Kayden’s Law, Kyra’s Law, Piqui’s Law – Not a Child’s Best Interest

Bamboozling and Deceptive Rational for These Collective Custody Laws

First, my colleagues and I who specialize in parental alienation support every measure to protect children from abusive parents, to keep children safe from harm, and to prosecute incidents of child abuse to the full extent of the child protection laws in all 50 states. We unequivocally support clinically sound revisions to our custody laws, as I discuss below.

Second, I have spent more than 50 years—half a century—working with and protecting children from abusive parents beginning in 1970 as a caseworker in NYC’s foster care system. The last thing I intend to do at the end of my professional career is to spurn sound child protection laws and support child abusers. 

Third, by definition, a case cannot be one of parental alienation (PA) if the rejected parent has committed domestic violence, child sexual abuse, child physical abuse, child emotional abuse, child neglect, or had placed or could be expected to place a child in harm’s way.

Nor can a case be one of PA if the rejected parent demonstrates sub-standard or deficient parenting skills as some of these laws state. If even any of those behaviors are legitimately present, the case is not one of parental alienation. 

Fourth, this article is intended to educate our state legislatures and the courts about how these collective custody laws include provisions that do the exact opposite of what they are promoted to do: that is, some provisions are harmful and dangerous to children and are thereby not in the child’s best interest. 

Advocates of These Laws Falsely Accuse Family Court Judges of Corruption

We should be very wary about the claims made by some of the advocates of these collective custody laws. They allege that family court judges are immoral, are bought off by abusive parents and by their greedy expert witnesses, and purposefully issue Court orders that thwart the standard of the best interests of the child. 

The most egregious, libelous accusations against our Family Court System are that judges indiscriminately vilifying mothers and are knowingly transferring custody of children to physically and sexually abusive fathers. 

Other advocates of these laws are disbarred or discredited professionals who have lost their licenses to practice in their professions. Yet they unjustifiably accuse alienation experts of being greedy money-grabbers. 

Hypocritically, they are reaping huge financial benefits from publicity of their false and defamatory accusations, which also helps to empower alienating parents.  

Consider where the advocates of these collective custody laws are spewing their false and defamatory accusations against our Family Court judges: they do so in articles entitled “Judicial Trafficking”; on websites named, “Foundation for Child Victims of the Family Courts;” and on unregulated, self-serving social media platforms such as One Mom’s Battle (OMB). 

Notice that alienating parents and these disgraced professionals post their false and defamatory accusations on the darkest edges of the web. Indubitably, credible news media platforms and publications avoid becoming entwined with them for good reasons.

Defamatory Accusations About Family Court Judges by These Charlatans

Before state legislatures incorporate into their custody laws any provision that is proffered by these extremist, self-serving alienating parents and disgraced professionals, it would well-serve their reputations and expectations of them by a trusting constituency to thoroughly investigate who has authored such libelous accusations and for what purposes.

Many posts proffered by alienating parents and their disgraced professionals against Family Court Judges and matrimonial lawyers are too obscene to include in this academic article nor on my website. I quote here from three of the least distasteful accusations:

Despite the obvious lack of evidence for these libelous accusations, OMB chooses to be oblivious to plight of alienated mother’s, who comprise 50% of my caseload.

Consider these excerpts following from Jill Jones Soderman – Foundation for Child Victims of the Family Courts:

Consider this excerpt from Danielle Pollack‘s website:

“When protective parents or caregivers seek safety for vulnerable abused children in our family courts, their claims are routinely ignored or minimized due to gaps, gender bias, and a lack of evidence-based training in our current systems.”

Exploiting Children – Making Libelous Allegations Against Reunification Programs, and Violating Court Orders

The very same immoral advocates who defame our Court system and accuse family Court judges of corruption, have engaged in behaviors that exploited the very alienated children whom they are claiming to protect. 

For example, in violation of Court orders, these immoral advocates have manipulated minor children to secretly create videos about experiences that had never occurred in Turning Points for Families (TPFF).

These immoral advocates were able to achieve this unlawful act after having unlawfully aided the alienating parent to kidnap the children from the alienated parent, who had sole legal and physical custody of the children.

These very same immoral advocates have manipulated other alienated children—as determined by the court—to make videos falsely claiming to have participated in TPFF when they had not. These children did not participate in TPFF because the alienating parent had thwarted the court-ordered transition of the children to the alienated parent.

These advocates of the collective custody law, who are exploiting children, are self-serving, self-aggrandizing, financially-enriching alienating parents and disgraced professionals who had had their licenses revoked to practice in their respective professions.

Family Courts Endeavor to Make Decisions in the Child’s Best Interest

Based upon my 500+ testimonies in adversarial custody cases across the United States and in Canada, I categorically reject the accusation that our Family Court System is corrupt and that incompetent, uncaring, insensitive judges callously turn a blind eye to incidents of child abuse (CA) and domestic violence (DV); are biased against mothers; and intentionally give custody of children to unsafe, emotionally unstable, abusive fathers. 

My experience with family court judges is that they do not willy-nilly transfer custody of children to a parent who has merely alleged alienation and who has, further, not submitted sufficient evidence to support the allegation.

My experience with family court judges is that they are deliberate, cautious, measured, and restrained in their custody and visitation decisions. Judges endeavor diligently to make decisions in the best interest of the child; but when alienation is present, accurate assessment of the family dynamics encounters many challenges, to be discussed below.

Our judicial system is not perfect; it is tragic when a single case of DV or CA is missed by the court, resulting in harm to a child. 

