Saturday, August 31, 2013

Save the Dates: October 1 and 2, 2013

Dear Friends:

SAVE THE DATES: Tuesday October 1 and Wednesday October 2, 2013
Congress has designated October 1 the first day of Domestic Violence Awareness month as National Safe Child day, thanks to the efforts of our great allies at National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

We urge you to join us in Washington DC to join a wonderful coalition of mothers and advocates who are determined to make an impact on Federal policy makers to protect children from human rights violations by family/divorce court.  We need to show the President and Congress that we are a persistent, growing, unified movement.

Tuesday October 1:  March from the White House to Congress
11:00 am - meet at White House, 1600 Pennsylvania NW, Washington 
12 noon - march along Pennsylvania Ave to the House Office Buildings on Independence  Ave

Wednesday October 2:  Visit Congress members
9:00 am - meet at Independence Ave SW and New Jersey Ave SE (Longworth Office Bldg)

For information on our other marches, please go to www.mothers-of-lost-children.com and www.mothersoflostchildren.org

Sadly, we do not have funding for transportation or housing. Hostelling International, 1009 11th Street NW, Washington DC provides central, inexpensive, clean and somewhat Spartan lodging.  There are other inexpensive hostels and bed and breakfast places in the area found through Airbnb, Priceline and other websites. 

Martin Burns, our champion
We are all devastated by the sudden death of Martin Burns from Fox11 LA this past weekend

Maria Shriver wrote the following prayer to help a friend's family deal with his sudden death:

"I stood watching as the little ship sailed out to sea, the setting sun tainted its white sails with the golden reflection of the sun. And as it disappeared from view, a voice at my side whispered,
'He is gone.'

But the sea was a narrow one and on a further shore a little band of friends had gathered to watch in happy expectation. Suddenly they caught sight of the tiny sail and at the very moment when my companion had whispered 'He is gone', a glad shout went up in joyous welcome, with the words,
'Yeah! Here he comes!!!'"

We will miss you, Martin. You are our champion.

http://www.myfoxla.com/story/23259281/fox-11-investigative-producer-martin-burns-hiking-accident
Video: Barry Goldstein on child custody
http://site.nomas.org/barry-goldstein-child-custody-interview/


These exposes could explain why reports of sexual abuse fall on deaf ears.
http://aangirfan.blogspot.nl/2013/05/demi-and-nirvana-child-abuse-ring.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIxtpgEqdAc&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TcDTJlPWbE&feature=player_embedded

Petition against Montana judge that gave rapist a hand slap of 30 days in jail

Cherice Moralez was just 14 when her teacher repeatedly raped her. But Billings, Montana Judge G. Todd Baugh sent her rapist to prison for just 30 days, saying the victim was "as much in control of the situation" as her rapist and that she was "older than her chronological age." THIS is rape culture at its worst: When our courts can let a man who raped a child go free after just days in jail and then blame the child for her own rape. If tens of thousands of us from all over the country join with local protesters and speak out, we can make sure that authorities disrobe Judge Baugh so he can never let a rapist off the hook again. Can you sign the petition?

http://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/montana_judge_sp/?akid=588.448393.34ss8p&rd=1&t=3


Good news! The website www.distinctioninfamilycourts.org is back up.

Distinction in Family Courts, an online public forum, which gives people who have had personal experience in Family Court, an opportunity to rate the players in their case, is pleased to announce it has just published a new edition of national grades. Check out who got the F's and A's! And if you haven't filled out a questionnaire yourself, please do your part for those first-timers in your community who may be looking to the site for guidance. Please note that we are now more appropriately a .org.

