In the aftermath of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, many disappointed supporters of Dr. Blasey are asking whether her coming forward was worth it. Not only did her testimony fall on deaf ears among all but one Republican senator, it even failed to impress one of the democrats. Against her instincts, she participated in the very public, contentious hearings, once her identity became known, because she felt it her civic duty to do so. Ultimately, President Trump led the charge, emboldened by Senator Lindsay Graham’s staged, infantile temper tantrum in defense of Judge Kavanaugh, by mocking and dismissing what Dr. Blasey had to say, calling it a “hoax.” This contrasted with initial comments from almost all committee members, on both sides of the aisle, which lauded her courage, and credibility as she was deemed to be a credible witness. Republican senators, and the President, himself, were at first trying their best to cast themselves as caring, compassionate, sensitive human beings, apparently determined to refrain from turning on and attacking Dr. Blasey the way Anita Hill was attacked in 1991. That didn’t last very long, as it began to appear that Kavanaugh’s candidacy was in danger of crashing down. Feigned compassion metamorphosized into disdain; messages of support soon vanished and turned into vicious attacks. When all was said and done, the imperatives of partisan politics trumped decency, re-victimizing the victim, just as occurs to many survivors of sexual abuse who summon the courage to speak out about what happened to them.
     Only Dr. Blasey can answer the question of whether her coming forward was worth it. Did she derive any benefit from the extensive support she received from fellow sexual abuse survivors across the nation, and from the more enlightened public officials who earnestly spoke up in her behalf? Would she have been better off if she simply kept quiet about her horrendous ordeal, as she had done for the past 36 years, with the exception of long delayed revelations to her husband and to her therapist? For other victims, struggling to decide on how best to heal and to truly recover from the attacks and their psychological, emotional and physical aftermaths, it may be helpful to be educated about what has been learned in the field of sexual trauma from retrospective studies, anecdotal reports of survivors, and from clinical observations reported by treatment providers. Such information should also prove useful to friends and loved ones who wish to come to the aid of survivors, as soon as disclosures are made.
   To begin with, the data on the disclosure patterns of children and teens who were sexually victimized has been well documented within professional journals. A 2008 review of 13 retrospective studies of the disclosure patterns of 15,000 adults who had been sexually abused during childhood, found that between 55% and 69% of victims failed to disclose until after reaching adulthood. Of those who belatedly disclosed, between 10% and 46% did so for the first time at the time of the studies. In a 1999 study of 384 child sexual abuse survivors, only one-third disclosed at the time of their abuse. The remaining 262 subjects suppressed what happened to them for years, later explaining how they feared being disbelieved and/or losing parental love. Such fear triggers the victim’s early decision to opt for secrecy. Absent immediate protest, delay breeds continued secrecy, which undermines the hope of being believed as time passes. When the child does not immediately complain, it becomes apparent that there is no second chance. The child experiences a sense of shame, as submission emerges as her only option. Shamed, she feels small, exposed, and inhibited. Shame offers a kind of protection, as it inhibits further action, thereby removing her from additional interpersonal danger. It entrenches secrecy, and paves the way for various negative psychological sequelae, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, pathological dependency, social withdrawal, dissociative reactions, self-injurious behavior, and the development of a self-loathing self-schema, eventuating in depression. Years and decades may pass before the now adult victim of child sexual abuse matures, and she becomes sufficiently angry and empowered to demand to be liberated from the toxic secrets about her past that have interfered with full self-acceptance and full realization of potential. The long suffering victim yearns for resolution of long-held contradictory views about herself; she wants to feel normal, and may now demand justice. Long delayed disclosure is met, however, with incredulity and claims of blatant lying. The fears and threats underlying secrecy come rushing back, as she is blamed for the crisis precipitated by her disclosure, and is cast as offender rather than victim. By the end of the Kavanaugh hearings, Dr. Blasey was the open target of President Trump and his senatorial sycophants, who succeeded in large measure to frame the Judge as the victim and she as the mixed up, conspiratorial offender.
     A typical method used to undermine the credibility of the disclosing victim, is to harp on the incomplete details she is able to provide about the alleged incident(s). Supporters of Judge Kavanaugh insisted that Dr. Blasey’s narrative was too short on contextual details, such as precise location, time of event, antecedent and consequent conditions. As lay people, they couldn’t be faulted for their lack of scientific knowledge about the interface between trauma and memory. They couldn’t possibly know about the phenomenon of perceptual narrowing, the narrowing of the perceptual system at the moment of encountering a traumatic event. It has been found that much of the traumatic event may never have been stored because the individual’s attention was focused entirely on the source of survival threat, and the stimuli associated with survival actions. Consequently, much of the information about peripheral details never gets encoded into the memory system to begin with, and thus can subsequently only be inferred.  It is no wonder that Dr. Blasey had vivid recall about the identity of her attacker, at a 100% level of confidence, while having only vague recollections of many peripheral details. In assessing victims of child sexual abuse, more weight is placed on sensory and emotional details elicited than on peripheral details, particularly when incidents may have occurred remotely in time or when the victim was very young. The subjective experience of being molested is recorded and processed in a very personal manner which sears the memory trace into the victim’s brain much more vividly than occurs with the processing of peripheral details. That she was terrified of the possibility of being accidentally killed, strongly suggests that her attention was on survival, making it less kujeky fir her to retain many of the other peripheral details.
     Kavanaugh’s supporters also emphasized the importance of having no eye-witnesses or other physical, medical or interpersonal evidence. They largely ignored the importance of evidence offered via public communication by Dr. Blasey’s treating therapist, who presumably attested to the presence of confirmatory signs of sexual traumatization. Dr. Blasey’s supporters fell for the bait, by allowing the fate of the inquiry to rest with the discovery of corroborating witnesses through an extended FBI background check. Indeed, a breakthrough of comity miraculously appeared on Saturday, September 29th, when Senator Jeff Flake, at the urging of his friend across the aisle, Senator Chris Coons, seemingly broke ranks with fellow Republicans to demand that the FBI re-open its background check before he’d agree to decide about confirmation. Senator Flake seemed to be genuinely touched by two sexual abuse survivors who confronted him at the elevator on the way to the committee meeting. On the morning of Saturday, October 5th, he and Senator Mikulski appeared to be the only two Republicans driven by concern for protection of the victim as opposed to party. In my email to him that morning, I applauded him for his taking “the bold, principled step of requiring an FBI investigation … before voting to confirm,” but added, “unfortunately, the investigation did not go as far as many pursuers of the truth would have liked, and leaves as many questions on the table as were present before last Saturday. The perception is that the FBI’s mission was compromised for political reasons, tainting the reputation of that hallowed institution even more than Donald Trump succeeded in doing since taking office. I hope and pray that this does not discourage you from continuing in your principled path, and that you vote your conscience…” Alas, my prayers went unanswered. Perhaps Flake never received my email. If he did, I reasoned, surely he’d agree that the additional FBI investigation he had demanded a week earlier was a sham, with dozens of potential witnesses who were suggested by Dr. Blasey ignored and never questioned. Was Flake really as anguished as he appeared to be on 9/29, or was he merely pretending to care. Conceivably, his evident distress may have related more to his having to struggle in response to cogent arguments made by his friend, Senator Coons, than to questions about treating Dr. Blasey fairly. In the end, he caved, even as he was seemingly patronized by Chairman Grassley who acceded to requesting the sham FBI investigation.
     During the extra week before confirmation, the Republican narrative devolved into a logically inconsistent position. The “he said, she said” argument, which proclaims the impossibility of ascertaining the truth in situations where there are no witnesses, and it’s one person’s word against the other’s, was discarded. Replacing this line of reasoning was the “compassionate” line that poor Dr. Blasey truly appeared to have been sexually victimized in her younger years, but that someone other than Dr. Kavanaugh must have been the offender. It couldn’t have been Judge Kavanaugh, because he unequivocally denied he ever treated anyone as she described; it couldn’t have been Judge Kavanaugh, because he refused to acknowledge that he ever suffered drinking related blackouts – he only fell asleep; it couldn’t have been Judge Kavanaugh because he testified that he was a virgin until years after he entered college; it couldn’t have been Judge Kavanaugh, because of his exemplary record as a Federal Appeals Court judge … and coach for his daughter’s soccer or basketball team. Using this spin, the Republican team succeeded in convincing their followers that they could have their cake and eat it at the same time. They could pretend to be compassionate, supportive defenders of victims and victims’ rights, while simultaneously trashing the very same victims through insinuations about being confused, being delusional, or being willing to participate in a conspiratorial hoax. In concocting this totally illogical position, they hopefully fooled no one about their motives and priorities. They were collectively more cruel in their phony solicitations to Dr. Blasey than their 1991 predecessors (including Senators Grassley and Hatch) were in attacking Anita Hill outright.
