Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/12258
Record ID: 5bba746e-3831-4711-afb2-122042ccbd48
Full metadata record
DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorHoult, Jenniferen
dc.date.accessioned2022-06-30T22:58:43Z-
dc.date.available2022-06-30T22:58:43Z-
dc.date.issued2006en
dc.identifier.citation26 (1), Spring 2006en
dc.identifier.issn0278-7210en
dc.identifier.urihttps://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/12258-
dc.languageenen
dc.publisherLoyola University Chicagoen
dc.subjectFamily lawen
dc.subjectLegal issuesen
dc.subjectImpact on children and young peopleen
dc.subjectTheories of violenceen
dc.subjectParentingen
dc.subjectChild protectionen
dc.titleThe evidentiary admissibility of parental alienation syndrome: science, law and policyen
dc.title.alternativeChildren's Legal Rights Journalen
dc.typeJournal Articleen
dc.identifier.catalogid1031en
dc.identifier.urlhttp://www.leadershipcouncil.org/docs/Hoult.pdfen
dc.subject.keywordnew_recorden
dc.subject.keywordJournal article/research paperen
dc.subject.keywordInternationalen
dc.description.notesThis article presents the first detailed US analysis of the science, law and policy issues in the evidentiary admissibility of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). It examines precedent-relevant decisions in the US and law review articles on PAS in the past 20 years. It finds that US precedent holds PAS inadmissible and the majority of legal scholarship sees it negatively. It analyses PAS’s admissibility under the standards defined by leading US cases with regard to its scientific validity, reliability and finds that PAS remains inadmissible under those standards. It provides a critique of PAS, including that: it is not a medical syndrome; its aetiology is legal rather than medical; its diagnosis is based on third-party symptoms; it pathologises women’s exercise of legal rights; its treatment is legal coercion, not medical; its treatment violates medical and legal duties of care; its error rate is unacceptably high; it tautologically presumes pathology; it tautologically presumes parental programming; its diagnostic criteria are ambiguous and undefined; its lack of inter-rater reliability testing to confirm its existence; and peer-review has not shown its reliability or validity. The writings of PAS’s author, child psychiatrist Richard Gardner, involving the 23 peer-reviewed articles and 50 legal decisions which he cited in support of his claims, are analysed. It finds that those materials do not support either PAS’s existence or its legal admissibility. It further discusses the policy implications arising from the admissibility of PAS through the origin of PAS in Gardner’s theory of human sexuality, a theory which views adult-child sexual contact as benign and beneficial to the reproduction of the species, which mirrors pro-paedophilia advocacy by not treating paedophilia and incest as child abuse. It concludes that science, law and policy all do not support the admissibility of PAS. A list of relevant cases by US jurisdictions and a list of relevant law review articles are attached in the Appendix.en
dc.identifier.sourceChildren's Legal Rights Journalen
dc.date.entered2006-08-31en
dc.publisher.placeSchool of Lawen
Appears in Collections:Journal Articles

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat  
Hoult.pdfHoult.pdf794.19 kBAdobe PDFThumbnail
View/Open


Items in ANROWS library are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Google Media

Google ScholarTM

Who's citing