The worst policy response, however, when DV or CA is alleged in highly contested custody cases, would be to rush in with ill-advised, unthoughtful, punitive laws that multiply, many times over, serious mistakes in the opposite direction—such as implementing laws that would rob a child of meaningful contact with one parent based solely upon the uncorroborated allegation of the other parent, who is a highly invested litigant. 

Missing the Alienation

In my experience with the judicial custody proceedings, it is more likely that error is in the opposite direction of custody being given to a parent who makes allegations of alienation—even when there is substantial, neutral corroborative evidence for alienation.

That is, the court process is more likely to result in minimizing the alienation and/or underappreciating the seriousness of the child psychological abuse that is being caused by the alienating parent. 

When courts fail to effectively address the alienation, it is typically because, the professionals upon whom the court relies to inform it, do not specialize in alienation. Many professionals thereby miss the alienation even in the face of significant evidence for. These professionals are therefore unable and unqualified to accurately educate the court about the family dynamics.

In situations when the professionals do recognize the alienation, they often offer weak or tentative testimony about it. This leaves judges in a difficult situation of having to render impactful decisions effecting the child in the face of the litigants’ strongly conflicting cross allegations and in the absence of informed expert testimony.

Parental Alienation: A Denied Phenomenon That Is Complex, Counterintuitive, and Real

Steven G. Miller, MD (2013) is a Harvard educated physician and a cognitive scientist who, for more than 40 years, founded and managed a nationally-renowned forensic medical practice. Dr. Miller discusses the exceedingly unique clinical presentation of parental alienation, thereby requiring highly specialized expertise in order to recognize and treat it:

“Few mental health problems are more difficult to sort it out and more resistant to treatment [dependent upon diagnostic findings] than the triad of a severely alienated child, a severely determined alienating parent, and a severely rejected targeted parent (p. 10).”

“While PA [parental alienation] certainly is a relationship problem (or set of problems), severe cases are often associated with serious co-morbid psychopathology, particularly on part of the alienating parent.” (p. 11).

“Severe cases tend to be clinical in the medical sense of the word— (including shared delusions and/or other psychotic or quasi psychotic thinking), profound emotional dysregulation, and extreme or bizarre behavior. If clinicians fail to consider the total clinical picture—including any underlying psychopathology—they may fail to appreciate the severity and complexity of the situation (p. 11).”

“Cases of alienation often exceed the expertise of highly skilled practitioners….Cases of severe alienation are likely to be highly counterintuitive. Clinicians who attempt to manage them without adequate skills are likely to find themselves presiding over a cascade of clinical and psychosocial disasters (p.11).”

“But how can clinicians base their practices on sound scientific principles if there are few clinical trials and a paucity of outcome data? The answer is that clinicians may need to use first principles—fundamental clinical rules and concepts that can be applied to almost any clinical problem (p. 11).”

It is my intention for this article to show how several provisions in Kayden’s Law, Kyra’s Law, & Piqui’s Law have been informed by misinformation and disinformation due to the issues raised by Dr. Miller above and in conjunction with the zealous and noisy advocacy by alienating parents and disgraced professionals who have lost their licenses to practice.

Unqualified Self-Proclaimed “Experts” Advocate for These Laws

As discussed above, alienating parents and disgraced professionals defame the courts for self-serving and self-enriching purposes; and they zealously proffer misinformation and disinformation that has influenced and manipulated the legislators who passed these harmful custody laws. But they are not alone in doing so.

Should one read Dr. Miller’s entire above-cited chapter, one will realize that the field of child custody is rampant with unqualified clinical partitioners and non-clinical professionals who get the family dynamics in alienation cases not merely wrong but backwards.

That is, among other erroneous findings, the alienating parent is erroneously assessed to be the protective parent while the alienated parent is erroneously assessed to be the abusive parent.

Many of these self-proclaimed professional “experts” who have advocated for these collective custody laws are thereby not qualified to render an opinion on custody matters that involve alienation. They lack the required expertise and experience in assessing and treating alienation and knowing how to use the scientific method to make clinical findings. 

Misguided Belief That Denying the Phenomenon of Alienation Protects DV Victims

Other advocates of these collective custody laws are professionals who intervene in DV matters. These professionals hold the misguided belief that the custody laws that deny the phenomenon of alienation serve to protect women who are victims of DV; they are hopelessly and haplessly wrong. 

I share the concern about the need to protect victims of DV—and to protect all victims of DV, including alienated fathers who had been physically and emotionally assaulted by alienating mothers.

I have the concern also about the need to protect alienated mothers, who often sustain unimaginable physical abuse by the hands of their alienated sons at the behest of alienating fathers.

While I share the concern of DV professionals that alienation has been misused as a defense by DV perpetrators, I dispute the remedy that has been proposed—the remedy to utterly deny the phenomenon of alienation.

I have extensively discussed below why I hold my opinions about this very important topic, how to properly address remedy for DV so that protection of alienated children is not sacrificed, and why alienated mothers feel that DV professionals have turned their backs on them. 

What Makes Alienation So Specialized?

Alienation is a sub-specialty within of the discipline of family therapy, which is a specialty discipline within the general discipline of mental health. Family therapy possesses a distinct knowledge base, which is substantially contrary to that of every other mental health discipline. This is why the 50 states have licensed the title of Marriage and Family Therapy as a distinct mental health discipline.

Most, if not all, of the professionals who have influenced the legislators who passed these custody laws are not Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFT). Many are not even licensed clinicians in any mental health discipline.