Here is other useful websites.
http://familycourtinamerica.org
http://ncmbts.blogspot.com/2013/06/court-licensed-abuse-our-family-courts.html
http://www.lovefraud.com/2013/05/13/heartbreak-heroism-dealing-child-abuse/
http://www.scodv.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYP9JShyXAc

Going on the offense! Little cat versus a pack of crocodiles
 http://www.youtube.com/embed/Duqvb-IRv9c

This federal lawsuit is by a primarily men's group, but is well worth reading
http://www.thepubliccourt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/CCFC-V.-SDCBA-VERIFIED-COMPLAINT-AND-COVER-SHEET-FOR-FILING-signed-redacted_Redacted.pdf


Map of child predators starring Elizabeth Smart
http://www.notonemorechild.org/


In case someone in your case has been handing out your medical information, here is a complaint form
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/complaints/hipcomplaintform.pdf

Amazing opportunity in New York and template for other states to follow:

Opportunity to Testify against New York's Corrupt Judiciary
On July 2nd, Governor Cuomo created a commission with extraordinary powers to investigate public corruption, to recommend changes in the law, and to refer those who corrupt government for criminal prosecution. 

The Commission's first round of hearings are in September.   They are an important opportunity for victims of New York state judicial corruption and other lawlessness of New York state government to  present their evidence.  Indeed, by doing so publicly, at hearings, we make it harder for the Commission to engage in the usual cover-up. 
The first public hearing is on Tuesday, September 17th in lower Manhattan.  The second public hearing is on Wednesday, September 18th, in Buffalo.  The third public hearing is on Tuesday, September 24th, outside of Albany.  All three hearings start at 6 p.m.    Doors open at 5 p.m.

Here is the link to the Commission's website - from which you can read the Commission's press release about the hearings: http://www.publiccorruption.moreland.ny.gov/ .  Although no advance registration appears to be required, we suggest you telephone and e-mail the Commission if you desire to testify and that you request that the Commission confirm that you will be reserved as a witness.  

To ensure that the Commission - which is called "Commission to Investigate Public Corruption"  -- is true to its name and announced purpose, our nonpartisan, nonprofit citizens' organization, Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. (CJA), has been working  hard.   Here's the link to our webpage on the issue, http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/judicial-compensation/commission-on-public-corruption.htm, featuring our August 5, 2013 letter to the Commission, to which we have received no response. 

This includes to our questions about the September hearings.
I invite you to call me so that I can guide you as to how to be most effective in your presentations to the Commission, whether at the hearings or by written submissions. 

Specifically, you should focus on the worthlessness  of purported safeguards, these being, for example,  reargument motions, motions to vacate for fraud, motions to disqualify and for disclosure, requests for oversight by supervisory judges, Article 78 proceedings, appeals, federal lawsuits, complaints to the Commission on Judicial Conduct and attorney disciplinary bodies, complaints to the Chief Judge, Chief Administrative Judge, and to the Inspector General of the Unified Court System, complaints to the Attorney General and his "Public Integrity Bureau", complaints to district attorneys and to U.S. Attorneys and the FBI, etc., complaints to other public officers - most importantly, to state legislators and state legislative committees, as, for instance, the Assembly and Senate Judiciary Committees - entreaties to the press, to academia, to bar associations, etc.

To ensure that there is public record of what members of the public are furnishing the Commission for investigation, I urge you to provide us with copies of your written communications to it so that we can post them on our website, for examination by the press, scholars, and others able to "blow the whistle" on a Commission cover-up.
Such webpage will be similar to that which we created, back in 2009, for witnesses who testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee's June 8, 2009 and September 24, 2009 hearings on the Commission on Judicial Conduct and the court-controlled attorney disciplinary system.  Here's the link to that webpage: http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/judicial-discipline/nys/nys-sjc-hearing.htm.  We also created a webpage for witnesses testifying on July 20, 2011 before the Commission on Judicial Compensation.  Here's the link so that you can see it:http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/judicial-compensation/7-20-11-commission-hearing.htm

Finally, in the event that you have not kept up with CJA's unrelenting advocacy over these many years, building on what took place at the 2009 Senate Judiciary Committee hearings and at the 2011 hearing of the Commission on Judicial Compensation, you can examine it from the hyperlinks on our "Latest News" webpage, accessible from our website's top panel.  Here's the direct link:http://www.judgewatch.org/web-pages/cja/latest-news.htm.
 Elena Sassower, Director, Center for Judicial Accountability, Inc. (CJA), 914-455-4373


