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Swim, swim and die at the beach': family court and perpetrator induced trauma (CPIT) experiences of mothers in Brazil
Abstract
Gender-based violence (GBV) and Domestic Violence (DV) are prevalent in Brazil. There are growing concerns globally regarding the weaponisation of the pseudo-concept ‘Parental Alienation’ (PA) in the family courts against women. Additionally, a lack of understanding of mothers’ family court and health-related experiences indicated a need to explore this topic further. A qualitative study was conducted with thirteen mothers who are victims of Domestic Violence and have been accused of PA. Mothers reported a range of harmful health experiences, delineated here under the conceptual framework of Court and Perpetrator Induced Trauma (CPIT). Six themes are presented, which encapsulate a range of harmful actions, behaviours and circumstances (ABCs) that surround these mothers and their responses to these ABCs. Multiple physical health conditions were reported as associated with family court proceedings. This included maternity problems, musculoskeletal, autoimmune,
and respiratory conditions and a broad range of mental
health implications including suicide and other trauma responses.
Human rights violations, the weaponisation of ‘Parental Alienation’
and inherently misogynistic and oppressive justice systems in Brazil were also reported. Urgent measures and further research are now needed to investigate causal links between harm to health and the family courts and to strengthen human rights protection for women and child victims in Brazil and beyond.
... 7 This recommendation to stop using it follows the fifth plan to mobilize and combat all forms of violence against women and the action taken by Senator Laurence Rossignol, who was Minister at the time. Recent international research shows the consequences of its use in family courts: it hinders the consideration of situations of violence (Meier, 2020;Birchall & Choudhry, 2022;Dalgarno et al., 2024). ...
In France, at the end of the 1990s, the concept of “parental alienation” appeared in court decisions relating to parental separations and became part of the discursive repertoire of family law. This article sets out to show the consequences of this concept’s use. A multi-method study (textual analysis of the press, quantitative and qualitative analysis of case law, analysis of promoters' strategies, interviews with mothers) is used to analyse these uses. Discourses on the “rights” of fathers and false accusations of incestuous sexual violence provide fertile ground for the spread of the concept. It is not possible to distinguish “parental alienation” from domestic abuse, due to the scientific invalidity and ideological nature of the associated criteria, and the fact that it remains faithful to Richard Gardner's controversial approach. Analysis of sociological interviews with women accused of “parental alienation” shows that their maternal strategies of protection against their ex-partner's coercive control are interpreted as parental alienation. They are likely to lose the children's residence, and live under the threat of losing it. This institutional violence is the result, on one side, of confusion between the interests or protection of the child and co-parenting and, on the other side, of the concealment of post-separation conjugal violence.
Objective: When mothers who have survived intimate partner violence separate from their partners, they often turn to family court for help with a range of issues from division of assets to child custody arrangements. Often, however, they face ongoing legal abuse when abusive partners use court processes to further enact coercive control and judicial betrayal, when judges fail to prevent such harms and/or add to the mistreatment. Although both processes may undermine survivors’ mental health, existing research on this topic is limited and no known research has explored the relationship between the two constructs. To address this gap, we explored the direct association between legal abuse and mental health, as well as the possible mediating role of judicial betrayal. Method: In a sample of 218 family law-involved survivor-mothers who responded to a survey, we explored the relationship between legal abuse and mental health and the mediating role of judicial betrayal in that relationship. Results: Legal abuse was related to elevated symptoms of both posttraumatic stress disorder and depression even after controlling for prior psychological, physical and sexual abuse, and demographic variables. Further, associations between legal abuse and mental health were mediated by one of the two dimensions of judicial betrayal (Missing the Abuse), though not by the other (Mistreating the Survivor). Conclusion: Findings highlight the profound damage associated with legal abuse, especially when it is mediated by judicial betrayal. They underscore the key role that judges can play in protecting survivor-mothers’ mental health in family court.
The historical evolution of social and legal conceptions of gender based domestic violence in France are the dynamic traces of how social practice, as well as social representations, formed and transformed. However, numerous studies show that the current incident-based conceptions of domestic violence are far from the victims’ experiences, and only partially effective in detecting, criminalising and preventing domestic violence. Understanding the global process by which perpetrators subordinate the victims, mostly women and children, by progressively depriving them of their human rights and liberties, led to a contemporary conceptualisation of domestic violence as coercive control (Stark, 2007). Recognising the roots of domestic violence in gender inequality, far from reducing it to some individual, psychological issues, this human-rights based conception of domestic violence is much closer to the victims’ experiences, has led to legal innovation in the ways in which several countries understand, criminalise and prevent domestic violence, and could be at the core of emerging social representations of domestic violence.
