Sunday, October 12, 2008
Fathers 4 Justice Canada endorses Conservative Party.
Tennessee Domestic Abuse Coalition denies Parental Alienation exists
Mr. Justice James Turnbull ordered the boy – identified only as LS – into the custody of his mother. He said that the boy urgently needs professional intervention to reverse the father's attempt to poison his mind toward his mother and, in all probability, to women in general.
“There will probably be future significant problems experienced by LS if the court does not intervene – including significant personal guilt for his part in the rejection of his mother, anger towards women, and dysfunctional relationships with women,” Judge Turnbull said.
The judge flatly refused to take the boy's opinion on the therapy into account, saying that LS cannot exercise “free discretion in expressing his views” because of the influence his father has had on him.
Judge Turnbull observed that the father, 54, has repeatedly breached court orders granting the mother limited access to her son. He said that the boy has come to perceive himself and his father as “intertwined and unable to distinguish one's thoughts from the other.” (ed note: this can be called a "folie à deux" - mjm)
As part of his campaign of absolute control over LS, the father dictated toxic e-mails for the boy to send to his mother. He also removed photographs of the mother from her son's bedroom.
Judge Turnbull also noted that in 2005, the father pursued an assault charge against the mother. As a result, LS, at the age of 10, was required to testify against her in criminal court.
“Frankly, the exercise of such parental indiscretion stuns this court,” Judge Turnbull said, adding that the mother was acquitted.
Jeffery Wilson, the mother's lawyer, said Thursday that the case is a breakthrough for parents attempting to win back children who have been intentionally alienated from them.
"This is a precedent in Canada - the first time a Canadian court has recognized the lack of resources to deal with the disease of parental alienation and answered it with a private remedy - the Family Workshop for Alienated Children," Mr. Wilson said.
Dr. Warshak is a professional Psychologist, and clinical professor at the University of Texas, SW Medical Centre. His recent book "Divorce Poison" is considered a breakthrough book in clearly explaining PA and offers suggestions to the target parent and extended family - who are also victims - on how to deal with it. All DV organizations who write the tripe found in the press release below would do well to read it. Do the feminists not understand the APA has not officially stated that PAS (the feminists get hung up on the term syndrome a lot) is or is not a mental health disorder and may review it for inclusion in the next iteration of the DSM in 2010 or beyond. But even if it does not get included at that time there is no excuse for the abusive poisoning of a child's mind by one parent towards another and the concomitant unrelenting psychic bruising that can be life long in nature. One can see a physical bruise and see the evidence of abuse right away but emotional bruising may manifest itself later in behaviour that is destructive. If I get slapped in the face it still is an assault whether the person doing it is mentally ill or not. It doesn't have to be called slap in the face syndrome for it to be abusive. These feminist organizations have to get their heads out of the sand to see more clearly what it is they are defending or denying. They are enabling abuse by denying it exists. How often throughout history has a dogma distorted the truth. Think of Galileo who was branded a heretic by the religious zealots of the day for thinking the earth wasn't the centre of the universe and everything revolved around it. We have our own modern day zealots blinded by gender wars and lots of tax supported funding to play with over bogus issues. I guess things must be taking a turn in some court cases for them to be this worried about it. Having been getting their own way with custody in over 90% of situations, be it court disputed or otherwise, they must be losing some and need to target an abusive behaviour not yet written into the DSM as somehow fake. How long did it take to get Tourette Syndrome (TS) and many others in. Some can take decades but doesn't make it any less real. When someone calls them to task, like me, they then haul out their standard responses, - he is misogynist, hateful, an abuser, and it just doesn't help their credibility at all. Those of us who are targets have the knowledge of moral and experiential certainty that PA exists and can speak to it with great credibility. Those that would deny its existence sing out of a feminist song book that is undeniably full of - gosh whats that word or phrase representing bovine additions to global warming, lets be kind and say it is a book of mythology, sadly outdated and in the extreme represents an egregious enabling of the very abuse they claim to want to eradicate. The American Psychological Association has stated "However, we have no official position on the purported syndrome.”Highlighting the word “lack” and using the words “so-called” and “purported” in this press release seems to suggest the APA presumes PAS to be fallacious while, at the same time, uncommitted regarding its validity.
This official statement comes a few days after the APA’s Executive Director of Public and Member Communications, criticized Breaking the Silence for misrepresenting the APA’s position on PAS.
In spite of these puzzling pronouncements, it is apparent that the APA has, in fact, heretofore made a significant endorsement of the validity of PAS, which may be confirmed by simply searching the content of their website at www.apa.org.
The APA has well-known guidelines for child-custody evaluations in divorce proceedings. These are the guidelines the APA proposes examiners use when conducting such evaluations. The guidelines refer to three books of Dr. Gardner’s as “pertinent literature.” One book is completely devoted to the PAS and two make significant reference to the disorder:
Gardner, R.A. (1989), Family Evaluation in Child Custody Mediation, Arbitration, and Litigation. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.
Gardner, R. A. (1992), The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.
Gardner, R. A. (1992), True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc