PAS has met many obstacles, both from the legal and medical profession as well from governments themselves, all who have no interest in what is taking place. As target parents we are well aware that PAS exists - no one can tell us different. Yet, the legal and medical community are slow to recognize and take action against this type of emotional/psychological abuse of our children and ourselves.
Dr. Gardner’s web site posts a list of misperceptions:
http://www.rgardner.com/refs/
Some of the misperceptions include; PAS is not a syndrome, PAS does not exist because it’s not in DSM-IV and The PAS is a discredited theory.
It would be well worth your time to check out Dr. Gardner’s misconception page and give to your lawyer that he/she may be prepared to deal with arguments against PAS.
I’ve included the three misconceptions listed above for your review:
1. Misperception: PAS is not a syndrome
Fact: There are some who claim that the PAS is not really a syndrome. This criticism is especially seen in courts of law in the context of child-custody disputes. It is an argument sometimes promulgated by those who claim that PAS does not even exist.
The PAS is a very specific disorder. A syndrome, by medical definition, is a cluster of symptoms, occurring together, that characterize a specific disease. The symptoms, although seemingly disparate, warrant being grouped together because of a common etiology or basic underlying cause.
Furthermore, there is a consistency with regard to such a cluster in that most (if not all) of the symptoms appear together. Accordingly, there is a kind of purity that a syndrome has that may not be seen in other diseases.
For example, a person suffering with pneumococcal pneumonia may have chest pain, cough, purulent sputum, and fever. However, the individual may still have the disease without all these symptoms manifesting themselves. The syndrome is more often "pure" because most (if not all) of the symptoms in the cluster predictably manifest themselves. An example would be Down’s Syndrome, which includes a host of seemingly disparate symptoms that do not appear to have a common link. These include mental retardation, mongoloid-type facial expression, drooping lips, slanting eyes, short fifth finger, and atypical creases in the palms of the hands. There is a consistency here in that the people who suffer with Down’s Syndrome often look very much alike and most typically exhibit all these symptoms. The common etiology of these disparate symptoms relates to a specific chromosomal abnormality. It is this genetic factor that is responsible for linking together these seemingly disparate symptoms. There is then a primary, basic cause of Down’s Syndrome: a genetic abnormality.
Similarly, the PAS is characterized by a cluster of symptoms that usually appear together in the child, especially in the moderate and severe types. These include:
- A campaign of denigration
- Weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for the deprecation
- Lack of ambivalence
- The "independent-thinker" phenomenon
- Reflexive support of the alienating parent in the parental conflict
- Absence of guilt over cruelty to and/or exploitation of the alienated parent
- The presence of borrowed scenarios
- Spread of the animosity to the friends and/or extended family of the alienated parent
Typically, children who suffer with PAS will exhibit most (if not all) of these symptoms. This is almost uniformly the case for the moderate and severe types.
However, in the mild cases one might not see all eight symptoms. When mild cases progress to moderate or severe, it is highly likely that most (if not all) of the symptoms will be present. This consistency results in PAS children resembling one another.
It is because of these considerations that the PAS is a relatively "pure" diagnosis that can easily be made. As is true of other syndromes, there is an underlying cause: programming by an alienating parent in conjunction with additional contributions by the programmed child.
It is for these reasons that PAS is indeed a syndrome, and it is a syndrome by the best medical definition of the term.
2. Misperception: PAS does not exist because it’s not in DSM-IV
Fact: There are some, especially adversaries in child-custody disputes, who claim that there is no such entity as the PAS, that it is only a theory, or that it is "Gardner’s theory." Some claim that I invented the PAS, with the implication that it is merely a figment of my imagination. The main argument given to justify this position is that it does not appear in DSM-IV. The DSM committees justifiably are quite conservative with regard to the inclusion of newly described clinical phenomena and require many years of research and publications before considering inclusion of a disorder. This is as it should be. The PAS exists! Any lawyer involved in child-custody disputes will attest to that fact. Mental health and legal professionals involved in such disputes are observing it. They may not wish to recognize it. They may refer to it by another name (like "parental alienation"). But that does not preclude its existence. A tree exists as a tree regardless of the reactions of those looking at it. A tree still exists even though some might give it another name.
If a dictionary selectively decides to omit the word tree from its compilation of words, that does not mean that the tree does not exist. It only means that the people who wrote that book decided not to include that particular word. Similarly, for someone to look at a tree and say that the tree does not exist does not cause the tree to evaporate. It only indicates that the viewer, for whatever reason, does not wish to see what is right in front of him (her).
To refer to the PAS as "a theory" or "Gardner’s theory" implies the nonexistence of the disorder. It implies that it is a figment of my imagination and has no basis in reality.
To say that PAS does not exist because it is not listed in DSM-IV is like saying in 1980 that Lyme Disease did not exist because it was not then listed in standard diagnostic medical textbooks. The PAS is not a theory, it is a fact.
But why this controversy in the first place? With regard to whether PAS exists, we generally do not see such controversy regarding most other clinical entities in psychiatry.
Examiners may have different opinions regarding the etiology and treatment of a particular psychiatric disorder, but there is usually some consensus about its existence. And this should especially be the case for a relatively "pure" disorder such as the PAS, a disorder that is easily diagnosable because of the similarity of the children’s symptoms when one compares one family with another.
Over the years, I have received many letters from people who have essentially said: "Your PAS book is uncanny. You don’t know me, and yet I felt that I was reading my own family’s biography. You wrote your book before all this trouble started in my family. It’s almost like you predicted what would happen." Why, then, should there be such controversy over whether or not PAS exists?
One explanation lies in the situation in which the PAS emerges and in which the diagnosis is made: vicious child-custody litigation. Once an issue is brought before a court of law - in the context of adversarial proceedings - it behooves one side to take just the opposite position from the other if one is to prevail in that forum.
A parent accused of inducing a PAS in a child is likely to engage the services of a lawyer who may invoke the argument that there is no such thing as a PAS. And if this lawyer can demonstrate that the PAS is not listed in DSM-IV, then the position is considered "proven." The only thing this proves is that DSM-IV has not yet listed the PAS.
Another factor operative in the controversy relates to the false sex-abuse accusation that is commonly a spin-off of the PAS. It is such a common problem that there are many who equate PAS with false sex-abuse accusations.
Those who deny the existence of false sex-abuse accusations at the same time frequently deny the existence of the PAS. Therefore, people who claim that the PAS exists may find themselves criticized as individuals who do not believe in the existence of true sex abuse.
3. Misconception: The PAS is a discredited theory
Fact: Those who promulgate this myth do not state who has discredited the PAS and by what authority. The facts are just the opposite. An ever-increasing number of legal and mental health professionals are writing articles on the PAS and citing it in courts of law. These two are cited in this website.