Introduction: Feminicide is considered the maximum expression of gender violence. Brazil is among the countries with the highest rate of feminicide in the world. Between 2001 and 2011, more than 50,000 feminicide were recorded in Brazil, an average of 5,000 cases per year. Objective: To analyze the characteristics and evolution of feminicide rates in Brazil. Method: Ecological study of temporal series with secondary data obtained from the Mortality Information System of the Ministry of Health. We estimate feminicide rates for 2015-2019. The cases of feminicide were analyzed for the following outcomes: type of instrument used by the aggressor, age and race of the woman, and events that preceded feminicide. All analyzes were performed using the Stata 15.1 statistical software. Study is exempt from authorization from the Research Ethics Committee according to resolution 510/2016 of the National Health Council. Results: The absolute number of femicides increased between 2015 and 2019, as well as their participation among the external causes of death of women. We observed probable underreporting of feminicide of transsexual and lesbian women, with 76 cases reported between 2014 and 2017. In 2019, we observed that 60.6% of assaults against women occur in the victim's home, with 36.0% of cases on weekends. The instruments of aggression involved firearms (50.0%), piercing or blunt or blunt instruments (34.0%), and hanging or suffocation (6.0%). Physical abuse, sexual violence, neglect, abandonment, mental cruelty and torture were identified in 14.0% of deaths. Conclusion: Feminicide rates in Brazil are increasing, with probable underreporting of cases among black, transsexual and lesbian women.
Context factors (e.g. a family’s developmental crisis) can affect the child custody decision-making process and the child’s best interests after parental separation. But what are these context factors, and how can they vary across different cultures and legal systems? This paper reports a cross-cultural qualitative study funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Education and was carried out under a Naturalistic Decision-making approach. This study addresses context factors that impact the decision-making of experienced legal actors working in child custody cases. Interviews were conducted with 73 legal actors (judges, prosecutors, lawyers, psychologists, and social workers) in Brazil and England. The data gathered were analysed employing a reflexive thematic analysis that generated seven themes addressing how uncertainty is structured by context factors in child custody cases after parental separation. The themes generated encompassed three domains (‘family’, ‘family court’, and ‘legal-psychosocial’) that draw attention to the sources of uncertainty in child custody cases, especially to the role of contextual players (family and children) in the child custody decision-making process.
Background
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a recognised risk factor for psychiatric disorders. There is little current evidence on IPV and self-harm and suicidality, and we therefore aimed to investigate the associations between experience of lifetime and past-year IPV with suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, and self-harm in the past year.
Methods
We analysed the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, a cross-sectional survey of 7058 adults (aged ≥16 years) in England, which used a multistage random probability sampling design and involved face-to-face interviews. Participants were asked about experience of physical violence and sexual, economic, and emotional abuse from a current or former partner, and about suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, and self-harm. Other adversities were recorded through an adapted version of the List of Threatening Experiences. Multivariable logistic regression models quantified associations between different indicators of lifetime and past-year IPV, with past-year non-suicidal self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts. All analyses were weighted.
Findings
Using weighted percentages, we found that a fifth (21·4%) of 7058 adults reported lifetime experience of IPV, and that 27·2% of women and 15·3% of men had experienced IPV. Among women, 19·6% had ever experienced emotional IPV, 18·7% physical IPV, 8·5% economic IPV, and 3·7% sexual IPV, which was higher than in men (8·6%, 9·3%, 3·6%, and 0·3%, respectively). Findings for ethnicity were unclear. Lifetime prevalence of IPV was higher in those living in rented accommodation or deprived neighbourhoods. Among people who had attempted suicide in the past year, 49·7% had ever experienced IPV and 23·1% had experienced IPV in the past year (including 34·8% of women and 9·4% of men). After adjusting for demographics, socioeconomics, and lifetime experience of adversities, the odds ratio of a past-year suicide attempt were 2·82 (95% CI 1·54–5·17) times higher in those who have ever experienced IPV, compared with those who had not. Fully adjusted odds ratios for past-year self-harm (2·20, 95% CI 1·37–3·53) and suicidal thoughts (1·85, 1·39–2·46) were also raised in those who had ever experienced IPV.
Interpretation
IPV is common in England, especially among women, and is strongly associated with self-harm and suicidality. People presenting to services in suicidal distress or after self-harm should be asked about IPV. Interventions designed to reduce the prevalence and duration of IPV might protect and improve the lives of people at risk of self-harm and suicide.
Funding
UK Prevention Research Partnership.
Aim
To report an analysis of the concept of post‐separation abuse and its impact on the health of children and adult survivors.
Design
Concept analysis.
Data Sources
A literature search was conducted via PubMed, Cochrane and Embase and identified articles published from 1987 to 2021.
Methods
Walker and Avant's (2019) eight stage methodology was used for this concept analysis, including identifying the concept, determining the purpose of analysis, identifying uses of the concept, defining attributes, identifying a model case and contrary case, antecedents and consequences and defining empirical referents.
Results
Post‐separation abuse can be defined as the ongoing, willful pattern of intimidation of a former intimate partner including legal abuse, economic abuse, threats and endangerment to children, isolation and discrediting and harassment and stalking. An analysis of literature identified essential attributes including fear and intimidation; domination, power and control; intrusion and entrapment; omnipresence; and manipulation of systems. Antecedents to post‐separation abuse include patriarchal norms, physical separation, children, spatiality and availability, pre‐separation IPV and coercive control and perpetrator characteristics. Consequences include lethality, adverse health consequences, institutional violence and betrayal, such as loss of child custody and economic deprivation.
Conclusion
This concept analysis provides a significant contribution to the literature because it advances the science for understanding the phenomenon of post‐separation abuse. It will aid in developing risk assessment tools and interventions to improve standards of care for adult and children survivors following separation from an abusive partner.