Many have never personally met a single alienated child let alone personally examined a single family situation involving alienation.  They are astonishingly bereft of education, training, and experience with alienation. Yet they have presented themselves to the state legislators as experts on custody and family matters when they are not.

The insignificance of these self-proclaimed experts’ opinions on custody cases involving alienation is analogous to the insignificance of a general physician’s opinion to decry the hip transplant operation by the hip surgeon, who is an orthopedic sub-specialist within the specialty discipline of orthopedic medicine.

Before giving credibility to the custody opinions of a self-proclaimed expert, the person must undergo the same Voir Dire credential examination that my colleagues and I undergo before the Court determines that we are qualified to render opinions on the matter.

The Reporters Who Defame Reunification Programs With Lies and Misinformation

Some reporters who promote these collective custody laws have defamed reunification programs with lies and misinformation. These reporters have conspicuously subverted truth, the science underpinning alienation, and the positive research about the safety and effectiveness of reunification programs to their quest for sensationalism.

These reporters appear to be in an appalling race with each other to snatch every other reporter’s piece of sensationalism. What these reporters do is shameful; and it is harming children.

These reporters’ misleading, erroneous, and sensationalized published articles about reunification programs have frightened the professionals who intervene at all levels in custody cases, from using their authority to impose appropriate remedy to end the child abuse being committed by the alienating parent. 

I will not respond specifically to the reporting of second and third-rate reporters. But I will respond generally to their one-sided, partial, uncorroborated reports about the Court-ordered Turning Points for Families (TPFF) program, which was peer-reviewed for its safety and 96.4% effectiveness.

Even when these reporters had obtained the court order for the TPFF intervention, they failed to report the findings of the court and the basis for why TPFF had been Court ordered. Were these reporters to be truth seekers instead of sensationalism seekers, they would have reported the following court findings:

1. alienated parents were found by the court to be safe, protective parents;
2. children were safe in the custody of their alienated parent;
3. traditional reunification interventions were unsuccessful, and a higher level of intervention was thereby required in the child’s best interest;
4. the allegations of child abuse and domestic violence made by alienating parents against the alienated parent were meritless; 
5. the Court found it necessary to impose a protective separation of the child from the alienating parent. 
6. alienating parents had been psychologically abusing their children by undermining and severing the child’s relationship with the alienated parent;

Tragically for children, those who speak as an empty vessel make the most noise, receive the most attention and deference, and garner the most success in imposing their will upon those who intervene in the exceedingly complex and counterintuitive situation of parental alienation.

My Personal Experience With ProPublica’s Lies That Exploit Children

Hannah Dreyfus, former biased reporter with ProPublica, fabricated an hour-long recording of an interview that she claimed was of me discussing an alienation case. It was not me in that interview. I had not treated the case and knew nothing about the case. It would have therefore been impossible and inconceivable for me to have said a single word about that case.

I had given Dreyfus a Zoom interview in which I discussed alienation in general and that is a form of child psychological abuse. I gave her the references to extensive, comprehensive scientific research affirming the very real phenomenon of alienation. Dreyfus cited none of this research in the several distorted and misleading articles she wrote about TPFF and about me.

After I posted on my website that Dreyfus is a liar for having quoted me about a case I never discussed and knew nothing about, I received an email from her editor at ProPublica, Michael Squires. Squires stated that he had listened to the recording of me discussing the case with Dreyfus.

In this email, Squires cited several additional paragraphs of words which Dreyfus had attributed to me regarding the case. Ironically, it was Squires’ email in which I first learned the case name!

I hired a lawyer to initiate a fraud and defamation case against Dreyfus and ProPublica. My lawyer wrote to Pro Publica requesting copies of the recorded interview allegedly of me and the Zoom video of the interview I had given to Dreyfus discussing alienation in general.

My lawyer explained that I intended to submit the Zoom interview and the recording for facial and voice identification.

ProPublica’s associate general counsel, Sarah Mathews, responded to my lawyer, denying the requests for copies of the recorded interview alleged to be me and the Zoom interview which I did grant. It is of further note that Mathews provided several additional paragraphs of words about the case that Dreyfus had attributed to me.

Within two weeks of my lawyer’s demand for the Zoom video and the recording, Dreyfus was no longer working at ProPublica.

I am sure that the reader also finds it odd that Squires and Mathews referred to a Zoom video interview as a “recording.” We will have to wait to see how ProPublica responds to discovery requests in my fraud and defamation complaint against them and Dreyfus.

State legislatures should beware that advocates of Kayden’s Law, Kyra’s Law, and Piqui’s Law and others provide misinformation and disinformation about alienation and reunification programs. Indeed, several provisions in these collective laws subvert the child’s best interest. 

Flawed Research Spreading Misinformation and Disinformation About Alienation

My research colleagues have described rampart flaws in the studies that deny the phenomenon of alienation. Dubious research and unsubstantiated speculation are proffered in support of the junk science/anti-syndrome claims about Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) and PA. The vilification of the peer-reviewed, safe and effective reunification programs is also devoid of scientific support. 

I leave it to my colleagues to discuss the flaws of what alienation deniers submit to be quality research attacking the phenomenon of PA. Their responses can also be found on my website.

I will only generally summarize the flaws:

1. logical fallacies, to include, but are not limited to, the strawman argument, the red herring, the ipse dixit, the ecological fallacy, the appeal to the consequent; 
2. violation of the clinical axioms to make findings as discussed in Dr. Miller’s above referenced chapter;
3. misinformation, which is information that is offered out of ignorance, misunderstanding, misinterpretation, or negligence;
4. disinformation, which is information that is intentionally distorted, fabricated, or deceptive;
5. flawed methodology;
6. failure to adhere to academic standards for critiquing another’s work product;
7. Ad hominin attacks against my colleagues and me in the face of meritless arguments. 