MORE ARTICLES AND VIDEOS

Domestic Violence and Family Law: Recognition and Appropriation

Molly Dragiewicz, Queensland University of Technology Conference Sub-theme: Gender, Sexuality and Justice

Abstract

The battered women's movement in the United States contributed to a sweeping change in the recognition of men's violence against female intimate partners. Naming the problem and arguing in favour of its identification as a serious problem meriting a collective response were key aspects of this effort. Criminal and civil laws have been written and revised in an effort to answer calls to take such violence seriously. Scholars have devoted significant attention to the consequences of this reframing of violence, especially around the unintended outcomes of the incorporation of domestic violence into criminal justice regimes. Family law, however, has remained largely unexamined by criminologists. This paper calls for criminological attention to family law responses to domestic violence and provides directions for future research.
http://crimejusticeconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Conference-Proceedings-Vol-1_2013.pdf


Quenby Wilcox newsletter
www.worldpulse.com/user/2759/journal.

 FAMILY COURTS IN CRISIS
NEWSLETTER
August 2013
Children's Rights are Human Rights
There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.
Nelson Mandela
If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war,
we shall have to begin with the children. Mahatma Gandhi

Letter to My Mother
For a long time, we have been the lepers that mar the Ball, we captives are not a politically correct topic...
We must think of where we come from, who we are, and where we want to go. I aspire to our having that thirst for greatness one day that makes people rise up from nothingness to the sun. When we are unconditional vis-a-vis the defense of the life and liberty of our own, that is, when we are less individualistic and more committed to the common good, less indifferent and more involved, less intolerant and more compassionate, then at that time we will be the great [world] that all of us would like to be.
That greatness is there asleep in our hearts. But hearts have hardened and weigh so heavily that no elevated sentiments are permitted...
The wars waged against the freedom of a handful of forgotten ones are like a hurricane seeking to bring down everything. It is of no interest. His intelligence, his nobility, and his devotion have given pause to many, and here, more than the freedom of some poor crackpots chained up in the jungle, it is a matter of taking stock of what it means to defend human dignity.
by Ingrid Betancourt 2

Combating Failures of Family Courts: Defending Human Dignity
***********
Domestic Violence Abuse and Child Custody by Dr. Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody is a multi-disciplinary book co-edited by Dr. Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein which was published in 2010. It contains chapters by over 25 of the leading domestic violence custody experts from the United States and Canada including judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, journalists and domestic violence advocates. The book brings together all of the most important research about custody and domestic violence in one place so that professionals and protective mothers can find the information they need. This is especially helpful in supporting domestic violence custody cases.

The book demonstrates that there is a serious problem with the way custody courts respond to domestic violence. The courts are getting a large majority of these cases wrong and often catastrophically so. One of the big problems is that courts first developed practices to respond to domestic violence at a time when no research was available. At the time there was a popular assumption that domestic violence
was caused by mental illness, substance abuse and the actions of the victim. This led courts to rely on mental health professionals as if they were the experts. We now have substantial research that demonstrates these assumptions were wrong and the standard practices are outdated and discredited. Evaluators routinely use psychological tests that were not made for the populations seen in Family Courts and are based on probability assumptions that often don't apply to the individual parties.

 This often results in safe, protective mothers being pathologized. The problem is exacerbated by a cottage industry of psychologists and lawyers who recognize that most contested custody are domestic violence cases and the abuser usually controls the family finances. This means the best way to make large incomes is to support approaches that favor abusers. Courts routinely treat these biased professionals as if they were neutral. Even worse many courts learn misinformation from the cottage industry and repeat it in other cases. Although there is now a substantial body of scientific research that could inform decisions and better protect children, few courts have started looking to this research in order to improve their response to domestic violence. In many cases court professionals discredit true allegations of abuse based on information that is not probative and then fail to look for the patterns of coercive and controlling behaviors that would help them recognize domestic violence. In many of the worst cases the courts use bad practices to deny true allegations of abuse and then punish mothers for trying to protect their children from dangerous abusers. This book provides the information necessary to challenge these faulty practices.
http://barrygoldstein.net/books/domestic-violence-abuse-and-child-custody



http://timesupblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-official-rejection-of-pas-matters.html
Why the Official Rejection of PAS Matters

by Barry Goldstein

There have been a lot of stories recently about the release of the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) which contains all of the officially recognized mental health diagnoses. The "fathers' rights" groups that were created to support male supremacy and the cottage industry of lawyers and mental health professionals that make their living supporting abusive fathers aggressively lobbied the American Psychiatric Association to pressure them to include PAS in their new DSM. Their demands were denied or should I say again denied for a very important reason. There is no valid scientific research that would support or justify the use of PAS.