Impact
This concept analysis of post‐separation abuse provides a comprehensive insight into the phenomenon and a theoretical foundation to inform instrument development, future research and intervention. Post‐separation abuse is a complex, multi‐faceted phenomenon that requires differential social, legal and healthcare systems responses to support the health and well‐being of survivors and their children.
The theory of parental alienation—which asserts that children who reject one parent are brainwashed by the other parent—has often been used to punish caring mothers and grant custody to dangerous fathers. The legal community’s quick infatuation with this concept has sparked fiery debates between its proponents and domestic violence scholars. My research contributes to this urgent conversation by shedding new light on the role of domestic violence in parental alienation cases.
I observe how series of cases involving the same family deal with the issue of domestic violence. This method reveals a worrisome “disappearing act”: as families repeatedly interact with the justice system, domestic violence tends to leave the picture. The result? A distortion: most women accused of parental alienation are victims of conjugal violence, yet the jurisprudence barely addresses this issue. The disappearance of domestic violence creates the impression that it is the exception, rather than the norm, in parental alienation cases.
I draw five lessons from the Quebec jurisprudence:
1) The prevalence of domestic violence in parental alienation cases is higher than we think;
2) This is because domestic violence, alleged or proven at first instance, is often ignored on appeal;
3) Domestic violence should instead be given centre stage in parental alienation cases;
4) Considering parental alienation while ignoring domestic violence is a form of bias against women;
5) Stating that the parental alienation framework applies unless there is domestic violence does not protect victims of undisclosed violence.
The concept of parental alienation is dangerous for victims of family violence; thus, scholars suggest that when intimate partner violence is proven, the parental alienation framework should not apply. This caveat is not enough. My study challenges the conventional belief that domestic violence can be treated as a mere exception to parental alienation, calling for legal actors to reconsider the role of parental alienation in custody disputes.
Although prior research has established that intimate partner violence (IPV) often leads to increased depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), little is known about how often abusive partners and ex-partners use survivors’ children as an abuse tactic, nor whether this form of IPV also is detrimental to survivors’ mental health. The current study interviewed 299 unstably housed survivors of intimate partner violence shortly after they sought services from a domestic violence agency. All participants were parents of minor children. In-person interviews asked about abuse experienced in the prior six months, including the ways children were used as a form of IPV. Participants were also asked about their current depression, anxiety, and symptoms of PTSD. As hypothesized, the majority of parents reported their abusive partners and ex-partners had used their children as a form of IPV to control and hurt them. Further, after controlling for other forms of IPV, use of the children significantly predicted both increased anxiety and greater number of PTSD symptoms. Results show the importance of focusing on the use of children as a common and injurious form of abuse used against survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV).
This article analyzes rhetorical strategies that are often used to legitimize classifying children's parent rejection as “alienation,” conceived as a mental disorder or diagnosis. Use of evaluative labels or diagnoses instead of descriptions of behavioral functioning is problematic in child custody evaluations. We address Distorted Claims of consensus, Alienation Labeling, Renaming, Proof by Assertion, Misrepresenting Endorsement by Authorities, Reduction Ad Absurdum, and Ad Personam Attacks. Rhetoric distracts from the evidence and observable behaviors required to accurately classify mistreated/alienated children and protective/alienating parents. It creates an ideology that obfuscates the absence of and need for scientific validity studies; reliable prevalence data; non‐conclusory assessment of parent–child relationship quality; empirical evidence testing the coaching hypothesis; and valid, objective evaluations of treatment programs. The article concludes with suggestions to improve dialogue between scholars in order to advance research and custody evaluations.
This article explores the emergence and development of parental alienation (PA) in England and Wales. It considers the background into which PA first appeared in private law proceedings concerning children in England and Wales, and examines how it progressed in the case law through the changing political and discursive context of private family law from 2000 to the end of March 2019. A clear pattern emerged of, initially, parental alienation syndrome and subsequently PA being raised in family proceedings and in political and popular arenas in response to concerns about and measures to address domestic abuse. The case law revealed a high incidence of domestic abuse perpetrated by parents (principally fathers) who were claiming that the resident parents (principally mothers) had alienated the children against them, which raises questions about the purpose of PA. More recently, a PA ‘industry’ appears to have amassed comprising experts, therapists and lawyers, advocating transfers of children’s care from ‘alienating’ mothers to non-resident fathers, as well as PA therapy for children and parents. While PA has had a chequered history and is not without its critics, it has become part of the discursive repertoire of current family law, with increasingly harsh consequences for women and children.
Family court and abuse professionals have long been polarized over the use of parental alienation claims to discredit a mother alleging the father has been abusive or is unsafe for the children. This paper reports the findings from an empirical study of ten years U.S. of cases involving abuse and alienation claims. The findings confirm that mothers’ claims of abuse, especially child physical or sexual abuse, increase their risk of losing custody, and that fathers’ cross-claims of alienation virtually double that risk. Alienation’s impact is gender-specific; fathers alleging mothers are abusive are not similarly undermined when mothers cross-claim alienation. In non-abuse cases, however, the data suggest that alienation has a more gender-neutral impact. These nuanced findings may help abuse and alienation professionals find some common ground.