Those authoring these critiques include child psychiatrist, William Bernet, MD, faculty emeritus of Vanderbilt University; associate professor of psychology at Colorado State University, Jennifer Harman, PhD; Amy JL Baker, PhD research psychologist; and Demosthenes Lorandos, JD, PhD; are among those who have noted substantial methodological and thinking flaws of the research studies and anti-science attacks upon PA and successful reunification programs.

The Erroneous PAS Anti-Syndrome Claim 

The erroneous anti-syndrome claim about PAS is based upon Kelly and Johnston’s falsified 2001 DSM syndrome definition cited in their article entitled, “The Alienated Child: A Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome.” Compare their falsified DSM syndrome definition with the true DSM syndrome definition:

The true DSM syndrome definition:

“A grouping of signs and symptoms, based on their frequent co-occurrence that may suggest a common underlying pathogenesis, course, familial pattern, or treatment selection.” (p.830) 

Kelly and Johnston’s falsified DSM syndrome definition:

“Because there is no “commonly recognized, or empirically verified pathogenesis, course, familial pattern, or treatment selection” of the problem of PAS, it cannot be properly considered a diagnostic syndrome of the American Psychiatric Association. (p. 249)”

Based solely upon the necessary and sufficient DSM criteria to qualify as a syndrome, Gardner’s eight manifestations of an alienated child irrefutably qualify as a syndrome.  That is, when you see the occurrence of one of Gardner’s 8 manifestations in a child, in the situation in which the child’s parents are in a contentious custody battle, you tend to see the occurrence of all or most of the manifestations. 

Gardner’s 8 Manifestations: Highly Predictive of an Alienated Child

Gardner’s 8 manifestations have been shown by numerous research studies and evidence-based practices—including my evidenced-based practice—to have an exceedingly low error rate for identifying and predicting an alienated child and for ruling out for a non-alienated child who is experiencing the situation of contentious parental conflict and custody. 

It is of particular note that, in the 40+ years since Gardner first described the PAS child, not a single study has been produced to show that the eight manifestations have been falsified—that is, that the manifestations appeared in children who were not alienated.

Not a single study has been produced to show that the manifestations have a consequential false positive rate—that is, claiming a child to be alienated who is not alienated.

Not a single study has been produced to show that the manifestations appear in any of group of children—such as children of adversarial parents who do not engage in alienation.

Not a single study has been produced to show the manifestations appear in abused or neglected children, who would have good reason reject their parents.

Amidst all the sound and fury that PAS does not qualify as a syndrome and is junk science, the sound and fury turns out to be nothing more than unsubstantiated, speculative bias that signifies nothing.

The Psychiatric Community’s Acceptance of Parental Alienation

It is fallacious, disingenuous, mischievous, and irresponsibly injurious to children to claim that the psychiatric community does not accept the phenomenon of parental alienation. 

There is no better an example of alienation’s acceptance in the psychiatric community than the specific reference to alienation in Kaplan and Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry.

Under the category of “psychological abuse” and with reference to three examples of parental alienation dynamics documented in the family relationship section of DSM-5-TR, the following is stated about parental alienation:

“In contentious divorces, one of the parents may indoctrinate the child to fear or dislike the other parent, thus causing parental alienation between the child and the rejected parent. Depending on the circumstances, parental alienation may be identified by one or more of these DSM-5 terms: child psychological abuse, parent–child relational problem, or child affected by parental relationship distress. (p.3829)“

Additional confirmation that the DSM-5 task force recognized the phenomenon of alienation can be found in a 2016 article published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, co-authored by my colleague, child psychiatrist, William Bernet, with two child psychiatrists, William Narrow and Marianne Wamboldt, both of whom had contributed to the family relationship section of the DSM-5. They write:

“Children who experience parental alienation almost always fulfill the definition for CAPRD; that is, the child is affected by conflict between the parents, with the result of forming an enmeshed relationship with one parent and rejecting a relationship with the other parent.”

“Depending on the focus of clinical attention, other DSM-5 conditions may be assigned in cases of parental alienation.” 

“If the focus of clinical attention is on the impaired relationship between the child and the target parent, the term “parent–child relational problem” may be used. “

“If the focus of clinical attention is on the parent who caused the child’s parental alienation through manipulation and indoctrination, the term “child psychological abuse” may be used.” 

“When the DSM-5 was in development, there was a proposal to include parental alienation disorder as a new diagnosis. In response, members of the DSM-5 Task Force never said that they doubted the reality or the importance of parental alienation.”

“Task Force members said that parental alienation should be considered an example of a relational problem because it involves a disturbance in the child’s relationship with one or both parents.” (p. 575)

I have barely touched the tip of the iceberg of the massive research and clinical literature confirming the psychiatric community’s acceptance of parental alienation. These references can be downloaded from my website.

The Alienation Phenomenon Is Recognized in Family Psychotherapy for More Than 70 Years

The alienation phenomenon—labeled “triangulation”—spawned the birth of the Family Therapy Movement in the 1950s. The Family Therapy Movement was founded by child psychiatrists, such as my mentor, child psychiatrist Salvador Minuchin, based upon their observations of the family dynamics that played out on child psychiatry wards during their child patients’ visits with their families. 

