What does the American Psychological Association think about Parental Alienation?

A recent Associated Press article titled “Psychiatric group: Parental alienation no disorder,” began circulating around the web. The article discusses the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) stance on parental alienation syndrome, or parental alienation disorder as it would be called if included in the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Despite intensive efforts by those who support the inclusion of parental alienation into the DSM, the APA DSM task force decided not to include PAS into the fifth edition of the DSM, scheduled to come out in 2013.  According to the AP article, the APA holds that “a child's relationship with one estranged parent can be poisoned by the other parent, and there's broad agreement that it sometimes occurs in the context of divorces and child-custody disputes.” 

In the same article, Dr. Darrel Regier, vice chair of the task force drafting the manual stated ‘‘the bottom line; it is not a disorder within one individual, it’s a relationship problem: parent-child or parent-parent. Relationship problems per se are not mental disorders.’’

Those who do not support the inclusion of parental alienation into the revised DSM claim that a disorder cannot be diagnosed to a set of people, only one individual. They claim it might be a slippery slope, and may lead to including other problems that occur in unhealthy romantic relationships, like Co-dependency Disorder or Family Scapegoating Disorder. While in their minds these two examples seem parallel parental alienation, those who truly understand parental alienation and the affect it has on the children involved understand that they often develop behavioral and emotional problems that can affect their lives and relationships well into adulthood. It is not simply just a family disturbance.

Those who support the inclusion of parental alienation into the DSM are adamant about it because they know the inclusion would be a huge step toward fairer outcomes in family courts, which would in turn, enable more children to receive the proper treatment in order to reconcile with their alienated parent and live happy, healthy lives.

Parental alienation is a controversial topic and the APA is well aware of that.  Parental alienation expert, J. Michael Bone, PhD, stated in a recent post that the APA is a trade association of Psychiatrists, and in interest of attracting and maintaining members, trade associations tend to never take controversial positions.  If they did, then the APA itself and its members become targets of attack by alienating parents as well as powerful organizations that have taken an adversarial position regarding the issue.

There are no official statements made by the APA regarding parental alienation.  The closest thing one will find is that the issue is still being researched.  The APA knows if takes a position supporting parental alienation, it will lose members who oppose it; conversely, if it takes a position stating it does not exist, then it will lose members and credibility. 

Taking a position is a no-win situation for the APA. So, what does the APA do?  In examining the APA’s Guidelines for the performance of Custody Evaluations, you’ll finds that attached to it is a reading list of endorsed references that are to be used as references in the performance of these Custody Evaluations. According to J. Michael Bone, PhD, these are the “gold standard” documents and references to be used by custody evaluators. This elite reading list contains just over thirty resources and the only author that is listed three times is Richard Gardner, MD. Among the references listed is his seminal volume entitled “The Parental Alienation Syndrome.” In other words, in an effort to maintain its credibility with its members, it passively and quietly endorses the works of Gardner that are the cornerstone of what we understand parental alienation to be.

J. Michael Bone, PhD writes if you are battling parental alienation, do not let this news disturb you; this is not a disaster, it is only a slight bump in the road, if even that.

If you have been the target of parental alienation or know someone who has, get support and resources to defend your family at Alienation Hurts.

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10 Signs of Deception: Does Your Family Therapist Know Them?

Family therapists are trained to provide mental health services.  During their training they learn the theories to provide these services; however, they are not trained to learn the signs of deception, nor are they required to.

Targeted parents know that deception is a fundamental part of the alienating parent's campaign of denigration.  Deception is the primary method used in persuading children to participate in asserting false claims of abuse.  Therapists need to understand how to detect deception in order to identify the deceptive tells that may be displayed by alienating parents and children.

Paul M. Clikeman, Ph.D., CFE, an expert on deception, describes ten signs of deception:

 

1.       Lack of self-reference.  For example, “The safe was left unlocked” rather than “I left the safe unlocked.”

2.       Verb tense.  Truthful people use past tense terms for events that occurred in the past; however, dishonest people often use present tense terms for past events.

3.       Answering a question with a question.  Truthful people answer directly; whereas, dishonest people often attempt to avoid answering the question by asking another question.

4.       Equivocation.  Truthful people are sure of their answers; while dishonest people often don’t want to get trapped in a lie, so they use vague or weak expressions.  These expressions include terms such as: I think, I guess, sort of, maybe, might, perhaps, about, could, and approximately.

5.       Oaths.  Honest people are confident that the facts will prove the veracity of their statements; however, dishonest people, despite giving little useful information, will give weak oaths to make their statements sound more convincing.  Oaths such as: “I swear,” “cross my heart,” and “god as my witness.”

6.       Euphemisms.  Dishonest people use softer terms that put their actions in a more favorable light.  Look for euphemistic terms such as: “missing” instead of “stolen,” “borrowed” instead of “took,” “bumped” instead of “hit,” and “warned” instead of “threatened.”  Note, when making false claims of abuse, the terms will be harsher to make their statements more favorable.

7.       Alluding to actions.  People sometimes allude to actions without saying they actually performed them.  For example, a person who says “Last week, I decided to copy my files on the hard drive. I also need to lock the list in the safe.”  Did this person actually copy the files or lock the list in the safe?  An attentive investigator should not assume that the actions that were alluded to were actually performed.

8.       Lack of detail.  Truthful statements usually contain specific details, some of which may not even be relevant to the question asked.  Those who fabricate stories tend to keep their statements simple and brief.  Few liars have sufficient imagination to make up detailed descriptions of fictitious events.

9.       Narrative balance.  A narrative consists of three parts: prologue, critical event and aftermath.  The prologue contains background information and describes events that took place before the critical event, this should consume about 20-25 percent of the narrative.  The critical event is the most important occurrence and should consume 40-60 percent.  The aftermath describes what happened after the critical event and should take about 25-35 percent of the narrative.  If one part of the narrative is significantly shorter than expected, important information may have been omitted, and if it is significantly longer than expected, it may be padded with false information.

10.    Mean length of utterance.  The average number of words per sentence is called the “mean length of utterance.”  Most people tend to speak in sentences of between 10 and 15 words.  When people feel anxious about an issue, they tend to speak in sentences that are either significantly longer or significantly shorter than the norm.

A person who demonstrates these signs is not necessarily lying; he or she may just be anxious for a number of reasons.  Also, a skilled liar may not demonstrate any of these signs.  A trained professional will know this and use these red flags to further investigate the situation before making any determinations or recommendations about the situation.

If your family therapist does not know the signs of deception, then he or she is not likely going to be very effective in identifying the core issues that exist in parental alienation families.   Staying with an ineffective provider can ultimately cause more harm to the family simply because the alienating parent has more opportunity to manipulate the children during the time that he or she is not being held accountable to their deceit.

Parental alienation experts believe that ‘threat therapy’ is the most effective strategy for treatment.  This strategy is a proactive approach that involves the therapist making the alienating parent unmistakably aware that he or she will disclose their alienation attempts to the court, and recommend court approved sanctions if it continues.  Click here to read more about 'threat therapy'.

If your family therapist is unable or unwilling to utilize these techniques, it may be time to switch to a provider who is able and willing.  Search Shannon's List Professional Review for a provider that is experienced in parental alienation, or post a review for the providers you have worked with.

For further reading on parental alienation and coping techniques, visit the Alienation Hurts site at www.alienationhurts.com.

Citation: Clikeman, P., (2012 January/February). Fraud Magazine, 27, pp. 30-34.
 

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