In contested child custody cases, controversy exists as to family court professionals’ attitudes regarding parental alienation (PA). Prior research shows that U.S. family court professionals are more likely to believe a case involves PA when a mother claims the father is abusing their child than when a father makes the same allegation. Critics of PA believe that statutorily recognizing PA could encourage professionals to further discredit reports of maltreatment, particularly reports by mothers, as alienation. Comparing family court professionals’ views in Brazil (where PA is statutorily recognized) and the United States (where PA is not statutorily recognized) permits study of the possible relations between formal recognition of PA and case recommendations. Brazilian and U.S. family court professionals (N = 365) read three scenarios varying in the inclusion or exclusion of allegations of parental hostility or allegations of child maltreatment. For each scenario, the alienating parent’s gender was experimentally varied between subjects. Participants rated the likelihood of each case involving PA and the appropriateness of three potential case recommendations. Analyses revealed significant differences between Brazilian and U.S. professionals: In the scenarios involving allegations of parental hostility and sexual abuse, Brazilian (relative to U.S. professionals) rated parents as more alienating but endorsed referring cases of maltreatment to child protective services at a lower rate. Participants also differed in their case recommendations depending on the gender of the alienating parent. Implications for laws, family court professionals’ evaluations, and children’s rights to protection in family court matters are discussed.
This article presents findings and recommendations based on an in-depth examination of records from 27 custody cases from across the United States. The goal of this case series was to determine why family courts may place children with a parent that the child alleges abused them rather than with the nonoffending parent. We focused on “turned around cases” involving allegations of child abuse that were at first viewed as false and later judged to be valid. The average time a child spent in the court ordered custody of an abusive parent was 3.2 years. In all cases we uncovered the father was the abusive parent and the mother sought to protect their child. Results revealed that initially courts were highly suspicious of mothers' motives for being concerned with abuse. These mothers were often treated poorly and two-thirds of the mothers were pathologized by the court for advocating for the safety of their children. Judges who initially ordered children into custody or visitation with abusive parents relied mainly on reports by custody evaluators and guardians ad litem who mistakenly accused mothers of attempting to alienate their children from the father or having coached the child to falsely report abuse. As a result, 59% of perpetrators were given sole custody and the rest were given joint custody or unsupervised visitation. After failing to be protected in the first custody determination, 88% of children reported new incidents of abuse. The abuse often became increasingly severe and the children's mental and physical health frequently deteriorated. The main reason that cases turned around was because protective parents were able to present compelling evidence of the abuse and back the evidence up with reports by mental health professionals who had specific expertise in child abuse rather than merely custody assessment.
Despite widespread rejection of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), some custody evaluators use the presence of its components to invalidate abuse allegations and blame the preferred parent. Although PAS supporters claim that the elements of PAS are unique to Parental Alienation (PA) and can, therefore, be used to diagnose it, no scientific study has yet demonstrated this. Reanalysis of Gardner’s data, and our current knowledge of children, indicate that the elements of PAS are not unique to PA. Many PA/PAS advocates approach custody cases assuming that when children reject parents, it is probably the result of a denigration campaign by the preferred parent. Confirmation bias then leads the evaluator to spin, value, and vet information so that it support their expected conclusion. Children’s avoidance of significant visitation with a parent is often driven by a desire to remain with their primary attachment figure, rather than a rejection of the other parent. Forcing visitation and cutting the children’s time with the primary attachment figure leads to rejection of that parent, rather than solving it. The article suggests a method of scientifically assessing if a child’s rejection of a parent is due to PA, affinity, or justified rejection.
Jupe, L., & Denault, V. (2019). Science or pseudoscience? A distinction that matters for police officers, lawyers and judges. Psychiatry, Psychology, and Law, 26(5), 753-765. doi: 10.1080/13218719.2019.1618755
This qualitative descriptive study examines the perspectives of 19 mothers who survived intimate partner violence (IPV) and sought custody of one or more children through the family court system. We explored these mothers’ perceptions of the nature of court processes from start to finish, their understandings of the impact of court processes and outcomes on their well-being, and their recommendations for improvements to facilitate a process that is sensitive to survivors’ experiences with IPV. Mothers interviewed in this study described an experience that was largely invalidating and distressing, compounding the adverse effects of IPV on their well-being. Qualitative content analysis yielded six clusters: 1) survivors must enter into a court environment that implicitly presumes the absence of trauma, 2) survivors face obstacles to getting their stories of abuse across and heard, 3) survivors experience harmful and helpful interactions with court professionals, 4) survivors endure distress in the courtroom, 5) survivors suffer psychosocial consequences outside of the courtroom, and 6) survivors make recommendations for an improved custody process that is sensitive to experiences of IPV. Results paint a picture of a family court system that has the potential to cause grave, lasting harms to survivor-mothers who are separating from abusive partners.