These child psychiatrists noted that their child patients had improved on the psychiatric wards but regressed after family visits. In observing the family visits, these psychiatrists noted the following family interactions:

“The parents had become embroiled in a dispute with each other, and one parent attempted to coopt the child as an ally against the other parent. This created a double-bind dilemma for the child because the child’s only resolution was a choice between two bad options—neither of which would allow the child to preserve relationships with both parents; that is, if the child aligned with the coopting parent, the relationship with the other parent became impaired or severed; and if the child declined to align, the coopting parent would reject the child due to “perceived” disloyalty.”

Dr. Minuchin (1972) describes the harm to the child from triangulation:

“The rigid triangle can also take the form of a stable coalition. One of the parents joins with the child in a rigidly bounded cross-generational coalition against the other parent….Whenever the  child sides with one, he is automatically defined as attacking the other. In this highly dysfunctional structure, the child is paralyzed. Every movement he makes is defined by one parent as an attack….This triad is the typical transactional pattern, accompanied by other significant family characteristics, in families having children with severe psychosomatic symptoms.” (p. 102)

Alienation’s Recognition in U. S. Jurisprudence

In his 2021 article entitled, “Parental Alienation in U. S. Courts, 1985-2028”, published in Family Court Review, lawyer and psychologist, Demosthenes Lorandos, another colleague, writes:

“In the thirty-four years since the term PAS was introduced and then later reformulated, trial and appellate courts across the United States have the construct of PA to be material, probative, relevant, to their tasks, admissible, and worthy of discussion, as they have grappled with emotionally abusive parents and damaged children.”

“Review of the thousands of opinions located by the query reveals that courts understand that there is distinction between “[w]hen on parent says negative and disparaging things about the other parent to the child, and when an aggressor parent “engage[s] in behavior designed to sabotage the child’s relationship with the victim parent.” (p. 330)

“Hundreds of opinions illustrating court confronting “unreasonable negative feelings and beliefs (such as anger, hatred rejection, and/or fear) toward a parent that are significantly disproportionate to the child’s actual experience with that parent, were located.”

Dr. Lorandos and Dr. Bernet cited in their 2021 book entitled, Parental Alienation: Science and Law, more than 1185 Appellate Court cases around the United States that recognized the phenomenon of parental alienation.

The family dynamics occurring in alienation are exactly the same as the family dynamics that are described in the case at bar in the following 2^nd Department Appellate Court ruling:

Young v. Young, 212 A.D.2d 114, 628 N.Y.S.2d 957 (NY 2nd Dept.1995)
“It has been observed by our Court that “[t]he natural right of visitation jointly enjoyed by the noncustodial parent and the child is more precious than any property right” (Resnick v Zoldan, 134 A.D.2d 246, 247) and that “the best interests of the child would be furthered by the child being nurtured and guided by both of the natural parents” (Bostinto v. Bostinto, 207 A.D.2d 471, 472). Indeed, a custodial parent’s interference with the relationship between a child and a noncustodial parent has been said to be “an act so inconsistent with the best interests of the child as to per se raise a strong probability that the offending party is unfit to act as a custodial parent” (Maloney v Maloney, 208 A.D.2d 603, 603-604).”

In the entire history of jurisprudence, it cannot be credibly claimed that there has not been a single case in which one parent had unjustifiably turned a child against the other parent.  Therefore, when a claim of alienation is made, the issue before the Court ought to be whether the evidence in the case at bar supports the presence of alienation. 

A rhetorical debate about alienation is a means by which the alienating parent distracts the court’s attention from the psychological abuse that the alienating parent is inflicting upon the child.

Child Psychological Abuse: Incredibly Not Addressed in These Custody Laws

Child psychiatrist William Bernet, professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University (2020), asserts that the family dynamic accepted in the scientific community labeled “alienation” is a form of child psychological abuse:

“Causing PA [parental alienation] is a form of child maltreatment… Specifically, engaging in AB’s [alienating behaviors] in a purposeful, persistent manner constitutes child psychological abuse.” (p. 15)

“The reader should note that no expert or professional group has stated the reverse, i.e., that causing severe PA is not a form of child maltreatment. Since PA constitutes significant psychological harm to the child, causing severe PA should be classified as a form of child psychological abuse. Accordingly, child protection personnel and courts should consider removing—at least temporarily—children who manifest severe PA from the home of the favored, alienating parent. In that regard, this form of child psychological abuse should be addressed in the same way as physical abuse and sexual abuse is handled.” (P. 17)

In their 2013 book published by the American Bar Association entitled, Children Held Hostage: Identifying Brainwashed Children, Presenting a Case, and Crafting Solutions, the authors, Clawar and Rivlin write about the abuse in this family dynamic:

“Our research continues to confirm that, even when under court order, traditional therapies are of little, if any benefit, in regard to treating this form of child abuse.”

“We continue to find that this form of social-psychological child abuse is likely to be as damaging as physical abuse.” (p. xxvii)

A number of the dysfunctional family interactions that occur in the alienation dynamic are examples of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The resulting harm to children includes but are not limited to:

1. Premature death in adults from medical causes (Felitti & Anda, et. al., 1998);
2. Permanent brain dysfunction (Anda & Felitti, et. al. 2006);
3. Risk outcomes being as severe as sexual abuse, physical abuse, or combination (Spinazzola, et. al., 2014);
4. Long-term mental health issues (Nurius, et. al. 2015).

Several of the ACE studies are also found on my website.

I have cited merely the tip of the iceberg of the substantial research and clinical literature documenting the profound harm to children from psychological abuse. It is astonishing to me that these child custody laws do not include a provision that each parent be assessed for psychologically abusive parenting behaviors.  

