years doctrine, etc.) does not mean that judges are being biased against the mother. Fair, even application of the law is by definition not biased.
OT, the text for teh platform outlawing civil union benefits is at NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/politics/campaign/index.html
look under “cheney’s daughter”, “graphics” subheading – shows original platform, and anti-civil union-benefits addition made by conservatives.
I’m not going to get into a long debate with you jstevenson. PAS has long been recognized for the junk science that it is. It is biased against women. Gardner himself (who coined PAS) has made some rather ugly statements such as “there is a bit of pedophilia in every one of us.” His writings debasing mothers and refusing to believe or even listen to children are absolutely horrid. I certainly don’t condone someone like that opining on what is best for children. It has never and will never be a part of the DSM-IV. It has no validity. Never had. Never will. Too bad the increasing trend of vilifying mothers has resulted in more alienation cases where mom is blamed for everything under the sun while dad’s behavior is not placed under a similar microscope. I really don’t have the time or desire to debate with someone who so clearly supports this kind of crap.
Trish,
I am genuinely trying to see your point of view. I don’t like PAS. What is your suggestion to ensure parents do not verbally abuse their children’s parent to their children? Just because PAS as a term is not in the DSM does not mean that parents do not inadvertantly or intentionally abuse their children through verbal abuse of their parent. In my opinion you cannot tell your children — THE ONLY REASON YOUR FATHER WANTS TO SEE YOU IS BECAUSE HE WANTS LESS CHILD SUPPORT. Trish — that is a true statment made by one of my clients to her 6 and 8 year old girls (who may well grow up to be in failed relationships because of their mother’s musings on men). Are you suggesting that she should be able to keep her kids? I begrugdingly won that case — the mother got to maintain primary custody, but she had to go through counseling on — verbal abuse and chiid neglect. In my opinion, that was just an aweful thing to say and do to her children. You can’t possibly believe women do not make statements like that.
I can understand your opinion that dad’s behavior is not placed under a similar microscope. It is placed under the same microscope, however, most dad’s do not have as much to lose. Mom’s will generally lose custody, but retain visitation rights. Dad’s will not lose custody, because most of them do not have it in the first place. From the outside looking in — you would say mom’s are treated more harshly than dad’s because — “slanted statistic” the majority of mom’s who are accused of PAS lose custody where almost no father’s lose custody if they are accused of PAS. That is an unfair and misleading statement, but it is the truth. Given that propoganda it is entirely possible to come up with the opinion that dad’s are treated better than mom’s regarding PAS.
In my opinion PAS is like the SAT — not the best indicator of future events, but the best one we have. If you can come up with a better rememdy for parents who take their personal problems out on their children, by “bad mouthing” and projecting their opinions of their other parent on their children, then please let me know. I will gladly explore the topic and possibly present it to the next family law section meeting at our local bar association. However, “crap” and sensational adjectives are useless when making a new proposed rule or argument to the judge.
So, you’re saying that it’s okay to make up a fake psychological disorder as long as it achieves the proper ends?
As I said Amanda, I think most “psycho” disorders are made up. They are just explainations for behavior that does not conform to “normal” standards (my opinion). In my opinion the soft sciences are junk science. A good example is how the psychological community explained homosexual desires as a psychological disorder — after 100 years they changed their mind and decided it was not. Did anything change, of course not. The psychological community decided that they were wrong or did not want to deal with the issue. It was like Brigahm Young saying, “blacks now have a place in heaven”, OMG when did that revelation take place!
It is not ok to make up fake psychological disorder, but that is the way American’s explain bad behavior. It is bad for parents to abuse their children. The law does not always keep pace with reality. Is it a disorder for fathers to bad mouth their children’s mothers and visa versa. I think it is and the law needs a way to protect the children from such abuse.
How would you protect children from fathers or mothers who degrade the parent of their children?
In my opinion the soft sciences are junk science.
My training is in engineering– and specifically fluid mechanics. I’m fairly familiar with hard sciences!
I don’t think the soft sciences are junk sciences. I think there are lots of question in soft sciences that are more difficult to study systematically than in the hard sciences. But anyone who has ever had to deal with data from a field campaign instead of data from a laboratory setting, knows the problems that arise from the “field” vs. “laboratory” aspect have nothing to do with the “hard” vs. “soft” aspect of the scientific field.
Because of these “field” type studies are very common in the soft sciences, there are bound to be more ambiguous results from studies.
I also think that as a result of political issues and the potential social impact of some questions, bias enters the social sciences somewhat more often than hard sciences. (But possibly not as much more often and non-scientists might think. There is bias in the hard sciences and every human endeavor.)