On the surface, not much has changed in that PAS was rejected for the DSM-IV and is also missing from the DSM-V. Nevertheless, I believe this latest rejection has very important implications. There has now been a substantial period of time since Richard Gardner concocted PAS and self-published numerous books promoting it as part of his business. Many courts have been manipulated into allowing the use of PAS despite the lack of scientific basis. Many other professionals have sought to use PAS as a way that they can support their abuser clients. We have seen the enormous harm the use of this unscientific theory has done to children. The earlier rejection could have been chalked up to the relative newness of PAS and lack of a chance to determine its validity. I would not support that assumption as it never had any valid basis and was really the product of circular reasoning and bias. Now that all this time has passed, and the proponents have had the opportunity to make whatever case they have, the rejection of PAS by the official professional organization that oversees mental health issues should be devastating to any attempt to continue relying on PAS.

No doubt those trying to preserve this vital tool for helping abusers maintain control over their victims will seek to minimize the importance of the latest rejection. Some have even sought to claim that PAS is supported by the DSM-V even though this is obviously a lie. One of the problems we have seen in custody courts is that court professionals do not closely follow current scientific research and developments so it is important for those who seek to prevent the abuse of children make the courts aware of this important development.

Regardless of the Nomenclature When Is it PAS?

PAS has quite properly received substantial criticism and many official professional organizations have condemned its use because it has no scientific basis and is commonly used to hurt children. This has led proponents to call it by other names in an attempt to avoid its notoriety. Many judges who would not admit evidence of PAS routinely accept claims of parental alienation or alienation without considering the basis of these allegations.

Regardless of the term used, if it is used to discredit or avoid investigation of domestic violence or child abuse allegations, it is in fact PAS. If it is used to justify the kind of extreme outcomes referred to by Dr. Daniel Saunders as "harmful outcomes," in which the alleged abuser received custody and the safe, protective mothers who is the primary attachment figure is limited to supervised or no visitation, it is in fact PAS. If it is used to suggest that the child's hostility or fear of a parent can only be explained by the mother's alienating behavior, it is in fact PAS.

Fundamental to PAS is the assumption that most allegations of domestic violence and child abuse are false. This is the justification to avoid an investigation of the allegations and instead assume they are false. In reality, less than 2% of abuse allegations made by mothers are deliberately false. The Saunders' study found that inadequately trained professionals tend to believe the myth that mothers often make false allegations and believe unscientific alienation theories. Significantly this misinformation leads to recommendations and outcomes that hurt children. Accordingly when professionals rely on this type of misinformation they are being influenced and really biased by PAS.

I have heard many judges and other court professionals ask someone who seeks to challenge PAS if they would admit that parents sometimes alienate children. Certainly, even in intact families parents make negative statements about the other parent. This can be even more personal and offensive when the parents are separated. This is a topic that needs clarity of thought and PAS encourages just the opposite. If this topic has any validity in the context of custody disputes, it must be limited to its impact on children. Furthermore the impact must be based on scientific research rather than speculation and assumption which is all that PAS provides.

In one notorious case, the mother was criticized for "alienating the children" because she told them that they should eat healthy foods, dress appropriately for the weather and avoid adult oriented television programs. This is really good advice that any caring parent would be expected to provide their children. It was treated as if it was alienation because the father engaged in all of these harmful parenting practices so the good advice was considered critical of the father. Alienation is frequently applied in a gender biased manner and this case provided a good example. When the court suddenly removed the children from their mother and gave the abusive father custody, he told them that they would no longer see their mother because she moved to another city. This lie came out during a supervised visitation. This was a statement that greatly upset the children and caused tremendous harm but the biased judge had no concerns about genuine alienating behavior.

