The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals [Paperback]

Richard A. Gardner (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Creative Therapeutics; 2nd edition (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0933812426
• ISBN-13: 978-0933812420
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #681,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

115 of 127 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Authoritative Analysis of Parental Alienation Syndrome, March 5, 2000

By 

Kenneth J. Dillon (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals (Paperback)

I am the father of two sons who were alienated from me according to the pattern described and analyzed by Dr. Gardner in this book. In the process of fighting in court for 6 years for at least minimal contact with my sons, I did a good deal of research on PAS and even wrote an unpublished book manuscript that dealt in part with PAS. I.e., I know what I am talking about, and not just from the perspective of my own case. I consider Dr. Gardner's book to be a major contribution to social psychology. This book was the first to define and articulate the dynamics of PAS. Dr. Gardner takes great pains to distinguish PAS from other phenomena and to provide one detail after another than can help an observer to diagnose a given case. He shows a keen appreciation for the pressures on the children and the differing behaviors of oldest and younger children. Many of his observations will strike a person going through a PAS case as uncannily predictive. His characterization of the pathological behavior of lawyers, psychologists, and judges in many of these cases is damning. It certainly fit the "professionals" who mishandled our case or used it for their personal gain. Dr. Gardner's prescriptions for reform of the psychological and legal handling of these cases are useful. Equally helpful is his unflappable common sense. He spent years dealing with family problems at US Army bases in Germany and has seen just about every crazy situation imaginable. So he is not fooled, as are many observers, by the endless allegations of the alienating parent against the allegedly hated parent. Nor does he hesitate to put the obsessive denigrators in their place, if need be. My research turned up two sources of statistical evidence that corroborated Dr. Gardner's finding that roughly 9 out of 10 of the alienating parents are the mothers. PAS is one of those phenomena that the media seem incapable of reporting accurately and analytically, or even reporting at all. Yet psychologists are coming to see that it is quite widespread. Indeed, PAS may account for a certain portion of the fathers who are said not to care for their kids. If you want to understand PAS, there is no better place to look than Dr. Gardner's book.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for any parent involved in divorce, September 22, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals (Hardcover)

This review will be short by design.There has never been a more important work ever done in matters of emotional child abuse and/or brainwashing where one parent to a divorce wants to alienate their child against the other parent out of spite or revenge. For those parents who become the target of such alienation and who don't understand the sudden hateful and hurtful behavior of their now brainwashed and alienated child toward them, this book will give you the answers you need.It will be for those parents like having an illness that no one can diagnose until one day you find a doctor that can easily spot your condition because of all the easily identifiable symptoms that he alone seems to know where everyone else is groping in the dark for the proper diagnosis. As the author says toward the end of the book..." when I describe these symptoms to parents who have encountered this problem with their children, they all tell me..'It's as if you have been living in my house for the past year'"

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mirror Reverse, March 25, 2002

By 

Suzy Butterfly (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals (Paperback)

My sister found this book a lifesaver.

She does not have a clinical background, but she could finally give a name to what her husband was doing to the children. She was the alienated parent -- a mirror reverse from the traditional.

She highly recommends this author. Also she recommends his followup book **Therapeutic Interventions for Children with Parental Alienation Syndrome** by Richard A. Gardner.

If any part of these books will help my sister get out of her miserable situation, then they are worth their weight in gold.

MjM