A Mothers Rage Mothers Fight For Justice

Claudine Dombrowski The True Story

2012-02-14T20:07:00.000-08:00

So here comes some more truth to suck on, If you have been wondering just what would motivate a woman to spend her days talking about abuse, here it is. Her name is Claudine. She has been a victim of domestic violence. The horrific damage done to her is here in the pictures i will share with you.

My God Do You See That? **************

What would possibly posses someone to smash someone in the face like that?

Okay Now Take A Look At This

You must be wondering now.....but wait I am not through. Oh what sweetness, holding her premature baby in the infant NICU. Oh My, look at that eye! What a nice punch that must have been! Smile Claudine! ........

Are you sick yet? No? Well let me tell you something, For 11 years Claudine has been fighting for custody of her daughter. The man who did this was given CUSTODY of the minor child RIKKI.

Now understand this is happening here in the U.S.A. It isn't some foreign country, right here in the midwest. Kansas State for a fact. Seems to me something really ugly is going on there, well everywhere to be factual.

Now if these photos are not enough let me show just one more.

Unreal, a child's casket being used as a coffee table, and behind the sofa on the wall a gun! What is most disturbing is that the man who did this has total custody. So folks let the facts speak for themselves. Disturbed yet?

Maternal Alienation Syndrome or Maternal (Deprivation) Syndrome

2010-08-19T00:00:00.001-07:00

Maternal Alienation Syndrome

Maternal Alienation Syndrome (MAS) is a pattern of thoughts and behavior that can develop in a child where the custodial parent causes the child, through manipulation and access blocking, to unjustifiably fear and/or hate the other parent. MAS is more than brainwashing, in that the child comes to actively participate in the degradation of the mother, coming up with original (often ludicrous) reasons to fear/hate her. Domestic violence (DV) restraining orders are a perfect weapon for an alienating parent. Typically, in addition to removing a mother from the home, a DV restraining order also "temporarily" bars the mother from seeing her children, and "temporarily" gives the accusing parent exclusive physical custody. And temporary, in the Family Court, has a funny way of becoming permanent. Obtaining a restraining order based on a false allegation of domestic violence gets the mother out of the picture. A mother who can't see her kids, for example, is unable to rebut the lie "Mommy doesn't love you anymore. That's why she left you." Nor can she rebut the alternate lie, "Mommy is dangerous. The wise judge said so. That's why she can't see you." Often, if an accused mother is allowed to see her children, it is in a supervised visitation center. "The demeaning of the 'visiting' mother is readily visible from the minute that she enters the 'secured facility' with armed guards, officious case workers with their clipboards and arrogant, domineering managers.... The child's impression is that all of these authority figures see Mommy as a serious and dangerous threat. The only time a child sees this type of security is during the visits." Not only does visitation in a visitation center send the clear message to the child that the "visiting"mother is a bad person, if children decline to see their mother under such a setting, they are generally not forced to do so. More perversely, if a child is encouraged by the custodial parent to refuse to see the mother, there will be no significant repercussion to the targeting parent, and, generally, the child will not be forced to see the mother. The more time a child spends away from the mother, the worse the alienation will become. As psychologist Jenna A. Maxwell remarked "the old adage that time heals all wounds, such is not the case with MAS, where the passage of time worsens rather than heals the affliction. This is not to say that time is unimportant: on the contrary, time remains a vital variable for all the players. To heal the relationship, the child requires quality time with the mother to continue and repair the meaningful association that existed since birth. This continued communication also serves as a reality check for the child to counter the effects of ongoing alienation at home. Likewise, the mother needs time with the child to ensure that contact is not completely lost and to prevent the alienation from completely destroying what may be left of a normal, loving relationship.... The alienating parent, on the other hand, requires time to complete the brainwashing of the child without interference.

The manipulation of time becomes the prime weapon in the hands of the alienator who uses it to structure, occupy, and usurp the child's time to prevent 'contaminating' contact with the mother, depriving both of their right to spend time together and furthering the goal of total alienation. Unlike cases of child abuse where time away from the abuser sometimes helps in repairing a damaged relationship, in MAS time away from the mother furthers the goal of alienation. The usual healing properties of time are lost when it is used as the primary weapon to inflict injury on the mother by alienating the child." A parent willing to falsely accuse the mother of domestic violence would be willing to poison a child against her. Add to this the problem that a judge willing to "err on the side of caution" by entering a DV restraining order based on a dubious false allegation would probably not be willing to do what was necessary to prevent the development of MAS. MAS is heart-wrenching and, tragically, common. If the system could be reformed so that only real victims obtained restraining orders, I predict that the number of MAS cases would be greatly reduced. Let's try to get there.

Domestic Violence by Proxy vs. Parental Alienation Syndrome

2010-08-18T22:12:00.001-07:00

From the time that Richard A. Gardner came out with his theory detailing Parental Alienation Syndrome, there has been a great deal of controversy over whether it was real or not. Parental Alienation Syndrome occurs when one parent pulls the children in as allies against the other parent. It may involve false allegations of abuse but is often abused as a defense where real abuse has occurred. When it is used as a defense in a case where real abuse has occurred, the children are the ones who suffer. They lose touch with a parent who was trying to protect them, and become pawns in the ongoing abuse of their other parent. This is when it becomes Domestic Violence by Proxy. The children are often forced into the position of becoming abusive themselves, although they probably do not see their own actions as being abusive. Most often, the mother is the one in this unfortunate position. She may feel trapped into taking the abuse because she loves her children and doesn't want to lose them. Her abuser, who is drunk on control, has found yet another way to control her by using the children. He thus continues his onslaught of abuse, making it domestic violence by proxy. The mother may have any number of reasons for having lost custody of her children. She may have given them up to him voluntarily, hoping that if she did, they would have a better life since he was more abusive to her than to the children. She may have been intimidated into giving up because he seemed to always win every battle, even when she knew she was right. She may not have had the strength and fortitude to carry on in what seemed to be a never-ending battle. He may have won in front of the judge because he seemed more in control of the situation.

The abuser may seem very charming to the children. All of a sudden, the children who were starved for attention by their father previously, have become the apple of his eye. He may tell the children that their mother never wanted them, while he was excited at the prospect of having children, when often, the exact opposite is true. He may shower them with expensive gifts that their mother cannot afford, and compare her gifts to his, finding hers lacking. He may prevent, or make it very difficult for the mother to see her children, then tell the children if she really loved them, she would be there. All of these things and more he uses to create the illusion that she does not love her children. If she spends any time with her children at all, he will often stalk her during the time that she is with them. He tells the children that this is "for their protection." They have no choice to believe him, although prior to the divorce they had no reason to ever be frightened when they were alone with their mother. Any information that the children bring back from their mother's home is twisted in such a way that it can be used against her in attempts to get her in trouble with the law. This makes it dangerous for the children to be in her home, although she desperately wants to welcome them with open arms. The biggest problem with domestic violence by proxy is that the courts all too often fail to recognize it or do anything about it. In fact, for all the lip service that we hear about helping victims of domestic violence in any form, there is very little done about it at all. Domestic violence is a huge problem that way too many people turn a blind eye to. It's time to do something about it. Learn the signs, especially if you are in any kind of a position of power. If you are a judge, a lawyer, police, or anyone who can start the seeds of change, do so. Even if you are just the average layperson, report it when you see it. Don't let your neighbors get away with it. If I can change the world in one way, it will be that no person will ever lose their children to domestic violence again. This is the most painful loss as the children are still there, but unable to be a part of a loving mother's life. The men that perpetrate this need to be held accountable for their actions.

The Dynamics Of Murder Suicide The Real Truth

2010-08-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

                                The Dynamics of Murder-Suicide
                                      in Domestic Situations
                               Katherine van Wormer, MSSW, PhD.

This paper explores dynamics involved in the commission of homicide followed by suicide.

British and U.S. government and advocacy sources are used in addition to news accounts to examine this phenomenon.
Domestic violence-related crimes are contrasted with elderly ‘‘altruistic’’ murder-suicide, school shootings, and political terrorism.
Suicide is argued to be a primary motive in many domestic homicide situations.
Limitation of the availability of ﬁrearms is seen as an important means of prevention in conjunction with a harm reduction safety plan.
In the United States and Britain, as elsewhere, a woman is more vulnerable to violence in her home than in public.
In the United Kingdom, domestic violence costs the lives of more than two women every week (Home Ofﬁce, 2005b), and in the United States, with a much larger population, estimates are that more than three women a day are killed by their intimate part- ners (Rennison, 2003).

Homicide is a leading cause of traumatic death for pregnant and postpartum women in the United States, accounting for 31%of mater- nal injury deaths (Family Violence Prevention Fund, 2006).
In the United Kingdom, pregnancy is a period of high risk as well.

Whereas in the United States, women who are killed are most often killed by guns, in England and Wales, three times as many women are killed by a sharp instrument or by strangula- tion as by shooting.
Over the past decade, about four times as many females who were killed as males who were killed were partners or ex- partners of the murderer (Home Ofﬁce, 2005a). As in the United States, far more males than females are victimized by homicide of a general nature; they are killed often in ﬁghts with other men (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2005).

An extensive search by Aldridge and Browne (2003) revealed 22 empirical research studies on risk factors for spousal homicide. In the United Kingdom, 37%of all women who were murdered were killed by their current or former intimate partner compared to 6%of men.
The most com- mon cause of an intimate partner’s death in Eng- land and Wales was being attacked with a sharp implement or being strangled.
By contrast, the most common cause in the United States for spou- sal homicide was getting shot. Nine major risk factors are found that may help predict the prob- ability of a partner homicide and prevent future victims (Aldridge & Browne, 2003).

                          From the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls.
                          Contact author: Katherine van Wormer, Professor
                          Social Work Department, University of Northern Iowa,
                          30 Sabin Hall, Cedar Falls, IA 50614.
                           E-mail: katherine.vanwormer@uni.edu. doi:

As anyone who reads or watches local or na- tional news reports in the United States will be aware, a spate of murder-suicides is taking place. The dynamics are relatively similar; a bat- tered woman had told her partner or he had inferred fromher behavior that she was making a break in the relationship; the man loaded his gun and shot her and then himself, killing them both. Most of these domestic cases are not reported nationally; they are in headlines in the local paper.

Because government data in the United Kingdom and the United States providing na- tional statistics on homicide that ends in sui- cide are hard to come by, other, less ofﬁcial and comprehensive sources must be consulted.
A recent development in the United States is a promising development, however, for future research. The emerging state-based National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) re- cently has begun providing data on homicide- suicide for a sample of American states.
The majority of the research that is available, how- ever, is not focused on domestic homicide situations.

Homicide-Suicide in the United Kingdom An analysis of theLondon Times’ reports of murder (1887–1990) by Danson and Soothill (1996) revealed a total incidence of 6% of 2,274 cases of murder followed by suicide in the United Kingdom.
Around the turn of the 20th century, as the researchers suggest, this ﬁgure of murder-suicides was much higher at approximately one in three. Murder-suicides, according to Danson and Soothill, are mostly family affairs, especially in cases of female per- petrators. There is a much higher proportion of British male murder-suicides, in general, how- ever, and males much more likely than females to commit their crimes with guns.

Overwhelmingly the women committing murder-suicide in the study tended to kill their children and then themselves. Men, on the other hand, tended to kill their spouses or partners.

More recently, in the ﬁrst epidemiological study of instances of homicide-suicide in England and Wales, Barrachlough and Harris (2002) studied death certiﬁcates for all murder- suicides over a 4-year time span. They found that 3% of male, 11% of female, and 19% of child homicides were of this type.
Similarly, of all suicides, 0.8% male and 0.4% female deaths occurred in homicide-suicide incidents. The typical cases involved families of low socio- economic status.

Data provided by the Home Ofﬁce (2005a) for England and Wales, which are difﬁcult to ana- lyze because the circumstances and timing of suicides following homicide are not clearly spelled out, provide support for earlier ﬁndings by Barraclough and Harris (2002) of a low in- cidence of murders ending in suicide. One can determine that of the 659 homicides that were committed in 2004, 19 individuals com- mitted suicide before indictments could be is- sued. We do not know the nature of the homicides, however.

                                                                      England and Wales

Personal correspondence with Kathryn Coleman of April 10, 2007, of the Direct Com- munications Unit of the Home Ofﬁce provided data on suicide following homicide in which the victim was a partner or ex-partner.
From the years 1997–2006, there were on average 12 cases each year of male-on-female homicides that ended in suicide. Ofﬁcial Home Ofﬁce sources reveals that there are around 100 male-on-female homicides for each year (see e.g., Home Ofﬁce, 2004). So this means that only a small percentage—around 10% of these inti- mate homicides ends in suicide in England and Wales.
As further indicated in the government report, the methods of homicide were by means of a sharp instrument, poison or drugs, beating, and strangulation.

                                                                North America

VAN WORMER 2 Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Homicide-Suicide in North America A rare ﬁnding in the American literature is the research presented by Bossarte, Simon, and Barker (2006) who analyzed data from the NVDRS. This active state-based surveillance system includes data from seven states for 2003 and 13 states for 2004.
The incident-level structure facilitates identiﬁcation of homicide/ suicide incidents. Results revealed that within participating states, 65 homicide/suicide inci- dents (homicide rate¼ 0.230/100,000) occurred in 2003 and 144 incidents (homicide rate¼ 0.238/100,000) occurred in 2004.
Most victims (58%) were current or former intimate partners of the perpetrator. Among all male perpetrators of intimate partner homicide, 30.6% were also suicides. A substantial proportion of the vic- tims (13.7%) were the children of the perpetra- tor.
Overall, most victims (74.6%) were females and most perpetrators were males (91.9%). A recent history of legal problems (25.3%) or ﬁ- nancial problems (9.3%) was common among the perpetrators.

                                                                    Canada

From Statistics Canada (2005), we learn that over the past 40 years, 1 in 10 solved homi- cides were cases in which the suspect took his or her own life following the homicide. About three-quarters of these victims were killed by a family member. Virtually all the in- cidents (97%) involved female victims killed by a male spouse. And, as Easteal (1994) dem- onstrated in an earlier study, one-third of ‘‘spousal’’ homicides in the United States and Canada end in suicide. Few other varieties of homicide end in this way.
Probably related to the availability of guns, the homicide rate in the United States is much higher than the British rate, although the difference has diminished in recent years. According to an in- ternational comparative study, the homicide rate in the United States is 0.04 per 1,000 residents, whereas in the UK, the rate is 0.014 per 1,000 residents (NationMaster.com, 2007).
The differ- ence in homicide rates between large American and British cities is even more pronounced.
Guns are by far the most common weapon used in these crimes (Violence Policy Center [VPC], 2006). One could speculate that if you shoot someone, it is relatively easy to then turn the gun on yourself. If you stab or strangle someone, however, suicide becomes much more difﬁcult. In any case, the high rate of spousal murder-suicides is consistent with the murder- as-extended-suicide hypothesis of Palermo (1994).

Notably, in 1992, theJournal of the American Medical Association(JAMA) reviewed the epide- miology, patterns, and determinants of murder- suicide and made a strong case for the need for systematic data gathering so that prevention strategies can be developed (Marzuk, Tardiff, & Hirsch, 1992). Although there is no standard- ized deﬁnition of murder-suicide, theJAMA re- port proposed that the term murder-suicide be restricted to a situation in which the suicide fol- lows the homicide by 1 week at the most. Extrap- olating from the test statistics available, it is probable that in the United States the murder- suicide represents 1.5% of all suicides and 5% of all homicides annually, according to this re- view. In Denmark, on the other hand, 42% of homicides are of this variety.
JAMA’s summary of data on the mother/ child murder-suicide indicated that only a tiny fraction of mothers who commit infanticide kill themselves although they often attempt or plan to do so. Mothers who kill their chil- dren typically suffocate, drown, or stab them; ﬁrearms are rarely used. The depressed, sui- cidal mother may psychotically perceive her child as an extension of herself. A form of ‘‘de- luded altruism’’ may be the motive, according to this report.
                                                     Report Violence Policy Center

According to the VPC (2002), at least 662 peo- ple died in murder-suicides in the United States during the 6-month period of the 2002 study.

The Dynamics of Murder-Suicide Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention That averages out to about two such killings per day. Three-fourths of the murder-suicides involved ‘‘intimate partner’’ situations; of these, 94% involved male attacks on women.

The most recent study by VPC (2006) re- ported 591 murder-suicide deaths nationwide between January 1 and June 30, 2005. This averages out to 10 murder-suicide events each week. Of those, Texas had 18 cases. Other sta- tistics from the VPC include:

Male offenders: 94%

Cases involving an intimate partner: 74%

Occurred in the home: 75%

Involved a ﬁrearm: 92%

Average age difference between offender,primary victim: 6.3 years

In Iowa, a Midwestern state with a relatively low crime rate, between 1995 and 2005, 106 Iowans killed a partner or spouse in a domestic situation.
The main factor appeared to be a pending breakup. Ninety-six of the killers were men; about half committed suicide shortly afterward. In Pennsylvania, of 97 homicide incidents in 2001, 81 of the perpetrators were males and 16 females, 58 of the victims were shot, and 29 of the perpetrators committed sui- cide (Pennsylvania Coalition against Domestic Violence, 2003).

To determine the recent frequency of reports at the national level, I went to www.google. com, typed in murder-suicide, pressed ‘‘search,’’ then went to news in the row above, which gives recent news stories for that item. Indeed, the frequency was high; there are at least two or more reports of these double or tri- ple murders for each day, and we have to keep in mind that all newspaper headlines are not recorded on google. So we can conclude that even two of these events per day is an under- estimate. My search as of June 10, 2005 (reported by van Wormer & Bartollas, 2007), yielded the following recent incidents for that week:

Ansonia, CT: A 27-year-old man strangled his wife, and then jumped off the roof to his death. The two were Albanian; theirs was an arranged marriage, one reportedly fraught with difﬁculty.
Milwaukie, OR: A couple in their 80s who had often been seen strolling arm-in-arm was found dead of gunshot wounds, a case of suspected murder-suicide.
Union, SC: Problems with money and child custody seemed to be precipitating factors in this murder-suicide committed by a husband in his 20s.
New Providence, NJ: An elderly couple was found dead in what authorities called a murder-suicide. The husband’s note seemed to conﬁrm this.
Lakewood, WA: A couple in their 20s was found shot to death in an apparent homicide and suicide. Police said the man had broken into his ex-girlfriend’s home with a hammer. There was a history of stalking.
Landenberg, PA: A man who shot and killed his wife and two sons before killing himself was said to be suffering from depression.
All these cases took place in the space of several days. That the stories were typical was conﬁrmed in later checks on www.google.com. As can be seen fromthese illustrations, this form of suicide, unlike other instances of suicide, is hardly a sol- itary act.
During the 6-month period of the VPC study, more people died from murder associated with the suicide—369—than from suicide itself—293. Children in the family were or- phaned, and others were left in a state of despair.

                                            As reported by the VPC (2006)

The pattern of the murder-suicide is predictable: a male perpe- trator, female victim, decision by the woman to leave the man, and a gun.
The typical Florida pattern (Florida had the largest number at 35 of the 2002 total) involved an elderly male care- giver overwhelmed by his inability to care for an inﬁrmed wife.

VAN WORMER 4 Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention
Types of Murder-Suicide From her Internet search
I delineated ﬁve basic patterns and that the driving force for each is different.

              The basic types are:

Suicide bombings

Suicide by cop

Murder-suicide in the family where murder is primary

Suicide-murder—three types where suicide is primary

Altruistic suicide-murder (of the elderly) In some of situations, such as that of mass ter- rorism performed by suicide bombers, homi- cide is the predominant motive; in other situations, the motives are a combination of murder and suicide; in still others, the key el- ement apparently is suicide.

‘‘Suicide-by-cop’’ is the term used to describe a situation in which a person wants to commit suicide and die in a dramatic way, so he (almost always a man) threatens an armed police ofﬁcer (sometimes with a toy gun) in order to have the ofﬁcer pull the trigger on him ﬁrst. There is no homicide here except for the police ofﬁcer’s killing of the suicide victim.

As an example of ‘‘murder-suicide in the fam- ily,’’ we can consider war veterans such as sol- diers who have fought in Iraq.
These returning troops have a high rate of both murder and sui- cide and sometimes both. A report from Wash- ington state sees such events as a risk factor distinct to the military in which armed men are trained to kill, and many later carry the in- visible scars of war.
It is impossible to tell whether the externalized aggression (homicide) or internalized aggression (suicide) is primary. Consider these two cases from 2003:

Army Specialist Thomas R. Stroh, 21, strangled his wife and son at their Fort Lewis home. He later committed suicide by driving head-on into a semitruck. The soldier had a record of abusing his wife and being drunk on duty.
Young Marine Renee Di Li Lorenzo was shot and killed by her boyfriend who had been discharged earlier from the Marines. He then turned the shotgun on himself.

Some researchers argue that murder is the pri- mary motive in such cases. Certainly, the urge to kill is the overwhelming factor; the urge can be described as self-destruction including the destruction of people who were once loved. Re- garding murder and suicide in such cases, it may not be a case of either-or but of both-and.

I am introducing the term ‘‘suicide-murder’’ to refer to killings, in whichever age group, that is suicide-driven. There are several basic types of suicide-murders.

1. The elderly cou- ple situation in which an elderly man kills his frail, usually dying wife and himself. The el- derly man is old and feeble and does not want to go to a nursing home.

2. The suicide impulse is prominent is the ‘‘mass school or col- lege shooting,’’ such as has occurred in the United States when boys (who had been bul- lied) brought guns to school and killed their fellow students and then themselves. Facts per- taining to the recent case of the largest such massacre on record—the killings of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech by Seung-Hui Cho, ﬁt this category as well. Details from media accounts reveal a history of school victimiza- tion by taunting, a mental disorder, possibly autism from childhood, stalking women, refer- ral by the campus police for suicidal ideation, and continual fantasies of extreme violence and revenge

3. The most common variety of suicide-murder is the case of ‘‘intimate violence.’’ Fromthe dozens of cases I have read about from news reports, a consistent pattern emerges. The intimate couple is usually in the 20- to 35-year- old range. The man is abusive, psychologically and/or physically.
Obsessed with the woman to the extent that he feels he cannot live without her, he is ﬁercely jealous and determined to iso- late her. Characteristically, suicidal murderers have little regard for the lives of other people; they would be considered, in mental health jar- gon, to be antisocial. So dependent are these men on their wives or girlfriends that they would sooner be dead than to live without them. But for them, suicide is hard—they can- not get the nerve—so they have to ﬁnd a way to force themselves to do it. After committing a homicide, the only way out is suicide.

An alternative scenario is that the urge to kill the source of their obsession is so strong in some men that if they cannot have these women they want to end it all for them both. In the intimate- partner situation, the girlfriend/wife makes a move to leave. Her partner is absolutely dis- traught in the belief that he cannot live without her. This pattern of dangerously obsessive love often involves a history of stalking. The man decides at some point, if they cannot live to- gether they can die together, and if he cannot have her, no one will. He hates the woman as (he thinks) the source of his passion and pain and self-destruction. He kills her because he (obses- sively) ‘‘loves’’ and wants to possess her. (O.J. Simpson once was quoted in the popular press as saying that if he did kill Nicole, his ex-wife, it would have been because he loved her.)

Milton Rosenbaum (1990) of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico compared 12 cases of murder-suicide to 24 cou- ple homicide cases through interviews with family members and friends. The most striking ﬁnding was that the perpetrators of murder- suicide were depressed and almost all these kill- ers were men, whereas the perpetrators alone of homicide were not depressed and one-half were women.

Other studies by psychiatrists describe the young male perpetrators as intensely jealous with a history of suicide attempts (see e.g., Shaw & Flynn, 2003). Women who kill their children and then themselves are almost always depressed and highly suicidal.

Cases of ‘‘elderly suicide,’’ as mentioned above, are more often deﬁned by love and hate, but almost always depression based on serious health factors in old age. They can be consid- ered altruistic because the belief is the world is better off without them. The typical scenario is the wife with late-stage Alzheimer’s cared for by an increasingly frail husband who can no longer care for her. So instead of going to a nurs- ing home, he takes their lives in his own hands (see Malphurs, Eisendorfer, & Cohen, 2001).

                                                Reducing the Risk

The prediction of the duration, intensity, and lethality of woman battering are among the most critical issues in forensic mental health and social work.
Nevertheless, the courts, men- tal health centers, family counseling centers, in- tensive outpatient clinics, day treatment and residential programs, public mental hospitals, and private psychiatric facilities rely on clini- cians to advise judges in civil commitment and criminal court cases.
Based on interviews of family members and friends of 220 female victims of domestic homicide, compared to a control group of 343 victims of physical vio- lence, a com- bination of factors increased the likelihood of intimate partner homicide.
The strongest risk factor that emerged in this study was an abus- er’s lack of employment compounded by a lack of education.
                      Signiﬁcant relationship variables are:
Separating from an abusive partner
Having a child in the home who is not the partner’s biological child..
Abuser’s use of illicit drugs
Access to ﬁrearms
Threats of use of a weapon were common in cases where the partner actu- ally did so.

                                Treatment and Crisis Intervention

The discussion in this paper in terms of the lower rates of domestic homicide and murder- suicide in the United Kingdom has implica- tions related to the control of weapons.
Tightening gun control laws and restricting the access to ﬁrearms by convicted batterers is a serious step in reducing rates of lethal vi- olence. A striking fact, is the way in which domestic vio- lence offenders use ﬁrearms to intimidate and threaten their partners, even when the gun is out of sight (Gwinn, 2006).
‘‘In fact,’’ as Gwinn indicates, based on his personal experience, ‘‘most common use of a ﬁrearm in the home of a batterer may well be to threaten the female victim’’. Firearm prohibitions involving domestic violence restraining orders, as he fur- ther asserts, do make a difference. States that carefully limit access to guns by individuals un- der a restraining order have signiﬁcantly lower rates of intimate partner homicide than do states without these laws. Further the suicide rate is much higher among perpetrators of intimate homicide compared to homicide in general. Suicidal ide- ation in battering men might be considered a possible risk factor for murder-suicide.

Because of imminent threats and danger, it is important to respond quickly to battered women and provide immediate crisis interven- tion in a systematic manner. To meet this need, Roberts (2000) and Roberts and Roberts (2005) developed and customized a seven-stage model for crisis intervention, a model which is a fre- quently used time-limited intervention model with battered women. Roberts’ (2007) Seven- Stage Crisis Intervention Model crisis assess- ment and crisis intervention begins signiﬁ- cantly with an assessment of risk to loss of life.
Stage 1 provides for an assessment of le- thality. Assessment in this model is ongoing and critical to effective intervention at all stages, beginning with an assessment of the le- thality and safety issues for the battered women. With victims of family violence, it is important to assess if the caller is in any current danger and to consider future safety concerns in treatment planning and referral. In addition to determining lethality and the need for emer- gency intervention, it is crucial to maintain ac- tive communication with the client, either by phone or in person, while emergency proce- dures are being initiated.

Additional stages as delineated in the Crisis Intervention Model are (a) establishing rapport and communication, (b) identifying the major problems, (c) dealing with feelings and provid- ing support, (d) exploring possible alternatives, (e) formulating an action plan, and (f) follow-up measures.

To plan and conduct a thorough risk assess- ment, the crisis worker needs to evaluate the following issues: (a) the severity of the crisis, (b) the client’s current emotional state, (c) im- mediate psychosocial and safety needs, and (d) the level of client’s current coping skills and resources. In the initial contact, assessment of the client’s past or pre-crisis level of func- tioning and coping skills is useful. However, past history should not be a focus of assessment unless related directly to the immediate victim- ization or trauma. The focus of crisis interven- tion is on assessing and identifying critical areas of intervention, while also recognizing the duration and severity of violence and ac- knowledging what has happened. Crisis inter- vention can be the starting point of a longer journey that will not end until the woman’s health and life are no longer at risk.