     When attention shifted on September 29th to the renewed FBI search for corroborative evidence about Dr. Blasey’s allegations, all efforts to respond appropriately to delayed disclosure about sexual victimization were effectively abandoned. Republicans and Democrats all took their eyes off the ball, off the victim. Overlooked was the simple fact that in the great majority of sexual offenses, there are no eye-witnesses, or even circumstantially corroborating witnesses. Furthermore, there is rarely any physical or medical evidence to be found. As such, it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove someone’s criminal guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet, Judge Kavanaugh’s supporters insisted that the principle of assuming one’s innocence until and if there is overwhelming evidence of guilt, applied in the confirmation proceedings. Since guilt could not be proven, Senator Collins’ “independent minded” reasoning suggested, the concerns raised by Dr. Blasey’s allegations could be ignored, leaving Judge Kavanaugh’s impeccably crafted choir boy image intact. Despite substantial evidence to the contrary, Judge Kavanaugh could be taken at his word when he assured her that he would follow precedent when the question of women’s right to choose came again before the Supreme Court. Brett wouldn’t lie. He never lied about anything to anyone in his entire adult life – not about his awareness of stolen Democratic officials’ emails, or his involvement in developing the legal rationale for water-boarding, or about the degree to which he had a drinking problem in high school and college. Either Senator Collins is a prime candidate to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, or perhaps she isn’t the champion of women’s rights and human rights that she has purported to be. Throughout the hearings, it was repeatedly declared that this was not a criminal proceeding, but instead was comparable to a job interview. The mission was not to prove guilt or innocence, but to learn enough about a candidate’s personal and professional histories to determine whether he was fit for the position of Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
     In contacting Senator Flake and Senators Feinstein, Whitehouse, Booker, Collins and Schumer on September 23rd, I suggested that a better comparison for the hearings about the allegations is what routinely transpires in Family and Matrimonial Courts across the land. I wrote as follows: “Over the past three decades, I have conducted and supervised hundreds of child sexual abuse assessments for child welfare agencies, Family Courts, and Matrimonial Courts. The central focus of such assessments was the welfare of the child. Authorities sough information about the child’s functioning and how it may have been affected by traumatic sexual experience. They also wanted to know about the details of past sexual trauma, including the identity of the perpetrator. Referrals were triggered by the child’s statements, sudden behavior change, noticeable emotional displays, and/or histories that raised suspicion of sexual traumatization. With child safety in mind, authorities needed to have as much information as possible to determine protective steps that were required. Many of my assessments were used by Family and Matrimonial Court Judges in making determinations about child custody, unsupervised parent-child visitation, ordering stay-away orders of protection, treatment or rehabilitation requirements of family members, and termination of parental rights. Judges were thereby aided by having access to a wealth of professionally collected data, which served as evidence either supporting or not supporting a finding that the child was traumatized and in need of special protective measures and/or trauma-focused treatment. Criminal guilt or innocence is not determined in these proceedings; the matter is referred to the police if criminal charges are deemed appropriate to make. In Family and Matrimonial Courts, the standard of proof of wrongdoing is whether there is a preponderance of evidence (i.e. at least 50.1% evidence) in support of a finding of wrongdoing. This contrasts with the standard applied in Criminal Court, where required evidence of guilt must be high enough (i.e .95% or more) to be conclusive beyond a reasonable doubt. In Criminal Court, the mission pertains to search for truth so that justice may be served, and offenders are held accountable for their actions. In Family and Matrimonial Courts, the mission pertains to search for the truth so that the child’s physical and emotional health is secured.” I urged the senators to apply the preponderance of evidence standard in contemplating Dr. Blasey’s allegations, emphasizing that the hearings are “not to reach a verdict on the innocence or guilt of the alleged offender, Judge Kavanaugh, but rather it’s all about protection. In the present instance, rather than ensuring the safety of a child, it’s about preserving the image and viability of the Supreme Court…” I  argued that once the credibility of the Court is sufficiently tarnished, “respect for the rule of law will erode, thereby dooming our democracy… senators must act similarly to Family or Matrimonial Court Judges, ruling in the interests of safety – for the future of the child or the future of our confidence in the Supreme Court, hence, the future of our democracy.”
     Perhaps the preponderance of evidence standard will be adopted by congressional committees in the future when partisanship recedes sufficiently to permit objective inquiries about possible candidate misconduct, without resorting to attacking the complainant, or subjecting the candidate to a criminal style inquisition. Advise and consent should be all about protection of the public and our institutions, determining when there might be excessive risk attached to one’s candidacy. It should not be about the prosecution of a crime or the search for justice. In Dr. Blasey’s case, preponderance of evidence pertains how the disclosures made during her testimony were delivered in an honest, forthright, and emotionally congruent manner. They  were also consistent from what we know about her previous disclosures made to her therapist 6 years ago, when there was no possible political motive for her. Her disclosures, in conjunction with what has been reported by her therapist, provide convincing evidence that she was a victim of sexual and physical traumatization as a teen. She does not equivocate about the identities of her assailants, particularly since her face was ostensibly only inches away from that of Kavanaugh when he pinned her on her back and covered her mouth.  She asserts that she had no more than one drink on the day in question, and she was therefore not impeded in her perceptions by the influence of alcohol. In sharp contrast, Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony was replete with defensive, misleading responses to questions. He ultimately reverted to an offensive attack against his questioners, and on the supposed left wing conspiracy opposing his candidacy. According to Dr. Blasey’s testimony, both Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, were substantially inebriated at the time of the attack. There is a preponderance of evidence supporting the notion that Kavanaugh was prone to acting out in socially inappropriate ways when under the influence during late adolescence and early adulthood. This lends support to her narrative, and to an explanation as to how both Kavanaugh and Judge might have very little or no recollection of what they allegedly did to Dr. Blasey on the day in question. Other evidence in support of Dr. Blasey’s allegations include her psychological symptoms of trauma as reported by her therapist and by her, and social-behavioral changes that were observed by others soon after the incident. It is noteworthy that one objective held by many belated disclosers of sexual victimization is to finally see that justice is served – even decades after a crime was committed. A significant degree of satisfaction, even euphoria is achieved when the victim and/or loved ones finally get to see that the offender receives punishment that is due. Unfortunately, in most cases of sexual victimization by family members or persons known to the victim, convictions are not common, as a criminal case is impossible to prove without the presence of overwhelming evidence. In the previously mentioned 1999 study of 384 adult survivors of child sexual abuse, only 12% were investigated, only 6% led to criminal charges, and only 3% resulted in conviction. Subjects reported that the most meaningful response that was most helpful to them was action taken to control the perpetrator. As a group, these subjects scored lowest on scales measuring level of depression, and highest on scales measuring self-esteem.
     Back to the question of whether it was worth it for Dr. Blasey to subject herself to attacks upon her integrity and credibility heaped upon her by the likes of President Trump, Leader McConnell and their band of unpatriotic bullies who will do anything to hang on to power. What did she possibly gain for herself, for other sexual victimization victims and for the majority of our country’s citizens who are fair-minded and compassionate? For one, she received an outpouring of thanks in appreciation for her sacrifices which served to inspire and mobilized perhaps millions of fellow citizens. On a personal level, perhaps the level of anguish and shame that has endured throughout her adult life may have subsided, thanks to the tremendous support she received from various corners during this ordeal. Research conducted 20 years ago by colleagues and me provided evidence of the enormous benefits that can accrue to a sexual abuse victim who receives comprehensive support from one or more caregivers or other important adults in whom she chooses to confide. Our study, entitled, “Positive Reaction to Disclosure and Recovery From Child Sexual Abuse,” (Gries, L., Goh, D.S., Andrews,. M.B., Gilbert, J., Praver, F., & Stelzer, D.N., 2000, Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 9(1), 29-51), was initially presented in 1998 at the First International Conference on Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Chinese University of Hong Kong. The study identified factors which helped child victims of sexual abuse experience significantly reduced levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms, dissociation, depression, and behavioral dysfunction. Most important were opportunities for children and teens to speak about their victimization experiences to adults who extended full and reliable support to them. Where children received comprehensive emotional, belief, advocacy and loyalty support from current caregivers, they were assessed by their mental health therapists to be coping remarkably well in light of their ordeal. It was found that just talking about past trauma doesn’t make things better – it can even add to one’s emotional distress, unless comprehensive support for the victim is immediately forthcoming once disclosures are made. When a disclosing victim receives emotional support, she no longer feels alone. Instead, she feels connected, and loved. When she receives belief support, she is better able to shed residual feelings of blame and guilt. Her narrative is accepted and validated without reproach, regardless of any gaps in details that may exist. When she receives advocacy support, she feels confident about getting the help she needs to move on in her life. Someone has her back! When she receives loyalty support, she knows her significant other is committed to her and their relationship unconditionally. There is no threat of being suddenly abandoned in favor of others, of being dropped to the floor after seemingly enjoying the much needed support … abandoned the way she was by Trump and his Republican henchmen in Congress. It is hoped that the uplifting experiences that Dr. Blasey enjoyed through the kind outreach of support from intimates in her life as well as millions of appreciative fellow citizens, greatly outweigh the boorish actions of a few ignorant, insensitive, and misguided politicians who temporarily hold positions of authority for which they are painfully unqualified.
October 9, 2018
 
