2.12.10

Whiney, Whiney Dr. Richard Warshak—HE alone responsible for Censorship of Comments on Huffington Post

WHY IS DR. RICHARD WARSHAK WHINING WHEN HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR CENSORING COMMENTS ON THE HUFFINGTON POST?

Poor Richard Warshak.  He asked for commenters to come to his Huffington Post article and comment.  A few of us did, and he refused to post the comments.  He censored out everything that didn’t show adoration for him.  That is what he wanted.  Afterall, he has a book and “expert testimony” services to sell.  Now he is whining about those who he censored…there are many that are upset about this.

Several comments were made about the American Bar Association, the American Judges Association, the National District Attorney’s Association and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges debunking the use of “parental alienation” in child custody cases because of it’s well known use by abusers to take custody of children.  Of course, anyone who makes the kind of money that Warshak makes ($20,000 per patient per four days in “treatment”) doesn’t care who claimed what for what purpose, they just know they will make money.  He doesn’t care that children may be in the custody of someone who beat the other parent, probably in front of the children, or may have even been sexually abusing the children.  No, he doesn’t care, but the professional organizations know what the deal is.  They know that victims of abuse have lost their children to abusers, and corrupt individuals that support the use of this legal tactic should be shut down:

2009: A Judicial Guide to Child Safety in Custody Cases
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Family Violence Department

Page 12:
C. [§3.3] A Word of Caution about Parental Alienation34

Under relevant evidentiary standards, the court should not accept testimony regarding parental alienation syndrome, or “PAS.” The theory positing the existence of PAS has been discredited by the scientific community.35 In Kumho Tire v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999), the Supreme Court ruled that even expert testimony based in the “soft sciences” must meet the standard set in the Daubert case.36 Daubert, in which the court re-examined the standard it had earlier articulated in the Frye37 case, requires application of a multi-factor test, including peer review, publication, testability, rate of error, and general acceptance. PAS does not pass this test. Any testimony that a party to a custody case suffers from the syndrome or “parental alienation” should therefore be ruled inadmissible and stricken from the evaluation report under both the standard established in Daubert and the earlier Frye standard.38

The discredited “diagnosis” of PAS (or an allegation of “parental alienation”), quite apart from its scientific invalidity, inappropriately asks the court to assume that the child’s behaviors and attitudes toward the parent who claims to be “alienated” have no grounding in reality. It also diverts attention away from the behaviors of the abusive parent, who may have directly influenced the child’s responses by acting in violent, disrespectful, intimidating, humiliating, or discrediting ways toward the child or the other parent. The task for the court is to distinguish between situations in which the child is critical of one parent because they have been inappropriately manipulated by the other (taking care not to rely solely on subtle indications) , and situations in which the child has his or her own legitimate grounds for criticism or fear of a parent, which will likely be the case when that parent has perpetrated domestic violence. Those grounds do not become less legitimate because the abused parent shares them, and seeks to advocate for the child by voicing his or her concerns.