In many cases the mother's alienating behavior involves her discussion of the father's abuse that the children had witnessed. It is important for children to know that this kind of behavior is not acceptable in our society. It is also important for children's reality to be supported which would be undermined if what they witnessed was denied. Nevertheless many court professionals treat anything critical of the father as if it were alienation.

When we discuss issues like domestic violence and child sexual abuse there is substantial scientific research of the enormous lifetime harm that these heinous behaviors cause to children. It is this enormous harmful impact on children that ought to require courts to take these allegations seriously. Although many court professionals take alienation claims at least as seriously as abuse complaints, there is no equivalent research in terms of the harm caused to children. When a parent tells the children false stories about the other parent, the most likely result is to undermine the relationship with the parent telling the lies. Even when the lies undermine the relationship with the other parent, the effect is usually short term. In most of the cases in which PAS is used the problem in the relationship is not some false statements but significant abuse and bad parenting that damaged the relationship. The purpose of PAS is to conflate the causes of the alienation. Not only does this encourage faulty analysis, but discourages the necessary response which is for the abuser to acknowledge his mistreatment of the mother and children and change his behavior.

We constantly see domestic violence cases in which courts grant custody to the abusive father based on the prediction that he is the parent more likely to promote the relationship between the mother and children. Once he gains custody, he uses this control to destroy the mother's relationship with the children. This is completely predictable as The Batterer as Parent found that all batterers engage in harmful parenting practices that include undermining the relationship with the mother. Courts that aggressively pressure and punish mothers for protective behavior that is interpreted as alienation rarely take effective measures in response to fathers' real alienation.

Many mothers, seeing the effectiveness of alienation claims made by fathers and watching their children alienated from them make their own alienation claims. Some may even seek to use PAS. We think this is a bad idea because it provides a false sense of credibility to alienation claims that usually are just abuser tactics. A better approach is to refer to these behaviors as Domestic Violence by Proxy. These alienating and undermining tactics should really be seen as a continuation of the pattern of coercive and controlling tactics used by batterers. They are hurting the children in order to hurt the mother.

What Does it Now Mean if Litigants Seek to Claim PAS?

In the context of contested custody cases which are overwhelmingly domestic violence cases, most claims of alienation, particularly in response to abuse allegations are false and part of standard abuser litigation tactics. Of course courts are required to consider each case separately so they cannot automatically dismiss alienation claims. At the same time it is useful to consider the context and know that abuser rights groups and the cottage industry encourage fathers to make alienation claims.

Courts would be wise to evaluate alienation claims based on the impact on children. The Saunders' study found that the extreme outcomes in which children are denied a normal relationship with their safe protective mother who has provided most of the child care during the first few years of the child's life are always harmful to children. This is because the harm of separating children from their primary attachment figure, a harm that includes increased risk of depression, low self-esteem and suicide when older is greater than any possible benefit. Accordingly if a claim of alienation is used to advocate for one of these harmful outcomes, the father is acting in his interest unconcerned about the very real harm it would do to the child.

PAS is commonly used in cases involving sexual abuse allegations. The purpose is to prevent a full investigation of the allegations and just assume it is a deliberate falsehood. Since mothers make deliberate false allegations less than 2% of the time this means PAS is used to encourage mistaken conclusions most of the time. Presumably the alleged abuser knows what he did or did not do, although he may define his actions as appropriate. In most cases the mother did not witness the alleged abuse for obvious reasons so she is expressing her concern based on what the child told her or the child's behavior. One of the common causes of sexual abuse allegations are where the father violated the child's boundaries but did not abuse the child. This could happen where the father sleeps in the same bed or lies next to the child in putting her to sleep. The father does not realize he did anything harmful and there would be no need to restrict his access. He just needs to understand that his behavior made the child uncomfortable and must be stopped. The child might also be acting out because someone else abused her. By preventing a full investigation, a father claiming alienation makes it impossible to learn what disturbed the child. A father concerned about the well being of his child would want to know the cause even if he believes the mother is lying.

