The Medea Complex and the Parental Alienation Syndrome

[Major Nikon]

68. If you want to see how the smear campaign works, read this

PBS produced a documentary entitled, Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories. This was a one-sided smear campaign against PAS which was so bad, PBS pulled it. A quick google search revealed countless feminists and women's advocacy organizations which promoted it (and still do), even after PBS concluded it was bullshit. One has to wonder just how just the cause of PAS opponents are when they have to engage in a willful campaign of lies in order to counter it.

The PBS Ombudsman report on this is quite telling.

Prior to the broadcast, Connecticut Public TV released a statement from the producers:

"When we began this project over a year ago, our goal was to produce a documentary about domestic violence and children. We had no preconceived notions about the issue...no specific agenda to prove or disprove. The finished documentary is simply a result of where countless hours of extensive research and interviews took us."

The documentary never mentions that 60% of domestic violence against children is perpetrated by women.

The experts provided by Lasseur/Tatge debunk PAS as "junk science." At one point the film states that PAS "has been thoroughly debunked by the American Psychological Association." Contacted for verification by a number of critics and viewers, the APA's communications director stated:

"The American Psychological Association does not have an official position on parental alienation syndrome -- pro or con."

Perhaps the most incendiary statement in the documentary, and the one that drew the most fire from critics, came from a custody lawyer for mothers:

"For the father to win custody of the kids over and against the mother's will is the ultimate victory short of killing the kids."

"Despite the film's claims, research shows that parental alienation is a common facet of divorce or separation. For example, a longitudinal study published by the American Bar Association in 2003 followed 700 "high conflict" divorce cases over a 12-year period and found that elements of PAS were present in the vast majority of them."

Another instance that prompted objections was the case of Dr. Scott Loeliger whom the film depicts as an abusive father. Loeliger charges that the show producers ignored extensive court filings, records and testimony that demonstrate conclusively that it was his ex-wife, not he, who abused their two daughters. He notes that his ex-wife was found liable in juvenile court for eight counts of child abuse, including physical abuse, and thus lost custody of the children.

Loeliger claims he gave this documentation to the show producers 6 months before the program aired, but he was ignored. In the documentary, the mother and daughter give poignant, even heartbreaking testimony. But is it true? Or is it a product of parental alienation syndrome? Among the press critics of Breaking the Silence was Glenn Sacks, whose column on the subject was headlined: "PBS Portrays Known Child Abuser as Hero."

My conclusion after viewing and reviewing the program and checking various web sites cited by critics is that there is no hint of balance in Breaking the Silence. The father's point of view is ignored as are new strategies for lessening the damage to children in custody battles. There is no mention of the collaborative law movement in which parents and lawyers come to terms without involving the court, nor of the new joint custody living arrangements.

The producers apparently do not subscribe to the idea that an argument can be made more convincing by giving the other side a fair presentation. To be sure, one comes away from viewing the program with the feeling that custody fights are a special hell, legally, emotionally, psychologically. But this broadcast is so slanted as to raise suspicions that either the family courts of America have gone crazy or there must be another side to the story.

Lots more here:

http://www.cpb.org/ombudsman/display.php?id=10