A safety plan is crucial. The crisis worker must help the client look at both the short-term The Dynamics of Murder-Suicide Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention and long-range impacts in planning interven- tion. Such a plan is designed to ensure the wom- an’s safety even if she chooses to remain in a threatening situation. The safety plan involves memorizing relevant phone numbers of domestic violence and legal services, a coded statement that can be conveyed to trusted rel- atives in telephone calls or email messages to signal that help is needed, the storing in an- other place duplicates of personal records and resources that the woman and her children might use later in the event of emergency relo- cation, and ﬁnally some thought given to a spe- ciﬁc plan of a safe place to which one ultimately might escape.

The Batterer As A Parent

2010-08-15T04:49:00.000-07:00

                                                The Batterer As Parent
                                                     by Lundy Bancroft

Research on children's exposure to domestic violence has tended to focus primarily on two aspects of their experience: the trauma of witnessing physical assaults against their mother, and the tension produced by living with a high level of conflict between their parents.1 However, these are just two elements of a much deeper problem pervading these children's daily life, which is that they are living with a batterer. The parenting of men who batterer exposes children to multiple potential sources of emotional and physical injury, most of which have not been recognized widely.
This article looks at the characteristics of men who batter and identifies ways in which these characteristics also influence their ability to parent appropriately. Additionally, the article will address the implications of such parenting for child protective and custody determinations.

                                               Characteristics of Men Who Batter:

Most of the characteristics that are typical of men who batter have potential ramifications for children in the home. Batterers often tend toward authoritarian, neglectful, and verbally abusive child-rearing. The effects on the children of these and other parenting weaknesses may be intensified by the children's prior traumatic experience of witnessing violence. Consider the following selected examples of characteristics of men who batter.
                                                                Control:

Coerciveness is widely recognized as a central quality of battering men,4 and one of the areas of life heavily controlled by many men who batterer is the mother's parenting. A man who batters may cause or forbid his partner to terminate a pregnancy, overrule her parenting decisions, or assault her when he is angry over the children's behavior. Battered women are far more likely than other mothers to feel that they have to alter their parenting styles when their partners are present.

                                                           Entitlement:

A man who batters considers himself entitled to a special status within the family, with the right to use violence when he deems it necessary. This outlook of entitlement can lead to selfish and self-centered behavior on his part. For example, he may become irate or violent when he feels that his partner is paying more attention to the children than to him. It is difficult for children to have their needs met in such an atmosphere and they are vulnerable to role-reversal, where they are made to feel responsible to take care of the battering parent.

                                                       Possessiveness:

Men who batter often have been observed to perceive their partners as owned objects. This possessive outlook can sometimes extend to their children, partly accounting for the dramatically elevated rates of physical abuse and sexual abuse of children perpetrated by batterers, and for the fact that these men seek custody of their children more often than non-battering fathers do. Other characteristics that can have an important impact on children include

Manipulativeness:
Denial and minimization of the abuse
Battering in multiple relationships
Resistance to change.
Influence of Battering on Parenting:

The characteristics discussed above influence the parenting of men who batter and have a negative impact on the children by:
Creating role models that perpetuate the violence
Undermining the mother's authority
Retaliating against the mother for her efforts to protect the children
Sowing divisions within the family
Using the children as weapons against the mother

                                     Creating role models that perpetuate the violence:

Boys who are exposed to domestic violence show dramatically elevated rates of battering their own partners as adolescents or adults. Research suggests that this connection is a product more of the values and attitudes that boys learn from witnessing battering behavior than of the emotional trauma of being exposed to such abuse Daughters of battered women show increased difficulty in escaping partner abuse in their adult relationships Both boys and girls have been observed to accept various aspects of the batterer's belief-system, including the view that victims of violence are to blame, that women exaggerate hysterically when they report abuse, and that males are superior to females.

                                                    Undermining the mother's authority:

Domestic violence is inherently destructive to maternal authority because the batterer's verbal abuse and violence provide a model for children of contemptuous and aggressive behavior toward their mother.
The predictable result, confirmed by many studies, is that children of battered women have increased rates of violence and disobedience toward their mothers.
Some battered mothers make reports of being prevented from picking up a crying infant or from assisting a frightened or injured child and of being barred from providing other basic physical, emotional, or even medical care. Interference of this kind can cause the children to feel that their mother does not care about them or is unreliable. The batterer may reinforce those feelings by verbally conditioning the children through statements such as, "Your mother doesn't love you," or, "Mommy only cares about herself."

                              Retaliating against her for her efforts to protect the children:

A mother may find that she is assaulted or intimidated if she attempts to prevent the batterer from mistreating the children, or may find that he harms the children more seriously to punish her for standing up for them. Therefore, she may be forced over time to stop intervening on her children's behalf. This dynamic can lead children to perceive their mother as uncaring about the batterer's mistreatment of them, and can contribute to her being labeled by child protective services as "failing to protect."
                                                    Sowing divisions with the family:

Some batterers use favoritism to build a special relationship with one child in the family. As some researchers have noted, the favored child is particularly likely to be a boy, and the batterer may bond with him partly through encouraging a sense of superiority to females. Batterers also may create or feed familial tensions deliberately. These manipulative behaviors are a likely factor in the high rate of inter-sibling conflict and violence observed in families exposed to battering behavior.

                                                       Using the children as weapons:

Many men who batter use children as a vehicle to harm or control the mother through such tactics as
destroying the children's belongings to punish the mothe.r
Requiring the children to monitor and report on their mother's activities.
Threatening to kidnap or take custody of the children if the mother attempts to end the relationship.
These parenting behaviors draw the children into the abuser's behavior pattern. Post-separation, many batterers use unsupervised visitation as an opportunity to further abuse the mother through the children.

                         Implications for Child Protective and Custody Determinations

Determinations regarding child protection, custody, and visitation in the context of domestic violence:
Be informed by an awareness of the destructive parenting behaviors exhibited by many men who batter, and their effects on children and their mothers. These behaviors have especially important implications for children who are struggling with two sets of psychological injuries, one from exposure to the battering behavior and the other from their parents' divorce or separation.

               Some elements to examine closely when crafting interventions for families include:

Addressing the healing needs of children: There is a wide consensus that children's recovery from exposure to domestic violence (and from divorce) depends largely on the quality of their relationship with the non-battering parent and with their siblings. Therefore, in addition to safety consideration, court determinations should take into account whether the batterer is likely, based on his past and current behavior, to continue to undermine the mother's authority, interfere with mother-child relationships, or cause tensions between siblings. Because children need a sense of safety in order to heal juvenile and family court decisions may not want to include leaving the children in the unsupervised care of a man whose violent tendencies they have witnessed, even if they feel a strong bond of affection for him.

                      Making appropriate assessments, especially in custody determinations:

A batterer's history of abusive behavior, and how such abuse reflects on his parenting, needs to be investigated carefully, assessing for the presence of any of the common problems described above and paying particular attention to that children may become a vehicle for continued abuse of the mother.
Courts need to ensure that custody evaluators have extensive training on the multiple sources of risk to children from custody or unsupervised contact with the abusive parent.

                                           Safely fostering father-child relationships:

Except in cases where the children are terrified of the battering parent or have been abused by him directly, children tend to desire some degree of ongoing contact with their fathers. Such contact can be beneficial as long as adequate safety measures are provided for the mother and children and the abuser is not given the opportunity to cause set-backs to the children's emotional recovery. These goals can be fostered through custody arrangements that take into full consideration the violence in the home caused by the battering parent and through the use of professionally supervised visitation, ideally based in a visitation center. Where unsupervised visitation is found to be safe, the use of relatively short visits that do not include overnight visits can reduce the batterer's ability to damage mother-child relationship, limit his negative influence on the children's behavior and value-systems, and ensure that the children feel safe and secure,while still allowing them to feel a continued connection to their father.

The Batterer As Parent, by Lundy Bancroft
http://www.volcanopress.com/

Gaslighting How It Happens And What You Can Do To Make It Through

2010-08-15T04:15:00.000-07:00

GASLIGHTING

It refers to an abuser creating self-doubt in his victim to make her appearcrazy, both to the outside world and to herself. It can be frustrating for the victim as she begins to doubt her own memories, opinions and thoughts. Ambient abuse is the stealth, subtle, underground currents of maltreatment that sometimes go unnoticed even by the victims themselves, until it is too late. Ambient abuse penetrates and permeates everything – but is difficult to pinpoint and identify. It is ambiguous, atmospheric, diffuse. Hence its insidious and pernicious effects. It is by far the most dangerous kind of abuse there is. It is the outcome of fear – fear of violence, fear of the unknown, fear of the unpredictable, the capricious, and the arbitrary. It is perpetrated by dropping subtle hints, by disorienting, by constant – and unnecessary – lying, by persistent doubting and demeaning, and by inspiring an air of unmitigated gloom and doom ("gaslighting"). Ambient abuse, therefore, is the fostering, propagation, and enhancement of an atmosphere of fear, intimidation, instability, unpredictability and irritation. There are no acts of traceable explicit abuse, nor any manipulative settings of control. Yet, the irksome feeling remains, a disagreeable foreboding, a premonition, a bad omen. In the long term, such an environment erodes the victim's sense of self-worth and self-esteem. Self-confidence is shaken badly. Often, the victim adopts a paranoid or schizoid stance and thus renders himself or herself exposed even more to criticism and judgment. The roles are thus reversed: the victim is considered mentally deranged and the abuser – the suffering soul.

There are five categories of ambient abuse and they are often combined in the conduct of a single abuser:

                                                I. Inducing Disorientation

The abuser causes the victim to lose faith in her ability to manage and to cope with the world and its demands. She no longer trusts her senses, her skills, her strengths, her friends, her family, and the predictability and benevolence of her environment. The abuser subverts the target's focus by disagreeing with her way of perceiving the world, her judgment, the facts of her existence, by criticizing her incessantly – and by offering plausible but specious alternatives. By constantly lying, he blurs the line between reality and nightmare. By recurrently disapproving of her choices and actions – the abuser shreds the victim's self-confidence and shatters her self-esteem. By reacting disproportionately to the slightest "mistake" – he intimidates her to the point of paralysis.

                                                      II. Incapacitating

The abuser gradually and surreptitiously takes over functions and chores previously adequately and skilfully performed by the victim. The prey finds itself isolated from the outer world, a hostage to the goodwill – or, more often, ill-will – of her captor. She is crippled by his encroachment and by the inexorable dissolution of her boundaries and ends up totally dependent on her tormentor's whims and desires, plans and stratagems.
Moreover, the abuser engineers impossible, dangerous, unpredictable, unprecedented, or highly specific situations in which he is sorely needed. The abuser makes sure that his knowledge, his skills, his connections, or his traits are the only ones applicable and the most useful in the situations that he, himself, wrought. The abuser generates his own indispensability.

                                                   III. Shared Psychosis (folie a deux)

The abuser creates a fantasy world, inhabited by the victim and himself, and besieged by imaginary enemies. He allocates to the abused the role of defending this invented and unreal Universe. She must swear to secrecy, stand by her abuser no matter what, lie, fight, pretend, obfuscate and do whatever else it takes to preserve this oasis of inanity. Her membership in the abuser's "kingdom" is cast as a privilege and a prize. But it is not to be taken for granted. She has to work hard to earn her continued affiliation. She is constantly being tested and evaluated. Inevitably, this interminable stress reduces the victim's resistance and her ability to "see straight"

                                               IV. Abuse of Information

From the first moments of an encounter with another person, the abuser is on the prowl. He collects information. The more he knows about his potential victim – the better able he is to coerce, manipulate, charm, extort or convert it "to the cause". The abuser does not hesitate to misuse the information he gleans, regardless of its intimate nature or the circumstances in which he obtained it. This is a powerful tool in his armory.

                                             V. Control by Proxy

If all else fails, the abuser recruits friends, colleagues, mates, family members, the authorities, institutions, neighbours, the media, teachers – in short, third parties – to do his bidding. He uses them to cajole, coerce, threaten, stalk, offer, retreat, tempt, convince, harass, communicate and otherwise manipulate his target. He controls these unaware instruments exactly as he plans to control his ultimate prey. He employs the same mechanisms and devices. And he dumps his props unceremoniously when the job is done. Another form of control by proxy is to engineer situations in which abuse is inflicted upon another person. Such carefully crafted scenarios of embarrassment and humiliation provoke social sanctions (condemnation, opprobrium, or even physical punishment) against the victim. Society, or a social group become the instruments of the abuser. If all else fails, the abuser recruits friends, colleagues, mates, family members, the authorities, institutions, neighbours, the media, teachers – in short, third parties – to do his bidding. He uses them to cajole, coerce, threaten, stalk, offer, retreat, tempt, convince, harass, communicate and otherwise manipulate his target. He controls these unaware instruments exactly as he plans to control his ultimate prey. He employs the same mechanisms and devices. And he dumps his props unceremoniously when the job is done. These - sometimes unwitting - accomplices belong to three groups:

                                                 I. The abuser's social milieu

Some offenders - mainly in patriarchal and misogynist societies – co-opt other family members, friends, and colleagues into aiding and abetting their abusive conduct. In extreme cases, the victim is held "hostage" - isolated and with little or no access to funds or transportation. Often, the couple's children are used as bargaining chips or leverage. Ambient abuse by the abuser's clan, kin, kith, and village or neighborhood is rampant.

                                               II. The victim's social milieu

Even the victim's relatives, friends, and colleagues are amenable to the considerable charm, persuasiveness, and manipulativeness of the abuser and to his impressive thespian skills. The abuser offers a plausible rendition of the events and interprets them to his favor. Others rarely have a chance to witness an abusive exchange first hand and at close quarters. In contrast, the victims are often on the verge of a nervous breakdown: harassed, unkempt, irritable, impatient, abrasive, and hysterical. Confronted with this contrast between a polished, self-controlled, and suave abuser and his harried casualties – it is easy to reach the conclusion that the real victim is the abuser, or that both parties abuse each other equally. The prey's acts of self-defense, assertiveness, or insistence on her rights are interpreted as aggression, lability, or a mental health problem.

                                                       III. The System

The abuser perverts the system - therapists, marriage counselors, mediators, court-appointed guardians, police officers, and judges. He uses them to pathologize the victim and to separate her from her sources of emotional sustenance - notably, from her children.

                                                Forms of Abuse by Proxy

Socially isolating and excluding the victim by discrediting her through a campaign of malicious rumors.
Harassing the victim by using others to stalk her or by charging her with offenses she did not commit.
Provoking the victim into aggressive or even antisocial conduct by having others threaten her or her loved ones.
Colluding with others to render the victim dependent on the abuser.
But, by far, her children are the abuser's greatest source of leverage over his abused spouse or mate.
The abuser often recruits his children to do his bidding. He uses them to tempt, convince, communicate, threaten, and otherwise manipulate his target, the children's other parent or a devoted relative (e.g., grandparents). He controls his - often gullible and unsuspecting - offspring exactly as he plans to control his ultimate prey. He employs the same mechanisms and devices. And he dumps his props unceremoniously when the job is done - which causes tremendous (and, typically, irreversible) emotional hurt.

                                                               Co-opting

Some offenders - mainly in patriarchal and misogynist societies – co-opt their children into aiding and abetting their abusive conduct. The couple's children are used as bargaining chips or leverage. They are instructed and encouraged by the abuser to shun the victim, criticize and disagree with her, withhold their love or affection, and inflict on her various forms of ambient abuse. "Even the victim's (children) are amenable to the considerable charm, persuasiveness, and manipulativeness of the abuser and to his impressive thespian skills. The abuser offers a plausible rendition of the events and interprets them to his favor. The victims are often on the verge of a nervous breakdown: harassed, unkempt, irritable, impatient, abrasive, and hysterical.
Confronted with this contrast between a polished, self-controlled, and suave abuser and his harried casualties – it is easy to reach the conclusion that the real victim is the abuser, or that both parties abuse each other equally. The prey's acts of self-defense, assertiveness, or insistence on her rights are interpreted as aggression, lability, or a mental health problem."
This is especially true with young - and, therefore vulnerable - offspring, particularly if they live with the abuser. They are frequently emotionally blackmailed by him ("If you want daddy to love you, do this or refrain from doing that"). They lack life experience and adult defenses against manipulation. They may be dependent on the abuser economically and they always resent the abused for breaking up the family, for being unable to fully cater to their needs (she has to work for a living), and for "cheating" on her ex with a new boyfriend or husband.

                                                     Co-opting The System

The abuser perverts the system - therapists, marriage counselors, mediators, court-appointed guardians, police officers, and judges. He uses them to pathologize the victim and to separate her from her sources of emotional sustenance - notably, from her children. The abuser seeks custody to pain his ex and punish her.

                                                             Threatening

Abusers are insatiable and vindictive. They always feel deprived and unfairly treated. Some of them are paranoid and sadistic. If they fail to manipulate their common children into abandoning the other parent, they begin treat the kids as enemies. They are not above threatening the children, abducting them, abusing them (sexually, physically, or psychologically), or even outright harming them - in order to get back at or in order to make her do something. Most victims attempt to present to their children a "balanced" picture of the relationship and of the abusive spouse. In a vain attempt to avoid the notorious (and controversial) Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), they do not besmirch the abusive parent and, on the contrary, encourage the semblance of a normal, functional, liaison. This is the wrong approach. Not only is it counterproductive - it sometimes proves outright dangerous. Children have a right to know the overall state of affairs between their parents. They have a right not to be cheated and deluded into thinking that "everything is basically OK" – or that the separation is reversible. Both parents are under a moral obligation to tell their offspring the truth: the relationship is over for good. Younger kids tend to believe that they are somehow responsible or guilty for the breakdown of the marriage. They must be disabused of this notion. Both parents would do best to explain to them, in straightforward terms, what led to the dissolution of the bond. If spousal abuse is wholly or partly to blame – it should be brought out to the open and discussed honestly. In such conversations it is best not to allocate blame. But this does not mean that wrong behaviors should be condoned or whitewashed. The victimized parent should tell the child that abusive conduct is wrong and must be avoided. The child should be taught how to identify the warning signs of impending abuse – sexual, verbal, psychological, and physical. Moreover, a responsible parent should teach the child how to resist inappropriate and hurtful actions. The child should be brought up to insist on being respected by the other parent, on having him or her observe the child's boundaries and accept the child's needs and emotions, choices, and preferences. The child should learn to say "no" and to walk away from potentially compromising situations with the abusive parent. The child should be brought up not to feel guilty for protecting himself or herself and for demanding his or her rights. Remember this: An abusive parent IS DANGEROUS TO THE CHILD.

                                                   Idealization – Devaluation Cycles

Most abusers accord the same treatment to children and adults. They regard both as Sources of Narcissistic Supply, mere instruments of gratification – idealize them at first and then devalue them in favour of alternative, safer and more subservient, sources. Such treatment – being idealized and then dumped and devalued – is traumatic and can have long-lasting emotional effects on the child.

                                                                 Jealousy

Some abusers are jealous of their offspring. They envy them for being the center of attention and care. They treat their own kids as hostile competitors. Where the uninhibited expression of the aggression and hostility aroused by this predicament is illegitimate or impossible – the abuser prefers to stay away. Rather than attack his children, he sometimes immediately disconnects, detaches himself emotionally, becomes cold and uninterested, or directs transformed anger at his mate or at his parents (the more "legitimate" targets).

                                                            Objectification

Sometimes, the child is perceived to be a mere bargaining chip in a drawn out battle with the erstwhile victim of the abuser (read the previous article in this series – Leveraging the Children). This is an extension of the abuser's tendency to dehumanize people and treat them as objects. Such abusive partners seek to manipulate their former mate by "taking over" and monopolizing their common children. They foster an atmosphere of emotional (and bodily) incest. The abusive parent encourages his kids to idolise him, to adore him, to be awed by him, to admire his deeds and capabilities, to learn to blindly trust and obey him, in short to surrender to his charisma and to become submerged in his follies-de-grandeur.

                                           Breach of Personal Boundaries and Incest

It is at this stage that the risk of child abuse – up to and including outright incest – is heightened. Many abusers are auto-erotic. They are the preferred objects of their own sexual attentions. Molesting or having intercourse with one's children is as close as one gets to having sex with oneself. Abusers often perceive sex in terms of annexation. The molested child is "assimilated" and becomes anextension of the offender, a fully controlled and manipulated object. Sex, to the abuser, is the ultimate act of depersonalization and objectification of the other. He actually masturbates with other people's bodies, his children's included. The abuser's inability to acknowledge and abide by the personal boundaries set by others puts the child at heightened risk of abuse – verbal, emotional, physical, and, often, sexual. The abuser's possessiveness and panoply of indiscriminate negative emotions – transformations of aggression, such as rage and envy – hinder his ability to act as a "good enough" parent. His propensities for reckless behaviour, substance abuse, and sexual deviance endanger the child's welfare, or even his or her life.

                                                                      Conflict

Minors pose little danger of criticizing the abuser or confronting him. They are perfect, malleable and abundant Sources of Narcissistic Supply. The narcissistic parent derives gratification from having incestuous relations with adulating, physically and mentally inferior, inexperienced and dependent "bodies".
Yet, the older the offspring, the more they become critical, even judgemental, of the abusive parent. They are better able to put into context and perspective his actions, to question his motives, to anticipate his moves. As they mature, they often refuse to continue to play the mindless pawns in his chess game. They hold grudges against him for what he has done to them in the past, when they were less capable of resistance. They can gauge his true stature, talents and achievements – which, usually, lag far behind the claims that he makes. This brings the abusive parent back a full cycle. Again, he perceives his sons/daughters as threats. He quickly becomes disillusioned and devaluing. He loses all interest, becomes emotionally remote, absent and cold, rejects any effort to communicate with him, citing life pressures and the preciousness and scarceness of his time. He feels burdened, cornered, besieged, suffocated, and claustrophobic. He wants to get away, to abandon his commitments to people who have become totally useless (or even damaging) to him. He does not understand why he has to support them, or to suffer their company and he believes himself to have been deliberately and ruthlessly trapped. He rebels either passively-aggressively (by refusing to act or by intentionally sabotaging the relationships) or actively (by being overly critical, aggressive, unpleasant, verbally and psychologically abusive and so on). Slowly – to justify his acts to himself – he gets immersed in conspiracy theories with clear paranoid hues. To his mind, the members of the family conspire against him, seek to belittle or humiliate or subordinate him, do not understand him, or stymie his growth. The abuser usually finally gets what he wants – his kids detach and abandon him to his great sorrow, but also to his great relief. The dissolution of the abuser's marriage or other meaningful (romantic, business, or other) relationships constitutes a major life crisis and a scathing narcissistic injury. To soothe and salve the pain of disillusionment, he administers to his aching soul a mixture of lies, distortions, half-truths and outlandish interpretations of events around him. All abusers present with rigid and infantile (primitive) defense mechanisms: splitting, projection, Projective Identification, denial, intellectualization, and narcissism. But some abusers go further and decompensate by resorting to self-delusion. Unable to face the dismal failures that they are, they partially withdraws from reality.

                                           The Masochistic Avoidant Solution

The abuser directs some of this fury inwards, punishing himself for his "failure". This masochistic behavior has the added "benefit" of forcing the abuser's closest to assume the roles of dismayed spectators or of persecutors and thus, either way, to pay him the attention that he craves. Self-administered punishment often manifests as self-handicapping masochism – a cop-out. By undermining his work, his relationships, and his efforts, the increasingly fragile abuser avoids additional criticism and censure (negative supply). Self-inflicted failure is the abuser's doing and thus proves that he is the master of his own fate.
Masochistic abusers keep finding themselves in self-defeating circumstances which render success impossible – and "an objective assessment of their performance improbable" (Millon, 2000). They act carelessly, withdraw in mid-effort, are constantly fatigued, bored, or disaffected and thus passive-aggressively sabotage their lives. Their suffering is defiant and by "deciding to abort" they reassert their omnipotence. The abuser's pronounced and public misery and self-pity are compensatory and "reinforce (his) self-esteem against overwhelming convictions of worthlessness" (Millon, 2000). His tribulations and anguish render him, in his eyes, unique, saintly, virtuous, righteous, resilient, and significant. They are, in other words, self-generated Narcissistic Supply. Thus, paradoxically, the worst his anguish and unhappiness, the more relieved and elated such an abuser feels! He is "liberated" and "unshackled" by his own self-initiated abandonment, he insists. He never really wanted this commitment, he tells any willing (or buttonholed) listener – and anyhow, the relationship was doomed from the beginning by the egregious excesses and exploits of his wife (or partner or friend or boss).
                                                 The Delusional Narrative Solution

This kind of abuser constructs a narrative in which he figures as the hero – brilliant, perfect, irresistibly handsome, destined for great things, entitled, powerful, wealthy, the centre of attention, etc. The bigger the strain on this delusional charade – the greater the gap between fantasy and reality – the more the delusion coalesces and solidifies. Finally, if it is sufficiently protracted, it replaces reality and the abuser's reality test deteriorates. He withdraws his bridges and may become schizotypal, catatonic, or schizoid.

                                                      The Antisocial Solution

This type of abuser has a natural affinity with the criminal. His lack of empathy and compassion, his deficient social skills, his disregard for social laws and morals – now erupt and blossom. He becomes a full fledged antisocial (sociopath or psychopath). He ignores the wishes and needs of others, he breaks the law, he violates all rights – natural and legal, he holds people in contempt and disdain, he derides society and its codes, he punishes the ignorant ingrates – that, to his mind, drove him to this state – by acting criminally and by jeopardizing their safety, lives, or property.

                                                The Paranoid Schizoid Solution

Another class of abuser develop persecutory delusions. He perceives slights and insults where none were intended. He becomes subject to ideas of reference (people are gossiping about him, mocking him, prying into his affairs, cracking his e-mail, etc.). He is convinced that he is the centre of malign and mal-intentioned attention. People are conspiring to humiliate him, punish him, abscond with his property, delude him, impoverish him, confine him physically or intellectually, censor him, impose on his time, force him to action (or to inaction), frighten him, coerce him, surround and besiege him, change his mind, part with his values, victimize or even murder him, and so on. Some abusers withdraw completely from a world populated with such minacious and ominous objects (really projections of internal objects and processes). They avoid all social contact, except the most necessary. They refrain from meeting people, falling in love, having sex, talking to others, or even corresponding with them. In short: they become schizoids – not out of social shyness, but out of what they feel to be their choice. "This evil, hopeless world does not deserve me" – goes the inner refrain – "and I shall waste none of my time and resources on it."

                                               The Paranoid Aggressive (Explosive) Solution

Other abusers who develop persecutory delusions, resort to an aggressive stance, a more violent resolution of their internal conflict. They become verbally, psychologically, situationally (and, more rarely, physically) abusive. They insult, castigate, chastise, berate, demean, and deride their nearest and dearest (often well wishers and loved ones). They explode in unprovoked displays of indignation, righteousness, condemnation, and blame. Theirs is an exegetic Bedlam. They interpret everything – even the most innocuous, inadvertent, and innocent comment – as designed to provoke and humiliate them. They sow fear, revulsion, hate, and malignant envy. They flail against the windmills of reality – a pathetic, forlorn, sight. But often they cause real and lasting damage – fortunately, mainly to themselves. Your abusive ex is likely to cope with the pain and humiliation of separation by spreading lies, distortions, and half-truths about you and by proffering self-justifying interpretations of the events leading to the break-up. By targeting your closest, nearest, and dearest – your family, your children, boss, colleagues, co-workers, neighbours, and friends – your ex hopes to achieve two equally unrealistic goals:
To isolate you socially and force you to come running back to his waiting and "loving" arms.
To communicate to you that he still "loves" you, is still interested in you and your affairs and that, no matter what, you are inseparable. He magnanimously is willing to forgive all the "horrible things" you did to him and revive the relationship (which, after all, had its good moments). All abusers present with rigid and infantile (primitive) defence mechanisms: splitting, projection, Projective Identification, denial, intellectualisation, and narcissism. But some abusers go further and decompensate by resorting to self-delusion. Unable to face the dismal failures that they are, they partially withdraws from reality.