Alienated Mothers Assaulted by Their Sons: An Ignored Tragedy and Crisis in the Making

Because of the brouhaha denying alienation as a legitimate family dynamic, alienated mothers are suffering unacknowledged and unremedied incidents of horrific physical assaults by their sons. 

These minor boys are assaulting their mothers at the behest of their alienating fathers. These alienated mothers are being needlessly yet demonstrably failed by both the judicial and mental health systems. Why is this happening?

DV professionals are among those who advocate for these collective laws to characterize alienation “as junk science” and to thereby keep allegations of alienation out of the courtroom. 

These professionals are motivated by the misguided belief that they are protecting women who are DV victims. Their argument is that some perpetrators of DV will play the “alienation defense card” to become exonerated from their despicable, indefensible behaviors. 

I share the concern of these DV professionals, whom I consider to be my colleagues, but I do not share their remedy to deny alienation’s legitimate recognition.

We do not throw out the baby with the bathwater, as so the adage goes. The argument to deny the existence of PA because it may be misused by DV perpetrators is a logical fallacy known as “appeal to the consequent.”

If medicine were conscribed by this logical fallacy, then chemotherapy, for example, would be prohibited because of the undesirable consequences of nausea and hair loss.

We have the science to rule in cases of DV just like we have the science to rule in cases of PA. And it is science that we should be relying upon rather than to engage in hyperbole: that alienation is junk science to be kept out of the courtroom.

Alienated Mothers Need Help, Not the Harm From These Collective Custody Laws

Alienated mothers make up 50% of my caseload and that of my colleagues who provide specialized treatment for PA. And with respect to my cases of alienated mothers, virtually all of them have been physically assaulted by their minor sons, and often by their minor daughters. Many have required medical attention for the wounds and bruises they had sustained at the hands of their minor sons. 

Alienated mothers want their sons to receive the therapeutic help they need so as to relinquish their abusive behaviors. This cannot occur if the existence of alienation is not recognized and acknowledged in the courts.

Alienated mothers are angry and disappointed with DV professionals who deny the very real trauma they are experiencing not only from being unjustifiably rejected by their sons but also from being viciously assaulted by them.

A Preventable but Untreated Crisis in the Making

As a result of turning their backs on the horrific situation of alienated boys physically assaulting their alienated mothers, DV professionals are, counterintuitively, failing to take preventive action to not only protect and treat alienated mothers who are victims of DV; but DV professionals are failing to act preventively so as to treat and to redirect violent alienated boys, who are on the trajectory of becoming adult perpetrators of DV. 

What does anyone think will happen to these assaultive young boys and to their future intimate adult partners if they are not treated, in their youth, so as to proscribe their abusive, antisocial behavior of physically assaulting their mothers? 

These current and potential tragedies are easily averted by relying upon science to rule in both PA and DV.

The blanket rejection of PA by those who intervene to prevent DV and treat DV victims is irresponsible, dangerous, and thwarts the standard of “the best interest of the child.” The unjustified denial of PA has no place in any law that is designed to protect children.

Identifying the True Perpetrator of CA and DV in Cases of PA

I agree fully with the provision in these collective custody laws that declare a parent who engages in DV and/or CA to be unfit and unable to be the custodial parent. Contact, if any at all, between true DV perpetrators and their children must be carefully monitored and restricted. 

These collective custody laws, however, eschew the scientific method for making clinical findings so as to identify true DV perpetrators and CA. 

For example, these collective custody laws argue that the mere allegation against one parent by the other parent, who is a highly invested party in the outcome of the custody case, is sufficient to deprive the alleged perpetrator of parenting time.

Allegations that are not corroborated with quality neutral evidence violates the scientific method to make clinical findings. No child should be denied meaningful contact with a parent based upon an unconfirmed allegation of abuse.

Before taking the extraordinary leap to deny the child’s right and need to meaningful contact with a parent, the Court must hold an evidentiary hearing to determine if there is merit to the allegations of DV and/or CA. 

These collective custody laws should require that the evidentiary hearing hear testimony not only from specialists in DV but from specialists in alienation as well. Alienation specialists have acquired the unique, specialized knowledge to educate the Court about the true perpetrator of CA, DV, and DV by proxy in severe cases of alienation.

Indeed, I assert, that one cannot be a specialist in PA and not have also acquired the necessary training and expertise to be considered an expert in DV, just as I am.

CA and DV are despicable, inexcusable behaviors—and so is depriving a child contact with a loving, protective parent based merely upon the allegation of the other, highly self-interested parent. Unjustifiably denying a child meaningful contact with a parent qualifies as child psychological abuse. 

Who Is the Perpetrator of CA, DV, and DV by Proxy in Cases of PA?

Peer-reviewed research and the clinical literature have found that severely alienating parents are engaging in child psychological abuse, DV, and DV by Proxy in the process of unjustifiably and manipulatively turning their children against the other parent. 

Severely alienating parents project their abusive behaviors onto the alienated parent, frequently filing one or more knowingly false CA and/or DV official report against the alienated parent.

Indeed, a strong marker for an alienating parent is a pattern of behavior to make false CA and DV reports.

Alienating parents engage in forceful and concentrated coercive controlling behaviors of their children because the instinct for a parent is part of the instinct for survival, and an instinct for survival is not easily overcome.

I ask the reader to reflect upon just how coercive, controlling, and manipulative an alienating parent’s behaviors must be in order to rob a child of the self-protective feelings and survival needs to have the other parent meaningfully involved! 

I ask the reader to reflect upon how intrusive it is of children for their alienating parent to violate their children’s boundaries in order to rob them of their autonomy to think for themselves, acquire and cultivate their own opinions, and to treasure their own feelings and wishes!