The term harassment is often used to refer two contexts, the workplace and school, but not the legal system itself. Long drawn-out litigation in the Family Law Courts often produces a surreptitious phenomenon of violence toward one of the litigating parties, who become victims of the legal system itself. The aim of this study was to determine whether legal harassment could be detected and measured in the Spanish Justice System using an innovative Legal Harassment Scale (LHS). This hypothesis was substantiated by the data obtained using a new 32-item psychometric instrument with a global index: the LHS, consisting of four factors: Direct Aggression, Procedural Harassment, Personal Contempt, and Manipulation of Reality. The estimated reliability and validity of the LHS was satisfactory, both in terms of the global score, and for each of the four factors distributed along the normal curve. The results of this study are discussed in terms of the limitations of the study and in relation to future lines of research aimed at ensuring that the legal system respects and safeguards the rights of the parties involved in litigation, and that no party falls victim to legal harassment.
This article contributes to the growing body of literature on the methods and techniques that might be used to help ensure the cultural integrity and rigor of research that has a cross-cultural dimension. Drawing upon our experiences while conducting a study investigating patient safety concerns in Bhutan, we will reflect on how the study was conceptualized and framed around the elements of the Bhutanese traditional cultural values; how the researchers were positioned; and how the intercultural perceptions, representations, languages, and attitudes influenced the fieldwork processes. It is anticipated that the approach described in this article will help qualitative researchers to understand how important it is to recognize and be responsive to the cultural and linguistic nuances of given research settings to achieve cultural integrity.
This paper adds to our understandings of women’s post-separation experiences of coercive control through the introduction of a new concept—custody stalking. It is defined as a malevolent course of conduct involving fathers’ use of custody and/or child protection proceedings to overturn historic patterns of care for children. The experience of custody stalking is explored through three composite narratives derived from twelve mothers who participated in an exploratory, qualitative study on the involuntary loss of maternal care time following separation. The losses suffered caused these mothers tremendous grief, damaged their psychological wellbeing and had a detrimental effect on their mothering relationships. Yet custody stalking, as a form of malevolent attack, is not well recognised and mothers’ resultant losses are largely culturally invisible. This is in marked contrast to paternal filicides, another form of post-separation avenging attack committed by some fathers that also leads to maternal loss experiences, albeit more absolute.
The coercive and punitive “therapies” recommended for children diagnosed with parental alienation constitute an ethical minefield and are especially inappropriate when used on children who have already been traumatized. Forced reunification against a child’s will and without taking into consideration the child’s point of view and emotional well-being, can be expected to reinforce a sense of helplessness and powerlessness in an already vulnerable child. Such “treatment” can be expected to do more harm than good, and rather than helping their well-being, could cause lasting psychological harm, particularly when imposed upon children who claim the parent they are being forced to reunify with is abusive.
The development of forensic evaluation scales is fundamental. This study's purpose was to explore the psychometric properties of a parental alienation scale. Forensic technicians completed 193 scales concerning parents involved in a lawsuit: 48 families with at least one parent indicated as the alienator (group A) and 48 families with no parental alienation claim (group B). The scale consisted of five categories and 69 items: denying access to the child; derogatory comparisons; emotional manipulation; behavior of parent and child during assessment. The results show Cronbach's alpha = .965 and split-half = .745; KMO = .884 and Bartlett's sphericity test (p < .001). Concurrent criterion validity applied to data showed that the scale is able to distinguish between the alienator and target parent. The results showed significant and consistent standards in the instrument's psychometric characteristics.
Latin American feminists brought up the issue of violence in the 1970s under military rule or situations of armed conflict. These contexts made feminists specifically concerned with state violence against women. Women's organizations pointed to torture and rape of political prisoners and the use of rape as a weapon of war and connected these forms of violence to deeper societal patterns of subordination and violence against women in both the private and public spheres. Processes of democratization in the region brought new opportunities to institutionalize norms to end violence against women (VAW), and in many countries feminists managed to get the issue on the political agenda. In the mid 1990s, the region pioneered international legislation on VAW that uniquely included state-sponsored violence. The Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (1994) established an international obligation for states to prevent, investigate, and punish VAW regardless of whether it takes place in the home, the community, or in the public sphere. While Latin American governments massively ratified this convention, national legislation was not brought in line with the broad scope of the international convention. This points to the complex and often contradictory dynamics of institutionalizing norms to oppose VAW in multilevel settings.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious and widespread form of gender-based violence that disproportionately affects women. It is well established that IPV victimization contributes to depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and that many partner-abusive men continue to perpetuate abuse even after their relationship with the victim ends. In addition, when men harm their partners, they are more likely to harm their children, and evidence suggests that this harm continues post-separation. However, scant research has been conducted on men’s harm to their children as an extension of IPV perpetration, with even less known about the mental health impact this form of abuse has on mothers. For this longitudinal cohort study, 40 partner-abused mothers who had separated, or were planning to separate, from an abusive partner with whom they shared children were recruited. Women were interviewed 4 times over 1 year. Results confirmed that, in addition to men’s physical abuse perpetration relating to subsequent increases in mothers’ depression and PTSD symptoms over time, their harm to the children predicted both mothers’ depression and PTSD symptoms as well.
