The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals

My sister found this book a lifesaver.She does not have a clinical background, but she could finally give a name to what her husband was doing to the children. She was the alienated parent -- a mirror reverse from the traditional.She highly recommends this author. Also she recommends his followup book **Therapeutic Interventions for Children with Parental Alienation Syndrome** by Richard A. Gardner.If any part of these books will help my sister get out of her miserable situation, then they are worth their weight in gold.MjM

I am the father of two sons who were alienated from me according to the pattern described and analyzed by Dr. Gardner in this book. In the process of fighting in court for 6 years for at least minimal contact with my sons, I did a good deal of research on PAS and even wrote an unpublished book manuscript that dealt in part with PAS. I.e., I know what I am talking about, and not just from the perspective of my own case. I consider Dr. Gardner's book to be a major contribution to social psychology. This book was the first to define and articulate the dynamics of PAS. Dr. Gardner takes great pains to distinguish PAS from other phenomena and to provide one detail after another than can help an observer to diagnose a given case. He shows a keen appreciation for the pressures on the children and the differing behaviors of oldest and younger children. Many of his observations will strike a person going through a PAS case as uncannily predictive. His characterization of the pathological behavior of lawyers, psychologists, and judges in many of these cases is damning. It certainly fit the "professionals" who mishandled our case or used it for their personal gain. Dr. Gardner's prescriptions for reform of the psychological and legal handling of these cases are useful. Equally helpful is his unflappable common sense. He spent years dealing with family problems at US Army bases in Germany and has seen just about every crazy situation imaginable. So he is not fooled, as are many observers, by the endless allegations of the alienating parent against the allegedly hated parent. Nor does he hesitate to put the obsessive denigrators in their place, if need be. My research turned up two sources of statistical evidence that corroborated Dr. Gardner's finding that roughly 9 out of 10 of the alienating parents are the mothers. PAS is one of those phenomena that the media seem incapable of reporting accurately and analytically, or even reporting at all. Yet psychologists are coming to see that it is quite widespread. Indeed, PAS may account for a certain portion of the fathers who are said not to care for their kids. If you want to understand PAS, there is no better place to look than Dr. Gardner's book.

If you know of an expert willing to look at our case and testify in court (fully compensated of course), please email us. As a divorced mother, finding the man of my dreams seemed very far away, until it unexpectedly happened in 1994. I got along fine with my ex, and my son saw his dad as often as possible, twice as much as the court papers stated. It never occurred to me to NOT let him go, or to even utter a negative comment about my ex or his new family. My son was thriving with 2 moms, and soon to be 2 dads. However, the mother of my step-son was the opposite of me. She not only withheld visitation, she actually believed she was doing it "for the best interest of her son". She was (is) extremely overprotective of him, yet is not affectionate with him (no hugs/no kisses), must sleep with him, bathe with him *which we believe we got stopped with the help of a psychiatrist when he was 8*, instills fear in him regarding normal childhood activities, ie: riding a bike ("if you ride a bike, a car will hit you and you will die"), swimming ("If you go out of the baby pool, you'll drown even if a grown-up is with you"), amusement park rides, "Those things break all the time and lots of little kids die because they ride them"), and on and on. Of course these conversations the mother had with the child were at the same time she would find out we (dad and stepmom) were going to take the kids swimming, camping, boating, vacation, etc. Thus, the child would refuse to even try anything we had planned. Although she scared him into not riding a bike until he was over 7 years old, she would always duplicate whatever we bought him. (bike, clothing, toys, etc). The boy could also "never answer questions" asked by dad, stepmom, stepbrother, or any other family or friends from "our house". So, when asked his teachers name, his response "I forgot", or "Do you want to go to Bobby's birthday party?" His response, "I don't know". or "What do you want for Christmas/birthday?", his response, "I don't know". It interferes with our every day living. The pressure he is under to NOT have a good time at our home is apparent in his schoolwork and behavior at school (not good). Thus, the school contacts her, not dad, and she has him evaluated for ADHD, without informing psych. of environmental factors that would affect his behavior, thus he is now "officially" ADHD, and on Ritalin. SO, as time went on, and the medication didn't make many changes in his behavior, she had him diagnosed again, this time with ODD, and he's now on another medication, Risperdal ("so he won't be compulsive" says his mom). However, dad was never informed of the testing, prescribing of medication, etc., until it was too late to do anything about it. School information, medical information, extra-curricular activity info., have been difficult and sometimes impossible to get (yes, is joint custodial parent). WE know what is happening, but so far h

Dr. Gardner has studied this controversial syndrome extensively, and is one of the few people willing to talk about it publicly. Currently going through this with my daughter and her mother, this book has helped me recognize happenings that I would have otherwise dismissed. I highly recommend this book for anyone going through "difficulties" with children who are from divorced, separated, or single-parent families. Dr. Gardner uses real-world examples to explain situations and explores this subject in great detail. Although he has targeted this book for legal and mental health professionals, any parent who fits into the above category would benefit.

This review will be short by design.There has never been a more important work ever done in matters of emotional child abuse and/or brainwashing where one parent to a divorce wants to alienate their child against the other parent out of spite or revenge. For those parents who become the target of such alienation and who don't understand the sudden hateful and hurtful behavior of their now brainwashed and alienated child toward them, this book will give you the answers you need.It will be for those parents like having an illness that no one can diagnose until one day you find a doctor that can easily spot your condition because of all the easily identifiable symptoms that he alone seems to know where everyone else is groping in the dark for the proper diagnosis. As the author says toward the end of the book..." when I describe these symptoms to parents who have encountered this problem with their children, they all tell me..'It's as if you have been living in my house for the past year'"