As I have discussed before in previous blog posts, DARVO is perhaps the most effective and often used strategy of coercive controllers. And of the possible uses of DARVO, Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) or Parental Alienation (PA) is arguably the most commonly used DARVO strategy of coercive controllers in family court.
PAS is a theory created by Richard Gardner, a child psychiatrist, who developed the theory exclusively from his own work, and without any empirical evidence in 1985. He specifically created it for custody cases and used it often "on behalf of father's accused of molesting their children". This theory became widely touted by groups formed under the deceptive misnomer of "father's rights". What these groups are actually pushing are abuser's rights. They want to obscure the fact that they are abusive by using DARVO and PAS to paint the victim as the perpetrator.
How do DARVO and PAS work together in family court to protect abusers from accountability and demonize the protective parent?
When a protective parent accuses a partner or ex-partner of abuse, domestic violence, or coercive control, whether that's abuse of the adult survivor and/or the children, attorneys worldwide have learned that the most effective legal strategy to hide the fact that their client is a coercive controller is to DARVO the court.
DENY: "Your honor, my client would never abuse his ex-wife or children. My client is a loving father who just wishes to maintain contact with the children that he desperately loves. He works hard every day to provide for them, and he is insulted by these baseless accusations against him."
ATTACK: "It is sad to say, but Ms. ______, has mental health issues. She is an addict and regularly neglects and abuses the children. Because she was abused as a child, she thinks everyone is abusive. That is why she has falsely accused my client of abuse."
REVERSE VICTIM & OFFENDER: "Ms. _____ has alienated my client's children from him and has made him out to be a monster. She withholds the children from him, because she is vindictive, and she only wants full custody so that she can bleed my client dry through child support."
This strategy, unfortunately, is incredibly effective in family court, where most judges are untrained and hold implicit bias against mothers who allege abuse. It is so effective that many attorneys advise their clients NOT to raise abuse claims, no matter how egregious or provable, because the very presence of abuse allegations raise suspicion in the eyes of uneducated biased courts.
Joan Meier's research uncovered significant gender bias in US family courts when abuse is alleged, and she found that counter claims of parental alienation further reduced protective mothers' chances of obtaining custody. Here are some of her findings:
In cases where alienation is NOT cross-claimed:
- "Courts accept Mothers’ reports of Fathers’ abuse less than half the time (41%)"
- "Courts are far less likely to accept child abuse claims than partner violence. (DV)." For child abuse, courts only credit claims 29% of the time and for child sexual abuse only 15%.
When alienation IS cross-claimed:
"Alienation cross-claims dramatically reduce rate of acceptance of abuse - especially child abuse (average: 23%)". In these cases DV is credited only 37%, child abuse 18% and child sexual abuse is only credited (believed) 2% of the time.
Although previous research studies have revealed that 50-73% of cases of child sexual abuse are valid, Meier's research showed that only 1 out of 50 cases of child sexual abuse was believed in US family court between 2005-2014.
These figures are astonishing and outrageous! But they are not surprising to those of us who work in the field or to survivors of coercive control. Every day I receive phone calls from protective parents, mostly moms, desperate to protect their children from a coercive controller in family court.
Last year I lost primary custody of my child to a convicted family violence perpetrator whom a jury found guilty of family violence assault with bodily injury, and who repeatedly violated a family violence protective order. My coercive controller's deceit and manipulation were not only invisible to the court, his unsubstantiated lies were taken at face value, while my actual evidence of abuse was ignored.
Meier's research did not distinguish between alleged cases of family violence and proved cases. However, my own experience, and that of my clients, tells me that family court judges are regularly prioritizing father's rights over the well-being and safety of survivors and their children by placing children into the hands of known abusers.
Attorneys, judges, GALs, court evaluators, social workers, therapists, police, and all other professionals who come in contact with coercive controllers (often mislabeled "high conflict" cases) need to learn about the strategy of DARVO and how Parental Alienation Syndrome, and all it's permutations, are actually EVIDENCE of coercive control. That is what I testify to, when I am called as an expert witness in cases of coercive control. Persons who use DARVO and claim "alienation" are not victims, they are actually perpetrators exploiting the system to avoid accountability and continue their coercive control over the adult and child survivor.
THE GOOD NEWS!
On April 13, 2023 the United Nations released information, recommendations and warnings about the use of Parental Alienation pseudo-science within the family court systems worldwide. This is fantastic news! Hopefully, it will begin to undo some of the damage DARVO and PAS have done to protective parents and children across the globe.