More importantly, because the hard science questions are generally not politically important, many issues studied in the “hard” sciences don’t get media attention. So, the types of revisions you note in psychology are simply invisible to the public when they occur in Fluid mechanics. (I mean, would you care if fluid mechanicians suddenly annouced a change it the value for Von Karman’s constant? Or if they suddenly decided the Reynolds number was not important in fluid mechanics? I bet not!)
But, these differences between hard sciences and sort sciences don’t make social sciences “junk” science. They just mean many social sciences questions can be difficult to answer, but also get more attention because they are of political interest. (And some science people would call “hard” science becomes junk under certain circumstances. )
That they used to define homosexuality as a disorder is as good an argument as any against using made-up mental disorders for idealogical ends as I can think of. We see how much damage it did in the past, so I don’t see why that would justify it now.
Amanda — What would you propose to protect kids from the reality that fathers and mothers sometimes intentionally or negligently alienate their children from their parent? Just because it is not a DSM disorder does not mean it does not happen. It is abusive and destructive to children. I am sure some social scientist can come up with a study that will link prostitutes and porn stars (male or female) with negative attitudes of themselves or the opposite sex formed from their father’s or mother’s musings regarding their ex-spouse. (Lucia — soft sciences can make up anything they want based on the groups they study).
I anxiously await your proposal. Trish can help also if she has a proposal to protect children from this type of abuse.
Well, if the ends justify the means, why stop at making up disorders? Why not say it causes fairies to fly out of their ass or something else? Could it be that when you use the term “disorder”, you are implying that what is happening is the equivalent of a mental illness? By saying that the parent (let’s admit it–the mother) is causing some made-up disorder, you are accusing her of making her children ill.
Don’t pretend that if we came up with alternative methods that you would somehow actually think them over. The fact of the matter is that no one is required to come up with a replacement in order to throw out an unjust method. If the behavior was demonstrably abusive in and of itself, why should a mental disorder be fabricated to justify punishing it?
Amanda — “let’s admit it–the mother”
I refuse to admit it is just the mother. I have used the premise, not PAS itself, to ensure father’s do not have unsupervised visitation with their children. Actually, all but three of my cases, where immature, selfish, divorcees put their children in the middle of their stupid personal problems — I am sorry, I started losing it. Anyway, all but three of my cases regarding circustances in which parents were “bad mouthing” each other were against fathers bad mouthing the mother. Don’t project uninformed assumptions on me. I speak about parents. I said “disorder” to keep it in line with the discussion. I think I have made my view on “disorders” abundantly clear. The behavior is demonstrably abusive in and of itself — children crying, stating they hate their mother, etc. If that kind of testimony is not demonstrative tell me what is. In court we use “psychos” to explain the behavior that would cause a parent to berate another parent for their own benefit. Those psychs use PAS to explain the bad behavior.
A mental disorder is not fabricated to justify punishing the behavior. Fathers have lost visitation rights for the same behavior for decades. It was not until mothers started losing custody that it was deemed a mental disorder. It was fabricated because the “psychos” probably believe that humans are genuinely decent people who would not intentionally abuse their kids. If they do abuse their kids, psychos will dub that some kind of disorder — hence junk science.
I will presume from the rest of your post that you refuse to answer the question or come up with a solution.
That is a typical reply when someone is arguing that the ends justify the means–to ask people who object to unfair means to come up with a “better” solution. Believe it or not, we don’t have to.
But I did, in fact, come up with a better solution. If it’s actually abuse, then why not argue from that end? Why make up a disorder you yourself agree is fake?
I apologize to all the Psychologists and Social scientists out there for the term “psychos”. It was meant to emphasize the point that explaining abnormal behavior without interjecting a social agenda is almost impossible. Political and financial pressure can be traced to why some disorders are in the DSM and some are not. Do you think adult-onset ADD would actually be a disorder if Pfizer did not have medication for it?
To say that PAS will never be included in the DSM is naive to the political pressure that will cause it to become part of the DSM and if Eli-Lilly can come up with a link between divorce, depression and PAS I can guarantee you that it will be part of the DSM.
Attorneys do argue that the precepts are abuse. However, as you well know, verbal abuse is not widely treated or recognized by the courts.
I said the disorder was fake, like so many disorders, I did not say that the effects of the behavior are fake. I have seen children who adored their mother scream how much they hate them for abandoning them. I have seen children say they hate their fathers because their father does not REALLY love them, he is just with them to lower child support. I have defended mothers who have fought for custody of their children because the children believe they only want to be with their boyfriend and not them. Until you have been in court and you have seen the testimony of these poor kids who are used as pawns in their parent’s sick game of brainwashing. Then tell me that the effects of the abuse are “fake”.
