So let me go on to the law professor. Now, Carol Bruch, in UC Davis, if anyone has been to UC Davis you know that its out there in the middle of a rather smelly area of California where all the cows are, and its kind of flat and hot and boring, so they dont have a whole lot to do out there and they think up things like Carol Bruch thinks up. Now Bruch, who apparently has no background in science whatsoever, wrote that Gardner coined the term, Parental Alienation Syndrome, in 1985; in order to describe his clinical impressions of cases he believed involved false allegations of child sexual abuse. Ok, well lets look at what Gardner said about that in 1985. He said, I have introduced the term PAS to refer to a disturbance in which children are obsessed with deprecation and criticism of a parent. Denigration that is unjustified and/or exaggerated. Hmmm. Ok, so lets change what we say Gardner actually said, and well start our review that way. So Bruch goes on to imply that Gardner believed that sexual abuse allegations in divorce cases were automatically false. Of course, thats not what he said. And then she implies that Gardner automatically assumes evidence of false allegations when a custodial parent thats claiming abuse seeks professional help or validation. Of course thats not what he said either. And she implies that Johnstons research on less troubled children can be used to refute Gardners observations on far more contentious cases. Hmm. That doesnt seem to work either. And then she claims that Parental Alienation is being admitted into courts so that kids will be placed with abusive parents. Well gee that wasnt, I mean Gardner was a child psychiatrist who worked for decades to try to help little children improve their lives. That doesnt seem to work either.
Now to justify many of her opinions about whats going on with Gardner, Bruch refers, as any nonscientist would, to the research performed by one Ms. Karen Winter. And if we look closely at the research, of course the research was a newspaper article, not a peer review journal like the one, the esteemed journal that Dr. Sauber edits, but a newspaper as her source for the scientific reliability of her opinion. She cites a newspaper, a nonscientist article by a nonscientist Karen Winter. Now it turns out that Karen, the investigative reporter, is a stringer. In other words, she sends stuff in to be and to, you know, to get paid for, and sometimes not paid, to be published and shes not really a paid reporter at all. But she is, she did a study that was commissioned by the California Protective Parents Association. Ok, if you examine who the Protective Parents Association is, you see that its a bunch of folks who are on the wrong side of a custody decision in the California court and get really angry about it and form an association. Of course, if you look further at Karen Winter, this research, that law Professor Bruch, whos a nonscientist, cites to, you see that Karen has a website, and Karens website describes how to debunk Parental Alienation Syndrome, so the charming thing about Professor Bruch is, people rely upon her work without any real investigation into what it is that shes actually relying upon.
First, shes got no education in science; secondly she has no present ability to evaluate scientific claims. I dont think shed understand the difference between construct validity and inter-rater reliability if her life depended upon it, and she certainly cites to sources that Dr. Sauber would laugh at her and throw her paper in the trash. I dont think hed even bother to write her a Thanks but no thanks, letter, hed probably be laughing so hard if she tried to submit an article to his journal. So thats a second detractor in the quality of her work.
Then we have my favorite from the University of Michigan, Kathleen Faller. Now, the University of Michigan is sort of like the Berkeley of the Midwest United States, you know, if you shake any tree, out will fall two radicals and a therapist. Well Kathleen Faller, and this is a wonderful picture of her, she doesnt look like that, this is not a good picture of me, I dont look this bad, I look better than this, and, but Dr. Faller, she has a doctoral degree in social work and social psychology, they put it together in an interesting program at the University of Michigan. Well, shes the director of the family assessment clinic at the University of Michigan, or at least she was when they were still letting her play with real people. And she trained social workers as to what to do, and Dr. Faller published several things about how Dr. Gardner was incorrect about child sexual abuse and about Parental Alienation and so on and so forth. So lets take a look at Fallers actual work.