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D., DABPS, Diplomate, Forensic Clinical Psychology, has been a health provider in Psychology for 50 years. Over the past 30 years, he has conducted and supervised hundreds of child sexual abuse assessments for child welfare agencies, family courts and matrimonial courts. He is Executive Director of the Institute for Emotional Health, in East Hills, N.Y. and Briarwood, N.Y., and he is the author of “Gregory of Zimbabwe, A True Story of Overcoming Child Abuse and the Scandal of Diplomatic Immunity.” Fithian Press, 1993.

     Family and Supreme Court judges are often confronted with deciding what to do when it is evident that a subject child is alienated from a parent. The alienated child typically refuses to see or have any contact with the rejected parent. In contrast with an estranged child who has good personal experiential reason to avoid the parent (e.g. history of physical or sexual abuse; witness to horrific domestic violence), the alienated child’s position is based significantly upon the thoughts, feelings, and position of the favored parent. Although there may be some objective, first hand reasons for resisting contact, it is the words, actions and perceived wishes of the favored parent which make alienation happen.
    So what’s a judge to do? Even in the absence of compelling evidence of inept parenting by the rejected parent, the most common solution is to order Therapeutic Visitation. Like it or not, the child is required to visit with the rejected parent in a series of visits or sessions conducted by a licensed mental health professional, with the goals of improving parent-child interactions and repairing the parent - child bond. In my almost five decades of professional involvement with families and children, I’ve never been successful in forcing an alienated child to have a positive relationship with his or her rejected parent. Therapeutic visits usually limit the involvement of the favored parent to having a transportation role. The usual enmity between rejected parent and favored parent precludes the latter’s direct participation in the process. The child grudgingly participates, knowing that he or she is in lockstep with the favored parent, just a few feet away in the waiting room.

Therapeutic Visitation for alienated children doesn’t work for several reasons.

• It is designed to help modify dysfunctional parenting behaviors, such as paying insufficient attention, disregarding the child’s efforts, castigating the child, using inappropriate language, and responding insensitively to the child’s overt or implicit wishes.
• It is based upon the assumption that a faulty or weak bond already exists, which is not the case with an alienated child who feels no connection whatsoever with the rejected parent.
• It is based upon the assumption that the rejected parent manifests inept parenting practices.
• It ignores the elephant in the room, the favored parent’s dislike, dismissal of or hostility towards the rejected parent, and the considerable impact of the favored parent’s words, actions and subtle cues on the child.