I have seen the same problem in making arguments to the court regarding verbally abusive husbands. The psycho community made “battered women’s sydrome” to explain in a phrase the effects of continuous physical abuse. I believe that syndrome is made up just as PAS was made up, but I do not believe the effects of the abuse are not real. Should we get rid of that also? Come on — I know you care about children. I know you care about abused women. Do you think we should be rid of BWS also? Don’t let your passion for an issue obscure the fact that sometimes it may be at odds with reality. PAS is not about women and men — it is about bad parents, who are too immature to think about how their actions are affecting their children.
I didn’t say the effects were “fake”. I said straight up that it was wrong to say something you don’t believe–that this is a mental illness–to get the result you want, even if it’s a good result. The problem is that the nefarious means could blow up in your face. But I would highly recommend you actually read Trish Wilson’s blog, as she specializes in divorce and child custody issues. Very illuminating.
Battered Women’s Syndrome is very, very real. I do believe that there are mental illnesses–I do believe that women can be driven mad by abuse.
“I do believe that women can be driven mad by abuse”
And you don’t believe children can be driven to certain feelings and actions through verbal and physical abuse?
Of course they can–there’s plenty of literature about that. But you are asking us to support a very specific diagnosis, a mental illness that is caused solely by one parent disparaging the other, that you yourself think is bunk.
Amanda — BWS is not in the DSM-IV neither is PAS. I think mental illness is brought on genetically or medically. Anything enviromental is another story. Something that is invented to explain certain behaviors — many are invented by lawyers or pharmaceuticals, who are in cahoots with Psychologists to find studies to back up their positions or create needs for their products.
PAS was “invented” the same way BWS was “invented”. I do not agree with using these types of diagnosis to absolve people or punish people for their actions. I do believe they may be helpful in getting help for the perps.
For instance, I was supportive of an ex-husband of one of my clients who was willing to get help for what he did. In this case, the father convienced his children that the mother does not love them and that is why she took them from their home. The mother began to notice that her children were becoming increasingly angry with her. Her oldest daughter (9) told her what her father said. To the mother’s credit she came to see me instead of returning the favor. In the end, the father had to go through counseling and lost unsupervised visitation with his kids until he had a clean bill of health from his family counselor.
The mother wanted him to lose all custody. I told her that his statments were not to intentionally harm his children, but they were made out of unresolved grief issues he had from the divorce. Now both parents are amicable and the mother recently thanked me for ensuring she did not burn the bridge for her kids.
If you don’t recognize the problem then you cannot make it better. I don’t think it is a mental illness, but I do think PAS describes real effects of one parent disparaging another. If the “psycho” want to make it a disorder so be it, that does not change the real emotions children go through when parents fight and/or use their children as sounding boards to discuss the hurt they feel from a divorce.
I agree with you that there are too many overly specific diagnoses like Battered Women’s Syndrome, etc. Whatever happened to just being driven to the brink? I think it’s dishonorable for lawyers to pretend they believe in a specific disease only to win a case. Plus, once a mental illness paradigm has been accepted, it’s very easy to shove all sorts of people into it for convienence’s sake, which only has the effect of turning treatment into punishment.
Alcoholism is a good example–a very real disease for sure. But it’s common enough nowadays to force anyone who commits a crime under the influence of alcohol to attend AA meetings as punishment, whether there is any real evidence that person is an alcoholic or not. That doesn’t help that person and it hurts people who are actually at the AA meetings to get help to have people there who don’t want or need help from AA, but are only doing it to stay out of jail.
I think there’s good reason to fear that this PAS could get over-extended and used to drag out every situation when one parent says something negative about the other. There are some horrible examples of parents using their kids as tools to strike at the other. There are probably a lot more times that well-meaning parents occasionally say something hostile out of thoughtlessness. My parents were good about censoring their thoughts when a fight arose, but occasionally something slipped out. In unethical hands, that sort of thing could be used to diagnose a disease that doesn’t exist and strip a parent of rights.
If you truly don’t believe that it’s a mental illness, you should refrain from putting it that way is all I’m saying.
Well said Amanda. Unfortunately, the courts, like battered women’s syndrome, need a “medical term” to make it seem more viable. Personally I try to argue the actual abuse itself and in my arguments I do not reference PAS, but the specific symptoms (thoughts, feelings, etc of the child). I have never had to, knock on wood, defend a BWS case, but I would hope that I could rely on the same standard in those cases. It is possible that PAS and BWS will be used to garner the opposite of what they were intended to do. Cold-blooded killer goes free or parent loses children to sexual assualt perpetrator.
IF THE MOTHER HAS CUSTODY OF THE CHILD AND SHE LIVES WITH HER PARENTS AND THE GRANDMOTHER VERBALY ABUSES THE FATHER AND SAYS THAT THE CHILD ISN’T HIS IN FRONT OF HIS WIFE AND THEIR CHILDREN IS THAT GROUNDS FOR LOSE OF CUSTODY?