                  How to cope with delusional, paranoid – and, therefore, dangerous – stalkers?

It may be difficult, but turn off your emotions. Abusers prey on other people's empathy, pity, altruism, nostalgia, and tendency to lend a helping hand. Some stalkers "punish" themselves – drink to excess, commit offences and get caught, abuse drugs, have accidents, fall prey to scams – in order to force their victims to pity them and get in touch. The only viable coping strategy is to ignore your abusive ex. Take all necessary precautions to protect yourself and your family. Alert law enforcement agencies to any misbehaviour, violence, or harassment. File charges and have restraining orders issued. But, otherwise, avoid all gratuitous interactions. Be sure to maintain as much contact with your abuser as the courts, counsellors, mediators, guardians, or law enforcement officials mandate.

Do NOT contravene the decisions of the system. Work from the inside to change judgments, evaluations, or rulings – but NEVER rebel against them or ignore them. You will only turn the system against you and your interests. But with the exception of the minimum mandated by the courts – decline any and all gratuitous contact with the narcissist.
Do not respond to his pleading, romantic, nostalgic, flattering, or threatening e-mail messages. Return all gifts he sends you. Refuse him entry to your premises. Do not even respond to the intercom.                              Do not talk to him on the phone. Hang up the minute you hear his voice while making clear to him, in a single, polite but firm, sentence, that you are determined not to talk to him.
Do not answer his letters.
Do not visit him on special occasions, or in emergencies.
Do not respond to questions, requests, or pleas forwarded to you through third parties. Disconnect from third parties whom you know are spying on you at his behest.
Do not discuss him with your children.
Do not gossip about him.
Do not ask him for anything, even if you are in dire need. When you are forced to meet him, do not discuss your personal affairs – or his. Relegate any inevitable contact with him – when and where possible – to professionals: your lawyer, or your accountant.
Do not collude or collaborate in your ex's fantasies and delusions. You cannot buy his mercy or his goodwill – he has none. Do not support his notions, even indirectly, that he is brilliant, perfect, irresistibly handsome, destined for great things, entitled, powerful, wealthy, the centre of attention, etc. Abusers act on these misperceptions and try to coerce you into becoming an integral part of their charades. Abuse is a criminal offence and, by definition, abusers are criminals: they lack empathy and compassion, have deficient social skills, disregard laws, norms, contracts, and morals. You can't negotiate with your abusive ex and you can't strike a bargain with him. You can't reform, cure, or recondition him. He is a threat to you, to your property, and to your dear ones. Treat him as such.

The most dangerous class of abusers is the paranoid-delusional. If your ex is one of these, he is likely to:

Believe that you still love him (erotomania). Interpret everything you do or say – even to third parties – as "hidden messages" addressed to him and professing your undying devotion (ideas of reference).
Confuse the physical with the emotional (regard sex as "proof" of love and be prone to rape you).
Blame the failure of the relationship on you or on others – social workers, your friends, your family, your children.
Seek to "remove" the obstacles to a "happy" and long relationship – sometimes by resorting to violence (kidnapping or murdering the sources of frustration).
Be very envious of your newfound autonomy and try to sabotage it by reasserting his control over you (for instance, break and enter into your house, leave intrusive messages on your answering machine, follow you around and monitor your home from a stationary car).
Harm you (and sometimes himself) in a fit of indignation (and to punish you) if he feels that no renewed relationship is possible.
Develop persecutory delusions. Perceive slights and insults where none are intended. Become convinced that he is the centre of a conspiracy to deny him (and you) happiness, to humiliate him, punish him, delude him, impoverish him, confine him physically or intellectually, censor him, impose on his time, force him to action (or to inaction), frighten him, coerce him, surround and besiege him, change his mind, part with his values, victimise or even murder him, and so on.
The paranoid's conduct is unpredictable and there is no "typical scenario". But experience shows that you can minimise the danger to yourself and to your household by taking some simple steps. The paranoid's conduct is unpredictable and there is no "typical scenario". But experience shows that you can minimise the danger to yourself and to your household by taking some basic steps.
If at all possible, put as much physical distance as you can between yourself and the stalker. Change address, phone number, email accounts, cell phone number, enlist the kids in a new school, find a new job, get a new credit card, open a new bank account. Do not inform your paranoid ex about your whereabouts and your new life. You may have to make painful sacrifices, such as minimize contact with your family and friends.
Even with all these precautions, your abusive ex is likely to find you, furious that you have fled and evaded him, raging at your newfound existence, suspicious and resentful of your freedom and personal autonomy. Violence is more than likely. Unless deterred, paranoid former spouses tend to be harmful, even lethal.
Be prepared: alert your local law enforcement officers, check out your neighbourhood domestic violence shelter, consider owning a gun for self-defence (or, at the very least, a stun gun or mustard spray). Carry these with you at all times. Keep them close by and accessible even when you are asleep or in the bathroom.
Erotomanic stalking can last many years. Do not let down your guard even if you haven't heard from him. Stalkers leave traces. They tend, for instance, to "scout" the territory before they make their move. A typical stalker invades his or her victim's privacy a few times long before the crucial and injurious encounter.
Is your computer being tampered with? Is someone downloading your e-mail? Has anyone been to your house while you were away? Any signs of breaking and entering, missing things, atypical disorder (or too much order)? Is your post being delivered erratically, some of the envelopes opened and then sealed? Mysterious phone calls abruptly disconnected when you pick up? Your stalker must have dropped by and is monitoring you. Notice any unusual pattern, any strange event, any weird occurrence. Someone is driving by your house morning and evening? A new "gardener" or maintenance man came by in your absence? Someone is making enquiries about you and your family? Maybe it's time to move on.
Teach your children to avoid your paranoid ex and to report to you immediately any contact he has made with them. Abusive bullies often strike where it hurts most - at one's kids. Explain the danger without being unduly alarming. Make a distinction between adults they can trust - and your abusive former spouse, whom they should avoid. Ignore reactions and impulses. Sometimes, the stress is so onerous and so infuriating that you feel like striking back at the stalker. Don't do it. Don't play his game. He is better at it than you are and is likely to defeat you. Instead, unleash the full force of the law whenever you get the chance to do so: restraining orders, spells in jail, and frequent visits from the police tend to check the abuser's violent and intrusive conduct. The other behavioural extreme is equally futile and counterproductive. Do not try to buy peace by appeasing your abuser. Submissiveness and attempts to reason with him only whet the stalker's appetite. He regards both as contemptible weaknesses, vulnerabilities he can exploit. You cannot communicate with a paranoid because he is likely to distort everything you say to support his persecutory delusions, sense of entitlement, and grandiose fantasies. You cannot appeal to his emotions - he has none, at least not positive ones. Remember: your abusive and paranoid former partner blames it all on you. As far as he is concerned, you recklessly and unscrupulously wrecked a wonderful thing you both had going. He is vengeful, seething, and prone to bouts of uncontrolled and extreme aggression. Don't listen to those who tell you to "take it easy". Hundreds of thousands of women paid with their lives for heeding this advice. Your paranoid stalker is inordinately dangerous - and, more likely than not, he is with you for a long time to come. How long and how it all ends depends on a few factors.
For her traumatic wounds to heal, the victim of abuse requires closure - one final interaction with her tormentor in which he, hopefully, acknowledges his misbehaviour and even tenders an apology. Fat chance. Few abusers - especially if they are narcissistic - are amenable to such weakling pleasantries. More often, the abused are left to wallow in a poisonous stew of misery, self-pity, and self-recrimination.
Depending on the severity, duration, and nature of the abuse, there are three forms of effective closure.

                                                                 Conceptual Closure

This most common variant involves a frank dissection of the abusive relationship. The parties meet to analyze what went wrong, to allocate blame and guilt, to derive lessons, and to part ways cathartically cleansed. In such an exchange, a compassionate offender (quite the oxymoron, admittedly) offers his prey the chance to rid herself of cumulating resentment. He also disabuses her of the notion that she, in any way, was guilty or responsible for her maltreatment, that it was all her fault, that she deserved to be punished, and that she could have saved the relationship (malignant optimism). With this burden gone, the victim is ready to resume her life and to seek companionship and love elsewhere.

                                                          Retributive Closure

When the abuse has been "gratuitous" (sadistic), repeated, and protracted, conceptual closure is not enough. Retribution is called for, an element of vengeance, of restorative justice and a restored balance. Recuperation hinges on punishing the delinquent and merciless party. The penal intervention of the Law is often therapeutic to the abused. Some victims delude themselves into believing that their abuser is experiencing guilt and conscience pangs (which is rarely the case). They revel in his ostensible self-inflicted torment. His sleepless nights become their sweet revenge. Regrettably, the victim's understandable emotions often lead to abusive (and illegal) acts. Many of the tormented stalk their erstwhile abusers and take the law into their own hands. Abuse tends to breed abuse all around, in both prey and predator.

                                                        Dissociative Closure

Absent the other two forms of closure, victims of egregious and prolonged mistreatment tend to repress their painful memories. In extremis, they dissociate. The Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) - formerly known as "Multiple Personality Disorder" - is thought to be such a reaction. The harrowing experiences are "sliced off", tucked away, and attributed to "another personality". According to psychodynamic theories of psychopathology, repressed content rendered unconscious is the cause of all manner of mental health disorders. The victim thus pays a hefty price for avoiding and evading his or her predicament.

                                            Gaslighting In Custody And Divorce

It refers to an abuser creating self-doubt in his victim to make her appearcrazy, both to the outside world and to herself. It can be frustrating for the victim as she begins to doubt her own memories, opinions and thoughts. The person that perpetrates this is a master of manipulation. He knows just the right buttons to push to make his victims doubt themselves. He is just as likely to plant false memories as he is to try to erase them. The goal is to keep the victim off balance. There may be any of a number of reasons for the abuser to do this. In many divorce cases, it may be to intimidate her into giving up custody of the children, or to "win" the divorce case, although any reasonable person knows that there is no winner in a divorce. It may be to keep here with him so that she thinks she has nowhere else to go. In extreme sociopathic cases, it may just be for the sheer enjoyment of watching his victim squirm.Let's explore how it would be used in a custody battle. First, the abuser must use a two pronged attack, both directed at his ex, and at the children. He must erase all positive memories that the children have of their mother. If their mother kissed them good night each night before bed, he makes certain to prevent that action long enough to convince the children that their mother doesn't want to do so and actually never did. This can be accomplished by locking the children away with him until she either gives up, or moves out without them. Any negative comments that she makes against him, he convinces the children that the negative comments were actually directed toward them, causing them to resent their mother for things that she did not say or do to them The attack against the mother is geared toward her skills as a mother. He tells her that she was never a good mother. He tries to make her believe that she is lying to the children when she says that certain things happened or didn't happen. If she says that he hit her, threw her, shoved her, or held her prisoner, he claims that it didn't happen if there is no police report. She knows that she must have a police report to prove to a judge that it happened, but does not need it to prove it to herself, especially if she lives with pain nearly every day of her life because of it.
Her children may have been witnesses to any number of these acts, but either don't remember, or won't admit they remember because of fear of the repercussions. He may make an agreement with her about custody only to come back later and tell her that there was no agreement made. If the agreement benefits him, he remembers every detail. If the agreement benefits her, he claims to have never made it. After the divorce, he conveniently forgets everything that he agreed to and only remembers what she agreed to or sometimes even things that she didn't agree to, but he wants her to do. If he wants it from her, he will claim she agreed to it whether she actually did so or not. If he has custody of the children after this, which is likely due to the fact that he made her doubt her own memories and actions, making her feel like a fool in court, he will continue to use the children in his effort to control and manipulate her. When she goes to pick the children up, he will use it as an opportunity to create unnecessary drama. Perhaps she didn't give him the right name for her apartment complex. Perhaps she has requested that she be given some measure of privacy, so he tells the children that this is a sinister act, so suddenly they need a cell phone to "escape" their evil mother. He tells lies to the children then accuses her of being the liar and teaching the children to lie. Covering up a surprise that she wishes to give the children suddenly becomes an act of pure evil. The mother is left thinking, "I know I didn't lie to the children, why is he accusing me?" She finds herself questioning her own motives. A person like this can turn a fun trip into an act of pure evil. He will convince the children that they are being manipulated by her, when he's the one doing the manipulation. All of this sounds pretty scary, and it actually does happen to both mothers and fathers, although more frequently to mothers than we'd like to admit. The good news is that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Although the relationship with the children may never be the same as it was, the longer you are away from a gaslighter, the stronger you become. You stop questioning your own memory as his hold on you is loosened. You learn to think clearly again without his constant influence. You learn to tell the truth in spite of the fact that he's accusing you of lying and false allegations for doing so. You keep hope alive that someday your children will understand all that you are going through and have gone through, and love them unconditionally, even if you don't like everything they do under their father's influence. You may also use it as a learning experience to pass on to others so that others don't have to suffer as you have.

The Outcome of Sibling Seperation

2010-08-07T06:48:00.000-07:00

Not all children get to continue to grow up with their bothers or sisters. Many times the Family Court System takes children and seperate siblings, giving not a thought to the innocent lives they are destroying. Seperating siblings happens often in the custody realm, and no body cares.

SEPARATING SIBLINGS

The Powerful Sibling Bond

Loss has become all too familiar to 35-year-old Amy. First, it was the loss of her childhood. At nine, because her parents were not capable of caring for her and her younger sister, she became the care giver to six-year-old Anne. Two years later, she lost her parents and her home. She and Anne were moved by the authorities into foster care after it became clear that their parents could not provide a safe and nurturing environment for them. It was an especially difficult move for Amy, who had to relinquish her "parental" role to her new foster mother.

But the most wrenching loss of all came when Amy was 12. Her social worker believed it would be in her best interest to live in a home with girls her own age. For the first time in her life, she and her sister were separated.

It was devastating for both of them. Amy's self-esteem plummeted because so much of it revolved around her ability to take care of her younger sibling. Anne, too, was destroyed by the move for she no longer had the only constant in her life. Her sister, in addition to being her best friend, had also been her consistent source of advice and approval.
Anne was later adopted by her foster parents and moved with them to another State. The sisters lost touch with each other. They also lost their ability to trust and to form lasting relationships when they became adults.
At 35, Amy says, "I will never forget the day I had to leave my sister. We were both crying, and I felt like the world was a terrible and hostile place. As the months went by, I could feel myself close up. The more I thought about what had happened to me, the more angry and bitter I became. If the social worker who was supposed to be concerned for me had the power to take away my sister, I could never trust anyone again."
Today, Amy and Anne are in contact with each other. They see each other from time to time, but they do not have the close relationship that they might have had they not been separated. Amy lives alone, insists she will never marry, and prefers living a solitary existence where no one can hurt her. Anne has been divorced twice and says that intimate relationships are impossible for her to manage. When someone gets too close, she unconsciously sabotages the relationship.

The story of Amy and Anne demonstrates the powerful bond that exists between siblings and what can happen when it is broken. Today, mental health experts are beginning to recognize the significance and power of the sibling relationship. It is, they say, longer lasting and more influential than any other, including those with parents, spouse, or children. When it is severed, the fallout can last a lifetime.
"In the past it was assumed that parent-child relationships sowed the seeds of adult behavior, but there is a growing awareness that the interplay between siblings also exerts a powerful life-long force," says Elisabeth Rosenthal in an article published in The New York Times. "So, people who spent years on the couch dissecting their relationship with their parents may be chagrined to learn they have more work ahead of them. Some psychologists say they must now probe their relationships with their brothers and sisters."
Dr. Jerry F. Westermeyer of the Department of Psychiatry at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago says, "The sibling relationship has been a neglected topic in social science, especially in adulthood," noting that virtually no research had been done on the topic until the 1980's. "But people are starting to look hard at it now," he says. "It's an important topic and it strikes a chord."
Despite this new burst of knowledge, statistics indicate that more and more brothers and sisters may have to experience the same heartbreak felt by Amy and Anne. Sixty-five to 85 percent of children entering the foster care system have at least one sibling; about 30 percent have four or more. It is often difficult to find families willing to take all of them, and current estimates indicate that 75 percent of sibling groups end up living apart after they enter foster care. For most of them, it means losing the only significant relationship they have known.

How Strong Is the Bond?

The bond between brothers and sisters is unique; it is the longest lasting relationship most people have, longer than the parent/child or husband/wife relationship. While the bonds may wax and wane, a person's lifetime quest for personal identity is undeniably interwoven with his or her siblings.
In early childhood, siblings are constant companions and playmates. Through games and conversations with each other, they learn to interact with the larger community. During adolescence, once-close siblings may temporarily weaken their ties as they exert their individuality and independence. In adulthood, when they have families of their own, the needs of their families usually take precedence over the relationship with each other, but the sibling ties often emerge stronger during this period. Siblings generally want to share their adult struggles and triumphs with each other.
The cycle of the sibling bond comes full circle when the siblings reach old age, after their parents and spouse may be gone and their children are raising children of their own. The bond between them often intensifies as they once again become each other's companions, sometimes living together for the remainder of their lives.
This bond exists in children raised in well-adjusted families, but it is even stronger for brothers and sisters from dysfunctional families. They learn very early to depend on and cooperate with each other to cope with their common problems.
Separating siblings in foster care or through adoption adds to their emotional burden. They have already had to cope with the separation and loss of their parents. If they are then separated from their siblings, they must experience the grieving process all over again. For many children, this separation will be even more traumatic because, if they have experienced abuse and/or neglect at the hand of their parents, they will often have stronger ties to each other than to their mother or father.
Sometimes, it is only through their siblings that children have been able to gain any positive self-esteem. When they see good qualities in a brother or sister, they are less likely to see themselves as "a bad kid from a bad family." Siblings are often able to reveal to each other parts of themselves that they are reluctant to share with anyone else, thus strengthening the bond between them.
These early ties remain even when siblings are separated in foster care or through adoption. In her book, Adopting the Older Child, Claudia Jewett writes, "Children separated from brothers and sisters may never resolve their feelings of loss, even if there are new brothers and sisters whom they grow to love. There may be more drive in adopted adults to track down their remembered biological siblings than there is to locate their birth parents, so great a hole does the loss of a sibling leave in one's personal history."Many adopted adults desperately want to meet a person who they think might look like them. Seeing similarities between themselves and their biological siblings helps to answer elusive questions they may have about their heritage.
Studies have shown that even babies experience depression when they are separated from their brothers and sisters. In one such study, it was found that a 19-month-old girl was better able to cope with the separation from her parents than from her siblings. The children in this family were placed in different foster homes, resulting in the baby's loss of speech, refusal to eat, withdrawal, and an inability to accept affection. This pattern persisted even after she was reunited with her parents. It was not until her brothers and sisters rejoined the family that this little girl resumed her former behavior.
The media continues to report stories about brothers and sisters who have been separated through adoption and as adults begin a tireless search for each other. One such story involved Eleanor, 39, who searched for her older brother, Jim, 41, who had been separated from her when they were young children. These two children had been extremely close. It was Eleanor's older brother who, when they were first adopted, showed their new parents how to get his sister to eat her vegetables and brush her teeth. It was her big brother who had made the transition into their new family easier for Eleanor. But when Jim showed signs of emotional problems, the adoptive parents returned him to the adoption agency. It was believed to be in everyone's best interest.
Now, 36 years later, the only information Eleanor has found out about her brother is that he had been in a shelter for the homeless. It was believed he had also been in and out of mental institutions. Unfortunately, the decision to separate the children proved damaging to both of them. Jim's emotional problems worsened, following him through his life, and his sister was traumatized by the loss of her brother.
Today, a greater number of former foster children are searching for their siblings than are searching for their biological parents. They are suing child welfare agencies in order to get them to release information -- and they are winning. States and courts have begun to recognize the importance of the sibling relationship -- not only biological siblings, but also "psychological" siblings.
"It's a sad commentary that such an action is needed," states Kay Donley Zeigler, a trainer on sibling relationships in adoption at the National Resource Center on Special Needs Adoption in Southfield, Michigan, "but it may be that this type of action on the part of former foster children will force social workers to think twice before separating siblings."
Recently, a couple from New Jersey was able to receive an adoption subsidy for adopting a sibling group even though none of the three children was related biologically. These three "sisters" developed their relationship while they were placed in the same foster home -- a home they shared for three years.
In similar cases, judges in New York and Massachusetts have ruled that agencies must accept responsibility for the failure of sibling groups to remain together. The Massachusetts decision added that brothers and sisters should be raised together, even half-brothers and sisters, "unless there are compelling reasons for separating them.
" Why Are Siblings Separated?"

Although it is generally accepted that separating siblings should be the exception, many brothers and sisters are living apart. Unfortunately, there are no laws or set rules -- the decision to split the family is usually left to the discretion of the child's social worker.
Today with more children entering the child welfare system, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find families willing to accept a sibling group. Hemmed in by budget and time constraints, overburdened caseworkers often feel that they have no other option than to separate the children. They believe that separately the children will stand a better chance of finding a permanent family since there are more families looking to adopt just one child at a time.
Often these sibling groups have come from troubled backgrounds, having suffered abuse and neglect by their biological parents. Their combined problems may seem too severe and numerous for one set of parents. It is thought that placed separately, the children will each receive the undivided attention of their new parents, and this will help each develop to his or her highest potential.
Social workers may also decide to separate siblings if one of them is being victimized by the other, as in the example of Jimmy and Diane. Jimmy, 11, and Diane, 9, were a close-knit brother and sister who were placed together with a family in New Mexico. Before the adoption was finalized, Jimmy was found to be abusing his little sister. The soon-to-be adoptive parents frantically contacted the social worker, saying, "We can't tolerate this kind of behavior. We want Jimmy out of our home!"
The social worker immediately acted on the case and removed Jimmy from the home. It was later discovered that Jimmy had been abusing his sister in an earlier placement as well. It was believed that by separating Jimmy from his sister he would "straighten himself out." Only time will tell whether the best interests of the children truly have been served.
Separating siblings may also appear beneficial if the children are so unhappy about being removed from their biological or foster family that the social worker feels they will band together to sabotage their adoption.
Other siblings are separated because of their inability to get along with each other. Sibling rivalry has been a concern of families since Cain slew Abel in the Garden of Eden. Few brothers and sisters are driven to such extremes; yet, sibling rivalry and jealousy remain major causes for separation in foster care and adoption.
As seen in the earlier example of Amy and Anne, separation is also common when one child has difficulty giving up his or her role as "care giver" to the other children. His or her role confusion may result in removal from the home so that the other children can bond with their new family without conflict or interference. Removing the care giver may also appear to be in his best interest, as he can learn to become a child again without the constant reminder of past responsibilities.

Research Findings

Although these reasons for separating siblings may have merit, numerous studies invalidate them. They indicate that separating siblings often delivers inappropriate messages and results in greater problems for children in the long run. Research on siblings reveals the following five points:

1. When children are separated because of sibling rivalry, it teaches them that the way to deal with conflict is to walk away from it, not to work it out. Siblings who remain together learn how to resolve their differences and develop stronger relationships.

2. The responsibility felt by an older child for a younger sibling is not necessarily a negative. It can be used constructively by adoptive parents to help both children develop appropriate roles with each other. The caregiving child can be helped to become a child again and the younger child can learn that adults can be trusted.

3. Even a needy child does not necessarily benefit from being the only child in a family. According to Margaret Ward's study, "Sibling Ties in Foster Care and Adoption Planning," an only child may receive a lot of attention, but the child may also then become for the parents the embodiment of all their hopes and aspirations. The child may be expected to change troublesome behavior sooner than he or she is able.

4. When a sibling is removed from a home because of behavior problems, remaining children get the message that the same thing can happen to them. It reduces their sense of trust in adults.

5. Removing a sibling from a foster or adoptive home because he has abused his brother or sister does not guarantee that the abuse will not continue in another environment. Therapy may be a more appropriate intervention.

Struggling With the Issues of Sibling Relationships

Despite the growing recognition that it is healthier for brothers and sisters to remain together, social workers charged with the responsibility of placing sibling groups still struggle with the difficult reality of finding families willing to accept several children at one time. It is easier to find a family for one child than for a sibling group of six. It is also less costly to search for a family in the immediate area than to stretch across State lines or travel cross-country, which is often required when looking for a family willing to adopt a sibling group. It is also more comfortable for some social workers to place a child with a traditional two-parent family, although single parents and those with alternative lifestyles may be more receptive to adopting a sibling group.
Social workers who are dedicated to keeping siblings together and who are willing to be flexible about prospective adopters can be successful in finding families for them. For example, large families are often willing to adopt a sibling group of three or four, but these families make some workers uneasy. They worry that the parents may be overburdened and will not be able to give each child enough attention. They wonder whether the household will be too chaotic and at what point the family will be strained beyond its capacity to give quality care.
However, research shows that living in a large family has many benefits. "Large families teach everybody how to work together," explains Lois Cowen, mother of 15, 10 of whom are adopted. "The older children help the younger children. The children also learn to share. You never hear `This is mine... you can't have it.' I recently bought the children one play toolbox and one set of play dishes. Each child got a tool and a dish -- and was happy."
Parents in large families are less likely to overreact to minor problems -- most of which they have experienced in the past. Large families also tend to have more structure with set guidelines and consequences that are known to everyone. For many children who experienced abuse and neglect, this will be a welcome change from the chaos they faced in their earlier lives.
Children in large families learn to cooperate and share things with people of different personalities and temperaments, helping them to be more flexible about future changes in their world and preparing them for interaction with the wider community.
An agency's determination to keep siblings together must be reflected in its foster and adoptive family recruitment messages. When recruitment highlights sibling groups in a positive manner, families willing to adopt them respond.
The National Adoption Center, for instance, a Philadelphia-based organization that promotes adoption opportunities for children with special needs, feels strongly about placing siblings together. When it conducts publicity campaigns, brothers and sisters are shown together and every effort is made not to separate them. The Center has found that the general public shares its sentiments and believes fervently in preserving the rights of brothers and sisters to grow up together.
Carolyn Johnson, the Center's Executive Director, explains, "Most people are distressed when they hear there is a chance siblings will have to be separated. It is against the natural order of things -- and their visceral reaction is that brothers and sisters should stay together. Even a family considering the adoption of only one child will almost always want to adopt his siblings once they are made aware of their existence."
Paddy Noyes, who for 23 years has written a column in the Philadelphia Inquirer featuring children waiting to be adopted, says, "Sometimes a worker will tell me that a sibling group won't have a chance of being adopted if we put them all in the paper. But I say, 'Let's start with the positive and feature them all.' The results have been that people will adopt the whole group."

Decisionmaking in Sibling Placement

For adoption workers struggling with a decision about whether to separate a sibling from one or more others in a foster care or adoptive placement, Kay Donley Zeigler makes these five suggestions:
1. Examine the importance of siblings not only at present but for the child throughout his or her life. Although the child may not be close with a brother or sister now, consider future implications if they are separated.

2. The child's feelings should be considered. Although it is a major decision and not one the child can or should make alone, his or her wishes should be part of the decisionmaking process.

3. The decision about separation should be made by several informed persons, including current and former caretakers, therapists, counselors, teachers, physicians or any others who have played an important role in the children's lives. Explore with them the history and meaning of the sibling relationships.

4. Document all of the reasons for and against separating the children. Making a list will force an examination of the pros and cons. Provide clear documentation of the circumstances leading up to the decision in the event a decision to separate is ever legally challenged.