     
      Therapeutic Visitation is a useful tool for improving interactions between parent and child. It works when all parties are sufficiently motivated to see improvement in parent-child interactions. It doesn’t often, if ever, work with an alienated child, who has no conscious desire to have the rejected parent in his or her life. The child’s angry dismissal of the rejected parent will predictably fester as long as (s)he remains enmeshed with a favored parent who embodies equally negative sentiments and prejudices. These sentiments and prejudices are products of an adverse family history, often pre-dating the birth of the subject child. Such history often features significant conflict, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and/or abandonment. Therapeutic Visitation is not designed to address the dynamics of damaged, intra-familial relationships, but Child Alienation-Focused Family Treatment is.
     The case of 10year-old Michelle is illustrative. Living alone with her mother, Michelle had not seen her father in over 3 years, and was fully opposed to having any contact with him. She had memories of how he had been insensitive to her, particularly when she requested to call her mother, and vaguely recalled being inappropriately touched by him.  The latter triggered an investigation which concluded the allegations of sexual abuse were unfounded, much to the dismay of mother, who was quite certain that Michelle had been abused by him. Her certainty derived from her prior experiences of having been physically and psychologically mistreated by Michelle’s father. Her extremely low regard for him managed to worsen once allegations of Michelle’s victimization came to light. During the ensuing years, with father out of the picture, the image of him as a demon became entrenched. Mother’s total rejection of him became Michelle’s total rejection.
     In Family Court proceedings, a forensic evaluator concluded that given the significant level of disturbance in intra-familial relationships, featuring the child’s alienation from father, and mother’s tacit support for daughter’s total rejection of father, father-daughter visits were not indicated. Instead, the evaluator recommended individual and dyadic therapeutic interventions eventually leading to visits. The judge did not heed the recommendations. Instead he ordered the immediate commencement of Therapeutic Visitation. The Order seemed to prioritize the preservation of father’s legal rights to see his daughter, without considering evidence for the efficacy of such approach in this kind of situation. It seemed to ignore the underlying family dynamics which led to and sustained child alienation. Nothing in the Order addressed the need for Michelle to individuate from mother so that she might be free to reach her own conclusions about father, based only upon actual interactions with him. Nothing in the Order addressed the need for mother to overcome past victimization by father, so that she might be liberated from an existence of chronic anxiety, pain and anger. Finally, the Order did not address the need for father to fully understand the impact of his past behaviors on both mother and daughter, and to offer expressions of genuine contrition. Much healing was necessary for all members of the family.
      Child Alienation-Focused Family Treatment (CA-FFT) can provide the forum for such healing to occur. It is based upon the assumption that all family members, each parent and child, are significantly affected by child alienation, and all must therefore participate in eradicating it. Through individual sessions, the favored parent needs to learn about the insidious short and long-term effects that alienation has on a child’s individuated self-identity, self-worth, ability to empathize, critical thinking ability, and interpersonal capacity. He or she needs to understand that the alienated child is at high risk for social isolation, depression, and/or substance abuse in adulthood. In some instances, the favored parent needs to process his or her own trauma history enabling insights to be derived about how past experiences may be influencing current feelings to the extent that the other parent is viewed with total disdain. The rejected parent requires individual sessions to understand the dynamics of child alienation so that the profound hurt that is naturally experienced is not transformed into anger towards the child. The rejected parent may otherwise exacerbate alienation by openly manifesting resentment towards the other parent as well as the child. Conversely, the rejected parent may require assistance in learning how to respond assertively, yet compassionately to the unfair treatment he or she is receiving.
     Through dyadic sessions, family members are given the opportunity to gain an understanding of each other, including identification of emotional scars which have been obstacles to relationship building. Family members require opportunities to explain how past actions by others in the family have hurt them; there must be opportunities for apology and forgiveness. Treatment may initially not have to involve the child’s meeting with father without mother present, yet in practice, it often facilitates that eventuality, as it did in the case in question.
​     Full family sessions provide opportunities for the child to witness a thaw in the relationship between parents, in the form of respectful interactions in the absence of the total rejection of the past. Family sessions are where the child receives tacit or explicit permission to re-new contacts with the rejected parent. This paves the way for the initiation of regular visits between the now formerly rejected parent and child. Therapeutic Visitation may be needed for a while if inept parenting is a factor. Otherwise, the transition to unsupervised visits, day visits, overnight visits, and weekend visits can occur fairly rapidly.
     That mother and father become friends again is not an essential goal of CA-FFT. Rather, a goal is for mother to extinguish her demonization of the father of her daughter as she gains awareness of his improved social-emotional status, and accepts the contrition he shows. Another goal is for father to learn how to maximize sensitivity to the needs and wishes of his daughter by containing and compartmentalizing, if necessary, his personal emotional needs to be addressed outside of the father-daughter relationship. In the case in question, the Court ultimately supported implementation of the Child Alienation-Focused Family Treatment approach, rather than ordering Therapeutic Visitation. There was recognition that the path towards eliminating alienation and restoring a meaningful relationship between a child and her formerly rejected father involves the processing of family dynamics rather than the singular imposition of visitation. Therapeutic Visitation is appropriate for helping an inept parent learn and implement positive parenting practices. Family Treatment can be extremely helpful in building self-awareness, and self-acceptance, as well as awareness of others and acceptance of them. It can promote the restoration of positive dyadic relationships, unfettered by the feelings and possible biases of third parties.
     Work is needed in educating all players in the family court and supreme court systems who are involved with alienated children. Law Guardians, attorneys for parents, forensic evaluators, visitation service agencies, treating therapists and judges should become well versed in factors which must be considered before Therapeutic Visitation or Family Treatment is recommended or ordered.   Other remedies for eliminating child alienation, such as partial or full change in custody should preferably be considered only after attempts at resolution via family treatment are made without success. These remedies require full discussion elsewhere. Ideally, decisions should be informed by whatever has been shown to be efficacious. More studies are needed in this regard.
 