Evidence-based practice (EBP) requires that clinicians be guided by the best available evidence. In this article, we address the impact of science and pseudoscience on psychotherapy in psychiatric practice. We describe the key principles of evidence-based intervention. We describe pseudoscience and provide illustrative examples of popular intervention practices that have not been abandoned, despite evidence that they are not efficacious and may be harmful. We distinguish efficacy from effectiveness, and describe modular approaches to treatment. Reasons for the persistence of practices that are not evidence based are examined at both the individual and the professional system level. Finally, we offer suggestions for the promotion of EBP through clinical practice guidelines, modelling of scientific decision making, and training in core skills.
The battle against domestic violence has focused primarily on incidents of extreme physical abuse and the resulting trauma to the victim. While there is a growing understanding of some forms of psychological abuse, such as stalking, there is less understanding of the pattern of abuse where physical attacks are combined with isolation, intimidation, and control. Stark argues that coercive control, which may not include any physical abuse, is actually the more prevalent and devastating form of domestic abuse, yet remains largely invisible to the helping professionals and has no legal standing. He contends that interventions are ineffective for a large number of battered women due to the gap between what these women experience and the singular emphasis on male violence and victim trauma. Drawing extensively on case studies, Stark identifies the problems with our current approach to domestic violence, outlines the components of coercive control, and then uses this alternate framework to analyse the cases of battered women charged with criminal offenses directed at their abusers. He presents the controversial notion that coercive control should be a legal defense for women who attack or kill their abusers.
This book sets out to revolutionize our understanding of how children are affected by coercive-control-based domestic violence. It provides a new child-centered perspective, replacing the question “How are children affected by exposure to physical violence?” with an inquiry into how children are affected by perpetrators’ continuous actions of coercive control (actions that may, or may not, include physical violence), and what the road to recovery is like for children and mothers who have experienced coercive control. The focus is on the child and the mother as co-victims and co-survivors of behavior by the perpetrator (frequently, though not always, the child’s father). Children have rarely been recognized in this way as direct victims and survivors of domestic violence. Instead they have usually been viewed as suffering indirect harm through seeing, hearing, or being aware of the ill-treatment of their parent. Yet, in reality, coercive control pervades their entire world, as it does the world of their mother, profoundly altering their experience of life. Coercive control traps children and mothers together in a cage of control: and once able to separate from the perpetrator, children and mothers face new challenges together. This book charts, and systematically analyzes, the recoveries of children and mothers in getting free and building new lives. It highlights their journeys toward family lives based on mutual supportiveness, where all have influence, all are respected, and all have the space and autonomy they need to thrive.
Objective
estimate the risk for the occurrence of lethal violence against women and to identify the associated factors in the state of Paraná.
Method
ecological study of deaths of women aged between 15 and 59 years, victims of aggression. The units of analysis were the cities of Paraná. Latent Bayesian Gaussian models with negative binomial probability distribution were used. The modeling considered intercept, spatial random effects and covariates, performed with the deterministic Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations approach.
Results
There was a positive association between lethal violence against women and the percentage of mothers who were heads of households. Finally, male homicide rates, rates of non-lethal violence against women and the cities with women mayors and councilors were also associated.
Conclusion
This type of violence was associated with low education, structural violence and the participation of women in politics.
Empirical research documents the risk that alienation allegations will prevail over child abuse allegations in custody cases despite evidence to the contrary (Silberg & Dallam, 2019 Silberg, J., & Dallam, S. (2019). Abusers gaining custody in family courts: A case series of overturned decisions. Journal of Child Custody, 16(2), 140–169. https://doi.org/10.1080/15379418.2019.1613204[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Milchman, 2017a Milchman, M. S. (2017a). Misogyny in NYS custody decisions with parental alienation versus child sexual abuse allegations. Journal of Child Custody, 14(4), 234–259. https://doi.org/10.1080/15379418.2017.1416723[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This article analyzes oversimplified beliefs, implicit or explicit, about alienation that support such practice. Professionals demonstrate oversimplified beliefs that lend unjustified credibility to alienation claims when they assert or imply that they observed alienation directly rather than inferring it from behavioral observations; that their inferences are unambiguous in their meaning; and that the validity of their inferences is not compromised by difficult-to-detect risks to the child (Milchman et al., 2020 Milchman, M. S., Geffner, R., & Meier, J. S. (2020). Rhetoric replaces evidence and reasoning in parental alienation literature and advocacy: A critique. Family Court Review, 58(2), 340–361.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). They support these oversimplified beliefs when they claim that suggestibility research calls the validity of abuse interpretations of the behaviors they observed into question. The adversarial nature of the legal system in the U.S. and other countries encourages acceptance of oversimplified beliefs about alienation because blaming one parent for the child’s rejection of the other is consistent with legal concepts of personal responsibility and with legal remedies that directly control the behavior of the person deemed responsible (Meier, 2022 Meier, J. (2022). Questioning the scientific validity of parental alienation labels in abuse cases. In J. Mercer and M. Drew (Eds.), Challenging parental alienation: New directions for professionals and parents. Routledge. [Google Scholar]). A forthcoming companion article discusses empirical findings related to alienation claims that these oversimplified beliefs support.
This article presents empirical findings from a research study conducted by Women’s Aid Federation England and Queen Mary University of London looking at domestic abuse and the family courts. The study found that allegations of parental alienation were frequently being used during child arrangements proceedings to obscure and undermine allegations of domestic abuse. These findings are presented against a backdrop of a recent revival of ideas around alienation in the family court in England and Wales. The article highlights a growing body of evidence demonstrating the gendered assumptions underlying parental alienation as a concept, and argues that the concept should not be accepted without analysis and understanding of the harmful impact it has on survivors of domestic abuse and their children.