5. If siblings must be separated, plans for future get-togethers should be initiated immediately. Legally, adoptive parents can override any decision to maintain contact with siblings. They may have problems logistically with the contacts (i.e. they may move out of state, or it may be inconvenient to keep in touch), or they simply may not recognize the importance of maintaining the bond. Social workers should help educate the parents about the value of the relationship. Experience shows that the bond between a child and new parents is strengthened when they confront the issues of sibling relationships together. The child can then see his parent as someone who is sensitive to his or her needs.
"These relationships are sometimes the only semblance of normalcy these children have," says Ms. Donley Zeigler. "When you take away someone's siblings, it's kind of like you're stripping him of everything that he has that makes him feel okay about himself."
"If the idea of the child welfare system is to protect and help children," says Carolyn Johnson, "everyone involved should be careful to carry out that mission and always keep in mind what the best interest of the child truly is."

This article was written by Gloria Hochman, Ellen Feathers-Acuna, and Anna Huston of the National Adoption Center for the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse in 1992.
The Sibling Bond: Its Importance in Foster Care and Adoptive Placement
Author(s): National Adoption Information Clearinghouse.
Year Published: 1992

Bibliography

Banks, Stephen P., and Michael D. Kahn. The Sibling Bond. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1982.

Couve, Davis, LePere, and McDonald. Large Sibling Groups-Adoption Experiences.

Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America, 1986.

Depp, Carole H. "Placing Siblings Together," Children Today, Vol. 12, No. 2

(March-April 1983), pp. 14-19.

Donley Zeigler, Kathryn S. Sibling Attachments and Adoption. Southfield, MI: National Resource Center For Special Needs Adoption, 1985.

Jewett, Claudia. Adopting the Older Child. Boston: Harvard Common, 1974.

Kaufman, Martie and Kathy Walton. The Placement of a Large Sibling Group: A Cooperative Approach. Washington DC: Department of Health and Human Services, 1981.

Penelton, J. M. Sibling Placements: A Problem? Columbia, MO: University of Missouri, 1981.

Powell, Thomas H., and Peggy Ahrenhold-Ogle. Brothers and Sisters: A Special Part of an Exceptional Family. Baltimore, MD: Paul Brooks Publishing Co., 1985.

Rosenthal, Elisabeth. "Troubled Marriage? Sibling Relations May Be at Fault." The New York Times, August 18, 1992, pp. C-1 and C-9.

Staff, Ilene, and Edith Fein. "Together or Separate: A Study of Siblings in Foster Care," Child Welfare, Vol. 41, No. 3 (May-June 1992), pp. 257-270.

Ward, Margaret, "Full House: Adoption of a Large Sibling Group,"Child Welfare, Vol. 27, No. 4 (March-April 1978), pp. 233-241.

Ward, Margaret, "Sibling Ties in Foster Care and Adoption Planning,"Child Welfare, Vol. 33, No. 4 (July-August 1984), pp. 321-331.

Battered Women Are Being Abused By Family Court

2010-08-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

2. Domestic violence

While there is no uniform law that governs child custody, all states use the same standard in determining custody arrangements, called the “best interest of the child” standard. Under that standard, courts look at a number of factors in determining what type of custody arrangement would best suit the child’s physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual needs. Most states have separate statutes governing child

custody and domestic violence. Although many states require the court to consider domestic violence in

making temporary or final custody determinations, others do not. Moreover, a number of state custody

statutes make no mention of domestic violence as a factor to be considered in making custody awards. Of

equal concern are joint custody provisions that do not take into account how domestic violence puts both the survivor and her child/children at further risk. See the section of this Legal Resource Kit entitled
“State Custody Laws That Consider Domestic Violence” for a complete list of custody statutes in the
different states. Indeed, for the battered woman, the custody and visitation processes often become a means by which a batterer furthers his abuse through attempts to continue to maintain control. Most forms of shared custody and visitation involve some type of proximity or contact between the battered woman and her abuser during the exchange of the child between parents. During these exchanges battered women are often subjected to verbal and physical harassment, stalking, assault, and threats, including the threat of child kidnapping. Women who deny visitation or who go to court to request a modification or supervised visitation in order to protect themselves and their children are frequently accused of trying to alienate the child from the abusive parent.

3. Myths and Facts About Domestic Violence and Child Custody

The unfair treatment of battered women in custody disputes results from myths about the impact of domestic violence on women and children, as well as the widespread failures of civil protection agencies in taking women’s experiences seriously. Here are some of the common myths that persist:

Myth: It is easy for a battered woman to leave her abuser or to stop the abuse.
Fact: Fear of losing her children, pressures from religious communities to stay in the relationship, financial
dependence, the insensitivity and unresponsiveness of the justice system, and the escalation of abuse that occurs when women try to leave make it difficult for a woman to separate from her abuser. Even when a battered woman appears to “just accept” the violence, she is often making different attempts to avoid and stop the violence. Such attempts include complying with (or anticipating) a batterer’s demands, demanding that the batterer stop hisabuse, orchestrating the environment (e.g., keeping children quiet), leaving the home, calling the police, and fighting back with or without weapons.

Myth: Battered women who take their children and flee an abusive relationship are safe from further harm.
Fact: Studies find that domestic violence escalates when battered women leave their abusers, and that
terminating a relationship results in a greater risk of fatality for battered women and their children. This
abuse takes the form of threats and actual violence to the mother and her children. Further, women and their children risk additional (and sometimes fatal) harm during court ordered visitation or joint custody
arrangements. This occurs as many batterers discover that the children are a means of continuing the abuse of a former partner. Five percent of abusive fathers threaten to kill their children's mother during visitation with their children and 25 percent of abusive fathers threaten to harm their children during visitation.

Myth: Domestic violence between parents does not impact their children.
Fact: While most mothers in abusive relationships take precautions to shield their children from the
harmful effects of violence, it is extremely difficult for them to protect their children from witnessing or
experiencing abuse. It is estimated that 87% of children who come from homes plagued by domestic violence actually witness the abuse. Most children are adversely impacted by the abuse, although how they are affected may vary. Research suggests that child witnesses of domestic violence are more likely than other children to feel helpless, fearful, depressed, and anxious. They suffer both emotional and physical developmental problems, and are more likely than children who do not grow up in homes plagued by domestic violence to suffer from anxiety, low self-esteem, and depression. Many experts believe that child witnesses of domestic violence internalize the fear and trauma that results from witnessing violence, and are themselves likely to become perpetrators of violence in the future.

Myth: Abuse of one parent by another parent does not mean that the abuser poses any harm or danger to the children.
Fact: While research results vary, studies have found that child abuse occurs in 25% to 70% of the families that experience domestic violence. Further evidence linking domestic violence to the heightened risk of harm to children can be found in a report to the Florida Governor’s Task Force on Domestic and Sexual Violence, which identified over 300 domestic violence fatalities in 1994; 73 of those victims were children. Most of the children were killed by their biological fathers. In some cases, male abusers killed their entire families, including themselves.

Myth: Batterers who seek custody do so out of love for their children and a desire to be good parents.
Fact: Abusive fathers continue to abuse and exert control over women after separation by vigorously pursuing custody of the couple’s children. Batterers are twice as likely as non-physically abusive fathers to seek sole custody of their children, and frequently refuse to pay child support as a way to continue the financial abuse and dependence of the mother.

Myth: Battered women raise the issue of abuse in an attempt to turn their children against the other parent in order to gain sole or primary custody.
Fact: This allegation is often leveled at women who are simply trying to make judges aware of separation violence, their children’s concerns, and other abuses by the batterer. These assertions may be in the form of so-called “syndromes” like “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) or “Divorced Mother Syndrome.” Regrettably, however, judges, guardians ad litem, and court-appointed custody evaluators often rely on these theories to discount the very real fears and concerns that battered women and their children bring before the court. See the section in this Legal Resource Kit on the “A Guide to Parental Alienation Syndrome” for information on how to address these assertions. (212) 226-1066

1. Overview
In recent decades, our society has slowly and reluctantly begun to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding family life and intimate relationships to reveal the shocking pervasiveness of domestic violence. Studies have shown that more women are abused by their husbands or boyfriends each year than are injured in car accidents, muggings, or rape. Nearly one in every three adult women experiences at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood. An estimated 4 million American women experience a serious assault by an intimate partner during an average year. Although these statistics reflect the large number of women who are battered by their intimate partners, the numbers only begin to account for the population of women who suffer from domestic violence, which frequently includes psychological abuse and patterns of coercion and control that may not be reflected in these statistics. Women who experience domestic violence fail to report the crime to law enforcement personnel six times more often than do women who experience violence that is perpetrated by a stranger.

2. Spouse Abuse and Child Abuse
Psychological studies have found a significant overlap between spouse abuse and child abuse. For example, one survey found that 45% of assaults on women are accompanied by physical assaults on a child in the
family, and an article revealed that in 30% to 60% of families where either child abuse or spouse abuse was identified, the other form of violence was also present.

3. Children Caught in the Crossfire
Whether they are the intended targets of the abusive parent or not, children are harmed both physically and
psychologically by the abuse of their mothers. Batterers often deliberately abuse children both physically and
verbally, in order to hurt and control the mothers. Children are also accidentally harmed by blows or flying objects aimed at their mothers, by seeing their mothers abused, and by the constant disruption that such abuse causes. There are several additional ways that children experience adult domestic violence. These include hitting or threatening a child while in its mother’s arms, taking the child hostage in order to force the mother to return to the home, forcing the child to watch assaults against the mother or to participate in the abuse, and using the child as a spy or interrogating him or her about the mother’s activities. Children are also told by their abusive fathers that if not for their mother’s behavior their families would be together. This is frequently an attempt to put pressure on the mother through the children to return to the batterer or to drive a wedge between the mother and her children.

4. Witnessing the Aftermath of Violence

In addition to seeing, hearing, or being directly subjected to physical violence, many women and their children describe the aftermath of a violent event as traumatic. Children may be forced to see their mother injured and in need of help, may have to live with a father who alternates between physical violence and loving care, may witnesspolice intervention to remove a father from the home, or may have to move to a shelter for battered women. They may observe blood, bruises, torn clothes, broken glass, and injuries to their mother’s person as well as experience an atmosphere of tension and fear in their homes. Any definition of “witnessing violence” must include all of these various ways in which children experience a violent event. They may see the violence or be used as a part of it. Even when they are not present, children often are aware of the violent event and experience its aftermath. Reports by battered mothers indicate that 87% of children witness the abuse. Many children actually see their father, stepfather, or mother’s boyfriend not only beat their mothers but rape them as well. Although some parents believe that they succeed in shielding their

children from the batterer’s aggression, children often provide detailed accounts of the very events which adults report they did not witness. Reports by children and by adults of their memories of childhood experiences indicate that parents severely underestimate the extent to which their children are exposed to violence.

5. Physical and Emotional Effects of Domestic
Violence on Children Subjecting children to their mother’s victimization is a form of emotional abuse. Exposure to threats of injury, suicide attempts, verbal assault, and threats to kill evoke in children a combination of intense feelings, including: fear that their mother will be killed, guilt at not stopping
the violence, divided loyalties, and anger at their mother for not leaving. Even one episode of violence can

produce post-traumatic stress disorder in children. Batterers must be held responsible for causing such

trauma in children. Studies indicate that children who witness their fathers beating their mothers suffer emotional problems, including slowed development, sleep disturbances, and feelings of helplessness, depression, and anxiety. Many of these children exhibit more aggressive, antisocial, fearful, and inhibited behaviors. They also show lower social competence than other children. Children from homes

where their mothers were abused have also shown less skill in understanding how others feel and in examining situations from the other’s perspective when compared to children from non-violent households.

Research has found that many of these children also suffer somatic symptoms. They are hospitalized more, have more colds and sore throats, and are more prone to bedwetting than children from homes without violence. Witnessing abuse as a child also has long-term effects. In one study, witnessing violence as a child was associated with adult reports of depression, low self-esteem among women, and trauma-related symptoms among men. Studies also indicate that growing up with domestic violence increases the likelihood that a child will grow up to abuse his spouse.

6. Abuse by Battered Women
Battered women may displace their anger at their abusers onto their children. In one study, sixteen
percent of women who lived with an abusive man reported that they directed their anger toward their
children. Five percent expressed this anger through violence. However, data from the National Center
for Child Abuse and Neglect show that where there is child abuse concurrent with spouse abuse, 70% of the
violence is committed by the man. In most cases of child abuse, removing the children from the batterer’s
environment and placing them with the mother ends the abuse.

Seeking help difficult for domestic violence victims | Northwest News - The News Tribune

2010-07-13T02:29:00.000-07:00

Seeking help difficult for domestic violence victims Northwest News - The News Tribune

Power And Control

2010-07-13T00:46:00.000-07:00

Power and Control Trailer from Peter Cohn on Vimeo.

Please take a moment and watch this. And if you are in a abusive relationship get help! You can even leave me a message and i will do my best to help you. Stay safe. Alexandra Lovechild

Genetic, Scientific, Reasons, For Getting Away With Murder

2010-07-02T21:03:00.000-07:00

This was just posted on another web spot. Interesting Reading!

02.Jul.2010 Dr. William Bernet’s Excuse for Abusive Murdering Husbands: The “Warrior Gene”

Parental Alienation Disorder proposer Dr. William Bernet recently testified in a horrific murder trial in Tennessee.
When the police arrived at Bradley Waldroup’s trailer home in the mountains of Tennessee, they found a war zone. There was blood on the walls, blood on the carpet, blood on the truck outside, even blood on the Bible that Waldroup had been reading before all hell broke loose.
Assistant District Attorney Drew Robinson says that on Oct. 16, 2006, Waldroup was waiting for his estranged wife to arrive with their four kids for the weekend. He had been drinking, and when his wife said she was leaving with her friend, Leslie Bradshaw, they began to fight. Soon, Waldroup had shot Bradshaw eight times and sliced her head open with a sharp object. When Waldroup was finished with her, he chased after his wife, Penny, with a machete, chopping off her finger and cutting her over and over.
“There are murders and then there are … hacking to death, trails of blood,” says prosecutor Cynthia Lecroy-Schemel. “I have not seen one like this. And I have done a lot.”
Prosecutors charged Waldroup with the felony murder of Bradshaw, which carries the death penalty, and attempted first-degree murder of his wife. It seemed clear to them that Waldroup’s actions were intentional and premeditated.

“There were numerous things he did around the crime scene that were conscious choices,” Lecroy-Schemel says. “One of them was [that] he told his children to ‘come tell your mama goodbye,’ because he was going to kill her. And he had the gun, and he had the machete.” There was no question that Waldroup was guilty, he admitted it. The question was why…so the defense team reached out to Bernet for excuses answers:
Since 2004, Dr. William Bernet of Vanderbilt University and laboratory director Cindy Vnencak-Jones have been analyzing the DNA of people like Waldroup. They’ve tested some 30 criminal defendants, most of whom were charged with murder. They were looking for a particular variant of the MAO-A gene — also known as the warrior gene because it has been associated with violence. Bernet says they found that Waldroup has the high-risk version of the gene.
“His genetic makeup, combined with his history of child abuse, together created a vulnerability that he would be a violent adult,” Bernet explains.Over the fierce opposition of prosecutors, the judge allowed Bernet to testify in court that these two factors help explain why Waldroup snapped that murderous night.
“We didn’t say these things made him become violent, but they certainly constituted a risk factor or a vulnerability,” Bernet says.
Bernet cited scientific studies over the past decade that found that the combination of the high-risk gene and child abuse increases one’s chances of being convicted of a violent offense by more than 400 percent. He notes that other studies have not found a connection between the MAO-A gene and violence — but he told the jury that he felt the genes and childhood abuse were a dangerous cocktail.
“A person doesn’t choose to have this particular gene or this particular genetic makeup,” Bernet says. “A person doesn’t choose to be abused as a child. So I think that should be taken into consideration when we’re talking about criminal responsibility.”
Prosecutor Drew Robinson brought in his own expert:
To rebut Bernet’s testimony, Robinson called in his own expert: psychiatrist Terry Holmes, the clinical director of Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute in Chattanooga, Tenn. Holmes urged the jury to ignore it.
“This was somebody who was intoxicated and mad and was gonna hurt somebody,” Holmes says. “And it had little to nothing to do with his genetic makeup.”
Holmes says it’s way too early to use this research in a court of law. And he believes Bernet is spinning the data.
In the end, the jury bought Bernet’s testimony. Waldroup walked away with a conviction for voluntary manslaughter instead of first degree murder, with 32 years in prison instead of a potential death penalty.
So again, what Bernet seems so good at, is coming up with reasons to excuse what abusers do. Something to cover their asses, while a few bucks are made for “expert testimony” services.

What would really be noble is if Bernet would promote this “warrior gene” test for a prerequisite to get married. Identify the murderous, abusive assholes before we commit to them. This may save countless women and children’s lives….oh wait, that would cut into their “parental alienation disorder” business. Well, it was a good idea at least…

Jennifer Tibbs says:
July 2, 2010 at 10:27 pm

Okay, so i grew up and i was sexually abused by men. Over and over. My father even abused me. My stepfather was an alcoholic. And then there is a slew of mental illness on both sides of my family, so genetic predisposition and childhood abuse will make it okay when i decide to run through my town and feed every man in it his own testicles right? I mean i shouldn’t be truly held responsible for heinous crimes against men, i should be found to be a victim that just snapped. So when i take out the entire rocky mountain region of the united states leaving blood splattered, pieces of what used to be men and their testicles lying wherever i find them, I wont be put to death? Great! Then i think i should start with the testosterone filled genetic mistakes called violent abusive men. Know anyone?

Classic signs of emotional abuse

2010-06-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

Takeaways Not all abuse involves being hit or being physically abused, but all abuse hurts. Have you ever wondered if you are insane? Emotional Abuse, in its extreme forms, can cause the victim insanity. Sometimes, this is the intended result of the abuser! There is a type of pain a woman experiences when, after years of faithful marriage, she begins to witness changes in her husband that, when confronted, are then said to be the creation of the wife's imagination, a plot to hide her own actions, or the perception of a woman in need of psychiatric help. To describe the pain endured by victims of emotional abuse with written words is like trying to explain what a person experiences when facing the realization of certain, impending death. It seems quite impossible. There are rips, tears, stabs & agonizing pain within her heart. Sometimes she panics, believing she is losing her soul mate forever. Sometimes her husband may actually tell her that the suspicion, the digging around for answers, or the accusations involved in the panic are the actual things causing the couple to have distance in the first place. If a man does this, he is using a manipulative, cruel technique known as Gaslighting. Emotional abusers who partake in the horrific methods of Gaslighting have an agenda of which society may presently be unaware. The term "Gaslighting" was introduced to the public in an old movie entitled "The Gas Light" (1940) & its remake of the same title (1944). In these movies, a woman who receives a large inheritance is courted by & marries a man who has a secret agenda. He intends to drive her crazy in order to obtain the hefty estate she has. "Gaslighting" is so called due to the story unfolding with the husband routinely igniting the gas lamps in the loft of the house, which causes the other lamps in the house to dim. Upon question from the wife as to why the lamps were dimming, the good husband would tell her she was imagining things. In the movie, it is obvious the man knew he was driving his wife insane. Sometimes, however, this is not the case where intention is concerned. Some emotional abusers do not realize they are Gaslighting.
Whether he intentionally chooses to actually drive his wife crazy or not, the statements & lack of concern a husband displays over them even after they cause pain are forms of emotional abuse. They are normally used to cover up actions for which he does not want his spouse/girlfriend to discover. A husband or emotional abuser who is Gaslighting may have something like this to say: **How could you believe I would ever have an affair with your best friend?! **You must be preoccupied with an affair, yourself! **You're just being suspicious! **When you accuse me of things that I pride myself with always upholding, it makes me not want to be around you! **That's what our distance & unhappiness is all about, right there! You are always thinking I'm having an affair! **Your disbelief in me is what has come between us! **If you could just believe in me, everything would be the way it was before. In the above statements, it is undeniably clear that genuine love does not demand complete trust without inquiry, test, or proof. A healthy relationship produces spouses who are more than happy to comfort & prove the amount of love they hold for their partner until there is complete clarity on whatever subject for which the questioning party needs the explanation & reassurance. I would be much more concerned with the pain my husband was feeling at the time than I would be with any offensiveness it may cause me over him having doubted my faithfulness. I would try everything within reason to make the uncertainty go away, while most likely blaming myself for having been too busy for him the week prior to that. I would not be overwhelmed with anger over the possibility that he may doubt my faithfulness to him. Doubt happens, especially in a world where there is evil, hate & insecurity. As well, we live in a country where many channels on the television are trying to attract consumers to their wide range of products to create a perfect appearance. Although wise people know that they do not need to look like Pamela Anderson Lee or The Rock in order to be desirable, our society is obsessed with "Being Beautiful." When one adds to that the notion that affairs are tolerated & sometimes even encouraged (especially on the Internet at certain "we help you cover up your affair" sites) in our society, anyone, especially the one who adores & loves you, should understand why there is doubt at times. When no sympathy or support for the hurt feelings are available, more times than not it is due to the Gaslighting abuser not wanting to empathize with their spouse/girlfriend because he would then have to take responsibility as having been the one who caused the hurt.
Gaslighting methods offer no solution to the problems between couples because only genuine love can comfort & understand, an intimacy that is a must in a relationship. So when can you be sure someone is Gaslighting, whether voluntarily or involuntarily? I believe the method we will be using here will help: by studying the reported actions & words of those who have tried Gaslighting techniques (for whatever reason), & then comparing those usually quite similar Gaslighting methods against solid, true proofs of intimacy in a healthy relationship. My sincere hope is that you will not need the invaluable information below to sort out emotional abuse in the form of Gaslighting techniques juxtapose to love within your own relationship. Unfortunately, however, many people do. Before we bring to light the different implementations of Gaslighting, we must first address a lingering, sometimes constantly thought upon (but absolutely always feared) question being asked within the minds of victims: am I insane? You are not insane (that is a huge "not"). If you believe you may be a victim of emotional abuse, particularly the manipulative cruelty we now know as Gaslighting, please begin this paragraph once more before proceeding. When you are certain you can be open-minded & not believe another person's cruel "you need help, you are insane" monstrosities that have been damaging your spirit, mind & ego, & ability to rationalize between logic & "true love," please continue. Gaslighting is more commonly facilitated in an attempt to hide any actions or truths a person does not want brought to light. More often than not, a person does not want their spouse to be driven insane simply because they want to cover up a fling with their secretary. Still, using manipulation & lies to hide truth is always damaging to a loved one because, though they know their spouses' usual behavior, likes, & dislikes, though they know their spouse has changed in some manner where the love relationship toward them is concerned. They begin to question their very opinions & acquired wisdom through instinct that they had formerly collected about surviving in the world. They may even begin to reassess instinctual wisdom they had formerly relied upon throughout life, of which they need to leave alone & in which they need to continue to trust. We all know that healthy relationships need two partners who are both willing to listen, understand, share what is inside them. They decide early on what is most important between them. Without true caring for the other person, one cannot relate to the other in honest sympathy or heart-felt sincerity. Gaslighting, however, would involve a denial of these things. When an abuser refuses to listen, appears to misunderstand what he is completely capable of understanding, or declines sharing his emotions, he is "withholding" a part of the essential intimate actions of the relationship. (When a partner really does not understand the other, then at least the intent to understand & compromise should be there, with perhaps a request for the partner to help them understand somehow.) But when Gaslighting is the main technique & "withholding" is the tool, the abuser feigns confusion or a lack of understanding. A victim may be met with defiant, even accusatory words like: **I don't know! **How do you expect me to remember that when I cannot remember this morning! (This & variations of this are familiar phrases for Gaslighting abusers who are using drugs or alcohol.) **I'm not listening to this confusing crap again tonight. **You're just trying to confuse me! When Gaslighting, the abuser will emphatically call into question the memory, thoughts, & ideas of his victim, & even further use that at a later date as a new "countering" point to make: Think about when you didn't remember things correctly last time! You thought the same thing the last time & you were wrong. This is declared even though the victim did remember things correctly, & even despite the fact that he knows she did (except in cases of extreme self-denial in the Gaslighting abuser). Even if it seems the cruelty cannot become worse, the abuser has been effectively "countering" by throwing the victim off the feared subject matter at the time, getting her to instead mull over why in the world her husband would decide for her what her memory should have been instead, & then even declare another circumstance as a relapse of memory confusion. This is where the real struggle within her starts: if she hasn't already started questioning her own opinions & ideas about life before this method, she will at this point. When constantly told that her memory, experience, feeling & instinct is emphatically wrong, chances are, she will eventually start to believe him, if not only to keep peace within what seems like a relationship of love. **You're jumping to conclusions. **You see everything in the most negative way! **You're always nagging me about something all the time. **You're making things up in your head or blowing things out of proportion. **Your imagination is working overtime. **You have an overactive imagination. **You take everything wrong. **You see everything wrong. **You have never believed in me, then! **You probably never believed in me when we took our vows! You heard that through a closed door! You cannot hear things correctly through a closed door! You should have come right up in the middle of us if you thought we were saying that! (Though he knows that had she been there, the conversation would not have been the same.) Normally, the victim is never entirely clear what the abuser's intentions are. Since the abuser responds quickly with anger, the victim starts to believe she may have "taken it all wrong," which is why she was quickly met with his anger, much like the role of a daughter & father (i.e. if he's that angry, I must be wrong.) After all, isn't believing that better for the victim than believing he intended to make you lie to yourself? "Blocking" & "diverting" is a method of Gaslighting whereby communication is controlled & manipulated. The abuser refuses to comment or answer (because he has already stated "I'm not going through this again tonight") & closes the discussion on things he "has already discussed." Also, when withholding information, the Gaslighting abuser prevents all possibility of coming to a fair resolution, or in giving comforting knowledge to his spouse/girlfriend. By "diverting," the Gaslighting abuser changes the subject, & even accuses her of accusing him wrongly or in the wrong manner in which one is supposed to accuse. He may continue into the lie of how her absolute gaul in accusing him is actually the growing problem between them. Gaslighting in this manner effectively dodges any resolute answer, much less shows a healthy concern for her feelings. The abuser diverts her attempts to gain clarity or sympathy, & "diverts" her from the actual subject by getting her to forget the topic at hand using irrelevant declarations in order to side-track her: **You're just trying to have the last word. **You think you know it all. **You always have to be right. **Where did you get a crazy/stupid/weird/dumb idea like that? **No. Stop, before you say another word,let me say this... **I shouldn't have to repeat myself. **Whatever! (sarcastically). **I don't see where this is going. **That's just crap. **Quit bitching. A Gaslighting abuser often accuses his partner of having done something wrong (to justify his actions or to give misleading ideas as to why he treated her a certain way when she questioned him). Healthy partners do not want to see their spouse feeling bad or hurt, & instead desires to comfort or heal their pain. Alternatively, the goal of abusive accusations is to blame the partner for her anger, irritation, or insecurity, thereby proving the anger/abuse she is enduring is justified because she is at fault or in the wrong for the way she accused or reacted to something he did. **You're just trying to pick a fight. **You're looking for trouble. **You're not the woman I thought I married. **You're attacking me. **You can't leave well enough alone. **I've had it with your attacks/bitching/complaining. "Trivializing" is confusing to her because, if she doesn't recognize Gaslighting by "trivializing" for what it is, she believes she somehow hasn't been able to explain to her mate just how important certain things are to her. "Trivializing" can be very subtle, so that the partner is left feeling depressed & frustrated but isn't quite sure why. **That isn't important to us. **You're going to let something like that come between us? Abusive "forgetting" is also a method of Gas Lighting. The abuser conveniently forgets anything pertaining to what the victim has needed closure on. We all forget things sometimes; but this is not genuine oblivion; it's denial that an event (interactions, usually) happened at all. These forgotten events usually have had great impact on a partner. Victims of Gaslighting often try to discuss incidents with their abuser to help resolve issues sometimes only in the hopes of avoiding the same hurt, explosion, or confusion in the future, though he will still deny it ever happened, with an accusatory comment like: **What are you talking about? **That never happened! **It wasn't me! **They've confused me with someone else! **I've never been there before/known that person before/talked to her before/called that number before! **I don't have to listen to you about something I didn't do! Some abusers consistently "forget" making the promises which are most important to their partner, thereby causing her more pain & confusion. Whether the Gaslighting abuser intends on the lies or not, the result is still the same, leaving the victim in emotional peril. Finally, the Gas Lighting abuser will also use plain old "denial." The victim is forced to ask herself if she should even try anything as a next step because he listened to her logical, understandable, completely answerable question & simply said "Nope. Not me. Didn't do it." The Gaslighting victim is also left to deal with the fact he knowingly denied this, & what else could possibly be unknown to her. Overall, the victim starts to realize she needs to be careful when relying on her own perceptions of life. Sometimes clarity will filter through the hogwash of her abuser & she feels she may need to stop having sex with him, as a protective means to herself; but sexual moments usually become the only time she is given his attention & what was "love" at one time. It is hard for the victim to let go of, & usually is prompted by the victim simply to have a familiar moment with her "soul mate." Eventually a Gaslighting abuser wins the ultimate war, the final argument, when she begins to collapse mentally & emotionally. The worst Gaslighting abusers will then mock her, humiliate her by sharing her "wrongdoings" (of searching for a solution) with their mutual friends, hoping to get a response of "I wouldn't listen to all that nagging, Man," from them. Perhaps it better eases his conscious to have others tell him it is all her, or that she's just a bitch, or just a nag. Hell, she's not worth the effort it takes him to keep on living with her! **I never said that! **You're making that up! **I never told them anything! **You've got to be crazy! Though she knows she heard it correctly, has endured the looks on her friend's faces, has been asked strange questions of which she was only able to give a confused look over as the shock riveted through her already weak mind. If you are a victim of Gaslighting, hang in there. Recognizing that it is emotional abuse is a very big step. Trust your "gut instincts." They have been entrusted by folks since Adam & Eve, & I just don't think it is credible that you could be the only person without credible, solid instincts.