 
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D. DABPS
Psychologist, Executive Director, IEH
January 19, 2018            
 

         

    Empathy, the capacity for understanding and identifying what someone else is experiencing, is an essential ingredient of emotional health and social order. In its absence, individuals and groups are apt to act in total disregard for the feelings and rights of others. On an individual level, starting at a very early age, the child will be handicapped in facing the important tasks encompassed by the socialization process. On a group or societal level, a self-centered, dispassionate mind-set will hamper the prospects for people banding together for the common good. An absence of empathy is often seen in children with histories of abandonment, severe neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse and/or psychological abuse. For those children, it is an uphill challenge to instill empathy in them before it’s too late, before they become teens or adults whose morally oblivious actions come with an enormous personal and societal cost.
     A casual observation of infants and toddlers provides evidence that empathy is inborn. It is hard-wired into our DNA, as a necessity for humans to have evolved into social beings, dependent upon social order and social connectedness. Your one year old is likely to smile when in the immediate proximity of another smiling child, and is just as likely to cry when seeing another child in distress. Such reactions are instinctual, they do not have to be taught. As mentioned above, however, they can be blocked or muted by exposing the child to such extreme unempathetic experiences as abandonment, neglect and abuse. On the other hand, is it possible for empathy to be enhanced and strengthened as a consequence of favorable caregiving environments? We as parents may not need to teach empathy to our children, but our actions can help to magnify its importance and scope for them. We can do so by modeling acts of kindness in our daily lives, near enough for our children to see.
     It was 60 years ago, when my parents took my brother, Phil and me for a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Phil brought along the new 8mm movie camera that he received earlier that summer. Who was to know that these would be among the first movie frames he would shoot in his eventual, successful career as cinematographer? It all could have come to an abrupt end, however, if it hadn’t been for an anonymous good Samaritan. He or she found the camera, which Phil inadvertently left in or near a washroom, and returned it to the front desk. For several minutes, while the camera was still missing, a pall had been cast on our vacation. Phil’s budding career as filmmaker might have been stillborn had it not been for the stranger’s act of kindness. For a long time after the incident, I wondered why the person didn’t just keep the new camera. Nobody would have known. That question was on my mind years later when I decided upon Psychology as a major in college. I wanted to find out what it is that propels some people to act benevolently while others act selfishly or worse. The answer for me is twofold. Shield developing children from exposure to the trauma of abuse and neglect; expose them to daily doses of unconditional acts of kindness. Encourage them to embrace the behavior being modeled, giving them regular experience in offering and receiving acts of kindness from loved ones as well as fellow good citizens.
     On June 11th, the Tony Awards will be honoring the best Broadway shows of the season. One of the nominees for best musical is a show called “Come From Away.” It depicts the collective acts of kindness extended by the people of Gander, Newfoundland to 7,000 stranded air travelers in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. This poignant and uplifting show dramatizes how our common human existence is so greatly enriched when we unconditionally extend or receive acts of kindness. If your child is old enough, and you plan to be in New York in the foreseeable future, go see the show together. It would be like giving your child an extra strong dose of empathy – instilling medication.
 
 
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D.
Executive Director, IEH
May 26, 2017

This past July, while attending what was billed as Paul Simon’s last American concert at Forest Hills Stadium, a torrential storm caused a rain delay, necessitating spectators to huddle close together under the grandstand. It was during this protracted delay that I came face to face with a Trump supporter for the first time. As a New Yorker, I had been accustomed to speaking with Hillary or Bernie people, while being shielded from having contact with Trump supporters. It didn’t take long for the conversation with the stranger to lead to a revelation. The Trump supporter had very little to say about what he liked about his candidate, but he was passionately outspoken about his hatred for Hillary. He quickly and angrily “accused” me of being for Hillary. Mercifully, the rain stopped and my acquaintance and I parted company forever. What lingered was the question of what instilled such hatred for Hillary. With the passage of time it became quite evident that millions of Americans across the country shared the sentiment to the extent that it appears to have been a significant determinative factor in the outcome of the election.

In my capacity as Psychologist who conducts Forensic Child Custody Evaluations for Family Court and New York Supreme Court, I often encounter an insidious condition that is quite debilitating for the children who are afflicted with it. It is child alienation, also referred to as parental alienation. The former label focuses on the child victim’s signs and symptoms, whereas the latter label pays more attention to the alleged perpetrator’s actions. Only recently has it hit me that there is a remarkable overlap between the presentation of an alienated child and that of a Hillary hater, such as the man at the Simon concert.  Anyone who has ever lived with, assessed or otherwise observed an alienated child knows how impervious he or she is to considering any information that departs from a fixed perception of the rejected parent. I’ve found the following definition of the alienated child to be most useful: “One who expresses freely and persistently, unreasonable negative feelings and beliefs toward a parent that are significantly disproportionate to the child’s actual experience with that parent.” Furthermore, rejection of the parent is intense, total and intended to be permanent; the child fails to acknowledge the presence of any redeeming qualities about the rejected parent. The following are characteristics of the alienated child that are most salient to the present discussion:

• relentless hatred towards rejected parent
• no ambivalences about rejected parent or about favored parent (one is considered all-bad; the other is considered all-good)
• child engages in aggressive, hostile verbal (sometimes physical) attacks on the rejected parent without guilt or remorse
• child parrots the favored or alienating parent
• many of child’s beliefs are enmeshed with those of the alienating parent
• many beliefs are irrational, even delusional, as they are not based upon actual experience with the rejected parent
• child is in lockstep with the alienating parent to denigrate the rejected parent
• there seems to be no capacity to forgive the rejected parent

For alienation to take hold, several conditions must be in place and several events must occur over time. Most obvious is the engaging in alienating behavior by the alienating or favored parent. Parental alienation strategies include making negative comments, encouraging disregard, and fostering anger/hurt towards the rejected parent, while promoting total reliance on the favored parent. The underlying message is that the rejected parent is unsafe, unloving and unavailable to meet the child’s needs, thereby creating the appearance that the rejected parent has rejected the child.

As consequence of being subjected to such alienating practices, the alienated child typically feels worthless, flawed, unloved, unwanted, and endangered.  Most often there are pre-existing conditions that heighten the probability of alienation to occur. A vulnerable child, one who is overly dependent, anxious, fearful or troubled, is more likely to be responsive to the alienating strategies of the favored parent. Developmental factors such as the child’s age, cognitive capacity, temperament, and individuation history are also relevant. Furthermore, the likelihood of alienation is heightened by the child’s being subjected to a family environment featuring domestic strife, physical or psychological abuse and/or neglect. Finally, it also “helps“ if the rejected parent resorts to inept parenting practices, as well as engages in counter – rejecting behavior aimed at the child and the favored parent.

When all or most of the above conditions and events are present for a sufficient duration, a perfect storm is created, and child alienation is highly likely to occur. It is theorized that the child, overwhelmed by parental conflict, and subjected to alienating strategies by one parent, possibly coupled with inept parenting by the other parent, is apt to regress, resorting to the defensive operation of splitting, so as to reduce anxiety. The child ultimately accepts the distortion of history presented by the alienating parent, while simultaneously relinquishing the capacity or desire for engaging in critical thinking. Self-doubt about one’s own perceptions emerge, in association with increasing dependence upon the perceptions of others in defining “the truth.” A low sense of self-efficacy, and diminished self- esteem are the inevitable sequelae, which serve as mediators for the development of such negative outcomes as depression, anxiety disorder, dissociative disorder, conduct disorder and substance use disorder.