Key messages
‘Parental alienation’ has been increasingly invoked in the family courts in recent years, but there is a dearth of robust empirical studies to back up the concept and no reliable data on its prevalence.
Studies demonstrate the gendered assumptions and myths underlying discourses of parental alienation, and the increasing use of these discourses to obscure and undermine domestic abuse in child arrangements proceedings.
Theories of parental alienation, no matter how they are packaged or theorised, should not be accepted without analysis of the impact they have on survivors of domestic abuse and their children.
This article contains an overview of the findings of a research project involving survivors of domestic abuse and their experiences of the family court system which evidences the aforementioned assertions. </ul
This article examines the legitimization and institutionalization of ‘parental alienation’ discourse in the Province of Quebec, Canada. It draws upon an analysis of 31 documents (legislation, research reports and articles, training documents, professional documents and media articles) and interviews with 13 key informants, who were selected based on their knowledge of ‘parental alienation’ in research, policies or practices. The research findings reveal that the legitimization and institutionalization of ‘parental alienation’ discourse is a more recent process than in other provinces and countries, but that it has now permeated child custody as well as child protection proceedings. Academic researchers and media have been instrumental in this legitimization and institutionalization process, while the role played by changes to child protection policies is more ambiguous. The findings reveal researchers’ and experts’ tendency to distance themselves from Gardner’s controversial work on ‘parental alienation syndrome’ and to address the critiques by proposing new approaches and new concepts. However, the terms ‘parental alienation syndrome’, ‘parental alienation’ and ‘alienating behaviours’ are often used interchangeably, and assessment practices tend to rely on similar indicators.
Depuis les années 2000 sont apparues lors d'instances judiciaires des allégations d' « aliénation parentale » ; certains experts évoquent un tel « syndrome » pour tenter d'expliquer le rejet d'un parent – en général le père - par un·e enfant. L'étude de cette « théorie », de son contexte d'apparition et de diffusion, et de son utilisation, doit pourtant conduire à en écarter toute pertinence.
This paper presents insights into the history and current deployment of the concept of parental alienation in the Australian family law system. It begins in 1989, when an article on parental alienation syndrome was first published in an Australian law journal. It then traces aspects of the socio-legal and social science research, gender politics, law reform and jurisprudence of the following 30 years, paying attention to moments of significant change. The impacts of major amendments that emphasise the desirability of post-separation shared parenting outcomes in 1996 and 2006 are specifically considered. More recently, in 2012, reforms intended to improve the family law system’s response to domestic and family violence were introduced. The history reveals an irreconcilable tension between the ‘benefit’ of ‘meaningful’ post-separation parent-child relationships and the protection of children from harm. When mothers’ allegations of violence in the family are disbelieved, minimised or dismissed, they are transformed from victims of abuse into perpetrators of abuse – alienators of children from their fathers. Their actions and attitudes collide with the shared parenting philosophy. This is arguably an inescapable consequence of a family law system that struggles to deal effectively with family violence in the context of a strong shared parenting regime.
This paper explores Canadian family law cases involving claims of parental alienation and of family violence from 2014–2018, reporting the data on these claims, their resolution, and their impacts upon custody and access. A close reading of those cases where both alienation and intimate partner violence claims are made reveals troubling patterns in how intimate partner violence is discounted in this context. We suggest that the rise of shared parenting as a dominant norm assists in understanding why alienation has achieved such unquestioned status, and call for greater focus on safety and women’s and children’s voices.
Parental alienation (syndrome) is a controversial issue, criticized by experts in different fields. However, this concept is often used by professionals and is frequently cited in courtrooms. This qualitative study focuses on parental alienation and explores women’s experiences as well as legal and social services’ practices in child custody cases. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with separated mothers' victims of intimate partner violence, and with social workers and psychologists/psychiatrists designated by courts to evaluate parenting skills. Expert reports, psychological assessments and legal documents were also analysed. Results show that professionals endorsed parental alienation and considered it a ‘feminine problem’. Women were often blamed and labeled as ‘engaging in parental alienation’ when they were trying to ensure their children’s safety. Children’s accounts were interpreted as being a result of their mothers’ manipulation. In contrast, fathers were treated as victims of vindictive women who want to keep children to themselves. Men’s violent behaviours were not considered, and their role as fathers was seen as ‘inviolable’. These practices seem to reflect the ‘good-enough father’ approach, according to which the presence of the father is essential for children’s development, regardless of his violent behaviours.
Custody law systems across the Anglo-West are increasingly characterised by the overt and covert use of parental alienation (syndrome) as an aid to the governance of post-separation mothers. Difficulties with care arrangements within PA(S) inflected custody law systems are often regarded as evidence of mothers’ alienating behaviours, resulting in a range of remedial, coercive and punitive censures, including losing resident parent status. I argue here that the synergistic interaction between custody law and PA(S) creates an affective burden for post-separation mothers. Drawing on the voices of mothers in contested custody cases, I show that their affective burden consists of negative emotional states for themselves and their children, emotion work in relation to these states, and court required emotion work in support of father-child relationships. The latter mitigates the risk of being found to be an alienator and losing what matters most to them – their children.