Brainwashing as a tool to gain control over the intended victim

2010-06-27T09:05:00.000-07:00

I am not sure how many women out there have been the object of brainwashing, however i do know that brainwashing is used regularly as a tool to gain control over the victim. This is a piece on just that. One aspect of emotional abuse is that it eventually brainwashes the victim.

THE PROCESS OF BRAINWASHING (MIND CONTROL)
1. The brainwasher keeps the victim unaware of what is going on and what changes are taking place. Your partner might control your finances, make plans for you, or not tell you what his plans are until the last minute. He may talk about you to others behind your back, to isolate you from them.
2. The brainwasher controls the victim's time and physical environment, and works to suppress much of the victim's old behavior. The victim is slowly, or abruptly, isolated from all supportive persons except the brainwasher. Your partner might have insisted that you stop certain social, hobby, or work activities. You might have gotten moved to a new location, farther away from your family and friends. Or you may have been asked (or told) to reduce or stop contact with specific supportive people in your life.
3. The brainwasher creates in the victim a sense of powerlessness, fear, and dependency. Verbal and emotional abuse creates these emotions, and they become stronger and stronger over time.
4. The brainwasher works to instill new behavior and attitudes in the victim. Your partner trains to you behave in ways that he wants you to behave. He gradually makes you feel differently about yourself, and erodes your confidence in yourself.
5. The brainwasher puts forth a closed system of logic, and allows no real input or criticism. In other words -- What he says, goes.

The Most Fatal Of Emotional Abuse

2010-06-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

Gaslighting

Any negative comments that she makes against him, he convinces the children that the negative comments were actually directed toward them, causing them to resent their mother for things that she did not say or do to them The attack against the mother is geared toward her skills as a mother. He tells her that she was never a good mother. He tries to make her believe that she is lying to the children when she says that certain things happened or didn't happen. If she says that he hit her, threw her, shoved her, or held her prisoner, he claims that it didn't happen if there is no police report. She knows that she must have a police report to prove to a judge that it happened, but does not need it to prove it to herself, especially if she lives with pain nearly every day of her life because of it.

Her children may have been witnesses to any number of these acts, but either don't remember, or won't admit they remember because of fear of the repercussions. He may make an agreement with her about custody only to come back later and tell her that there was no agreement made. If the agreement benefits him, he remembers every detail. If the agreement benefits her, he claims to have never made it. After the divorce, he conveniently forgets everything that he agreed to and only remembers what she agreed to or sometimes even things that she didn't agree to, but he wants her to do. If he wants it from her, he will claim she agreed to it whether she actually did so or not.

If he has custody of the children after this, which is likely due to the fact that he made her doubt her own memories and actions, making her feel like a fool in court, he will continue to use the children in his effort to control and manipulate her. When she goes to pick the children up, he will use it as an opportunity to create unnecessary drama. Perhaps she didn't give him the right name for her apartment complex. Perhaps she has requested that she be given some measure of privacy, so he tells the children that this is a sinister act, so suddenly they need a cell phone to "escape" their evil mother. He tells lies to the children then accuses her of being the liar and teaching the children to lie. Covering up a surprise that she wishes to give the children suddenly becomes an act of pure evil.

The mother is left thinking, "I know I didn't lie to the children, why is he accusing me?" She finds herself questioning her own motives. A person like this can turn a fun trip into an act of pure evil. He will convince the children that they are being manipulated by her, when he's the one doing the manipulation.

All of this sounds pretty scary, and it actually does happen to both mothers and fathers, although more frequently to mothers than we'd like to admit. The good news is that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Although the relationship with the children may never be the same as it was, the longer you are away from a gaslighter, the stronger you become. You stop questioning your own memory as his hold on you is loosened. You learn to think clearly again without his constant influence. You learn to tell the truth in spite of the fact that he's accusing you of lying and false allegations for doing so. You keep hope alive that

someday your children will understand all that you are going through and have gone through, and love them unconditionally, even if you don't like everything they do under their father's influence. You may also use it as a learning experience to pass on to others so that others don't have to suffer as you have.

Points that should be taken seriously with administrative judges

2010-06-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

These talking points were designed for domestic violence advocates and other allies of protective mothers to speak with administrative judges in the hopes of convincing them to use the research contained in the new book to train judges and other court professionals and reform custody practices to improve the safety and
potential of children in domestic violence custody cases. Feel free to use any part of the material in any order that makes sense to support your efforts. Use your own knowledge and concerns and focus the discussion based upon the local circumstances and situations the domestic violence community is concerned with. If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact Barry Goldstein at BarryG78@aol. com The
information in parenthesis at the end of each paragraph are the authors of chapters in the book that provide the information in the paragraph.

1. In recent years, the court system has developed many practices that are designed to help parents work together. These ideas include mediation, shared parenting, parenting coordinators, parenting classes, friendly parent approaches and programs to promote communication skills and compromise. These may work well in other cases, but are harmful in domestic violence cases (see Zorza, Fields)

2. Over 95% of cases eventually settle more or less amicably. Some of these involve domestic violence and could be handled better with domestic violence knowledge, but the real problem are the less than 5% of the cases that cannot be settled and will require a trial and often much more. Courts usually refer to these as "high conflict" cases and literally they are, but 90% of these cases are actually domestic violence cases that can't be settled because it reflects an abusive father's tactic of using the children as a way to get access to his victim or punish her for leaving. The court system has been very slow to recognize this tactic and instead frequently use approaches that collude with abusers to help them maintain control over their ex-partners. Frequent mistakes in these cases have resulted in thousands of children being sent to live with abusers. (see Zorza, Fields and Goldstein)
3. If there was a scientific basis for the custody evaluations regularly relied on by the custody courts, the evaluators could tell the courts how their recommendations have worked out for children based upon outcome studies. In fact they have no such research. This flaw is obscured in part by the assumption that once a court makes a decision, the findings are confirmed. Many of these decisions have been discredited by
later convictions of abusers found to be safe, poor outcomes for children and reports by children of horrific abuse after they age out of court orders giving custody to abusers. This is not surprising because the research demonstrates the custody court system regularly uses flawed methods that make it difficult for judges to recognize domestic violence and child abuse or understand the consequences proposed orders are likely to have on the children. (see Yeamans, Anderson and Waller)

4. The Truth Commission and the research in the book, recommends that court professionals receive not just generalized training in domestic violence, but specific training in Recognizing Domestic Violence, Gender Bias and The Effects of Domestic Violence on Children. It is hard to imagine any objection to these recommendations. The courts can't protect battered mothers and children if they miss the signs of domestic
violence. Gender bias is particularly difficult because professionals acting in good faith often engage in gender bias without realizing they are doing so. The problem is compounded because some good professionals have suffered retaliation for pointing out examples of gender bias. Children who witness domestic violence, including non- physical abuse can face long-term harm as a result, but courts can't protect the children
if they don't understand the risk. (see Hannah, Crooks, Jaffe and Bala, Schwaeber, Dragiewicz and THE BATTERER AS PARENT).

5. Judge Mike Brigner writes that when he trains judges about domestic violence he often is asked what to do about women who are lying. When he asks what they mean they refer to women who return to their abuser, withdraw petitions for restraining orders, fail to make police reports or seek hospital treatment and the myth (obviously they don'trealize it is a myth) that women frequently make deliberately false allegations of abuse. All of these actions are normal responses by women partnered with abusers for safety and other reasons. In no way do they support the assumption that the woman is lying. Nevertheless the widespread belief by judges, lawyers and inadequately trained mental health professionals that it does, results in thousands of valid claims of abuse to be disbelieved and other evidence ignored. Similarly, unqualified professionals often look only to evidence of physical abuse and in doing so miss a lot of other evidence of
controlling behavior courts could use to confirm abuse allegations. (see Araji and Bosek, Brigner, Schwaeber and Goldstein)

6. One of the ways we know there is a problem in the custody court system is the frequent finding of circumstances that are rare. It is certainly possible for a woman to make a false allegation of abuse, an abuser to commit one act or a few acts and then stop without any intervention or for a mother to suffer from Munchausen by Proxy. Accordingly, we can't tell if an individual case was wrongly decided without substantial investigation, but when researchers look at hundreds and thousands of cases it is easy
to see patterns of results that cannot possibly be accurate. The improper practices confirm how courts get so many cases wrong. (see Zorza, Araji and Bosek, Dragiewicz and Goldstein)

7. Most abusers do not beat their victims frequently. Instead they commit one or a few physical assaults and then use other coercive and intimidating tactics to maintain their control. Their purpose is not to enjoy beating their partners but rather to maintain control and exercise what they believe is their right to make the major decisions in the relationship. Inadequately trained professionals fail to see the abuser's use of excessive litigation, strategies that bankrupt his victim and use of the children to gain access to her as a continuation of his pattern of abuse. When a woman seeks to limit contact with her abuser because she understands his tactics she is labeled as uncooperative or unfriendly when better practice would be for courts to use their
authority to discourage abusive men from intimidating and scaring their ex-partners. (see Schwaeber, Fields, Goldstein and Araji and Bosek).

8. Many professionals in the custody court system believe they have the ability to determine who is telling the truth just from observing them. There is no research to support this belief and only a very few elite CIA and FBI agents have demonstrated this ability. In the context of domestic violence custody cases this is particularly dangerous because abusers are very manipulative and plan out their tactics to fool the
professionals. At the same time women's normal reaction to their partners' abuse tends to be anger and emotion and this is used to discredit their concerns. The false belief by professionals that they can tell who is truthful, just from watching them creates a false sense of confidence in these wrong judgments and favors abusers. ( see Schwaeber, Araji and Bosek, Zorza and Washington Post article).

9. Over forty states and many other judicial districts have created court-appointed gender bias commissions. These commissions have found widespread gender bias particularly against women litigants. They have found the courts give women less credibility than men, blame victims for her abuser's actions and create higher standards of proof for women. We see this when courts punish women for seeking to limit contact with abusers instead of pressuring abusers to stop their intimidating tactics. We see it when they expect mothers to provide better care of children but don't reward them for their care or punish women more severely than men for extramarital affairs. (see Dragiewicz, Araji and Bosek and Zorza).

10. In one case, the trial court used a certainty standard for the mother and a probability standard for the father. Even a first year law student would know this was a fundamental violation of due process and equal protection that demands reversal. The use of the higher standard for the mother was in writing in the evaluator's report and the transcript of her testimony. Using a the proper probability standard she admitted the father abused the mother physically, emotionally and verbally throughout the marriage, did so in front of the children and abused her so badly as to cause PTSD. Accordingly the court could not claim the mistake did not affect the outcome. In the two related cases between 15 and 20 different judges reviewed the case but failed to object to the biased approach. Clearly the judges were smart enough to recognize the mistake and it is not possible they were all corrupt or in favor of abusers. The problem is that for thirty years the court system has been using invalid practices and the often inadequately trained professionals they rely on have reinforced misinformation so that the judges could not imagine a trial judge could be so unfair to a battered mother. They permitted a decision where a safe mother was denied any contact with her children and the
abuser received custody. Only in a broken custody court system could so many judges make such an obvious mistake. (see Dragiewicz, Goldstein and Fields)

11. More commonly, the higher standard of proof for mothers is not put in writing, but is demonstrated by the many double standards women face. Frequently protective mothers are punished because they seek to restrict the father's contact because he is abusive. Courts give custody to the alleged abuser on the grounds that he is more likely to encourage the relationship between the mother and children. Once he receives custody, abusive fathers interfere with visitation and take mothers out of their children's lives, but the same courts fail to require the father to facilitate visitation. (see Dragiewicz, Araji and Bosek, Zorza and Hannah)

12. In a typical domestic violence case, the protective mother claims to be the primary attachment figure to the children and that the father abused her and/or the children. The father claims alienation. Primary attachment refers to the parent who provided most of the child care for the first couple of years of the child's life. Children who lose their primary attachment figure are significantly more likely to commit suicide, suffer
depression, low-self-esteem and other problems. Accordingly it doesn't make sense to separate a child from their primary attachment figure unless the parent is unsafe. Children affected by domestic violence are as likely as children directly abused to engage in a wide range of dysfunctional behavior. There is no research that children who hear negative remarks about the other parent (as occurs in most intact families) or have mothers who seek to protect them by limiting contact with an allegedly abusive father experience any long-term harm as a result. At the same time almost all children have a primary attachment figure which is usually the mother because in this still sexist society, mothers continue to perform most of the child care. Despite the myths, mothers rarely (1-2% of the time) make deliberately false allegations of abuse. False or exaggerated complaints of alienation by fathers are very common and is taught by male supremacist groups as a tactic to obtain custody. Although the mothers' complaints are more likely to be true and significantly affect the safety and potential of the children, courts are granting custody or joint custody to the fathers in these cases between 70 and 83% of the time. (see Sussman, Erickson, Crooks, Jaffe and Bala, Araji and Bosek).

13. Courts tend to emphasize the belief that children do better with both parents in their lives. This belief is supported by research, but not if one of the parents is abusive. "Fathers' rights" groups have sought to promote and courts have accepted the idea that when the parents come to court they should have equal rights to the children. On the surface this sounds reasonable, but only if their history of parenting supports this
practice. There is no reason to treat the parents the same if one has performed significantly more child care, has better parenting skills or if one parent has been abusive. The best predictor of future parenting is past parenting, but courts often treat mothers based on past parenting and fathers on expectations of future parenting. These kinds of gender biased practices place an unfair burden on mothers and more
importantly result in decisions harmful to children. (see Zorza, Erickson, Araji and Bosek)

14. The widespread use of mental health professionals for evaluations and expertise developed at a time when it was widely believed domestic violence was caused by mental illness, substance abuse or the victim's behavior. Courts assumed that the mental health professionals had expertise in domestic violence. At the time there was no specialized body of knowledge about domestic violence. Mental health professionals can help custody courts understand the circumstances when there is credible information that one of the parties or the children suffer from a mental impairment that significantly affects the ability to parent. There are a few mental health professionals who also have substantial knowledge and experience in domestic violence and are familiar with up-to-date research. The problem is that most mental health professionals relied on by custody courts have at most a few hours of domestic violence training and are unfamiliar with the up-to-date research. The research demonstrates they often fail to recognize domestic violence because they don't know what to look for and tend to minimize its significance. This is particularly harmful because they provide a false confidence that there is a scientific basis for their recommendations. (see Yeamans, Erickson, Araji and Bosek, Zorza and Fields)

15. Best practices are for mental health professionals to consult with domestic violence experts when handling a case involving allegations of domestic violence. There have been several demonstration projects including Rockland County, New York where child protective agencies work with the local domestic violence shelter on cases involving suspected domestic violence. The agencies cross-train each other and when caseworkers have a potential domestic violence case they consult with a domestic violence advocate. This practice has proven effective in helping caseworkers recognize and respond appropriately to domestic violence cases. Psychologists and psychiatrists are ethically required to consult with experts when they are handling a case that involves a subject they are not expert in. It should be a standard practice for evaluators
to consult with domestic violence experts when they respond to domestic violence cases. Unfortunately, these professionals, often with only a couple of hours of trainingin domestic violence and unfamiliar with the specialized body of research about domestic violence wrongly believe they don't need to consult with a genuine expert. Many lawyers don't know to raise this issue when questioning evaluators, but even when the issue is raised, judges rarely discredit an evaluators testimony for failing to consult a domestic violence expert or have familiarity with up-to-date research. (see Zorza, Fields, Goldstein and Hannah)

16. The use of psychological tests increases costs, delays cases and creates a false assumption that there is a scientific basis for recommendations. Psychological tests were developed for populations very different than those engaged in custody disputes. They cannot determine issues like domestic violence or parenting skills. They were designed to determine mental illness. Psychologists rarely tell the courts that the findings are based on probabilities and most tests reach conclusions accurate in 55 to 65% of the cases. Other factors such as not being part of the intended population for the test, domestic violence or the stress of litigation further reduce the percentage of accuracy. Mothers' normal response to their partners' domestic violence is often
misinterpreted as paranoia or delusion. This is particularly a problem where inadequately trained evaluators fail to recognize domestic violence and then pathologize the victim for believing she was abused. (see Yeamans, Zorza, Erickson and Fields)

17. Mental health professionals relied on in custody cases often use a family systems approach which is not appropriate and in fact is dangerous in domestic violence cases. The approach seeks to have the parties forget past problems and develop new ways to work together in the future. This does nothing to change the belief system of abusers who are skilled at manipulating professionals who use such an approach. The
professionals are usually unfamiliar with scientific research including the fact that only accountability and monitoring have been shown to change abusers' behavior. At the same time protective mothers are punished because they couldn't overcome their fear caused by a long history of their partner's abuse. This is another example of blaming the victim for her normal reaction to the father's abuse. (see Fields, Zorza and Crooks,
Jaffe and Bala).

18. Context is particularly important in understanding and recognizing domestic violence. Repeatedly we have seen cases in which the court initially determines a mother's domestic violence allegations are false. When the father commits new abusive tactics (such as limiting contact between the mother and children after he gets custody or using the visitation exchanges to harass his victim, the courts usually refuse to consider the new information in the context of prior evidence of abuse on the ground that the court already denied the abuse. Courts often miss that the same acts should be treated very differently depending on motivation. There may be evidence that each party hit the other, but they may not be equivalent. One party may hit harder, one party may hit in self defense or to stop his abuse and the other to maintain control, and particularly important only one party may fear the other. Both parties may file complaints about professionals in the case. While they both would claim they have valid objections it is important to see the context of whether one of the parties had previously sought to isolate their partner from friends and family. (see Dragiewicz, Goldstein and Zorza)

19. Not all children react the same to domestic violence and child abuse. Inadequately trained professionals expect abused children to have serious social or academic problems as a result of the abuse. Some children react by taking on adult roles, being the good child or zoning out. On the surface it appears the children are doing well, but the problems play out years later. Such unexpected reactions often lead to courts assuming valid abuse complaints are false. (see Crooks, Jaffe and Bala, Araji and Bosek)

20. We are particularly concerned with cases involving retaliation against protective mothers and extreme results that give custody to alleged abusers and supervised visits or no contact with children to the mothers. Unless the mother is unsafe (drug addict, beats the children) such extreme results are virtually always harmful to children. Many mothers have been punished for continuing to believe the father is dangerous after the
court fails to find he committed abuse. Fathers are not similarly punished when they continue to deny their abuse after the court finds against him. Given the frequency in which courts fail to confirm valid claims of abuse, courts should be extremely reluctant to penalize motherswho continue to complain of their partner's abuse. (see Zorza, Araji and Bosek)

21. Surprisingly there have been some judges who object to training about up-to-date research in domestic violence based on the belief that somehow neutrality requires judges to stay ignorant of this information. In reality such ignorance is not neutral as the myths, stereotypes and misinformation used instead of scientific research strongly favors abusive fathers. The training of judges and other court personnel in domestic violence should be conducted by domestic violence advocates and other experts familiar with the kind of
up-to-date research contained in this book. It is important that administrative judges foster an attitude that the present system has resulted in thousands of children being sent to live with abusers so judges must be open to the likelihood that many of the beliefs and practices they have long used have been wrong. Courts should consider holding an evidentiary hearing about domestic violence early in custody proceedings. If the allegations of domestic violence are true and the other parent is safe (alienation allegations are not about safety), the non-abusive parent should receive custody and the abusive parent held accountable. This procedure would save courts time and money while achieving results that benefit children. Courts should consider not appointing an evaluator unless there is substantial reason to believe one of the parties or the children have a mental condition that would significantly interfere with parenting. If an evaluator is used judges should seek experts with substantial domestic violence training or at least have the evaluator consult with such an expert. Mediation and joint counseling are always inappropriate in cases with abuse allegations. The safety of the parties and the children must always be the first priority. Research demonstrates that the best way to prevent domestic violence is to hold the abuser accountable and monitor his behavior. Abusers tend to be extremely manipulative and court professionals must be careful to avoid colluding with an abuser. Most important, we are not seeking to challenge or criticize judges, but rather to work together to support the policy and laws of every state which is to prevent domestic violence.

The Truth About Battered Women And Custody

2010-06-17T05:09:00.000-07:00

In no other area of family law are battered women and their children inadvertently subjected to greater physical and emotional harm than in the child custody and visitation context. Battered women are often forced to participate in custody arrangements that require mediation, unsupervised custody and visitation, and
other types of exchanges that leave them and their children vulnerable to continued abuse and control at
the hands of their batterers. Women who try to protect themselves and their children by seeking sole custody or modifications in custody arrangements such as cessation of visitation, supervised visits, or who flee with their children are penalized by having custody taken away and given to their batterers. Despite the perception that mothers always win custody, when fathers contest custody, they win sole or joint custody in 40% to 70% of the cases.1 Indeed, even in cases where abuse is reported, a batterer is twice as likely to win custody over a non-abusive parent than in cases where no abuse is reported. 2 Domestic violence
While there is no uniform law that governs child custody, all states use the same standard in determining custody arrangements, called the “best interest of the child” standard. Under that standard, courts look at a number of factors in determining what type of custody arrangement would best suit the child’s physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual needs. Most states have separate statutes governing child custody and domestic violence. Although many states require the court to consider domestic violence in making temporary or final custody determinations, others do not. Moreover, a number of state custody
statutes make no mention of domestic violence as a factor to be considered in making custody awards. Of
equal concern are joint custody provisions that do not take into account how domestic violence puts both the
survivor and her child/children at further risk. See the section of this Legal Resource Kit entitled
“State Custody Laws That Consider Domestic Violence” for a complete list of custody statutes in the
different states. Indeed, for the battered woman, the custody and visitation processes often become a means by which a batterer furthers his abuse through attempts to continue to maintain control. Most forms of shared custody and visitation involve some type of proximity or contact between the battered woman and her abuser during the exchange of the child between parents. During these exchanges battered women are often subjected to verbal and physical harassment, stalking, assault, and threats, including the threat of child kidnapping.4 Women who deny visitation or who go to court to request a modification or supervised visitation in order to protect themselves and their children are frequently accused of trying to alienate the
child from the abusive parent.

                            Myths and Facts About Domestic Violence and Child Custody

The unfair treatment of battered women in custody disputes results from myths about the impact of domestic violence on women and children, as well as the widespread failures of civil protection agencies in taking women’s experiences seriously. Here are some of the common myths that persist:

Myth: It is easy for a battered woman to leave her abuser or to stop the abuse.

Fact: Fear of losing her children, pressures from religious communities to stay in the relationship, financial
dependence, the insensitivity and unresponsiveness of the justice system, and the escalation of abuse that occurs when women try to leave make it difficult for a woman to separate from her abuser. Even when a battered woman appears to “just accept” the violence, she is often making different attempts to avoid and stop the violence. Such attempts include complying with (or anticipating) a batterer’s demands, demanding that the batterer stop hisabuse, orchestrating the environment (e.g., keeping children quiet), leaving the home, calling the police, and fighting back with or without weapons.5

Myth: Battered women who take their children and flee an abusive relationship are safe from further harm.

Fact: Studies find that domestic violence escalates when battered women leave their abusers, and that
terminating a relationship results in a greater risk of fatality for battered women and their children.6 This
abuse takes the form of threats and actual violence to the mother and her children. Further, women and their
children risk additional (and sometimes fatal) harm during court ordered visitation or joint custody
arrangements. This occurs as many batterers discover that the children are a means of continuing the abuse of
a former partner. Five percent of abusive fathers threaten to kill their children's mother during visitation
with their children and 25 percent of abusive fathers threaten to harm their children during visitation.7

Myth: Domestic violence between parents does not impact their children
.
Fact: While most mothers in abusive relationships take precautions to shield their children from the harmful effects of violence, it is extremely difficult for them to protect their children from witnessing or
experiencing abuse. It is estimated that 87% of children who come from homes plagued by domestic violence
actually witness the abuse.8 Most children are adversely impacted by the abuse, although how they are affected may vary. Research suggests that child witnesses of domestic violence are more likely than other children to feel helpless, fearful, depressed, and anxious. They suffer both emotional and physical developmental problems, and are more likely than children who do not grow up in homes plagued by domestic violence to suffer from anxiety, low self-esteem, and depression.9 Many experts believe that child witnesses of domestic violence internalize the fear and trauma that results from witnessing violence, and are themselves likely to become perpetrators of violence in the future.10

Myth: Abuse of one parent by another parent does not mean that the abuser poses any harm or danger to the children.
Fact: While research results vary, studies have found that child abuse occurs in 25% to 70% of the families that experience domestic violence.11 Further evidence linking domestic violence to the heightened risk of harm to children can be found in a report to the Florida Governor’s Task Force on Domestic and Sexual Violence, which identified over 300 domestic violence fatalities in 1994; 73 of those victims were children. Most of the children were killed by their biological fathers. In some cases, male abusers killed their entire families, including themselves.12

Myth: Batterers who seek custody do so out of love for their children and a desire to be good parents.

Fact: Abusive fathers continue to abuse and exert control over women after separation by vigorously pursuing custody of the couple’s children.13 Batterers are twice as likely as non-physically abusive fathers to seek sole custody of their children,14 and frequently refuse to pay child support as a way to continue the financial abuse and dependence of the mother.15

Myth: Battered women raise the issue of abuse in an attempt to turn their children against the other parent in order to gain sole or primary custody.

Fact: This allegation is often leveled at women who are simply trying to make judges aware of separation violence, their children’s concerns, and other abuses by the batterer. These assertions may be in the form of so-called “syndromes” like “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) or “Divorced Mother Syndrome.”16 Regrettably, however, judges, guardians ad litem, and court-appointed custody evaluators often rely on these theories to discount the very real fears and concerns that battered women and their children bring before the court.17See the section in this Legal Resource Kit on the “A Guide to Parental Alienation Syndrome” for information on how to address these assertions (212) 226-1066

Legal Resource Kit: Domestic Violence and Child Custody

The Impact of Domestic Violence on Children

Copyright © 2005 Legal Momentum.