So what does all of the above have to do with the 2016 presidential election? Among the unique aspects of this election campaign was the significantly high unfavorable ratings of both candidates, hovering somewhere around 60% or higher in poll after poll. Those who opposed Donald Trump felt he was unqualified for the job and were repulsed by many of his outrageous sexist, racist and xenophobic remarks. Those who opposed Hillary Clinton objected to her seeming dishonesty regarding past handling of emails, her purported cold-hearted response to the Benghazi tragedy, and her dealings with Wall Street, as well as the Clinton Foundation. Trump was ultimately able to prevail in the swing states, flipping key states to the Republican line, because he succeeded in defining himself as the agent of change. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. A significant number of voters who opposed Hillary didn’t just disagree with her policies or intended programs. THEY HATED HER. Many voted for Trump, despite considerable misgivings about his qualifications and character, because their hatred for Hillary rendered them utterly incapable of casting their vote for her.

One Wisconsin voter, a lifelong Democrat, explained his reason for voting for Trump in very simple terms: “He wasn’t Hillary.” In the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, Trump’s collective plurality over Hillary amounted to approximately 75,000 votes. If one-half of these voters, 37,501, voted for Hillary, she would be the President-Elect. We may never know just how many of these swing voters were propelled to vote as they did more by their hatred for Hillary, than their approval of Trump as a messianic agent of change.

In my estimation, the expressed hatred for Hillary, not just opposition to her positions, reflects the same kind of thinking and dynamic that is found in the alienated child. Many of the people who voted for Trump, or for Jill Stein, or stayed home and didn’t vote, felt constrained by their hatred towards Hillary. Their hatred was intense, entrenched, and disproportionate to the mistakes she made or was perceived to have made, and disproportionate to her supposed character flaws. It took time for this hatred to congeal as it did, but the perfect storm against her candidacy was in place. Alienating behavior came almost daily from all directions, not only from Trump himself, but from right wing media. She was demonized as  being a criminal who should be locked up, despite the absence of any legal verification of such claim. Accusations of her having lied to the families of Benghazi victims about what happened there had no merit. She was endlessly labeled as “crooked Hillary” by Trump who was successful in instilling this characterization into the minds of millions of people. They swallowed it whole, without bothering to do their own critical analysis regarding the evidence or lack of evidence present. The characteristics of the alienated child aptly describe the alienated child voter in the 2016 election. Trump successfully targeted a substantial subgroup of vulnerable voters, who as a group resemble the vulnerable child i.e. economically dependent, anxious about safety and economic threats posed by illegal immigrants, fearful over physical threats posed by anyone perceived to be an agent of ISIS, or troubled by changes in the American landscape. That Hillary was a flawed candidate contributed to the alienation outcome. She exacerbated feelings of distrust towards her whenever she evaded questions or parsed words in attempting to “explain” her motives and actions regarding her handling of emails. That she engaged in counter-rejecting behavior aimed at Trump voters (remember her “deplorables” comment?) certainly didn’t help her cause, either. By the time of the election, there were millions of voters nationally, and perhaps tens of thousands of voters in swing states who passionately hated Hillary, so much like the alienated child, that absolutely nothing positive that might have been said about her or absolutely nothing negative that might have been said about Trump would have changed their mind. Their beliefs were, by that time, enmeshed with those of the alienating agent, Donald Trump, with whom they were in lockstep in their denigration of Hillary. 
​
That voter alienation occurred, and figured substantially in the 2016 election, was no accident. It could happen again and again in future local and national elections, unless the campaign/election process is overhauled. Much has been said and written about the adverse impact that the Citizens United Supreme Court decision has had on the financing of candidates. Big money can skew priorities away from the public good and in the direction of special interests. It can pay for political ads aimed at distorting reality, particularly in the minds of economically and/or emotionally vulnerable citizens. The antidote must come not only from campaign finance reform, but also from effective attempts at promoting critical thinking within the electorate. Educative efforts must start in elementary school and continue through college and beyond. Political pressure and economic incentive should be exerted on media outlets to revert to a more balanced, objective treatment of the news. Those outlets that strive for objectivity and eschew dichotomous argumentation should be lauded and rewarded for their efforts. Let’s revert to having news programs that are not content-controlled by ratings considerations, not functioning primarily as either entertainment, or proselytizing entities. Revert to having a clear demarcation between news and entertainment.
 
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D.
East Hills, N.Y.                            

