Legal disputes involving the care and custody of minor children
Task force study public hearing (2014 transcript)
esq: dr. miller did you submit your written testimony?
dr. steven miller: yes i did
well my name is steven miller, i'm a physician in massachussets. i have a special interest in clinical reasoning and medical decision making which in the past 10 or 20 years has been extended into how mental health professionals reason and make decisions, and also extended into the issue of alienation and estrangement. so i think i'm here in part today because i counsel parents also because i wrote a chapter of a book which i will read you, i don't make a penny off this, working with children and families a clinical guide book and my chapter is on reasoning and decision making. in cases of either strong child alignment including severe alienation or severe estrangement. i'm a medical educator. i've directed several hundred courses for contuniing education on clinical reasoning, and i hope in the short time i'm here i can take a 2 day course and condense it into 3 minutes and maybe shed a little light on how these cases go wrong. siting here listening to the other cases, it's clear there's an epidemic. the afcc 4 years ago held a several day conference, international conference devoted exclusively to parental alienation. so when national organizations are devoting several days to have speakers from numerous countries come in an speak about it. you can be sure it's a serious problem. so getting more specific, if there was time i would comment some of the good things that previous witnesses commented about but also a couple of logical fallacies i heard and a couple of inaccuracies including the idea that parental alienation syndrome, and i never use the word syndrome, but including the idea that it's invalid or that it has been discredited, i'm an evidence based medicine expert, that is untenable. it is unequivocably a phenomenon called it whatever you like. so i mean that in a constructive way. i believe it's a syndrome, i just don't use the term to avoid the controversy. i also think what i'd hope to do is bring a scientific view here as some other people have done. i think it's important to distinguish between science and a belief system. one of the previous witnesses expressed the view that co-parenting has never been shown to be better than having individual custody. that's a logical fallacy, it's called an argument from ignorance. she made 2 other logical fallacies in a period of 3 minutes, and i don't mean that as a criticism. these are very common misconceptions. and finally i'll introduce this if i may steal another minute or two. i'm asked all the time, how could this happen? we have the best psychologist i know. guardian ad litem… and the answer is we have a complex medical situation and there's been no medical input. and i don't mean to imply that you need a psychiatrist, what you need is a sub specialist in alienation and estrangement who see this all of the time. not the best psychologist in the world who rarely sees it. and so very briefly, the short answer to this question, how does this happen? is this field is highly counter intuitive to anyone who doesn't have extensive training and experience dealing with it. they, most people will usually get it wrong. when i say people i mean attorneys, psychologists, other mental health experts. the majority of the time they will not only get the case and the evaluation and recommendation wrong. they will get it exactly backwards… (times up)
question from co-chair sharon wicks dornfeld… what can be done about it?
… i think there's a problem with credentials (evaluators, investigators) … but my perspective is that there's a lack of expertise here, even the well intentioned people who want to do the right thing, are way over their heads, senior forensic psychologists, way over their heads in this type of a situation...
7:00
fundamental attribution error 17:40
an attribution error mean that you look at some behavior and you assign what you think is the cause for it… the reason it is calle the fund attar error… we are hard wired to make it…. it is hard to override it. you confuse something that is situational for something that is characterlogical dispositional. in an alienation case. the alienating parent… with .99 certainty has a severe personality disorder. they are either borderline, sociopath, a narcissist, or all three… a mistake that almost everyone will make.. if you see an angry man, you think it's his character, in general, he is an angry man. never mind that the reason that he is angry that someone just stole his car or wallet. we're hardwired to stay away from that guy. so if the anger is situational then it's an error. the relevance to us, is when an interviewer sees a severe case of alienation, the alienating parent is cool calm and collected. he or she is probably a borderline sociopath or narcissist or all three, and is a master manipulator, has learned to convincingly mimic normal behavior and presents very well. saying, oh yes i encourage the childs relationship with his father or his mother. by contrast the targeted parent has ptsd, has not seen the child in god knows how long, maybe years, has been told he's the one who's the problem and comes in all intense, all angry, and stressed out.