                      I. Overview

In recent decades, our society has slowly and reluctantly begun to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding family life and intimate relationships to reveal the shocking pervasiveness of domestic violence. Studies have shown
that more women are abused by their husbands or boyfriends each year than are injured in car accidents,
muggings, or rape.81 Nearly one in every three adult women experiences at least one physical assault by a
partner during adulthood.82 An estimated 4 million American women experience a serious assault by an
intimate partner during an average year.83 Although these statistics reflect the large number of women who are battered by their intimate partners, the numbers only begin to account for the population of women who suffer from domestic violence, which frequently includes psychological abuse and patterns of coercion and control that may not be reflected in these statistics. Women who experience domestic violence fail to report the crime to law enforcement personnel six times more often than do women who experience violence that is perpetrated by a stranger.84

                II. Spouse Abuse and Child Abuse

Psychological studies have found a significant overlap between spouse abuse and child abuse. For example, one survey found that 45% of assaults on women are accompanied by physical assaults on a child in the
family,85 and an article revealed that in 30% to 60% of families where either child abuse or spouse abuse was identified, the other form of violence was also present.86

                III. Children Caught in the Crossfire

Whether they are the intended targets of the abusive parent or not, children are harmed both physically and
psychologically by the abuse of their mothers. Batterers often deliberately abuse children both physically and
verbally, in order to hurt and control the mothers. Children are also accidentally harmed by blows or flying
objects aimed at their mothers, by seeing their mothers abused, and by the constant disruption that such abuse causes. There are several additional ways that children experience adult domestic violence. These include hitting or threatening a child while in its mother’s arms, taking the child hostage in order to force the mother to return to the home, forcing the child to watch assaults against the mother or to participate in the abuse, and using the child as a spy or interrogating him or her about the mother’s activities.87 Children are also told by their abusive fathers that if not for their mother’s behavior their families would be together.88 This is frequently an attempt to put pressure on the mother through the children to return to
the batterer or to drive a wedge between the mother and her children.89

               IV. Witnessing the Aftermath of Violence

In addition to seeing, hearing, or being directly subjected to physical violence, many women and their children describe the aftermath of a violent event as traumatic. Children may be forced to see their mother injured and in need of help, may have to live with a father who alternates between physical violence and loving care, may witnesspolice intervention to remove a father from the home, or may have to move to a shelter for battered women.90 They may observe blood, bruises, torn clothes, broken glass, and injuries to their mother’s person as well as experience an atmosphere of tension and fear in their homes.91 Any
definition of “witnessing violence” must include all of these various ways in which children experience a violent event.92 They may see the violence or be used as a part of it. Even when they are not present, children often are aware of the violent event and experience its aftermath.93 Reports by battered mothers indicate that 87% of children witness the abuse.94 Many children actually see their father, stepfather, or mother’s boyfriend not only beat their mothers but rape them as well.95 Although some parents believe that they succeed in shielding their children from the batterer’s aggression, children often provide detailed accounts of the very events which adults report they did not witness.96 Reports by children and by adults of their memories of childhood experiences indicate that parents severely underestimate the extent to
which their children are exposed to violence.97

         V. Physical and Emotional Effects of Domestic

Violence on Children Subjecting children to their mother’s victimization is a form of emotional abuse. Exposure to threats of injury, suicide attempts, verbal assault, and threats to kill evoke in children a combination of intense feelings,98 including: fear that their mother will be killed, guilt at not stopping
the violence, divided loyalties, and anger at their mother for not leaving.99 Even one episode of violence can
produce post-traumatic stress disorder in children.100 Batterers must be held responsible for causing such
trauma in children.101 Studies indicate that children who witness their fathers beating their mothers suffer emotional problems, including slowed development, sleep disturbances, and feelings of helplessness, depression, and anxiety. Many of these children exhibit more aggressive, antisocial, fearful, and inhibited behaviors. They also show lower social competence than other children.102 Children from homes
where their mothers were abused have also shown less skill in understanding how others feel and in examining situations from the other’s perspective when compared to children from non-violent households.103 Research has found that many of these children also suffer somatic symptoms. They are hospitalized more, have more colds and sore throats, and are more prone to bedwetting than children from homes without violence.104 Witnessing abuse as a child also has long-term effects. In one study, witnessing violence as a child was associated with adult reports of depression, low self-esteem among women, and trauma-related symptoms among men.105 Studies also indicate that growing up with domestic violence increases the likelihood that a child will grow up to abuse his spouse.106

               VI. Abuse by Battered Women

Battered women may displace their anger at their abusers onto their children. In one study, sixteen percent of women who lived with an abusive man reported that they directed their anger toward their children. Five percent expressed this anger through violence.107 However, data from the National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect show that where there is child abuse concurrent with spouse abuse, 70% of the
violence is committed by the man.108 In most cases of child abuse, removing the children from the batterer’s
environment and placing them with the mother ends the abuse.

Will He Kill A Lethality Assesment

2010-06-17T04:09:00.000-07:00

JUNE 2010

Dept. Justice Report: Implications of Domestic Violence Research, for Law Enforcement, Prosecutors and Judges:

According to research by Katherine van Wormer, Professor of Social Work at the University of Northern Iowa, certain patterns have emerged in cases in which men have ended up murdering their spouses and/or children as well as in the common "murder-suicide" cases.
(the below excludes elder murder-suicides, which have a different dynamic) The presence of some of these factors should create extra caution. (The lack of all factors being present, however, should not be taken to indicate the absence of risk.) Prof. Wormer writes:

The pattern that emerges in these cases involves intimate partners in the 20 to 35-year-old range: The man is abusive, psychologically and/or physically. Obsessed with the woman to the extent that he feels he can't live without her, he is fiercely jealous and determined to isolate her. Primary among the risk factors are an abuser's lack of employment, compounded by a lack of education. Significant relationship variables or plans by the wife or partner to separate from her abuser, and having a child in the home, who is not the partner's biological child.

Other factors that can help predict homicide are an abuser's heavy use of alcohol and illicit drugs, a history of sexual jealousy, growing up in a violent home, violence and verbal abuse, an age disparity with the husband being significantly older, a threat of separation by the woman, and antisocial personality and/or an overly dependent personality, stalking and access to firearms.

Threats of use of a weapon were common in these cases... The key distinguishing factor between this and the more usual form of domestic homicide is the presence of depression and suicidal ideation.

Characteristically, suicidal murderers have little regard for the lives of other people; they would be considered, in mental health jargon, to be antisocial. Yet they are so emotionally dependent on their wives or girlfriends that they would sooner be dead than to live without them. When the girlfriend/wife makes a move to leave, her partner is absolutely distraught in the belief that he can't live without her.

The State of Maryland has instituted a Lethality Assessment (download) Program (LAP) in many of its counties that has been having some success. The success may be because the questions are asked, rather than the assumption being made that the significance of risk factors will be known to the complainant and the information thus volunteered. An assessment tool was created by Johns Hopkins University nursing professor Jacquelyn C. Campbell.

High risk factors:

1.The alleged abuser is male. Statistically, more than 90% of murder-suicide cases are perpetrated by men against women.

2.The parties were married or a close equivalent. Statistically, most of these cases involve the man's perceived loss of family and home, however in recent years, formal marriage as a factor has been declining.

3.The man is significantly older than the woman. Statistically in these cases, the male perpetrator averages 6.3 years older than a female victim; the woman is in the 20 to 35-year-old range.

4.The woman has made the decision to leave the man; there is a threat of separation even if it has not yet occurred. Note: the lack of a family support system, wife or significant other, coupled with a recent family loss (death, divorce), are indicators for suicide in a depressed person, and suicidal depression is a risk factor for murder-suicide.

5.The woman has a child in the home who is not the man's biological child. This may be related to sexual jealousy. (A significant portion of cases do not fit this pattern, however, so again, caution should be taken that the absence of a risk factor does not create unwarranted perception of lesser risk. Not enough is known about weighting the various factors under different circumstances.)

6.The man has had depressed episodes or suicide ideation, or currently is depressed. Statistically (as we might guess), depression is more likely to be present in murder-suicide cases than in the cases of murder without the perpetrator's suicide. Of particular note, the man has made threats to kill either himself or the woman or children.

7.There is a history of physical abuse, particularly choking. For this purpose "history" should not be limited to adjudicated history, or any other "history that has come to the attention of authorities." In too many of the news articles we read, the neighbors and friends express "surprise".

8.There is a history alleged of psychological abuse. Of particular note are attempts at controlling behaviors and sexual jealousy, even without demonstrable physical abuse (verbal abuse, accusations, spying, stalking).

9.The man is unemployed or under-employed, chronically or recent job loss or reversal.

10.The man has abused alcohol (drunk episodes, not necessarily diagnosed alcoholic), or used illegal drugs.

11.The man has or can get access to a hand gun.

The statistics and statistical charts are available at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/intimate/overview.htm

Read more about this in the Maryland Daily Record, 10/13/08.

Violence Against Women Is On The Rise

2010-06-17T03:36:00.000-07:00

June 15, 2010
By Judy Silverclose

The Chicago Tribune says that domestic violence calls to the Indianapolis police department are up 13% this year over last. The Honolulu Advertiser says that Hawaii’s Domestic Violence Action Center is fielding a third more calls this year than last. Rates are up in Arizona and Texas, too. The economy is down; stress and violence are up. A new Department of Justice study on Domestic Violence and Law Enforcement states that, while over the last decade the percentage of women who call the police after physical assault by an intimate partner seems to be rising from 30 to 60 percent, 40 percent of assaults still go unreported.
If police are called, either by the victim or by a third party (such as a neighbor or hospital) the study says: Researchers found 29% of victims reported “no assault.” Ironically, their alleged assailants were more likely to admit the assaults, with only 19% reporting “no assault”. Law enforcement officers may find that the most severely traumatized victims, behave least, as law enforcement officers expect of them. They may also be the least able to cooperate with law enforcement. Addressing the question of whether arrest is the best response to intimate-partner violence, the report says: Arrest deters repeat abuse, however, all actions taken by responding officers , including providing victims with information pamphlets, taking down witness statements, and helping victims secure protective orders were associated with reduced cases of reoffending abuse.
If an arrest is made, the percentage of cases prosecuted varies wildly, from 46% in Milwaukee to 94% in Cincinnatti, with the average being about 60%. Sometimes police arrest an abuser for a lesser charge (disorderly conduct) instead instead of assault. However, the report warns, reducing charges to non-assault charges allows convicted abusers to retain firearms otherwise prohibited. One of the most crucial steps to prevent lethal violence is to disarm abusers and keep them disarmed. A commenter on our site, Sheri Ferber, a former member of Rick Warren’s, Saddleback church, was also a victim of Domestic Violence.The story is heartbreaking. Four years ago, [Ferber] approached a Saddleback pastor for protection against her husband, who’d violently attacked her while they were driving home from church. Instead of protecting her, Ferber says, the pastor called her husband to warn him that Ferber had been “gossiping about their marriage.” Ferber, it seems, had run into Saddleback’s teaching that the sanctity of marriage prohibits divorce in all but a few circumstances, and domestic violence is not one of them. Author Kathryn Joyce goes on to explain: Jocelyn Andersen, was severely battered by her assistant pastor husband. She argues that submission teachings don’t create abusers, but allow violent men to justify their abuse as biblical. The real danger, though, is in how the teachings impact devout women, who may conclude they can’t leave their marriages and remain committed Christians. Fortunately, there is evidence of people fighting for change, even in very conservative churches. In fact, the same author, Kathryn Joyce, also wrote on the Saddleback domestic violence issue for Religion Dispatches, where she quotes conservative Christian author Barbara Roberts: “I think Saddleback’s teaching is profoundly and dangerously wrong,” says Roberts, offering them her book’s findings that ,1 Corinthians 7:15-a verse commonly interpreted as applying solely to an unbeliever: Deserting a believing spouse-provides the biblical grounds for abused wives to consider their union nullified. “The key question is not ‘who walked out’ but ‘who caused the separation?’ Of course, many churches already teach that violence abrogates the marital covenant and refer congregants to abuse specialists. And Christians don’t have a monopoly on the issue. Jewish, Muslim and interfaith women also suffer Domestic Violence. Thankfully, for victims who don’t feel comfortable calling the police, there are trained specialists available. The National Domestic Violence Hotline, provides crisis intervention, information, and referrals to shelters and programs. Calls are free, confidential, and anonymous. The Number Is 1-800-799-7233.

The New Agenda welcomes readers who have a background in this area, If you are interested in writing about it, in more detail. Contact us at: blog@thenewagenda.net.
As “Lived It” said, may God have mercy on us all.

Heartbreak And Loss ...Why?

2010-06-17T01:23:00.000-07:00

What happens in Domestic violence and Child custody, Visitation: The Truth

2010-06-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Ms Magazine article about family court punishing women

2010-06-13T21:26:00.000-07:00

How Family Courts Punish Abused Women

May 17, 2010 by R. Dianne Bartlow

“The dirtiest little secret in America” is that family courts, in deciding custody, often wreak devastation upon mothers and children.

So argue Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein, editors of the new anthology Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody, which brings to light what many familiar with the family court system have long known: Designed to dispense justice, the system has become instead “an instrument of oppression,” particularly in cases involving domestic violence.

To find a chilling example of what the editors mean, we need look no further than the recent murder of infant Wyatt Garcia, reported in the Daily Beast:

Wyatt Garcia was born in April 2009. Nine months later, he was shot and killed by his father, who then turned the gun on himself.

Proof That Only A Sicko Would Write about, Believe Or Use Parental Alienation Syndrome

2010-06-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

This is researched information, compiled by attorneys, therapists and victims. If you are truly intent on using Mr. Gardner's Parental Ailenation Syndrome against someone in court, perhaps you might want to think twice about what it is you are truly saying. Unless of course your a pedophile, then the only thig you need is prison and castration. These are the facts. These are statements made by Mr. Gardner. Now that you are informed there is no reason to use this theory. And if you still choose to then obviously, you shouldnt be parenting any child.

              Overview of Dr. Richard Gardner's Opinions on Pedophilia and Child Sexual Abuse

Richard A. Gardner, M.D., is the creator of the creator and main proponent for Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) theory. Prior to his suicide, Gardner was an unpaid part-time clinical professor of child psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University . He made his money mainly as a forensic expert.

PAS was developed by Dr Richard Gardner in 1985 based on his personal observations and work as an expert witness, often on behalf of fathers accused of molesting their children. Gardner asserted that PAS is very common and he saw manifestations of this syndrome in over 90% of the custody conflicts he evaluated--even when abuse allegations are not raised (Gardner, 1987, p. 67).1 Gardner (September 6, 1993) claimed that PAS is "a disorder of children, arising almost exclusively in child-custody disputes, in which one parent (usually the mother) programs the child to hate the other parent (usually the father)."2

Gardner 's theory of PAS has had a profound effect on how the court systems in our country handle allegations of child sexual abuse, especially during divorce. Gardner has authored more than 250 books and articles with advice directed towards mental health professionals, the legal community, divorcing adults and their children. Gardner 's private publishing company, Creative Therapeutics, published his many books, cassettes, and videotapes.3 Information available on Gardner 's website indicates that he has been certified to testify as an expert in approximately 400 cases, both criminal and civil, in more than 25 states.4 Gardner 's work continues to serve as a basis for decisions affecting the welfare of children in courtrooms across the nation. He is considered a leading authority in family courts and has even been described as the "guru" of child custody evaluations.4

Because Gardner 's PAS theory is based on his clinical observations--not scientific data--it must be understood in the context of his extreme views concerning women, pedophilia and child sexual abuse.

                                                  Gardner on pedophilia

The vast majority ("probably over 95%") of all sex abuse allegations are valid.

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics (pp. 7, 140).

"There is a bit of pedophilia in every one of us."

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 118)

"Pedophilia has been considered the norm by the vast majority of individuals in the history of the world."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 592-3)

Similarly, "intrafamilial pedophilia (that is, incest) is widespread and ... is probably an ancient tradition"

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 119)

"It is because our society overreacts to it [pedophilia] that children suffer."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 594-5)

Pedophilia may enhance the survival of the human species by serving "procreative purposes."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 24-5)

Pedophilia "is a widespread and accepted practice among literally billions of people."

Gardner, R.A. (1986). Child Custody Litigation: A Guide for Parents and Mental Health Professionals . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, (p. 93)

In addition, Gardner proposes that many different types of human sexual behavior, including pedophilia, sexual sadism, necrophilia (sex with corpses), zoophilia (sex with animals), coprophilia (sex involving defecation), can be seen as having species survival value and thus do "not warrant being excluded from the list of the `so-called natural forms of human sexual behavior.'"

See, Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 18-32)

                                     Gardner on the sexual aggressiveness of children

Gardner suggests that children want to have sex with adults and may seduce them.

Some children experience " high sexual urges in early infancy. " "There is good reason to believe that most, if not all, children have the capacity to reach orgasm at the time they are born."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 15)

Children are naturally sexual and may initiate sexual encounters by "seducing" the adult .

Gardner, R.A. (1986). Child Custody Litigation: A Guide for Parents and Mental Health Professionals. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics (p. 93).

If the sexual relationship is discovered, " the child is likely to fabricate so that the adult will be blamed for the initiation ."

Gardner, R.A. (1986). Child Custody Litigation: A Guide for Parents and Mental Health Professionals. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics (p. 93).

"The normal child exhibits a wide variety of sexual fantasies and behaviors, many of which would be labeled as 'sick' or 'perverted' if exhibited by adults"

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 12)

Sex abuse is not necessarily traumatic; the determinant as to whether sexual molestation will be traumatic to the child, is the social attitude toward these encounters.

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 670-71)

                Gardner on therapy with children who are sexually abused by their father

Keep the child connected to the abuser

Special care should be taken not alienate the child from the molesting parent. The removal of a pedophilic parent from the home "should only be seriously considered after all attempts at treatment of the pedophilia and rapprochement with the family have proven futile."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics.(p. 537)

The child should be told that there is no such thing as a perfect parent. "The sexual exploitation has to be put on the negative list, but positives as well must be appreciated"

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics.(p. 572)

Tell the child that sexual abuse by a father is normal

Older children may be helped to appreciate that sexual encounters between an adult and a child are not universally considered to be reprehensible acts. The child might be told about other societies in which such behavior was and is considered normal. The child might be helped to appreciate the wisdom of Shakespeare's Hamlet, who said, "Nothing's either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics.(p. 549)

"In such discussions the child has to be helped to appreciate that we have in our society an exaggeratedly punitive and moralistic attitude about adult-child sexual encounters"

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics.(p. 572).

         Gardner on mothers who discover that their husband is sexually abusing their child

Gardner blames the father's abuse on the mother, who he faults for not fulfilling her husband sexually. He suggests that therapists should help mother's of incest victims achieve sexual gratification.

• Discourage litigation.

• Encourage her to stay with her husband (the abuser)

• Blame her and the daughter for the sexual abuse by the father

"It may be that one of the reasons the daughter turned toward the father is the impairment of the child's relationship with the mother" (pp. 579-80)
Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 585)

• Help her get over her anger at her husband for sexually abusing their child.

"If the mother has reacted to the abuse in a hysterical fashion, or used it as an excuse for a campaign of denigration of the father, then the therapist does well to try and "sober her up".... Her hysterics ... will contribute to the child's feeling that a heinous crime has been committed and will thereby lessen the likelihood of any kind of rapproachment with the father. One has to do everything possible to help her put the "crime" in proper perspective. She has to be helped to appreciate that in most societies in the history of the world, such behavior was ubiquitous [i.e., everywhere], and this is still the case."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 576-7)

"Perhaps she can be helped to appreciate that in the history of the world his behavior has probably been more common than the restrained behavior of those who do not sexually abuse their children."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 585)

• Encourage her to become more sexually responsive to her husband.

"Her increased sexuality may lessen the need for her husband to return to their daughter for sexual gratification."

"Verbal statements about the pleasures of orgastic response are not likely to prove very useful. One has to encourage experiences, under proper situations of relaxation, which will enable her to achieve the goal of orgastic response."

"One must try to overcome any inhibition she may have with regard to [the use of vibrators]."

"Her own diminished guilt over masturbation will make it easier for her to encourage the practice in her daughter, if this is warranted. And her increased sexuality may lessen the need for her husband to return to their daughter for sexual gratification."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 585

                                 Gardner on fathers who sexually abuse their children

• Tell him what he did his normal

"He has to be helped to appreciate that, even today, it [pedophilia] is a widespread and accepted practice among literally billions of people. He has to appreciate that in our Western society especially, we take a very punitive and moralistic attitude toward such inclinations. He has had a certain amount of back (sic) luck with regard to the place and time he was born with regard to social attitudes toward pedophilia."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 593)

He has had bad luck with regard to the place and time he was born with regard to social attitudes toward pedophilia. However, these are not reasons to condemn himself.

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 119)

• Keep him in the home

The removal of a pedophilic parent from the home "should only be seriously considered after all attempts at treatment of the pedophilia and rapprochement with the family have proven futile"

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 119)

• Help him protect himself

"He must learn to control himself if he is to protect himself from the Draconian punishments meted out to those in our society who act out their pedophilic impulses."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill , NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 585-592)

• Help him forget about it

Therapy with the father should not be spent focusing on the primary problem (I.e., sexual molestation). Instead, therapy should be spent "talking about other things" as the goal of therapy is "to help people forget about their problems"

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 585-592)

            Gardner on how society should respond to the widespread victimization of children

•Take a more sympathetic view toward pedophilia

"One of the steps that society must take to deal with the present hysteria is to 'come off it' and take a more realistic attitude toward pedophilic behavior." (p. 120)

"The Draconian punishments meted out to pedophiles .go far beyond what I consider to be the gravity of the crime." (p. 118)

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics.

•Abolish mandated reporting of child sexual abuse.

•Do away with immunity for reporters of child abuse.

•Create federally-funded programs to assist those claiming to have been falsely accused of child sexual abuse.

Gardner, R.A. (1995). Written testimony on HR3588 - Proposed revision of the child abuse prevention and treatment act (CAPTA) (Public Law 93-247).

• Keep pedophiles in the community

The removal of a pedophilic parent from the home "should only be seriously considered after all attempts at treatment of the pedophilia and rapproachment with the family have proven futile"

Pedophiles who abuse children outside of the home should first be given the opportunity for community treatment. "If that fails then and only then should some kind of forced incarceration be considered"

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 119)

Gardner on Child abuse hysteria

Child abuse allegations are the "third-greatest wave of hysteria" the nation has seen, following the Salem witch trials and the McCarthyite persecution of leftists.

Gardner, R.A. (1993, February 22). Modern witch hunt--child abuse charges. The Wall Street Journal, p. A10.

"We are currently living in dangerous times, similar to Nazi Germany. Sexual abuse hysteria is omnipresent."

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. xxv)

Who is to Blame for "Child Abuse Hysteria"?

• People who voice negative feelings against pedophiles

"During their harangues against the 'perverts' who are the objects of their scorn, they often rise to a level of excitation that can readily be seen as sexual. . . . Psychological, such individuals are ever fighting to repress their own unacceptable pedophilic impulses, which are continually pressing for release."

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics (pp. 30-31).

• The legal system - including judges

"There is no question that abuse cases are "turn ons" for the wide variety of individuals involved in them, the accuser(s), the prosecutors, the lawyers, the judges , the evaluators, the psychologists, the reporters, the readers of the newspapers, and everyone else involved - except for the falsely accused and the innocent victim .. Everyone is getting their 'jollies, ."

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 31).

"Judges . too may have repressed pedophilic impulses over which there is suppression, repression, and guilt. Inquiry into the details of the case provides voyeuristic and vicarious gratifications .. Incarcerating the alleged perpetrator may serve psychologically to obliterate the judge's own projected pedophilic impulses."

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (p. 107)

• Sexually inhibited mothers

"The mother . is . psychologically gratifying [her own sexually inhibited needs] with the visual imagery that the sex abuse allegation provides."

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics (pp. 36-37).

• Greedy parents

"Many are victims of their greed, which is so enormous that they blind themselves to the psychological traumas they are subjecting their children to in the service of winning lawsuits that promise them enormous wealth."

Gardner, R.A. (1991). Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics (p 43).

• Judeo-Christian principles

"It is of interest that of all the ancient peoples it may very well be that the Jews were the only ones who were punitive toward pedophiles.. Our present overreaction to pedophilia represents an exaggeration of Judeo-Christian principles and is a significant factor operative in Western society's atypicality with regard to such activities

Gardner, R.A. (1992). True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse . Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics. (pp. 46-7).

                                               For more information see:

Dallam, S. J. (1998). Dr. Richard Gardner: A review of his theories and opinions on atypical sexuality, pedophilia, and treatment issues. Treating Abuse Today , 8(1), 15-23.

1.Gardner, R. A. (1987).The parental alienation syndrome and the differentiation between fabricated and genuine child sex abuse . Creskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics.

2.Gardner, R.A. (1993, September 6) Dr. Gardner defends work on sex abuse. National Law Journal, p. 16.

3.Sherman, Rorie. (1993, August 16) Gardner 's Law: "A Controversial Psychiatrist and Influential Witness Leads the Backlash against Child Sex Abuse 'Hysteria.'" The National Law Journal , pp. 1, 45-46.

4. See Gardner 's CV on his website (available at http://www.rgardner.com/pages/cvqual.html). See also: People v. Fortin, 706 N.Y.S.2d 611, 612 (Crim. Ct. 2000). Fortin was a criminal sex abuse case in which Dr. Gardner offered to testify on behalf of the accused molester concerning PAS and the credibility of the complaining witness. The court refused to permit his testimony because of a failure to establish general acceptance of PAS within the professional community.)

5. Quinn, K.M. (1991). Family evaluation in child custody mediation, arbitration, and litigation (Book Review). Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law , 19(1), 101-02.

            Return to Page: Abuse and Custody Disputes: Scientific and Legal Issues

Richard Gardner and Parental Alienation Syndrome

The debate rages on...

In Death, Can He Survive?

Psychiatrist Richard A. Gardner’s theory - used by parents in child custody battles - gained prominence. And critics.


                               By Jamie Talan, Newsday.com, July 1, 2003

In life, Richard A. Gardner was known for single-handedly devising a psychiatric syndrome that became widely used in courtrooms by parents battling over child custody.

Gardner died in May, and only time can determine his legacy - whether the label he created, parental alienation syndrome, can withstand critics now that he can no longer defend it.

Most mental health professionals have an opinion about Gardner's creation - and it's not generally flattering.

"This is junk science," said Dr. Paul Fink, a professor of psychiatry at Temple University School of Medicine and a past president of the American Psychiatric Association in Arlington, Va. "He invented a concept and talked as if it were proven science. It's not."

Gardner developed the syndrome, known as PAS, almost 20 years ago, contending that

a child has been alienated from one parent - usually the father - when the other parent makes charges of sexual, physical or emotional abuse.

PAS appears to be used only in custody battles during divorces.
Gardner's online biography says he testified in about 400 cases in 25 states. Psychologists and psychiatrists who trained under him or embraced his theory also have offered testimony in such cases.

Most often, it is a father who hired Gardner or another psychiatrist in response to the mother's allegations that their child or children had been abused, Fink said. The psychiatrist then would label the mother a "parental alienator" and urge the court to prevent her from being with the children - the ones diagnosed with PAS.

But most mental health professionals say the label doesn't meet the definition of a psychiatric illness.

It's not found in psychiatric textbooks on diagnoses. In the late 1980s, when psychiatrists were revising the profession's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Dr. Robert Spitzer, who was leading the effort and is a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in Manhattan, said Gardner, also affiliated with Columbia, asked whether PAS could be included.

"It would never be taken seriously in DSM," Spitzer said in an interview. "It isn't a mental disorder."