​     On Monday, December 19, 2016, elections will be held in each of the 50 statehouses to determine who shall be the 45th President of the United States. The only people voting in these elections will be 538 citizens who were previously appointed to be Electors and who pledged to vote for the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates of the political party that nominated them. With two exceptions, it is a winner-take-all practice by which the candidates with the plurality of the popular vote in each state receive all of the state’s electoral votes. Even where the margin of victory is as little as 1.3% or less of the popular vote, as it was on November 8th in Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the victor gets to have all of the Electors, pledged to support him, vote on December 19th. At this writing (11/18/2016), there are 290 Electors prepared to vote in their respective statehouses for Donald J. Trump, as compared with 232 Electors pledged to vote for Hillary R. Clinton. Michigan’s 16 Electors have still not been determined. In order for Mr. Trump to ascend to the presidency, he needs to receive only 270 electoral votes, twenty fewer than are already pledged to vote for him. If for some reason, however, 21 of those 290 Republican Electors choose to withhold their vote for him, then the outcome of the election would be undetermined, until another vote is taken in the U.S. House of Representatives. Indeed, in the early 19th century, both Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams ascended to the presidency only after they were voted in by members of the House.
     During the 20th century, there have been eight Electors who cast their votes for a candidate other than the one each had been pledged to support. Their actions were not illegal, and had no bearing on the outcomes of the elections in question. The term “Faithless Elector” has been applied to them, but conscience rather than faith may have been the determinant of their action. In 2000, a D.C. Gore Elector chose to abstain rather than vote for Gore, who was the first man to win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote since Benjamin Harrison became President in 1886. Was he a “Faithless Elector” or simply a man of conviction who could not in good conscience vote in accordance with his original pledge? In the late 1960’s, Muhammed Ali “voted” his conscience by abstaining or refusing to be inducted into the armed forces, to participate in a war he did not believe to be just. Eventually, millions of Americans came to the same conclusion about the war, but at the time of his decision, it took considerable courage to risk his career and his reputation because of deeply held personal principles. When he passed away earlier this year, Ali was mourned as one of the world’s great leaders of his time. He was beloved at the end!
     In the election of 2016, two famous Republican leaders, beloved by many, voted their conscience when they decided not to vote for the Republican candidate for President. George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush were the last Republicans to occupy the White House, and are the only surviving Republican ex-Presidents. Bush 41 publically announced that he voted Hillary Clinton; Bush 43 publically announced that he abstained from voting for President, although he voted for all of the other Republicans down ticket. “W” had the courage to abstain rather than to perfunctorily vote straight Republican. The only possible motive that he had for so doing is that he was following his conscience. How in good conscience could he vote for a man who loudly and repeatedly declared his intention to violate the Constitution of the United States, and to act without regard to our treaty and other international obligations as well as to long held values and traditions that have defined our country since Washington took the oath of office almost 228 years ago?
     How many of the 290 Republican Electors when first appointed, and how many of the 61 million Trump supporters on or before November 8th may have been fully cognizant of the dangers that their candidate poses for our country? The vast majority of Trump voters were attracted by his powerful messages of demanding fair trade agreements, restoring millions of jobs to middle class America and ensuring that Americans would be protected from the forces of Islamic Jihadist terrorism. Hopefully, only a tiny minority of his backers were responding primarily to the racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Latino, anti-Semitic elements of his campaign. When the Electors pledged to Trump, and when the voters went to the polls, how many acted out of support for his vow to order his subordinates in the military to commit acts of torture, in clear violation of international law? How many championed his declaration that he’d violate First Amendment rights regarding religion, free speech, and freedom of the press in the quest to “make America great again?” How many really favored his determination to disregard due process in using a federal force to round up millions of undocumented immigrants and summarily deport them? How many Trump voters were mobilized to back him because of his readiness to weaken or destroy NATO unless some member nations paid more dues, or to obliterate the international agreement that successfully contained Iran’s nuclear weapons initiative? How many really want us to walk away from our leadership role in the fight against global warming, with the future of the planet at stake? Overall, Trump voters were older Americans. Clinton voters in the 30 to 44 year old group surpassed Trump voters by 8%; Clinton voters in the 18 to 29 year old group surpassed Trump by 18%. The younger voters seemed to have greater concerns about the future of our country and our planet, whereas the older voters were perhaps more concerned about present day financial and/or safety issues. We do not know what percentage of younger or older voters backed Trump primarily because of his outspoken stance on violating our constitution, treaties, and centuries’ old values.
     On December 19, 2016, America will have a chance to prevent the horrors of having the fabric of our country ripped to shreds by the next administration. If at least 21 (or 37, if Michigan goes for Trump) of the 290 (or 306) Republican Electors vote their conscience and either vote for another candidate or abstain, then Donald Trump would receive less than the 270 electoral votes necessary to be elected President. All it would take would be for this cadre of patriotic,                                 
courageous Americans to look into the eyes of their children, spouses, relatives and close friends, as well as to look in the mirror, and ask themselves whether they must act in behalf of country. They must consider whether they should cast their electoral votes reflexively, without regard to the distinct possibility that our country as we know and love it, our democracy, may be destroyed beyond recognition for years or decades to come. In the immediate aftermath of the election, many hoped that Mr. Trump, the statesman, would emerge at long last, and replace the bombastic, narcissistic, emotionally fixated adolescent, misogynist, bully who was on display throughout the campaign. Many fancifully hoped that he would jettison his worst plans for creating an isolationist, oligarchic, white supremacist, middle class vanishing society once he takes the oath of office. Some of his earliest post-election personnel decisions suggest otherwise. We very well may be facing the greatest threat to the integrity of our democracy in the history of the United States. Up until now, the greatest threat came from within, at the dawn of the Civil War, but at least we had Abraham Lincoln to rely upon to survive.
     If a sufficient number of Republican Electors act courageously on December 19th, it would be left for the 435 members of the House of Representatives to select the 45th President. The Republican led House could elect Trump, if the vote were to be strictly on party lines. Alternatively, it could elect Clinton or Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate who garnered the third most votes in the general election. The eyes of the world, not to mention congressional constituents, would be on the 435 Representatives. This vote would be very transparent. Would Representatives reflexively vote along party lines, or would enough vote according to conscience and the good of our country. Those who’d vote Trump would thereby be accepting responsibility for whatever travesty follows. Those Republican Representatives who could not in good conscience vote for Clinton, could still vote for Johnson, someone who has leaned Republican in the past and who has administrative experience as Governor of New Mexico. He might very well be a facilitator in helping many Republican policy initiatives succeed, while allaying the angst that would exist under Trump concerning loss of civil liberties. It would be up to the 100 members of the U.S. Senate to vote for Vice President, be it Pence, Kaine or William Weld, former Governor of Massachusetts.
     Last June, the world was shocked to learn that the citizens of England voted to have their country leave the European Union. In the aftermath of the vote, many who chose Brexit had buyers’ remorse, when they only belatedly learned about the likely realistic negative consequences to England’s economy and to their personal lives. We can’t afford to have the same dynamic play out in the U.S. Twenty-one or thirty-seven Electors are positioned to spare our country of years of turmoil, and save our democracy… but only if they step up and act as courageously as did “The Greatest,” Muhammed Ali.

Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D., East Hills, N.Y.
Author, Gregory of Zimbabwe. Overcoming Child Abuse and the Scandal of Diplomatic Immunity

     This is a follow-up to an October 22, 2015, “Len’s in Focus” blog, entitled, “Crisis in Family Court: What Should be Done When Judges Break the Rules.” At that time, we were awaiting responses from three investigatory bodies, as well as from other officials of the Family Courts, and Law Guardian Programs in Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau Counties of New York State. A host of issues were in need of addressing as a result of the very questionable actions and inactions committed by a Nassau County Family Court Judge, the Honorable Conrad Singer and his Counsel, Judge Tammy Robbins.

     Over the past 5 months, much has transpired, but in reality, very little has been accomplished with respect to answering the question inherent in the sub-title of the 10/22/15 blog. Consequently, the overall situation is substantially worse than it seemed to be. Instead of this simply being a narrative of how two officials of Family Court strayed from following an ethical course of conduct, the existence of systemic inertia, disinterest, and/or malfeasance, as well as structural dysfunction, has become apparent. Here is what transpired since October.

1.  On Election Day, November 3, 2016, Judge Robbins failed in her bid to return to the Bench. As far as is known, she retains her position as Counsel for Judge Singer.

2.  In October, 2015, Judge Singer decided to sign the 18b voucher that was returned to him by Dr. James Gries, thereby paving the way for payment in full for evaluation. Prior to this, the Nassau County Assigned Counsel Plan coordinator, assisted Dr. Gries in gaining partial payment. In approving the voucher, Judge Singer sent a letter to Dr. Gries in which he made no mention or acknowledgement of any error of omission or commission that he or his Counsel made throughout the entire matter. It may only be speculated as to what prompted Judge Singer to finally approve payment for a report that had been submitted to him 4 months earlier, and that had been rejected by his Counsel. In an October 5, 2015 letter, Dr. James Gries asked Judge Singer to provide him with “a letter of comfort attesting to my compliance with the Court Order (appointing him to do the forensic evaluation), and adherence to the standards expected of a forensic evaluator.” Rather than comply with this request, Judge Singer, in his reply, instead seemed to fully stand behind the actions of his staff while tacitly denying any knowledge about Judge Robbin’s apparent unethical actions.  He wrote that, generally, he permits staff to preview reports in order to “…to ensure the procedural requirements of the court order are adhered to…”  He ended his letter by writing: “I am sure you can appreciate the court’s protocol with regard to forensic reports.”  Absolutely no acknowledgment of error was made.