If there was a legitimate alienation claim, there would be specific evidence of what actions the alleged alienating parent took and how it impacts the children. There would also be valid scientific research about the long term harm to the children. Otherwise the court is being asked to not only consider speculation but to ignore more important issues in order to do so.

This analysis of the purpose of making the alienation claims is important because if it was done as a tactic to avoid a full investigation of the abuse complaint or to seek outcomes that would be harmful to the child, it should be treated as additional proof that the party making the alienation claims is actually an abuser seeking to use the alienation tactic to reestablish control over his victim.

What Does it Mean if Court Professionals Seek to Use PAS?

Court professionals should know that PAS is bogus and unscientific. This means that when they promote claims based on PAS they are either deliberately trying to help abusers or do not possess the training necessary to understand the harm of PAS or anything else having to do with domestic violence. It really does not matter what the reason is for their mistakes, they should not be involved in domestic violence cases.

In the case of evaluators or other mental health professionals, they should be familiar with the DSM-V. This would make them aware of the rejection of PAS because there is no scientific research to support it. Accordingly, they would be guilty of malpractice if they diagnose a condition that does not exist in the DSM. Already some psychologists have lost their licenses for this improper practice and with the latest rejection of PAS, this consequence should occur more frequently. Indeed it is only the tendency of professionals to protect fellow professionals that have discouraged investigations of these obvious violations.

The Saunders' study found that professionals with inadequate training tended to rely on unscientific alienation theories. This in turn led to outcomes that harm children. This finding alone would demand that courts refuse to rely on mental health professionals with these biased and baseless beliefs. Although lawyers are not mental health professionals, a belief in PAS confirms inadequate training and thus should disqualify them from working on domestic violence cases. Certainly courts should immediately dismiss any "neutral" professional who seeks to make decisions based on a PAS analysis. This is true even if they seek to obscure their mistake by calling it something else.

Preventing Judges from Making a Decision Based on PAS

PAS is not used in other types of courts or for any purpose other than to interfere with investigations of abuse allegations and to help abusers regain control over their victims. Other courts follow evidentiary laws and require scientific proof which was never available. In fairness to custody court judges, many of the cases and particularly the early cases that permitted the use of PAS were based on the failure of attorneys for protective mothers from challenging PAS. This was compounded by the widespread reliance on evaluators who are part of the cottage industry that earns its living by supporting abusive fathers. These biased professionals were treated as if they were neutral and this made it more difficult to challenge their use of PAS. As time passed and PAS became all too common, the response to the lack of scientific support is often to use PAS by another name like alienation or parental alienation. Many judges reason that parents do say negative things about each other and so the concept of alienation does not require scientific support. This has permitted courts to assume that there are serious consequences to children from alienating behaviors without requiring scientific proof.

In the United Kingdom, Lord Justice Nicholas Wall, who is a leading family law judge gave a speech to Families Need Fathers in which he said the worst thing that can be done to a child is for the mother to speak badly about the father. Many U. S. judges have made similar statements. I really don't think that most judges believe that a mother calling a father an offensive name is more harmful than raping or beating a child or witnessing the father's assault of the mother, but these statements illustrate the bias that PAS has caused. There is enormous scientific research about the catastrophic harm caused to children from witnessing domestic violence, being directly abused or being separated from their primary attachment figure. There is no valid research that would support anything close to this level of harm from alienation, but courts routinely treat these allegations as relatively equivalent and are much more believing of alienation allegations even though they are frequently false.

I believe it is important for attorneys to place these issues in context for the court. The decision by the American Psychiatric Association to reject PAS because of a lack of scientific support ought to be used to reconsider our standard judicial responses to alienation claims. This will not happen unless protective mothers raise these issues and the research aggressively. One of the fundamental problems with the court's response to domestic violence and child abuse is that they rarely weigh the impact of these problems on children to whatever the impact would be of other far less important issues. That is one of the reasons that primary attachment and domestic violence are so often minimized by custody courts. This creates a disconnect between the courts and the best interests of children. The result is to make the best interests standard to be purely subjective and hard to appeal.