you have to ask how severe is this? what is the parent's capacity to co-parent. if you are dealing with an extreme right sided continuum where you have a severe obsessed alienator, the kids are severely alienated… you want to maintain contact, but you must reverse custody. i don't know any expert that believes that you can treat that while they still live with the alienating parent. but that is a minority of the cases. in most cases, you are dealing with more middle of the road situation, i think the court has to step in and enforce the parenting plan, and have consequences when it's violated. and you're doing the child a favor… just to conclude this, what experts don't understand is in severe cases, reunification therapy never ever works. it is a fool's errand. there is no recorded case ever in the literature of anyone taking a severe alienator, i'm talking mom hasn't seen the child in three years, dad is not going to change. and you have to recognize that is what you are dealing with. but once you recognize that's what you are dealing with, most judges don't want to reverse custody, i get it, i wouldn't want to either. so once you are really sure this is what you are dealing with, then the appropriate thing is to reverse custody. there are 2 programs in the country, i should say north america… there are 2 places, one in canada run by kathleen ray and another in texas run by richard roushack, give them four day with the kid, and the kid returns to the rejected parent, happy as a clam to have been reunited, but they require a change in custody and no contact with the alienating parent for 90 days. other than that there is no hope for a severe case. don't even think of doing it with office therapy…
question from jennifer verraneault
…there's a lot of money being made on behalf of this industry that is thinking that you're going to be able to reunify the children with the alienated parent. the court system they don't even know about all of this stuff, and they're doing this, and there's mental health professionals who are naive to think that they can do it. they can't. so, what's the solution? 27:10
reverse custody
(search engine tags - linda gottlieb, parental alienation, alienator, joint parental responsibility model, hong kong child custody, judge sharon melloy, judge bruno , sole custody, hk law reform, family law, lynette levy bandeira, ms. lam, child custody and access on 7 March 2005, HKLRC Report, international child abduction, court fraud)
Task force study public hearing (2014 transcript)
esq: dr. miller did you submit your written testimony?
dr. steven miller: yes i did
well my name is steven miller, i'm a physician in massachussets. i have a special interest in clinical reasoning and medical decision making which in the past 10 or 20 years has been extended into how mental health professionals reason and make decisions, and also extended into the issue of alienation and estrangement. so i think i'm here in part today because i counsel parents also because i wrote a chapter of a book which i will read you, i don't make a penny off this, working with children and families a clinical guide book and my chapter is on reasoning and decision making. in cases of either strong child alignment including severe alienation or severe estrangement. i'm a medical educator. i've directed several hundred courses for contuniing education on clinical reasoning, and i hope in the short time i'm here i can take a 2 day course and condense it into 3 minutes and maybe shed a little light on how these cases go wrong. siting here listening to the other cases, it's clear there's an epidemic. the afcc 4 years ago held a several day conference, international conference devoted exclusively to parental alienation. so when national organizations are devoting several days to have speakers from numerous countries come in an speak about it. you can be sure it's a serious problem. so getting more specific, if there was time i would comment some of the good things that previous witnesses commented about but also a couple of logical fallacies i heard and a couple of inaccuracies including the idea that parental alienation syndrome, and i never use the word syndrome, but including the idea that it's invalid or that it has been discredited, i'm an evidence based medicine expert, that is untenable. it is unequivocably a phenomenon called it whatever you like. so i mean that in a constructive way. i believe it's a syndrome, i just don't use the term to avoid the controversy. i also think what i'd hope to do is bring a scientific view here as some other people have done. i think it's important to distinguish between science and a belief system. one of the previous witnesses expressed the view that co-parenting has never been shown to be better than having individual custody. that's a logical fallacy, it's called an argument from ignorance. she made 2 other logical fallacies in a period of 3 minutes, and i don't mean that as a criticism. these are very common misconceptions. and finally i'll introduce this if i may steal another minute or two. i'm asked all the time, how could this happen? we have the best psychologist i know. guardian ad litem… and the answer is we have a complex medical situation and there's been no medical input. and i don't mean to imply that you need a psychiatrist, what you need is a sub specialist in alienation and estrangement who see this all of the time. not the best psychologist in the world who rarely sees it. and so very briefly, the short answer to this question, how does this happen? is this field is highly counter intuitive to anyone who doesn't have extensive training and experience dealing with it. they, most people will usually get it wrong. when i say people i mean attorneys, psychologists, other mental health experts. the majority of the time they will not only get the case and the evaluation and recommendation wrong. they will get it exactly backwards… (times up)
question from co-chair sharon wicks dornfeld… what can be done about it?