The boundary violation by the alienating parent of the child meets the standard definition of the emotional abuse that occurs in both DV and in the DSM-5-TR definition of “child psychological abuse.”

When alienating parents incite their children to defy, reject, maltreat, emotional abuse, and even physically abuse their alienated parent, that behavior meets the standard definition of DV by Proxy, resulting in the DSM-5-TR definition of “child or adolescent antisocial behavior.”

Similarities Between the Traditional DV Power & Control Wheel With That of PA Wheel

Instead of penalizing the non-abusive alienated parent, these collective custody laws must remedy the alienating parent’s coercive parental control behaviors of their children and implement measures to protect the child from further abuse.  

The Prevalence of False Child Abuse & Domestic Violence Allegations in Severe PA Cases

Severely alienating parents often make knowingly false allegations of DV and CA against the other parent. In my work with more than 750 alienated children—500 being severe cases—85-95% of severely alienating parents made knowingly false abuse allegations. Many severely alienating parents have engaged in a pattern of making these knowingly false allegations.

Severely alienating parents will surely take advantage of the lax provisions in these custody laws to deny parenting time to a parent based merely upon allegations of abuse by the other, highly invested parent. 

These collective custody laws must recognize that false allegations of DV and CA are common in severe cases of PA. Of course, all allegations must be promptly investigated and appropriate responses implemented for indicated cases.

By the same token, exactly because of the enormous implications for the child—of both a finding of abuse and of an incorrect finding of abuse that unjustifiably results in the child’s loss of contact with a parent—the scientific method must be employed to investigate the merit of all abuse allegations.

Necessity to Determine the Merit of Child Sexual Abuse Allegations

The collective custody laws take seriously allegations of child sexual abuse—as well they should. Sexual abuse is assuredly a wanton, inexcusable, abusive act that signals long-term adverse consequences for a child.

Sex abuse is not merely a physical assault and atrocity; it is a psychological assault because of the damage it does to the child’s every area of psychological functioning.

Sexual abuse undermines the child’s sense of trust, security, relatedness, acceptance, approval, predictability, confidence, feeling lovable, and much more. 

The pervasive harm to the child from sexual abuse is exactly why sex abuse allegations must be investigated according to the scientific method to make clinical findings.

These custody laws address the harm to the child from having been sexually abused by a parent. But what these laws conspicuously fail to address is the comparable harm to the child from the false belief of having been sexually abused by a parent.

The harm from the false belief is comparable to the harm from the actual experience of having been sexually abused by a parent.

These laws further indefensibly fail to address the alienating parent, who has engaged in the abusive, cruel, manipulative, coercive, insensitive, selfish, and vile behavior to make the child accept the falsehood of having been sexually abused by the alienated parent.

The Scientific Method to Assess the Merit of Child Abuse Allegations

As a result of applying the scientific method to assessing the merit of an allegation of child sexual abuse occurring in contentious custody cases, we are informed that its occurrence is <2%. 

This <2% rate of occurrence comes from the research of child psychiatrist, George Davis (2017), of the Children’s Law Institute, in his study entitled, “Child Memory, Traumatic Memory, and the Child Witness.”

Dr. Davis combined the findings of all the research studies on this clinical situation to arrive at the <2% rate for the prevalence of child sexual abuse in cases of adversarial custody. This rate is known as “prior probability.”

Without getting technical about the scientific method to make findings, the lower the prior probability of an event, the higher is the weight of the evidence required to confirm it had occurred in a particular case.

The lower the prior probability of an event, the lower is the weight of the evidence needed to disconfirm that it had occurred in a particular case.

Given the exceedingly low prior of <2% for the incidence of child sexual abuse occurring in adversarial custody cases, the scientific method would require substantial quality evidence to establish that sexual abuse had occurred in a particular case of adversarial custody. 

The collective custody laws regarding allegations of child sexual abuse in adversarial custody cases are not informed by the scientific method for making decisions about parenting time and custody.

Instead, these collective custody laws will rescind or restrict parenting time based upon flimsy, uncorroborated evidence for a sexual abuse allegation.

That is, these laws deem it sufficient to enact such restrictions based upon the mere word of a child or an invested litigant.

This hardly meets the criteria of “substantial quality evidence” for several reasons: self-reporting, in general, is known to be unreliable; children are easily influenced, especially by a parent who is litigating custody; memory is fallible; memory is subjective, and so much more.

And yet, I have experienced countless alienated parents who have been indicated for child sexual abuse in highly conflictual custody based solely upon the word of the child.

It will hopefully be of interest to the reader that Dr. Davis also found that the occurrence of false allegations of child sexual abuse in adversarial custody cases can be as high as 35%. 

Dr. Davis described the “perfect storm of incentives” for the reporting of false child sexual abuse allegations to be “conflicted caretakers, adversarial legal proceeding, positive and negative consequences—Coaching.” (p. 29)

The Child’s Unhealthy Bonding to the Alienating Parent

These collective state custody laws prohibit a child’s removal from a parent to whom the child is bonded. These laws do not require an assessment to determine if the bonding is healthy or unhealthy bonding.

Really? And these collective custody laws claim to be protective of children? 

A child’s relationship with a severely alienating parent is not healthy bonding. To the contrary, their relationship is pathologically enmeshed.

Pathological enmeshment is a severe psychiatric condition for the child. The alienating parent engages in coercive control behaviors to undermine the child’s critical thinking skills, encourage the child to act out the alienating parent’s antisocial behaviors, to maltreat the alienated parent, and to snatch from the child the child’s basic psychological need to have the alienated parent meaningfully involved.

