A state bill that would set guidelines for child
custody cases has highlighted a nearly 20-year-old dispute over a
theory used by psychological evaluators. Assembly Bill 612, which failed to pass into law in 2007,
targeted the controversial theory, called Parental Alienation Syndrome.
The syndrome describes behavior in which one parent turns a child
against the other, convincing the child the parent has treated him or
her badly, even when they have not.
Dr. Philip Stahl, a California evaluator and member of the
state's Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, says evaluators
are split in their beliefs about whether children can be alienated.
"You have evaluators who really don't understand alienation, and people who want to apply it in every case," Stahl said.
Evaluators
are not the only one with differing views on the issue: There are
stalwart advocates who believe that hundreds of people have suffered
because of parental alienation, and those who believe just as many have
suffered from false charges of the syndrome.
Women's advocates say the theory has been used by courts to place children with abusive fathers.
"It's
junk science used to target women and take their custody rights away,"
said Karen Anderson, a spokesperson for the California Protective
Parents Association. "It's a problem in courts all over the country."
Julia Cotton, a mother from Los Angeles County, said that a custody evaluation in her divorce case accused her of alienation and led to her young daughter being placed with her husband full-time.
"Her
recommendation led to me only getting my daughter for supervised
visits," Cotton said. "When I saw her she acted traumatized, and seemed
totally out of it."
Cotton said she suspected that her ex-husband was abusing her daughter in some way but didn't know what to do about it.
"I knew that the more I tried to do something about it, the more I would be accused of alienation."
While
women's groups tout Cotton's story as a typical one throughout
California, father's- rights groups have the opposite view of custody
courts and alienation.
"Ninety-eight percent of the time that you see abuse
charges that have not been verified by police, those allegations are
coached," said J. Michael Kelly, a lawyer and a member of the United
Fathers of California law group.
One father in the middle of a custody battle who asked to
be called Norm said his two teenage daughters say they don't want to
have anything to do with him, and he can't figure out why.
"They call me a violent man, they say I am aggravating," said Norm. "I had a bad custody evaluator, and now I barely see them."
Norm said he believes his wife is genuinely convinced that he does not treat their children well.
"I
don't think she is trying to be vindictive," he said. "I just think in
her mind there is some deeper mental problem that is convincing her I'd
be bad for the kids."
The text of the 2007 version of A.B. 612 was drafted by the
CPPA and explicitly banned the use of Parental Alienation Syndrome, or
just the term alienation from use in evaluations. It also aimed to
minimize the use of custody evaluations.
The family law section of the State Bar and the several psychologists groups banded together to oppose the bill.
The
2008 version of the bill is much vaguer than its predecessor, stating
evaluators will be forced to conform to "standards generally accepted
by the medical, psychiatric, legal, and psychological communities." The
bill does not specifically mention Parental Alienation Syndrome.
"The thinking was that if you mentioned specific syndromes
or disorders, people who would use them in evaluations would just start
calling them by a different name," said Ira Ruskin, D-Redwood City, who
introduced the bill.
But Karen Anderson, who helped draft the original bill, said the new version, A.B. 2587, is not strong enough.
"It's
not an unusual process for a bill," said Anderson. "It starts out
strong, and then it gets watered down, and a lot of the great stuff
gets thrown out."
Stahl said that although the bill provides more guidelines
for judges in what to expect from evaluators, the judges themselves
still bring their own expectations about alienation into the courtroom.
"Courts are ruling in favor of people unfairly accused of
alienation, and they are ruling against people who have been
alienated," Stahl said. "Problems described by advocates on both sides
on the issue are happening."
An additional problem, evaluators say, is that even with
the right training, it is not always possible for them to tell when
talking to a child, whether the abuse the child describes is really
happening.
"There are real cases of abuse and false allegations," said
Dr. Mitch Eisen, a Cal State Los Angeles psychologist and professional
evaluator. "Both happen, and it is often impossible to differentiate
between the two."
Stahl says that in some cases, the children themselves aren't even sure if what they are saying is true.
"You've got kids who don't know what to believe," said Stahl. "It's hard to tell what is and isn't real."
From the San Bernardino Sun.
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