… i think there's a problem with credentials (evaluators, investigators) … but my perspective is that there's a lack of expertise here, even the well intentioned people who want to do the right thing, are way over their heads, senior forensic psychologists, way over their heads in this type of a situation...
7:00
fundamental attribution error 17:40
an attribution error mean that you look at some behavior and you assign what you think is the cause for it… the reason it is calle the fund attar error… we are hard wired to make it…. it is hard to override it. you confuse something that is situational for something that is characterlogical dispositional. in an alienation case. the alienating parent… with .99 certainty has a severe personality disorder. they are either borderline, sociopath, a narcissist, or all three… a mistake that almost everyone will make.. if you see an angry man, you think it's his character, in general, he is an angry man. never mind that the reason that he is angry that someone just stole his car or wallet. we're hardwired to stay away from that guy. so if the anger is situational then it's an error. the relevance to us, is when an interviewer sees a severe case of alienation, the alienating parent is cool calm and collected. he or she is probably a borderline sociopath or narcissist or all three, and is a master manipulator, has learned to convincingly mimic normal behavior and presents very well. saying, oh yes i encourage the childs relationship with his father or his mother. by contrast the targeted parent has ptsd, has not seen the child in god knows how long, maybe years, has been told he's the one who's the problem and comes in all intense, all angry, and stressed out.
you have to ask how severe is this? what is the parent's capacity to co-parent. if you are dealing with an extreme right sided continuum where you have a severe obsessed alienator, the kids are severely alienated… you want to maintain contact, but you must reverse custody. i don't know any expert that believes that you can treat that while they still live with the alienating parent. but that is a minority of the cases. in most cases, you are dealing with more middle of the road situation, i think the court has to step in and enforce the parenting plan, and have consequences when it's violated. and you're doing the child a favor… just to conclude this, what experts don't understand is in severe cases, reunification therapy never ever works. it is a fool's errand. there is no recorded case ever in the literature of anyone taking a severe alienator, i'm talking mom hasn't seen the child in three years, dad is not going to change. and you have to recognize that is what you are dealing with. but once you recognize that's what you are dealing with, most judges don't want to reverse custody, i get it, i wouldn't want to either. so once you are really sure this is what you are dealing with, then the appropriate thing is to reverse custody. there are 2 programs in the country, i should say north america… there are 2 places, one in canada run by kathleen ray and another in texas run by richard roushack, give them four day with the kid, and the kid returns to the rejected parent, happy as a clam to have been reunited, but they require a change in custody and no contact with the alienating parent for 90 days. other than that there is no hope for a severe case. don't even think of doing it with office therapy…
question from jennifer verraneault
…there's a lot of money being made on behalf of this industry that is thinking that you're going to be able to reunify the children with the alienated parent. the court system they don't even know about all of this stuff, and they're doing this, and there's mental health professionals who are naive to think that they can do it. they can't. so, what's the solution? 27:10
reverse custody
(search engine tags - linda gottlieb, parental alienation, alienator, joint parental responsibility model, hong kong child custody, judge sharon melloy, judge bruno , sole custody, hk law reform, family law, lynette levy bandeira, ms. lam, child custody and access on 7 March 2005, HKLRC Report, international child abduction, court fraud)