Regrettably for alienated children, non-specialists in alienation perceive the child’s bonding to the alienating parent to incorporate feelings of safety, closeness, and security.

These characteristics are the exact opposite of what is going on. The alienating parent-child relationship involves abuse, self-serving, and unpredictability for the child.

Counterintuitively, the child attaches to the alienating parent in compliance with the psychological defense mechanism known as “undoing.”

The failure of these collective custody laws to assess for healthy bonding to the bonded parent lands a disarming dagger to the heart of Child Protective Services (CPS) mandates and laws to protect children. 

Consider this: Every one of the 3000 foster children with whom I had worked, and who had been removed from their homes due to the abusive and/or neglectful behaviors of their parents, felt bonded to their parents and vehemently protested the removal from their parents. 

Indeed, counterintuitively, the greater the abuse that had been sustained by a foster child, the stronger was the child’s attachment to the parent and resistance to removal. This applied to sexually abused children as well. 

In the best interest of the child, state child abuse laws—as opposed to these collective custody laws—do not empower abused children to reject their protective removal from a bonded, abusive parent.

Research Finds Severely Alienating Parents to Likely Suffer Psychological Instability

Substantial research finds that severely alienating parents almost surely suffer from one or more personality disorders—narcissistic, borderline, antisocial and/or paranoid. Personality disorders are characterological—meaning they are highly resistant to treatment. Someone with an antisocial personality has virtually no hope of recovery.

Consider this: violating laws, such as violating a parent’s parenting time; involving children in the violation of the law regarding the other parent’s parenting time; manipulating children to lie about the other parent; having no empathy for a child’s need for a parent nor a parent’s need for a child; making a child falsely believe that the other parent had been abusive; etc.—are all examples of an antisocial personality disorder.

Someone with a personality disorder is an expert at mimicking normal behavior; at impression management; and at being exceedingly convincing, charming, and compelling. Severe alienators have been known to fool many of even the most experienced, seasoned clinicians and reporters! 

A child living primarily with a parent with a personality disorder has a significantly higher likelihood of developing one or more personality disorders than does a child who is not in the primary care of a parent who does not have a personality disorder.

Custody laws must take seriously allegations of alienation. The risk to the child from a severely alienating parent is the development of one or more personality disorders, portending an exceedingly poor prognosis in life.

Child Protection: Necessity for Child’s Separation From the Alienating Parent

These collective custody laws incorrectly claim that reunification programs like TPFF require the transfer of children from a “bonded” parent to the rejected parent merely to reunify children with a parent who exhibits “deficient parenting skills.”

If a parent engages in deficient parenting skills, then this is not a case of alienation. It is a case of estrangement. 

Reunification programs such as Turning Points for Families (TPFF) require a temporary “protective removal” from an abusive alienating parent with placement in the custody of the protective alienated parent; this is not a transfer of custody from a fit parent to an unfit parent who has “deficient parenting skills.”

Additionally, programs like TPFF do not require nor request the Court to make the removal permanent in order for the intervention to proceed. As I had learned from my work with foster children, the child’s desire and need to be reunited with their parents—even exceedingly abusive parents—was insatiable.

And just as I had encouraged adjudicated abusive parents to get the help they needed to have their children returned them, that is exactly what I attempt to do with alienating parents.

In the end, it is the Court that determines the necessity to extend the protective separation based upon the recovery—or lack thereof—of the alienating parent.

The child’s removal from the alienating parent that is required by TPFF and other like reunification programs is in compliance with the clinical axiom to “develop treatment priorities.”

The treatment priority in severe PA cases is to remedy the child psychological abuse being inflicted upon the child by the alienating parent. This requires a protective removal from the alienating parent.

The damaged relationship between the child and the alienated parent is a secondary treatment priority; and the pathologically enmeshment relationship between the child and the alienating parent is the third treatment priority. 

Training for Judges and Other Judicial and Legal Personnel

Agreed that those who undertake the training of judges and other judicial and legal personal must have acquired substantial experience and competency in treating child abuse, domestic violence, and sexual violence. 

But it is unclear who will make such determinations of prospective trainers. Specialized treatment providers of alienation have attained the qualifications to provide this training. They must be considered to be appropriate trainers. 

Another essential qualification needed by the trainers but which has been omitted from these collective custody laws, is facility with the scientific method to make clinical findings.

Conclusion

• Misinformation and disinformation about alienation and about safe and effective reunification programs are being spread across the internet by highly invested alienating parents, biased news reporters, disgraced professionals, and professionals who are not qualified to render opinions on the subject.
• Custody laws should be informed by the opinions of professionals who have an established record of being qualified by the courts to render expert opinions on the issues being addressed in these laws.
• Allegations of child abuse, sexual abuse, and domestic violence must be evaluated for merit by the scientific method to make clinical findings.
• No parent should loose parenting time and contact with her or his child solely on the basis of an allegation of abuse and for which no neutral corroborative evidence has been provided.
• Judges should hold an evidentiary hearing regarding abuse allegations to inform parenting time and custody decisions.
• Based upon the evidence it hears, courts should assess the scientific support for and against a clinical dispute; legislators and politicians are practicing outside their areas of expertise when passing custody laws that take positions on clinical disputes.
• Reunification programs should not be categorially dismissed in the custody laws; each program needs to be evaluated for its safety and effectiveness. 
• Judges must not be constricted by these laws to render decisions they deem to be in the best interest of the child. 

References Cited