I believe many judges who allow "evidence" of PAS or alienation are not fully familiar with its origins. It is not just that it was concocted by Richard Gardner based on no research but just his personal beliefs and biases. Because it was based on his beliefs it is important for judges to know what those beliefs were. Gardner made many public statements to the effect that sex between adults and children can be acceptable. I do not think many judges would want to be associated with those beliefs. Any attempt to claim that alienation or parental alienation is different from PAS is fatally undermined if it is used to prevent a full and open investigation of the abuse allegations or to justify the extreme outcomes that Saunders and others found to always be harmful to children.

Furthermore, with the latest rejection of PAS by the American Psychiatric Association, any "expert" relying on PAS or its progeny is really telling the court that they are neither experts nor neutral. Any evaluator who is part of the cottage industry or supports PAS should be eliminated as a potential evaluator or any other neutral position.

Judges also need to be concerned about the appearances the use of PAS would cause. When the American Psychiatric Association and every other credible professional organization, including judicial organizations rejects the use of PAS, a judge would be creating an appearance of bias, ignorance or worse by permitting evidence based on PAS. Furthermore, the use of PAS frequently results in outrageous outcomes that are not based on valid evidence or the well being of children. Again this creates at least the appearance of bias or a conflict of interest. This is particularly so when the court creates an outcome current research including a study released by the U. S. Department of Justice found to always be against the best interests of children. In these circumstances that most favorable interpretation is that the judge was unqualified to handle a domestic violence case. All of these circumstances raise serious ethical concerns because judges are required to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
Conclusion

There was never any valid justification to permit the use of PAS by any name in the custody courts. The fraudulent use of PAS has been responsible for destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of children. This never should have been permitted by the courts, but at the same time the courts are extremely defensive to criticism of their errors and are unlikely to acknowledge past mistakes.

Accordingly, the publication of the DSM-V should be treated as a great opportunity to ask courts to reconsider the misuse of alienation theories. The other side will not make judges aware that their favorite toy has been completely discredited. The attorneys for protective mothers must make the courts aware of this decision and start a discussion of what this means to standard court practices. Courts are not permitted to accept evidence about scientific theories that are not based on authoritative and accepted scientific research. The decision on the DSM is fundamentally incompatible with the continued use of alienation theories. This is particularly true when the theories are used to deny the primary attachment figure a normal relationship with the child or to prevent a full investigation of abuse complaints. We need to tell the courts about this and file complaints against any professionals who continue to support PAS by any name now that it has been officially discredited.        
Barry Goldstein is a nationally recognized domestic violence expert, speaker, writer and consultant. He is the co-editor with Mo Therese Hannah of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, ABUSE and CHILD CUSTODY. Representing the Domestic Violence Survivor, co authored with Elizabeth Liu is designed to train attorneys to present domestic violence cases and was released in April of 2013. Barry can be reached by email from their web site www.Domesticviolenceabuseandchildcustody.com ;

For more information about the new book, including access to the first approximately 50 pages or to purchase the book go to the publisher's web site at http://civicresearchinstitute.com/rdv.html Elizabeth Liu and I have convinced our publisher to make available the last section of our chapter about GALs that lists and explains the best practices for GALs in domestic violence cases. You can now download and print this information and share it with your GAL. Everyone is welcome to share this information. I also hope you will check out my new Face book page, Barry Goldsteins Representing the Domestic Violence Survivor.


I haven't read this book, but it sounds intriguing. Many batterers meet the definition.
The Narcissistic Psychopath - How Do I Get Rid of Him? Divorcing the Narcissist and the Psychopath
Narcissism, Pathological Narcissism, The Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), the Narcissist,and Relationships with Abusive Narcissists and Psychopaths By: Dr. Sam Vaknin


CPS documentary - does any one know the family at the end of the video? A reporter is interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sag37aAf1WU

Lundy Bancroft on PAS and domestic violence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAednTCJAlo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STQk-dRPQeE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuY_mUopIc0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qastlvN_Xgk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD2TrG4uztA


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P. O. Box 15284
Sacramento, CA 95851

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