Dr. David Shaffer, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Columbia, said the controversy triggered several in-house reviews of Gardner's ideas. (Gardner had a nonpaid clinical appointment on Columbia's voluntary faculty.) Reviews found he "didn't do formal research."

Nevertheless, he defended Gardner's right to create a syndrome.

"Most of medicine is not based on formal research but clinical observation," he said. He saw Gardner as a "contrarian. [...] He liked getting a rise out of people."

Fink said the practical effect of introducing Gardner's theory in custody cases is that the issues of abuse are pushed aside.

Harvard's Dr. Eli Newberger, an assistant professor of pediatrics and an expert on child abuse, said he's been called on by state child protection agencies to evaluate ambiguous disclosures of abuse in divorce cases and believes that PAS deflects any real investigation into such allegations.

At the center of the storm, Newberger said, is Gardner and his theory.

"This is an atrocious theory with no science to back it up," he said. "This so-called diagnosis has been used to steer clear of the children's needs."

"There are lots of people who alienate their partners during a divorce," Fink said. "But it is not a syndrome, a disease or a disorder."

Joyanna Silberg, a Baltimore psychologist and strong opponent of the theory, said that Gardner used a questionnaire to determine whether a parent fit the profile of a sex offender - then used the results to show that allegations of child abuse are lies. But the questionnaire is "far from valid," said child sex abuse expert Robert Prentky of the nonprofit Justice Resource Institute in Bridgewater, Mass. Scales that Prentky has developed to diagnose sex offenders have been tested and accepted by the profession. "There is no science to back up Gardner's tests," he said.

Gardner, who was 72 at his death, trained in the heyday of psychoanalysis in New York, the late 1950s and early '60s. He then served a two-year stint in the Army as director of child psychiatry for a U.S. Army hospital in Germany, and subsequently settled in Cresskill, N.J., where he began testifying in child custody cases, according to an entry on his Web site: "Qualifications for providing court testimony."

That he wrote a popular children's book on divorce in 1969, followed by a book for parents, helped bolster his role in custody cases.

According to Donna LaTourett, Gardner's editor at his own publishing company, Creative Therapeutics, by the 1980s he noticed that more children were having "strong objections over one parent for no good reasons." He coined the term PAS in 1985 and listed eight primary signs and symptoms.

In 1992, he self-published a book about the syndrome. Fathers' groups heralded his work. Women's organizations bashed it. After a period of observation, professional mental health organizations tried to discredit it.

Gardner had a growing group of followers and clients, mostly men. He promoted his theory around the world and built a practice as a court-appointed psychiatric evaluator and paid expert witness. Detractors say he also used his affiliation with Columbia to bolster his status.

There are no statistics on how many children have been characterized as having PAS.

"I do believe that there is a phenomenon of children who turn against the parent for no good reason," said Richard Warshak, a clinical professor of psychology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "Children are influenced by their parents."

He is a proponent of Gardner's theory and says that his death won't stop the controversial diagnosis. He agreed that use of "syndrome" may "strengthen confidence in the expert's testimony and the validity of it" and said mental health professionals are trying to shorten the term to "parental alienation."

"Yes, he said things that were very provocative," said Warshak, author of "Divorce Poison: Protecting the Parent-Child Bond from a Vindictive Ex" (Regan Books). "Some of the stuff is outrageous, speculative and outright contrary to the evidence."

But the court's acceptance of the diagnosis without the psychiatric profession's endorsement is "dangerous," Newberger stressed.

During a hearing in Nassau County in 2000, Gardner was called to testify about PAS. According to the transcript of the hearing - called to evaluate scientific evidence supporting the theory - Gardner offered this definition of PAS:

"The programming of the child by one parent into a campaign of denigration directed against the other."

"Courts cannot wait the 25 years or more that it would take to conduct such studies [to validate a syndrome]," Gardner told the court. " ... Neither can people who have been accused of sex abuse wait for these results."

The court ruled that there was not convincing scientific evidence that PAS was a psychiatric syndrome.

But it has endured - perhaps, said Silberg, the psychologist in Baltimore, because it is rare in family courts for lawyers or judges

"to question the expert testimony of a psychiatrist with a long list of seemingly impressive credentials and dozens of professional-looking books and journal articles."

PAS "is a defense lawyer's dream," said Richard Ducote, a New Orleans, La., lawyer who has spent a decade fighting Gardner and his supporters in court.

Last year, Norma Perez of Elgin, Ill., was suing for divorce and testified that she worried that her husband's history of alcoholism might endanger the welfare of her daughter during visits. Her husband's attorneys began to talk about parental alienation syndrome and hired Gardner, who eventually testified that Perez was a parental alienator.

"He never interviewed me or my daughter," said Perez, 44, who lost custody of her daughter and was not permitted to see her for eight weeks after the judge's ruling. She now gets to see her daughter every other weekend. Her lawyers have appealed the decision.

But fathers' rights activists see Gardner's theory as a boon.

"Richard Gardner gave science to the anecdotes of alienation," said Warren Farrell, author of "Father and Child Reunion" and a board member of the National Congress for Fathers and Children. He says that PAS "is an attempt to distinguish between false accusations and real abuse."

Farrell added that parental alienation itself is "probably the most insidious form of child abuse" and charged that many women allege abuse during a custody battle to curtail visitation with the father.

But others say that in many of these cases there are confirmed reports to back up the allegations of abuse. However, so many women have lost custody battles when PAS is used that lawyers are beginning to advise them not to make allegations of abuse, Silberg said.

Gardner's son, Andrew, said that his father's death came when he was at the height of his career, when he "had to turn down case after case."

His father had undergone three foot surgeries, the last of which triggered a disorder called reflex sympathetic dystrophy, which caused sharp pain in his legs. He was taking pain medications, Andrew Gardner said.

On the last weekend in May, his pain out of control, Gardner took an overdose to end his life. He sent an e-mail to his office about the suicide.

But he awoke from the drug stupor and killed himself with a knife, said his son, who added that the suicide had no connection to his father's work.

But that work - and that syndrome - has left hundreds of women questioning its value.

"We are exhausted," said Lauren Smith, 52, who lost custody of her daughter in 1993. She told the court that her husband, Marshall Krause, a criminal attorney in Marin County in California, had a violent temper. He used PAS to gain custody of their daughter, Alanna, and Smith was denied visitation.

In 1995, according to court records, a teacher reported to police that Krause physically abused Alanna at school. A court reversed custody upon evidence that Alanna's father had been physically violent.

Alanna, now a student at Northwestern University, has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit alleging that she suffered years of abuse at the hands of her father.

Idelle Clarke knows firsthand how damaging an untested theory can be. "Our children are his legacy," said Clarke, a Californian whose ex-husband was twice identified and charged as a child abuser by Children and Family Services. But Clarke was characterized as an alienator and lost custody to the father.

"What's a child to think?" she asked. "I will not give up."

The PAS label "has lived a lot longer than the data that supports it," added Alan Scheflin, a professor at Santa Clara University Law School. "I expect people to come up with crackpot theories. "But then I expect scientists to do their jobs."

           Parental Alienation Syndrome - What Professionals Need To Know Part 1

                                                                               by Erika Rivera Ragland1 & Hope Fields

Update - Volume 16, Number 6, 2003
Part 1 of 2

Introduction

The late Dr. Richard Gardner, a clinical professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, coined Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) in 1985, after noticing a “disorder” among patients within his private practice. The “disorder” involves one parent alienating the child against the other parent typically in the context of a child-custody dispute. Dr. Gardner defined PAS as follows:

[t]he parental alienation syndrome is a childhood disorder that arises almost exclusively in the context of child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent’s indoctrinations and the child’s own contributions to the vilification of the target parent. When true parental abuse and/or neglect is present, the child’s animosity may be justified and so the parental alienation syndrome explanation for the child’s hostility is not applicable.3

Absent from this definition is specific reference to sexual abuse allegations, but these are often the “denigration” to which Dr. Gardner referred in his definition. In this context, PAS becomes a litigation tool for the accused parent to discredit the validity of the child’s sex abuse allegations by mounting an attack against the “inducing parent.”

Although PAS may be hailed as a “syndrome” (a group of symptoms that occur together and constitute a recognizable abnormality), in fact it is the product of anecdotal evidence gathered from Dr. Gardner’s own practice.4 The purpose of this article is to briefly discuss the major premises upon which PAS is based, and to identify key weaknesses. Part 2 of this Update considers case law and strategies for meeting PAS defenses.

PAS is based primarily upon two notions, neither of which has a foundation in empirical research.

1. PAS Presupposes a High Rate of False Accusations in Custody Cases

The theory of PAS is based in part on the notion that, within custody disputes, there is a high incidence of false abuse allegations. Dr. Gardner theorized that allegations arising within the context of a custody dispute have a “high likelihood of being false,”5 and went so far as to state that he believed “the vast majority of allegations in this category [divorce cases with custody disputes] are false.” 6 To the contrary, the available research suggests that false allegation rates are not significantly high. For example, a 1990 study by Thoennes and Tjaden evaluated 9,000 divorces in 12 states7 and found that sexual abuse allegations were made in less than 2 percent of the contested divorces involving child custody. Within this group, it appears false allegations occurred in approximately 5% to 8% of cases.8 This study is one of the most comprehensive and least subject to bias and sampling problems, since its sample is so large and representative of the population of those divorcing with custody and visitation disputes.9

2. PAS Presumes a Disadvantage to Women in Child Custody Determinations

Another underlying principle of PAS is that women more often than men resort to making false allegations of abuse in disputed custody proceedings. The theory is that mothers encourage false accusations in order to obtain financial or strategic advantage during custody determinations. 10 The reasoning behind this theory seems to be that, in most jurisdictions, custody determination standards have changed from the “tender years” presumption—a standard which favored women obtaining custody of young children—to the “best interests of the child.”11

This hypothesis ignores the fact that most sex offenders are indeed men.12 It also fails to account for the possibility that the divorce process might liberate an abused child from the heavy burden associated with keeping a secret like sexual abuse,13 or that post-divorce living conditions or circumstances might render a child vulnerable to sexual abuse.14

Although the tender year’s presumption which favored women is largely gone, women are not disadvantaged under the new standard. The “best interests” standard removes gender presumptions altogether from custody determinations.15 It should be noted that some legal scholars suspect a gender bias within PAS theory itself.16

Other Weaknesses: Lack of Peer Review and Recognition by DSM-IV

Dr. Gardner mostly self-published and thus did not generally subject his theory to the peer review process.17 Moreover, PAS is not recognized by any professional associations,18 including the American Psychiatric Association. PAS is also not included within the DSM-IV.

It is also worth noting that Dr. Gardner often expressed disdain for child abuse professionals, labeling them “validators,” theorizing that greed and desire for increased business prompted some sexual abuse allegations, and speculating that parents and professionals alike made some false allegations because “all of us have some pedophilia within us.”19

Conclusion

At best, PAS is a nondiagnostic “syndrome” that only explains the behavior of the child and the mother when there is a known false allegation.20 It is a courtroom diagnosis befitting adversaries involved in legal sparring. It is not capable of lending itself to hard data or inclusion in the forthcoming DSM-V.

In short, PAS is an untested theory that, unchallenged, can have far-reaching consequences for children seeking protection and legal vindication in courts of law.

Prosecutors and other child abuse professionals should educate themselves, their colleagues and clients when
confronting PAS in the legal realm. Part 2 of this newsletter will address the case law on this subject. For more in-depth and comprehensive treatment of these issues, contact the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 Staff Attorney, American Prosecutors Research Institute, National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse.

2 Staff Attorney, American Prosecutors Research Institute, National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse.

3 Richard A. Gardner, M.D., “Does the DSM-IV Have Equivalents for the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) Diagnosis?” American Journal of Family Therapy, 31(1):1-21; also available, http://www.rgardner.com/refs/ar12.html.

4 Richard A. Gardner, M.D., The Parental Alienation Syndrome, at 59 (1992) (noting in the introduction of this book that he termed the disorder PAS after seeing children in his practice whom he believed were “brainwashed by one parent against the other”).

5 Gardner, 1991, p. 4.

6 See Kathleen Coulborn Faller, The Parental Alienation Syndrome: What is it and What Data Support it? Child Maltreatment, Vol. 3, No. 2, May 1998.

7 Thoennes & Tjaden, The Extent, Nature and Validity of Sexual Abuse Allegation in Custody/Visitation Disputes, Child Abuse and Neglect 1990, 14:151-163.

8 Id.

9 Kathleen Coulborn Faller, David L. Corwin & Erna Olafson, Literature Review: Research on False Allegations of Sexual Abuse in Divorce, APSAC Advisor 1993, 6(3), page 9.

10 Richard Gardner, M.D., The Parental Alienation Syndrome, p. 62, 1992.

11 Richard Gardner, M.D., The Parental Alienation Syndrome, p. 61-62, 1992.

12 Faller, Corwin & Olafson, supra note 9, at 10.

13 See Meredith Sherman Fahn, Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse in Custody Disputes: Getting to the Truth of the Matter, Family Law Quarterly, Vol. XXV, No. 2, Summer 1991, page 203 (quoting Sink, Studies of True and False Allegations: A Critical Review, Sexual Abuse Allegations in Custody and Visitation Cases 37, 38 (American Bar Association) (E. Nicholson ed. 1988)). For more information regarding the dynamics of sexual abuse, contact the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse for materials regarding Dr. Roland Summit’s “Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome.”

14 Id. See also Robin Fretwell Wilson, Children at Risk: The Sexual Exploitation of Female Children After Divorce, 86 Cornell L. Rev. 251, 262-263 (2001).

15 See Ex Parte Devine, 398 So.2d 686 (Ala. 1981) (discussing the origin of the tender years presumption and its constitutional infirmities; ultimately abandoning it in favor of the best interests of the child standard).

16 See, e.g., Cheri L. Wood, The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Dangerous Aura of Reliability, 27 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 1367, 1372-73 (1994); Kathleen Niggemyer, Comment, Conceiving the Lawyer as Creative Problem Solver: Parental Alienation Syndrome is Open Heart Surgery: It Needs More than a Band-Aid to Fix It, 34 Cal. W. L. Rev. 567, 576 (1998); Priscilla Read Chenoweth, Don’t Blame the Messenger in Child Sex Abuse Cases, N.J. L.J., April 19, 1993, at 17 (finding that “Gardner’s extravagant and conclusory language, and his obvious bias against women, should be enough to give any judge or lawyer pause before accepting his invitation to disbelieve and even punish the messenger [i.e., the parent reporting abuse by the other parent].” See also Marie Laing, For the Sake of the Children: Preventing Reckless New Laws, 16 Can. J. Fam. L. 229, 274 (1999) (concluding, “much of Gardner’s writing is strongly anti-woman. He states that the claims of women who refuse joint mediation due to violence are somewhere ‘between fabrication and delusion’”). For direct quotes from Dr. Gardner, refer to his 1992 book, The Parental Alienation Syndrome, p. 122.

17 See Cheri L. Wood, supra, note 16.

18 Id.

19 Gardner (1991), page 26. He wrote, “Each time the accusers make an accusation, they are likely to be forming an internal visual image of the sexual encounter. With each mental replay, the accusers gratify the desire to be engaging in the activities that the perpetrators are involved in in the visual imagery.” See also Faller, supra note 6, at 104-105.

20 See Faller, supra note 6, at 111.

More Ignorance On The Part Of Father's Rights

2010-06-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

Now if this isn't blatently based on Mr. Gardner's PAS, I dont know what is. If you would like to comment or read the truth of what this group truly maintains, check out this link below
                                             http://www.parentalalienationischildabuse.com/

How Removing a Dad's Love from His Child's Life

Through Parental Alienation Syndrome By "Malicious Mothers"

and Malicious Mothers Syndrome are Destroying Children's Lives

and Children's Hopes for a Normal Life

Abusive behaviors used by "mothers" lawyers and the Courts, and by anti-child "feminists" that abuse the Laws across this land in Divorce Related issues.

Simply having a vagina, two ovaries, one uterus, and two breasts no longer qualifies that person as the better parent for courts to automatically award her custody of the child/children of divorce.

Dad's are quite capable of providing the love, nurturing, care and support children of divorce need. Why is it that dad's still only get awarded primary custody in less than 20% of all divorces?

Why are our courts, attorney's and judges still living like we're in the 19th century through the "automatic" awarding of children to the "mother?"

These individuals have caused major psychological and emotional trauma on the innocent children of marriages that have ended in divorce, and prevent a loving Dad that wants to co-parent his child/children, but are prevented and thwarted due to the "evil" inflicted by an un-forgiving ex-wife and "mother" on their children.

Women have always been "automatically" awarded custody of children in divorce cases. They have their "equal rights."

When do the innocent children and loving dad's get "equal rights" and custody, and when are the courts going to wake up to the serious emotional and psychological harm that is being done to America's children of divorce, by these "malicious mothers"?

It's time for America to join the 21st century and for courts to start awarding custody to Dad's in at least 50% of all divorce cases where each parent is equally qualified, and STOP ending their discrimination against men and their children!

Divorce-Related

Malicious Mother Syndrome

by Ira Daniel Turket, PhD

With the increasing commonality of divorce involving children, a pattern of abnormal behavior has emerged that has received little attention. The present paper defines the Divorce Related Malicious Mother Syndrome. Specific criteria's are provided with abundant clinical examples. Given the lack of scientific data available on the disorder, issues of classification, etiology, treatment, and prevention appear ripe for investigation.

                                                      INTRODUCTION

A divorced man gains custody of his children and his ex-wife burns down his home. A woman in a custody battle buys a cat for her offspring because her divorcing husband is highly allergic to cats. A mother forces her children to sleep in a car to "prove" their father has bankrupted them. The actions illustrate a pattern of abnormal behavior that has emerged as the divorce rate involving children has grown.

Today, half of all marriages will end in divorce (Beal and Hochman, 1991). The number of children involved in divorce has grown dramatically (e.g., Hetherington and Arastah, 1988) as well. While the majority of such cases are "settled" from a legal perspective, outside the courtroom the battle continues.

The media have spent considerable effort raising public awareness about the problem posed by divorced fathers who do not provide court-ordered child support payments. Hodges (1991) has noted that less than 20 percent of divorced fathers provide child support payments three years after their divorce. Research on the decline of women’s economic status following (e.g., Hernandez, 1988; Laosa, 1988) has contributed to recent legislation to address the "Deadbeat Dad" problem.

While the media correctly portray the difficulties imposed upon women and children by the "Deadbeat Dad" phenomenon, the cameras have yet to capture the warfare waged by a select group of mothers against child support paying, law-abiding fathers. Everyday, attorneys and therapists are exposed to horror stories in which vicious behaviors are lodged against innocent fathers and children. Unfortunately, there are no scientific data on the subject. Similarly, the clinical literature has relatively ignored the problem..

A noted exception can be found in the clinical writings of Gardner (1987, 1989) who has provided excellent descriptions of the Parental Alienation Syndrome. Here, a custodial parent successfully engages in a variety of maneuvers to alienate the child from the non-residential parent. Once successfully manipulated, the child becomes "…preoccupied with deprecation and criticism of a parent-denigration that is unjustified and/or exaggerated" (Gardner, 1989 p. 226). In the typical case of Parental Alienation Syndrome, both mother and child engage in an array of abnormal actions against the father. Gardner views "brainwashing" as a concept "too narrow" (Gardner, 1989) to capture the psychological manipulation involved in turning a child against his/her non-residential parent.

While Gardner’s pioneering descriptions of the Parental Alienation Syndrome provide an important contribution to our understanding of divorce-related child-involved hostilities, the present paper is concerned with a more global abnormality. As noted in the examples provided in the beginning of this manuscript, serious attacks on divorcing husbands take place which are beyond merely manipulating the children. Further, these actions include a willingness by some mothers to violate societal law. Finally, there are mothers who persistently engage in malicious behaviors designed to alienate their offspring from the father, despite being unable to successfully cause alienation. In sum, these cases do not meet the criteria for Parental Alienation Syndrome. Nevertheless, they portray a serious abnormality.

The purpose of the present paper is to define and illustrate this more global abnormality with the hope of generating increased scientific and clinical investigation of this problem.

                                                             DEFINITION

The present section provides a beginning definition of the Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome, which has been derived from clinical and legal cases. As in all initial proposals, it is anticipated that future research will lead to greater refinement in the taxonomic criteria.

The proposed definition encompasses four major criteria, as follows:

1. A mother who unjustifiably punishes her divorcing or divorced husband by:

a. Attempting to alienate their mutual children from the father

b. Involving others in malicious actions against the father

c. Engaging in excessive litigation

2. The mother specifically attempts to deny her child(ren)

a. Regular uninterrupted visitation with the father

b. Uninhibited telephone access to the father

c. Paternal participation in the child(ren)’s school life and extracurricular activities

3. The pattern is pervasive and includes malicious acts towards the husband including:

a. Lying to the children

b. Lying to others

c. Violations of law

4. The disorder is not specifically due to another mental disorder, although a separate-mental disorder may co-exist.

                                             CLINICAL ILLUSTRATIONS

In this section, I will provide clinical illustrations for each criterion using the reference numbers provided above. As criteria 1-3 are behavior specific to the Malicious Mother Syndrome, I will provide a series of clinical examples. The fourth criterion which addresses the relationship of the proposed syndrome to other mental disorders, will be discussed more generally.

Parental Alienation

Is CHILD ABUSE!

www.ParentalAlienationIsChildAbuse.com

   Criterion 1A: Alienating the Children

The range of actions taken by a mother to attempt to alienate her children from their father is impressive. For example:

One mother lied to her children that she could no longer buy food because their father had spent all of their money on women in topless bars.

A doctor’s wife forced her 10-year-old son to apply for federally funded free school lunches to delude the boy that his "daddy has made us poor."

A woman who for years was very close to the children in a custody battle, was asked by their mother to give up neutrality and join her campaign against the father to "dance on his grave." When the friend refused to give up her neutrality, the mother falsely informed her children that their father was having an affair with this woman.

These behaviors, if successful, could lead a child to not only hate the father, but perhaps go years without seeing him. As Cartwright (1993) has noted: "The goal of the alienator is crystalline: to deprive the lost parent, not only of the child’s time, but of the time of childhood." (p.210).

    Criterion 1B: Involving Others in Malicious Actions

The second component of the first major criterion where the mother attempts to punish the husband, involves manipulating other individuals to engage in malicious acts against the father. Examples of this kind are as follows:

During a custody battle, a mother lied to a therapist about the father’s behavior. The therapist, having never spoken with the father, appeared as an "expert" witness to inform the Judge that the mother should be the primary residential parent and that the father needed to be in therapy.

One angry mother manipulated teenagers to leave anonymous threatening notes at the ex-husband’s home.

A mother who had lost legal custody of her children, manipulated a secretary at the child’s school to assist in kidnapping the child.

In the above examples, it is important to note that the person manipulated by the angry mother has, in a way, been "alienated" against the divorcing husband. Typically, the individual "duped" takes on a righteous indignation, contributing to a rewarding climate for the mother initiating malicious actions.

    Criterion 1C: Excessive Litigation

There is little question that either party in a divorce or custody proceeding is entitled to appropriate legal representation and action.

Individuals suffering from Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome, however, attempt to punish the divorcing husband by engaging in excessive litigation.

A belligerent and unreasonable mother verbally attacked her ex-husband whenever she saw him. Over time, his response was to ignore her. She then took him to court, asking the judge to require the ex-husband to talk with her.

One mother told a judge that her daughter was not really her divorcing husband’s child

One woman refused to stop attacking her ex-husband through the courts, despite numerous attorneys being fired or voluntarily leaving the case. Over a three-year period, seven different attorneys were utilized.

Data exist which can help in determining the range of excessive litigation. For example, Koel et al. (1988) report on the frequency of post-divorce litigation in a sample of 700 families. Their data indicate that only 12.7% of families file one post-divorce petition to the court, whereas less than 5 percent file two or more petitions (Koel et al. 1988); less than one percent file four or more petitions.

     Criterion 2A: Denying Regular Visitation

Experts are in relative agreement that regular and uninterrupted visitation with the non-residential parent is desirable and beneficial for children, except in extreme circumstances (Hodges, 1991). In fact, some states, such as Florida, have laws written to reflect this view (Keane, 1990). Unfortunately, even when the father and children have legal rights to visitation, individuals with Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome continue to interfere with it.

A mother who previously attacked her ex-husband physically during visitation transfers of the children, refused to provide the children when the ex-husband had the police attend to monitor exchanges.

When one divorced father arrived to pick up his children for visitation, the mother arranged for her and the children to be elsewhere so that the father could not visit with the children.

One mother had her physically intimidating boyfriend assault her ex-husband when he came to pick up his children for visitation.

The President of the Council for Children’s Rights (Washington, D.C.) notes that such alienation is considered a form of child abuse (Levy, 1992). Unfortunately, the police typically avoid involving themselves in such situations. Furthermore, unless a victimized father is financially capable of returning to court on an ongoing basis, there is little that can be done to prevent such mothers’ behavior. Finally, even when such cases are brought to trial, the courts are often inadequate in supporting fathers’ visitation rights. (Commission on Gender Bias in the Judicial System, 1992).

Given the physical absence of one parent, the telephone plays an important role in maintaining the bond between child and non-residential parent. Individuals suffering from Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome engage in an array of actions designed to circumvent telephone access.

A father called to speak to his children and was told that they were not at home when, in fact, he could hear their voices in the background.

When one father called to speak with his children, the mother put him on "hold," informed no one, and then left him on hold.

Knowing that the children’s father was away on vacation, one mother encouraged them to leave several messages on his answering machine to call back immediately only if he would like some additional visitation time with his children.

Some fathers find the alienation attempts so painful and fruitless that they eventually are extinguished from calling their children; they simply "give up." Placed in a no-win scenario, the father’s "abandonment" (Hodges, 1991) unfortunately achieves the precise result aimed for by the individual suffering from Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome.

        Criterion 2C: Denying Participation in Extra-Curricular Activities

An integral part of the process of maintaining one’s bond with one’s child is to participate in activities that one did before the parents separated. School plays, team sports, and religious events are just some of the type of activities of importance. Malicious Mothers frequently engage in maneuvers designed to prevent participation in these activities.

One father was deliberately given the wrong date and time for an important event for the child. The child was asked by the mother, "I wonder why your father didn’t want to come to see you today"?

One mother refused to provide the father with any information about any extra-curricular activities in which the children were engaged.

Prior to a child’s soccer game, one mother told many of the team parents disparaging falsehoods about the visiting father. When he came to watch his son’s soccer game, many of these parents looked at him with angry eyes, refused to talk with him, and walked away when he moved toward them.

Malicious Mothers who engage in such behaviors rarely have to face penalties for such actions. Judges, attorneys, and policemen cannot involve themselves in every instance of blocked paternal access. Furthermore, most fathers cannot afford the financial requirements involved. As such, the cycle of access interference perpetuates itself.

       Criterion 3A: Malicious Lying to the Children

Given their developmental status, children in a disputed divorce situation are quite vulnerable. When one parent decides to attack the other by lying to the children, examples of this type of malicious behavior may include some of the following:

One divorcing mother told her very young daughter that father was "not really" her father, even though he was.

An eight-year-old girl was forced by her mother to hand unpaid bills to her father when he visited because the mother had falsely told the daughter that the father had not provided any economic means of support to the family.

One mother falsely told her children that their father had repeatedly beat her up in the past.

These examples of malicious lying can be contrasted with the more subtle maneuvers typically seen in Parental Alienation Syndrome, such as "virtual allegations" (Cartwright, 1993). Here, the mother setting up a Parental Alienation Syndrome may hint that abuse may have occurred, whereas the individual suffering from Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome falsely claims that abuse has actually occurred.

