At PsychLaw.net we know that there is a lot of misinformation about PA and PAS which leads to ignorance in the topic of discussion.
Misinformation: “There has never been a precedent setting case establishing parental alienation.”[1]
More than one thousand cases addressing PA were found for the research described in Chapter 9, “Parental Alienation in U.S. Courts, 1985–2018,” and 20 particularly illustrative cases are described in detail in the associated Appendix.
Misinformation: There is insufficient peer-reviewed literature to support parental alienation.[2]
Citations to over 1,000 treatises relevant to the construct–PA are available to all on Vanderbilt University’s Center for Knowledge Management database. Extensive, peer-reviewed research is addressed in Chapter 5, “Parental Alienation and Empirical Research.”
Misinformation: Alienating manipulation by one parent is not child abuse, and alienating parents have a right to disparage the other parent[3].
Curiously, Hoult states that constitutionally-protected free speech rights protect parents who can say whatever they wish about other parents. But—
In reply, severe parental alienation is child abuse.
When an alienating parent establishes a pattern of mental, emotional and/or physical exploitation of their child, that is child abuse.[4] This is true even though the target is the other parent, because, according to the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC), alienating methods result in a failure to address the child’s basic psychological needs, “undermin[e] the child’s important relationships, and change, for the worse, the way the child thinks and feels about himself and his target parent.”[5]
The criterion for child psychological abuse, set out in the DSM-5, is “nonaccidental verbal or symbolic acts by a child’s parent or caregiver that result, or have reasonable potential to result, in significant psychological harm to the child.”[6] Clearly, the construct–PA meets this criterion[7]. Moreover, even if the child is not directly attacked, she may still suffer as a “child affected by parental relationship distress (CAPRD),” another diagnosis within the DSM-5.[8] And when the CAPRD diagnosis category was addressed in the DSM-5, the construct–PA was explicitly in mind for the creators of that section.[9]
Children who suffer from PA manifest a number of adverse conditions and characteristics, including posttraumatic stress disorder, adjustment disorder, shorter lifespans, depression, withdrawal, anxiety, low self-esteem, aggression, substance abuse, poor academic performance, neurological damage, poor physical health, and developmental delays[10]. Of the 40 people examined by Baker in her early study of adult survivors of PA, 14 reported substance abuse, 28 had some experience with depression, 23 were divorced, and 14 were alienated from their children themselves.[11]
In reply, the First Amendment does not countenance alienating parents.
Hoult’s reliance on the First Amendment for the proposition that “divorced women” have a right to “express negative opinions about their ex-husbands,” including “release of anger with scapegoatism” in front of their children, demonstrates a remarkable ignorance of First Amendment jurisprudence.[12]
“[T]he privileges afforded by the First Amendment are not absolute.”[13] This right must be “applied in light of the special characteristics of the relevant environment.”[14] Thus, courts may order parties not to discuss certain matters, even though this is a disfavored “prior restraint,” where “the activity restrained poses either a clear and present danger or a serious and imminent threat to a protected competing interest.”[15] A parent’s “constitutionally protected” right to the “custody, care and nurture of the child” presents such a competing interest.[16]
So, too, is the protection of minor children. In a case discussed in Chapter 9, “Parental Alienation in U.S. Courts, 1985–2018,” In re Marriage of Patterson, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s order that “punished [an alienating father] for his social media posts, and by curtailing future posts” about mother:
A state may sometimes curtail speech … when necessary to advance a significant and legitimate state interest. Here there is a compelling interest in protecting the minor children from being exposed to the adult matters involved in this litigation, especially Josh’s continual denigration of the children’s mother.[17]
In addition, “the First Amendment [does] not guarantee the right to raise children as one parent sees fit.[18]” Moreover, a parent does not have “an absolute right to express her beliefs and opinions to her children,” free from the State’s “judg[ment of] the content of this speech.[19]” Rather, the State has a “compelling interest in a child’s welfare [that] often takes priority over the personal rights of a parent …. What rights [a parent] had to express her paranoid delusions to her children are surpassed by the State’s interest in protecting the children from psychological damage.”[20]
[1] Hoult, supra note 136, at 67:40.
[2] Hoult, supra note 136, at 72:00.
[3] Hoult, supra note 136, at 7:23-7:32; 47:20; 55:30.
[4] Jennifer J. Harman, Edward Kruk & Denise A. Hines, Parental Alienating Behaviors: An Unacknowledged Form of Family Violence. 144 PSYCHOL. BULL. (12) 1275-1299 (2018).
[5] AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY ON THE ABUSE OF CHILDREN, PRACTICE GUIDELINES ON THE INVESTIGATION AND DETERMINATION OF SUSPECTED PSYCHOLOGICAL MALTREATMENT OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS 4 (2017)
[6] DSM-5, supra note 37.
[7] Kathleen M. Reay, Family reflections: A promising therapeutic program designed to treat
severely alienated children and their family system. AM. J. OF FAM. THERAPY 197-207 (2015).
[8]Bernet et al., supra note 37. Harman, et al., supra note 224, sat 1277.
[9] Bernet et al., supra note 37.
[10] Harman, et al., supra note 224.
[11] AMY J. L. BAKER, ADULT CHILDREN OF PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME: BREAKING THE TIES THAT BIND 9 (W.W. Norton & Company 2007).
[12] Hoult, supra note 110, at 7.
[13]Preminger v. Peake, 552 F.3d 757, 764 (9th Cir. 2008).
[14] U.S. v. Brown, 218 F.3d 415, 424 (5th Cir. 2000).
[15] Id. at 424. See also N.L.R.B. v. World Evangelism, Inc., 656 F.2d 1349, 1354 (9th Cir. 1981).
[16] H.L. v. Matheson, 450 U.S. 398, 410 (1981)
[17] In re Marriage of Patterson, 2017 MT 231N, ¶ 9.
[18] Thomas v. Thomas, 991 P.2d 7, 12 (N.M. Ct. App. 1999) (holding a custody modification
granting husband primary custody did not deprive wife of the right).
[19] In re Dependence of Chubb, 773 P.2d 851, 855 (Wash. 1989) (where mother asserted the First Amendment protected her expressing her schizophrenic delusions to her child, such that her parental rights should be terminated).
[20] Id. at 856.