Violence in its many forms can affect the health of people who are the targets, those who are the perpetrators, and the communities in which both live. In this article we review the literature on the health consequences of many forms of violence, including child physical and sexual abuse, intimate partner violence, elder abuse, sexual violence, youth violence, and bullying. The biological effects of violence have become increasingly better understood and include effects on the brain, neuroendocrine system, and immune response. Consequences include increased incidences of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and suicide; increased risk of cardiovascular disease; and premature mortality. The health consequences of violence vary with the age and sex of the victim as well as the form of violence. People can be the victims of multiple forms of violence, and the health effects can be cumulative.
A large proportion of child contact cases in England take place within a context of domestic abuse and significant risks to victims and their childrenq associated with post separation contact. The legal response has largely been inadequate and the potential impact of human rights law by the family courts has yet to be fully explored. This paper analyses an exploratory empirical research project undertaken in 2017/2018 with Women's Aid England and 72 victims of domestic abuse regarding their experiences of human rights law in the family courts. The results, theorised through the lens of performativity and against the context of international human rights law, reveal a high level of non‐ performativity with respect to the human rights of the participants. The paper concludes with recommendations and the implications the analysis holds for feminist organisations if they are to fully realise the human rights of the victims of domestic abuse.
The prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) is alarmingly high. Leaving an abusive relationship is only part of the solution, especially for survivors who share children with a violent partner. The IPV survivor has to navigate the family court system in order to obtain protection orders and custody arrangements. The decisions made by judges in family courts are influenced by gender-biased theories that rely on myths about women, intimate domestic violence, and the effects of violence and abuse on children. This paper will describe current issues in family court and possible contributions that behavior analysts can provide.
This article argues that major advances in parental alienation (PA) theory, since its inception as the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), have not consistently been applied in custody litigation practice, because they do not serve advocacy needs; whereas, the misogynistic cultural argument in PAS, when relied on implicitly but not stated explicitly, can win cases. It first discusses advances in modern PA theory that eliminate misogyny. It then reviews feminist advances (1960s to 1980s) to show the threat to patriarchal power, and the fathers’ rights backlash, to explain their demand for legal redress. The hypothesis that a misogynistic cultural framework undermines evidence-based reasoning in child custody cases is supported with studies associating misogynistic beliefs with irrational thinking in multiple scientific areas, including child custody; and documents that show misogyny is a serious concern in the U.S. legal system. The article concludes by stating the need for evidence of misogynistic bias in custody decisions.
This paper considers how legal engagement can be an opportunity to exercise coercive control over a former intimate partner. Drawing on interviews with 65 women who engaged with the legal system as a result of violence in their intimate relationships, this article explores how women’s engagement with the legal system is frequently experienced as an extension of an intimate partner’s coercive control. It builds on existing research showing how legal processes provide an opportunity for perpetrators to continue and even expand their repertoire of coercive and controlling behaviours post-separation. I refer to this as legal systems abuse. This article explores women’s reported experiences and considers how expectations of equality of access to justice
and fair hearing; concepts that underpin legal processes, can be reconciled with legal engagements that seek to end coercive and controlling behaviours. The paper concludes that improved understanding of domestic violence as coercive control by legal actors may help to circumvent the opportunities for legal systems abuse.
This qualitative study explored the experiences of 22 domestic violence survivors attempting to negotiate safe post-separation parenting arrangements through the Australian family law system. Their allegations of violence put them at odds with a system that values mediated settlements and shared parenting. Skeptical responses, accusations of parental alienation, and pressure to agree to unsafe arrangements exacerbated the effects of post-separation violence. Core themes in the women's narratives of engagement with the family law system-silencing, control, and undermining the mother-child relationship-mirrored domestic violence dynamics, suggesting the concept of secondary victimization as a useful lens for understanding their experiences.
Studies demonstrate the negative effects of violent coercive control but few examine coercive control without violence. This study describes the characteristics of nonviolent coercive control among 8 divorcing mothers and compares them with 47 mothers who experienced violent coercive control or no violence/no control. Mothers with nonviolent coercive control reported more coping strategies, risk, harassment, and perceived threat than mothers with no violence/no control; similar levels of fear and control during marriage as mothers with violent coercive control; and more postseparation fear than both groups. Findings highlight the need to include nonviolent coercive control in screening methods and research measures.
Domestic violence is the most common welfare issue raised in private law contact proceedings. A wide range of studies has shown that judicial decisions about contact which fail to take safety into account endanger women and children physically and emotionally. Yet a presumption that contact is in the best interests of the child, combined with an increasing focus on fathers' rights, casts long shadows over legal judgments, policy frameworks and individual cases. This article presents research which examined child contact proceedings as a legal process to identify if, how and when domestic violence was factored into judicial decision making. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 34 women who had recently completed, or were currently undergoing, proceedings, the article highlights how two aspects of private law Children Act proceedings diminished women's safety: the absence of special facilities in family courts and gaps in legal representation for both victim-survivors and perpetrators.