         Criterion 3B: Malicious Lying to Others

Individuals suffering from Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome may engage a wide range of other individuals in their attacks upon the ex-husband. However, with this particular criterion, the individual with Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome specifically lies to other individuals in the belligerency against the father. Some examples include the following:

One furious mother called the president of the (1500 employee) workplace of her divorcing husband, claiming falsely that he was using business property for person gain and was abusing their mutual children at his work locale.

One woman falsely told state officials that her ex-husband was sexually abusing their daughter. The child was immediately taken away from him and his access to her was denied.

During the course of a custody dispute, one mother falsely informed the guardian, who was investigating the parenting skills of each parent, that the father had physically abused her.

Snyder (1986) has reported on the difficulty imposed upon legal authorities when confronted with someone who is an excellent liar. Consistent with research on the inability of "specialists" to detect lying (Ekman and O’Sullivan, 1991), a skilled fabricator can be a compelling witness in the courtroom (Snyder, 1986). While sometimes seen in borderline personalities, Snyder (1986) notes that pathological lying (Pseudologia Fantastica) is not restricted to that particular character disorder.

      Criterion 3C: Violating Law to Attack the Husband

Individuals suffering from Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome, have few, if any boundaries in their campaign against the divorcing husband. Violations of law are common in many cases, although the laws broken may be relatively minor. However, in some cases, the violations of law may be quite serious.

One woman deliberately drove her automobile into the house of the ex-husband where their mutual children resided.

In the midst of a custody battle, one woman broke into the residence of her divorcing husband and stole important business papers.

An angry divorcing mother called a Christian evangelical television station and pledged $1,000, giving the name, address and phone number of her divorcing Jewish husband as the pledge.

The above descriptions may remind the reader of certain personality disorders (e.g., antisocial, borderline, sadistic) but these behaviors may be demonstrated by individuals with Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome who do not appear to meet official diagnostic criteria for an Axis II disorder. Further, in each of the four examples provided above, none of the Malicious Mothers involved was sentenced for such behavior by a Judge.

     Criterion 4: Not Due to Another Disorder

In assessing the Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome, it is important to note that many of the above clinical examples seem to have occurred in individuals who had no prior mental disorder diagnosis or treatment. In fact, one mother who engaged in extreme maliciousness toward her divorcing husband had several mental health professionals testify that she was not suffering from any type of mental disorder.

In the author’s experience, for each mental disorder that might come to mind to account for some of this behavior, an exceptional case presents. For example, in some cases, an Adjustment Disorder might seem an appropriate diagnosis, yet one woman still denied her ex-husband visitation 10 years after the divorce. Other cases might suggest a possibility of a personality disorder diagnosis, yet one woman who repeatedly violated the law in attacking her ex-husband, received no personality disorder diagnosis despite being evaluated by masters level and doctoral level examiners. In some instances, Intermittent Explosive Disorder might be considered, yet the anger for many of the mothers does not appear to be intermittent.

Finally, the reader should appreciate that while diagnostic accuracy for certain psychiatric difficulties is not as good as one would like (e.g., the personality disorders, see Turkat, 1990), the problem is compounded in family law where incompetent mental health examiners sometimes become involved in the judicial process (Turk, 1993). Clearly, the relationship between Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome and other mental disorders is a complex one which requires significant investigation.

                                                             DISCUSSION

The above description of the Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome raises a variety of important clinical, legal and scientific issues.

From a clinical perspective, families that involve a Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome are subject to serious episodes of stress and distress. Yet, there is no scientific evidence on how to treat this phenomenon. It is particularly compromised by the fact that many of these cases that appear to meet the proposed diagnostic criteria deny that there is anything wrong with them.

An additional difficulty is that many therapists are unaware of this pattern of malicious behavior (Heinz and Heinz, 1993). As such, there are malicious therapists who are "fooled" by such cases and, as noted earlier, will come to court testifying that there is nothing wrong with the mother involved.

From a legal perspective, there are some attorneys who may unintentionally encourage this type of behavior (Gardner, 1989). On the other hand, there are some attorneys who deliberately encourage such behavior as the financial rewards for them are time dependent. In other words, the more involved the litigation process, the greater the profits for the attorney. (Grotman and Thomas, 1990). However, even for the subset of attorneys for whom this may be true, there is a point of diminishing returns. Furthermore, independent of economic considerations, many who become involved with family law courtrooms find that these types of cases are not handled well (Greif, 1985; Levy, 1992).

The woman who is not disturbed "enough" to lose custody of her children in the courtroom will not have money denied to her because she engages in this behavior; nor will she go to jail. Thus, many clients report significant frustration when they and their children are exposed to this type of behavior, and the courts seem to do little.

In a review of pertinent law literature on bias against men in family law proceedings, Tillitski (1992) concluded that there is widespread discrimination. This is well illustrated by one family law Judge’s statement that, "I ain’t never seen the calves follow the bulls, they always follow the cow; therefore, I always give custody to the mamas." (Commission on Gender Bias in the Judicial System, 1992, p. 741). Similarly, it is noted that visitation rights of fathers are not enforced as rigidly as are child support orders (Commission on Gender Bias in the Judicial System, 1992.) Such bias against men in family law proceedings results in a unique group of fathers who unintentionally become relatively helpless victims of the system (Tillitski, 1992). This situation would seem to reinforce much of the vicious behavior displayed by women suffering from Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome.

The issue of sex distribution of the disorder certainly needs to be addressed. The overwhelming majority of custodial parents are female (Commission on Gender Bias in the Judicial System, 1992). Gardner (1989) has noted that Parental Alienation Syndrome appears most commonly in females, although it is possible for a male who has custody of the children to engage in the same type of alienating behaviors. The author’s experience with Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome is similar to Gardner’s. However, the present writer has yet to see a case of a father engaging in all of the criteria listed. This does not mean that it is not possible for there to be a "Malicious Father" Syndrome. In fact, Shephard (1992) reports that there is significant abuse of some custodial mothers by non-residential fathers. On the other hand, it should be noted that there are females who are required to pay child support, but we have yet to hear about "Deadbeat Moms." Given at the present time that a case in which the father met all of the criteria for Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome has yet to be documented, it appears advisable to await scientific evidence to guide issues of nosologic labeling.

How prevalent is the Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome? The answer is unknown. Gardner (1989) reports that approximately 90 percent of all custody battles involve some aspects of parental alienation. Further, Kressel (1985) reviewed data indicating that up to 40 percent of maternal custodians denied visitation to the ex-husband in order to punish him. Relatedly, Arditti (1992) reported that 50 percent of a sample of divorce fathers (N=125) indicated that visitation was interfered with by the mother. While aspects of parental alienation may be common, it is highly unlikely that such a percentage of maternal custodians would meet all of the criteria for Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome.

In regard to incidence, it would appear through the title of this syndrome that the malicious behavior is precipitated by the divorce process. However, this is clearly an empirical question. While the malicious actions may first be noted during a divorce process, it is possible that maliciousness may have been present earlier but undetected. Research on pre-divorce parental conflict (Enos and Handal, 986) supports this speculation. Relatedly, it may also be that there are some cases of pre-existing mental disorder that have not been discovered until the stress of the divorce itself unfolds.

Finally, it should be noted that research on the nature of post-divorce family functioning is beginning to emerge. Some data exist on the role of parental conflict in children’s post divorce functioning (e.g. Frost and Pakiz, 1990; Furstenberg et al., 1987; Healy, Malley and Steward, 1990; Kudek, 1988), but studies have yet to appear on the more extreme cases of Parental Alienation Syndrome and Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome.

The Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome represents an important societal phenomenon. The disorder affects children, parents, attorneys, judges, guardians, mental health professionals and others. Until this phenomenon is explored more thoroughly in the scientific and clinical literature, the problems imposed by individuals suffering from Divorce-Related Malicious Mother Syndrome will continue to plague us. Hopefully, the present manuscript will stimulate research so that clinical and legal management guidelines can be developed.

                                          REFERENCES

Arditti, J.A. (1992). Factors relating to custody, visitation and child support for divorce fathers: An exploratory analysis. J. Div. Remarr. 17:23-42.

Beal, E.W., and Hockman, D. (1991). Adult Children of Divorce, Delacorte Press, New York. Cart wright, D.F. (1993). Expanding the parameters of parental alienation syndrome. Am. J. Fam. Ther. 21:205-215.

Commission on Gender Bias in the Judicial System. (1992). Gender and justice in the courts: A report to the Supreme Court of Georgia. Georgia State Univ. Law Rev. 8:539-807.

Ekman, P., and O’Sullivan, M. (1991). Who can catch a liar? American Psychologist, 46: 913-920.

Enos, D.M., and Handal, P.J. (1986). The relation of parental marital status and perceived family conflict to adjustment in white adolescents. J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 54:820-824.

Frost, A.K., and Pakiz, B. (1990). The effects of marital disruption on adolescence: Time as a dynamic. Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 60:544-555.

Furstenberg, F.F., Morgan, S.P., and Allison, P.D. (1987). Paternal participation and children’s well being after marital dissolution. Am. Sociological Rev. 52:695-701.

Gardner, R.A. (1987), The Parental Alienation Syndrome and the Differentiation between Fabricated and Genuine Child Sex Abuse, Creative Therapeutics, Cresskill, N.J.

Gardner, R.A. (1989). Family Evaluation in Child Custody Mediation, Arbitration and Litigation, Creative Therapeutics, Cresskill, N.J.

Greif, G.L. (1985). Single Fathers, Lexington Books, Lexington, MA.

Grutman, R., and Thomas, B. (1990). Lawyers and thieves, Simon & Shuster, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

Healy, J.M., Malley, J.E., and Stewart, A.J. (1990). Children and their fathers after parental separation. Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 60: 531-543.

Hetherington, E.N., and Arasteh, J.D. (eta.) (1988). Impact of Divorce, Single Parenting and Step-Parenting on Children, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, N.J.

Heinz, H.R., and Heinz, S.A. (1993). Emotional incest: The tragedy of divorcing families. Am. J. Fam. Law 7:169-174.

Hernandez, D.J. (1988). The demographics of divorce and remarriage. In Hetherington, E.M., and Arasteh, J.D. (eta.), Impact of Divorce, Single Parenting, and Step-Parenting on Children, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, N.J., pp. 3-22.

Hodges, W.F. (1991). Interventions for Children of Divorce, (second edition), Wiley, New York.

Keane, G. (1990). Florida Divorce Handbook, Pineapple Press, Sarasota, FL.

Koel, A., Clark, S.C., Phear, W.P., and Hauser, B.B. (1988). A comparison of joint and sole legal custody agreements. In Hetherington, E.M., and Arasteh, J.D. (eta.), Impact of Divorce, Single Parenting, and Step-Parenting on Children, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, N.J., pp. 73-90.

Kressel, K. (1985). The Process of Divorce, Basic Books, New York.

Kurdek, L. (1988). Custodial mothers’ perceptions of visitation and payment of child support by non-custodial fathers in families with low and high levels of pre-separation interparental conflict. J. Appl Devel. Psychol. 9: 315-328.

Laos a, L.N. (1988). Ethnicity and single parenting in the United States. In Hetherington, E.M., and Arasteh, J.D. (eta.), Impact of Divorce, Single Parenting and Step-Parenting on Children, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, N.J., pp. 23-49.

Shepard, N. (1992). Child-visiting and domestic abuse. Child Welf. 71:357-367.

Snyder, S. (1986). Pseudologia Fantastica in the borderline patient. Am. J. Psychiatry 143:1287-1289.

Tillitski C.J. (1992). Fathers and child custody: Issues, trends and implications for counseling. J. Ment. Health Counsel. 14:351-361.

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Turkat, I.D. (1993). Questioning the mental health experts’ custody report. Am. J. Fam. Law 7:175-179

They Still Havent Found Her Body

2010-06-10T19:21:00.000-07:00

RIP Carrie, Gone, But Never Forgotten.

Another Woman Who Lost Her Life To Marital Violence

2010-06-08T17:44:00.000-07:00

May 10, 2009

Letters left by abused woman foretold her death at husband's hands
'If something happens to me ...'
By Mike LaBella

If something happens to me within the next 7 days, please make sure you look into my death. My husband has threatened me with a gun on several occasions, even pointing it at me in front of our children."'
That is how a letter written by Ellen Abruzzese begins. It is dated Sept. 17, 2007, and was discovered in her car after the Haverhill High graduate was shot to death last month by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself, police said.
For years, relatives and friends of Abruzzese had their suspicions about her husband. He allowed her little contact with them after the Abruzzeses and their children moved to Virginia in 1998. They suspected he listened in on her phone calls.
Police discovered he installed an elaborate device that secretly videotaped her activities in their home when he was not there. He berated their children one moment and lavished gifts on them the next.

He kept guns in their home.
The worst fears of Ellen Abruzzese's relatives and friends became reality on April 20, when her husband took both of their lives.
Family and friends say that from the beginning of their marriage 20 years ago, William Abruzzese, 58, formerly of Worcester, controlled Ellen (McCarthy) Abruzzese's life. Ellen Abruzzese's brother James McCarthy, 50, a longtime resident of Haverhill and now of Andover, said he and other members of their family are telling their sister's story in hopes other families will recognize the signs of marital abuse and help their loved ones escape such a life.
McCarthy plans to start an organization that will work with other groups in the region to help abused women — encouraging them to break free and informing their friends and families of how to spot an abusive relationship and how to find help.

They always wondered
Her license plate displayed the letters "IMWNNG".
Whenever James McCarthy talks about it, he breaks out in tears.
His little sister Ellen Abruzzese, 42, a member of the Haverhill High Class of 1984, was a breast cancer survivor. She proudly displayed the license plate on her car after beating the disease and continuing the life she had built in Henrico County, a suburb of Richmond, Va, with her husband and their four children — two boys, ages 10 and 20, and two girls, ages 17 and 18.
There, she was a respected secretary in the public School Department, a devoted mother and loyal friend. Her husband taught students with behavioral problems in their homes and worked part time as a mortician.
But problems lurked in the background that McCarthy, members of his extended family and his sister's childhood friends had long suspected.
While a student at Haverhill High, Ellen McCarthy dreamed of marrying and raising a family. But that dream was put on hold for a while after graduation.
After a year or so working at a bank in Haverhill, she attended Plymouth State College for one semester then joined the Army Reserves, with the intention of getting an education.
She was just 19 when she met William Abruzzese, a reserve officer who was 15 years older than her.
"She found him charming," said her mother, Joan McCarthy of Bradford. "The next thing I knew she was pregnant and they were getting married."
They were married on May 7, 1988, said McCarthy's childhood friend, Deb Rogers-Thornton of Plaistow, N.H. She said that when she first met William Abruzzese, she found him to be "rude and obnoxious."
She said he also displayed odd behavior, such as precisely lining up the kitchen silverware and setting the kitchen chairs in a particular position to line up with the flooring.
James McCarthy said his two other sisters didn't like Abruzzese and urged their sister not to get married. Ann (McCarthy) Costa of Paris, Maine, saw the early warning signs when visiting her sister Ellen while the Abruzzeses lived in Marlborough.
"He was studying to be a mortician and had lost his teaching job in Everett after having an improper relationship with a student," Costa said, adding she was worried because he kept a gun in their home.
"He told Ellen he had the gun because the child's father had threatened him," Costa said, referring to the father of the child with whom William Abruzzese supposedly had the relationship.
Costa said William Abruzzese was demeaning when he spoke, that he never asked but instead ordered, and displayed signs of "very obsessive compulsive behavior."
"We tried to tell her, but she'd say he's her best friend, her soul mate," Costa said. "She didn't want to admit she had chosen the wrong guy."
Then came the signs of him keeping his wife at a distance from her family.
Packages and mail Costa sent to her sister were never received.
"Whenever they went anywhere, he always had a post office box, and they always had an unlisted phone," Costa said. "We became estranged from her, and I'm sure that's what he wanted.

Keeping her to himself
A year or two after having their first child, the Abruzzeses moved to Florida.
"He wanted to keep Ellen away from her family," said Joan McCarthy.
It was during a visit to Florida that she sensed there was something wrong with her daughter's husband.
"I remember getting up in the morning, and he was screaming at her and she was crying," McCarthy said. "I asked her about it, but she didn't want to talk about it. She pretended to be happy and didn't want me to know anything."
A line from Ellen Abruzzese's letter that was discovered after her death reads: "He has put me down over and over again — also in front of the children. Nothing I have ever done has ever been good enough for him."
Joan McCarthy said William Abruzzese was loud and bossy, and did mean things to his young son.
"He'd threaten to hit him. Then he'd laugh about it, thinking he was being funny," she said.
Window blinds had to remain closed, or else William Abruzzese would go "crazy," James McCarthy said. "He had his own little refrigerator in the kitchen, and if anyone touched it he'd go into a tirade."
When the Abruzzeses moved from Florida to Virginia, sometime around 1998, Rogers-Thornton kept in touch with her friend Ellen by phone and e-mail. During their weekly talks she would often ask how things were between Ellen and her husband.
"She'd say it's OK, or things are good, or that he's being a jerk," Rogers-Thornton said. "Ellen portrayed her life in as positive a light as she could. It is amazing that in her situation she was able to touch as many lives as positively as she did," she said, referring to co-workers and others describing Ellen as a person who was supportive and pleasant to be around, despite her downtrodden home life.

Always his way
William Abruzzese controlled the household finances, would not allow his wife to have a credit card or her own checking account, and often used money as a form of control over his wife, family members said.
James McCarthy said he recently learned that whenever his sister planned a trip home, her husband would come up with some excuse why she could not go.
"Whatever he wanted he bought, but whatever my sister needed she had to buy," McCarthy said. "Her friends told me that when they questioned my sister as to her husband's behaviors, she would tell them that 'his bark is bigger than his bite.'"
"She kept her troubles from her friends in Virginia, and especially from her family," he said.
William Abruzzese manipulated his wife by dumping more of the household bills on her, said Rogers-Thornton.
"Ellen told me that he'd say things like, 'You want cable? You want the kids to have cable? Then you pay for it,'" she said.
Another line from Ellen Abruzzese's letter reads: "He uses the kids as he used me. He dangles money over them just as he did me."
He also kept close tabs on her, often appearing without notice at her workplace in the School Department offices, or at the house of a friend she was visiting, friends and relatives said.
"Bill had 21 years to build his wall of control, and looking back, it is easy to see how he slowly put everything together, how he secluded her more and more," Rogers-Thornton said. "Over time his methods became her 'normal.' She was making strides to get away from him as the children were getting older and the break would have been easier. Unfortunately time was not on her side."
Friends suspected William Abruzzese was listening in to his wife's phone conversations. James McCarthy said friends often heard clicking in the background as Ellen talked with them on her home phone.
"Sometimes you can just tell when someone else picks up the line," he said. "They got really good at changing the subject fast."
It went far beyond that, said Henrico County Police Investigator Thomas Holsinger.
"We discovered that in 2006, he (William Abruzzese) mounted a camera system in the house so he could monitor his wife," Holsinger said. "It was triggered by a motion detector and was connected to a VHS recorder in a closet."
Holsinger said Abruzzese also kept at least three guns in his house — one rifle and two handguns, one of which was a .357 magnum.

Things fall apart
On Tuesday, April 14, William Abruzzese pleaded no contest to charges that between August 2007 and February 2008 he had submitted fraudulent work vouchers to the Henrico County school system amounting to about $6,000.
Prosecutor Paul Cushman said Abruzzese had forged the names of parents whose children he taught at their homes, or was supposed to be teaching, and that a complaint by one of those parents led to an investigation. William Abruzzese was indicted on Jan. 14 of this year on three felony charges of forgery of public documents. After his no-contest plea, essentially a guilty plea, he was to be sentenced on June 12.
Cushman said his sentence could have ranged anywhere from probation to 30 years in a state prison, plus fines.
On Thursday, April 16, Ellen Abruzzese called her friend Rogers-Thornton to say she had spoken to a lawyer and would be filing paperwork seeking a divorce and custody of the children.
"She sent me a text saying his plan was to kill himself if he was going to jail," Rogers-Thornton said.
"She called me again on April 18 to wish me happy birthday," Rogers-Thornton said. "I asked her if Bill knew of her plans (for divorce) and she whispered that she could not talk because he was there. It was our last conversation."
Rogers-Thornton said William Abruzzese was facing a kind of "perfect storm."
"He was getting weaker, she was getting stronger and the kids were getting older."
Ann Costa and her sister Jane McCarthy said Abruzzese was determined to "control every aspect of their sister's life, from the minute they met, and never let her go."

Her final day
On Monday, April 20, around 6 a.m., Ellen Abruzzese had finished serving breakfast to two of her children.
She went upstairs to get ready for work. Then came a loud crash — "like glass frames falling off the wall," said Holsinger, the Henrico County police officer.
James McCarthy said three of his sister Ellen's children — the 10-year-old son and his 17- and 18-year-old sisters — ran upstairs. They found their parents dead in the master bathroom.
One of the children called 911 and the others ran next door to their neighbor, who was a police officer.
Police recovered a .357-caliber magnum from the scene.
Although the investigation has not concluded, Holsinger said the evidence all points to one thing.
"He did kill her and he took his own life," he said of William Abruzzese. "There is nothing to indicate it would not be that."
That morning, the permit to carry a weapon that William Abruzzese had obtained in June 2007 arrived by mail at the prosecutor's office. Abruzzese sent it as part of the requirement of his conviction in court.
James McCarthy, along with his two brothers and two sisters, later attended services for their sister.
He said she and her husband were both cremated. But at the request of their oldest daughter, their urns were placed in different rooms at the funeral home."Quite frankly, we wanted it that way anyway," he said.

An expert's viewpoint
The murder of Ellen Abruzzese is the kind of tragedy that has become all too familiar to Suzanne Dubus, executive director of the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center in Newburyport
She said statistics paint a disturbing picture. Less than 20 percent of domestic abuse is reported to police and 87 percent of the victims are women. Like other women in an abusive relationship, Ellen Abruzzese did not report her situation to anyone, likely because she feared her husband's reaction.
"One of the things is, the batterer has power over his victim," Dubus said. "It's easy looking in from the outside, but when you're stuck in this kind of relationship for a long time, when he says you're going to lose the kids, she has no reason to doubt he has that kind of authority and strength. It's only when they begin to tell their story that it becomes real."James McCarthy is now on a mission to form an organization called the Hugs Unlimited Foundation Inc. Its goal is to support victims and their families, from encouraging them to recognize abuse to giving them ways to deal with it.
McCarthy said he hopes to work with other organizations in the region that help abused women."I'm dedicated to providing education about domestic violence, battered women syndrome, low self-esteem and the effect of domestic violence on children," he said. "We need to offer the proper support to women so they have choices that allow them to leave their abuser. And we need to recognize the signs of an abusive relationship so we can be proactive and intervene in liberating the victim."
Dubus said it would be a powerful thing for men who have this as a cause and a mission to come together and tell their stories to other men."For so long women have fought this fight," she said. "It can't just be women."
Join the discussion. To comment on stories and see what others are saying, log on to: eagletribune.com.

These quotes were taken from a letter written by Ellen (McCarthy) Abruzzese chronicling her married life. The letter was discovered after her death.
"When I had the children I was not allowed (except minimal) contact with my family."
"If I threatened to leave he (would) take a part from the car so that it would not run."
"He refused to participate in any of the children's school activities."
"Only in the last year did he even acknowledge the kids' birthday — because he could buy them more expensive gifts that I — and he loved to show them I could not. He has always used money as a weapon."
"He uses the kids as he used me. He dangles money over them just as he did me."

A second letter written by Ellen (McCarthy) Abruzzese was discovered after her death. It was written to her family and friends and described what she learned over her 20-year relationship with her husband:
Never allow anyone total control over your life.
Never allow anyone to call you by profane names that some men call women.
Never allow anyone to request sexual favors before you are allowed to attend a loved one's funeral.
Never allow someone who claims to love you to bully you or to threaten you, or to refuse to pay household bills when you get a raise, even though they make much more money than you do.

This is just one of thousands of stories like this. I picked up this article because it hit a nerve with me. I had been subjected to almost all of these behaviors. At the time i thought that it was my paranoia.(his term) Men who abuse are not acting as they do because they love you or want to feel secure, men who abuse behave this way because it is a learned and accepted form of power and control. I remember one woman i knew saying " I wish my husband was jealous like that". I remember thinking, "lady careful what you wish for". There are lots of things abusers do that are not always blatantly abusive. Many women, including myself don't see the abuse until it escalates to a point where it is physically violent. This i found for myself at least,began when i started to catch on to the not so obvious things, and began to try to take back control of my own life. People always say the same things, why don't you just leave? Why did you get with a man like that, if he was abusing you? Well here are some answers. First usually you cant just leave, yes there are shelters and numbers and hot lines and police and counselors and clergy and the such, but rarely are you in a place safe enough, or alone enough to make calls. If you do make calls it is usually impossible to truly follow through. In my case, i was threatened from the start, that if i left he would take my children from me. If i called the police he would make them see i was the one out of control. If i humiliated him again, i would die. There is always something that has occurred to the victim, that makes it very clear he can and will do it, and not only that,but get away with it. Abusers are skilled in crazy making activities,They are excellent at making the victim look either, crazy or just being vindictive. Women are prey and these men are skilled at the hunt. They know exactly what to look for and whom will be the best hunt. You are seen as a thing, a possession, belonging to them and no one else, and to lose that would be war. They put on an all line offensive, cutting off any and all contact to those that may be truly able to help. And lastly understand that they are masters of deception. As to why i would be with someone like that, They never treat you badly until they have you tangled in their web. They are usually everything you always wanted. And if you had bad relations as a child, they usually seem to make up for the damage inflicted by others. That is where it all begins. So, in my opinion it is very necessary to begin educating our children at a very early age. Teaching self esteem. self control, kindness, honesty and above all, that we are separate beings, here for our own lessons and that controlling an other's life is not love. That jealousy is not love, that control and abuse are dangerous. And above all else men and women are not to be treated as different people,one to do woman's work and one to be the man. Equality among the sexes and mutual respect are necessities. This is the only first step we can take to change the consciousness of what Domestic Violence really is.

The Bottom Line

2010-06-07T19:25:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, I begin my journey here starting with this blog. I intend to use this spot as a place to provide research, articles and opinions about what is currently going on with our fight against Domestic Violence and Family court. I feel that the majority of Americans know, or have known, someone who has been a victim. I also know that there is much violence going on out there under the cover of fear. Americans have a responsibility as a nation to see to it that Violence against women and children stop.
This is one of the biggest, wealthiest countries in the world. We are also one of the luckiest. This nation is capable of taking care of most of the world, and in times of crisis, Americans, hands down come through. And this my reader is why i know that America is capable of bringing about change, to the laws and courts and judiciary outcomes.
Women in this country and their children are abused every day. Now i know there are men who are battered, and their are men who have been stripped of their dignity, pride and their children. (I know a few) But the bottom line is that women and children suffer at the hands of men 9 out of 10 times. Women and children are beaten ,assaulted, thrown , hit, choked and murdered every day. If this country had a 9/11 for them it would cause a world war. The victims are countless and rarely made public. That is why i am choosing to be a voice for change. I know that some wont like me. And they are entitled to feel as they wish. But this women, has made it her life's goal to do everything in my power, to stop the Power and Control called Domestic Violence. Wake up America it is happening, next door, across the street, maybe even in your own home. I believe that women should be loved and respected for what they are. Women, The bringers of life, the nurturing hand and heart.The person who can always make you feel okay. with a simple word of I Love You, or a hug. Women are beings that deserve to be heard,respected and rev eared. So America, Readers. Welcome to my page. A Mothers Rage. Working to stop the toleration of court sanctioned abuse against women and children. Please feel free to ask questions, join the fight or leave a comment. Alexandra Lovechild

This song is Snuff by slipknott. This song is owned by this group. Thank You for Your generous allowance for the use of your song.