3.  In late January, 2016, Dr. Leonard Gries received a letter of apology from Judge Robbins, dated January 12, 2016. In her letter, she expressed that she had been “alarmed and disturbed” to discover that her “vulgar and inappropriate” email, dated July 24, 2015, had been “sent to you in error as it was meant for my secretary.” She assured, “had I known that I had made this mistake, I would have immediately reached out to you to apologize.” Yet, despite the fact that she learned of this mistaken email communication when she was contacted by the New York State Inspector General on October 14, 2015, it took another three full months before she decided to send the letter of apology. Perhaps her decision to send it was influenced by the urging of a third party, such as the Honorable Thomas Adams, Administrative Judge of the 10th Judicial District, Nassau County. In his position, it is Judge Adams who would presumably be charged with carrying out the corrective actions suggested by the office of the Inspector General. Aside from sending a vulgar email, no other acknowledgment of error was made.          

4.  On February 2, 2016, Dr. Leonard Gries sent a letter to Judge Adams, asking for his “administrative guidance concerning the rules and required professional practices that pertain to ... each of three questions:”

• “When, if ever, is it appropriate for a Family Court Judge or his Counsel, to insert him or herself into determining the actual content of a Forensic Child Custody Evaluation conducted by an impartial, court-appointed Forensic Evaluator?”
• “When, if ever, is it appropriate for a duly conducted Forensic Evaluation to be suppressed, and removed from case files, before any of the involved attorneys for the parties or subject child receive the opportunity to review it and/or ask that it be submitted into evidence?”
• “When, if ever, is it appropriate for a Family Court Judge or his Counsel, to deny payment to a duly appointed Forensic Evaluator, following the submission of a report that was completed according to the provisions of the Court Order of Appointment?”

It was pointed out to Judge Adams that neither Judge Robbins nor Judge Singer had expressed any acknowledgement of error in their handling of the case, suggesting that “either may feel it appropriate to act in the very same manner in their conduct of future cases.”  At the conclusion of the letter, an appeal was made for Judge Adams, or the county Administrator of the Assigned Counsel Plan “to clarify what the rules that apply to all parties are.” Judge Adams never responded to the 2/2/2016 letter!

5.  In February 22, 2016, Dr. Leonard Gries and Dr. James Gries sent a 3 page letter to the Office of Attorneys for Children in Brooklyn, N.Y. with copies to its Director, to the Presiding Justice, Supreme court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department, and to the Deputy Chief Administrative Judge, Courts Outside New York City, State of New York Unified Court System. In the letter, the facts and events of the entire matter were summarized. The central point raised asked, “if errors of judgment were made, shouldn’t there be some declaration of what they were?...If no errors were made, then this should be announced as well …” Specifically, “we are asking that you clarify the rules pertaining to ex-parte communication, judicial involvement in requiring changes in report content, judicial suppression without a hearing, of duly submitted reports, and arbitrary judicial delay or denial of payment for services rendered by court appointed evaluators. Guidelines and clarifying statements are urgently needed to restore credibility regarding the Family Court’s adherence to the highest ethical standards, as well as the rule of law.” Of all the recipients of the 2/22/2016 letter, only one cared to reply.


6.  On March 3, 2016, a reply was received from the Mental Health Professionals Certification Committee, State of New York, Appellate Division, Supreme Court /First and Second Judicial Departments, stating that “it would not be appropriate for me or this office to provide any guidance as judicial conduct is not within our jurisdiction.” No other responses have been received. Neither the New York State Commission on ct, nor the Inspector General of the New York State Unified Court System, nor the State of new York Grievance Committee For the 10th, Judicial District, nor the Administrative Judge for the 10th Judicial District, Nassau County, nor the Administrators of the Assigned Counsel Plan/Law Guardian Programs for Brooklyn, Queens or Nassau Counties of New York State felt any obligation to clarify the issues raised. Answering such questions was implicitly deemed to be beyond the jurisdiction of each official or entity. In almost comical fashion, one respondent recently suggested that the matter be again taken up by two of the other entities that already declined to make any comment or take any action.
 
     What may we conclude from this eight month long exercise in futility? Payment for services rendered was ultimately made, and a letter of apology regarding a vulgar email was ultimately sent, ostensibly as a consequence of the investigation conducted by the Inspector General of the New Your State Unified Court System. But none of the very important questions regarding ethical and legal conduct was answered or even addressed. May we conclude that the various legal and administrative components of the Family Court system are powerless to oversee or even comment on the actions of Family Court Judges and their Counsel? If so, then the rule of law and ethics are fully subject to the whims of the Judge. This is not only unfair, it is dangerous! It removes accountability, while paving the way for the arbitrary and potentially harmful handling of highly sensitive, emotionally wrenching family disputes, with unpredictable long term impact on the subject children. When arbitrary judicial actions are not even subject to transparent, independent review, the credibility of the Family Court system is grossly damaged. In the absence of a public and professional outcry concerning this problem, matters are likely to worsen.

Remedies are easier said than done, but a plan of action needs to start somewhere. In our next blog we will discuss such remedies.  We welcome your feedback.  Stay tuned. 
 
 
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D., DABPS                                                                             James R. Gries, Psy.D.
March 14, 2016
 

Measuring Parental Alienation
 
                                                        
 
     Decades ago when the U.S. Supreme Court deliberated on the question of what constitutes pornography, it was suggested that one doesn’t have to rely upon a complex definition. The guideline offered, “you know it when you see it,” may be applicable to the task of detecting parental alienation. As discussed in my February 28, 2015 blog, the alienated child expresses negative feelings and beliefs about a parent that are disproportionate to the child’s actual experience with that parent, and his rejection is intense, total and intended to be  permanent.
     Over the past 20 years, in conducting scores of child custody/parenting plan evaluations, I have interviewed and observed many children who seemed to fit such description. Their attitudes about each parent were vividly reflected in their interview comments, and responses on various self-report tests and questionnaires. Their feelings towards and levels of attachment with each parent were readily observed during conjoint parent-child play and/or interaction interviews. Some helpful measurement tools that I’ve used include, the Child Self-Report Data Questionnaire, the “Would” Questionnaire and the Perception of Relationships Test (PORT), all developed by Barry Bricklin, Ph.D. The Children’s Sentence Completion Test has also been an invaluable resource.
     Another potential window for detecting parental alienation may be provided by portions of the Gries Assessment of Psychological Permanence (GAPP). Developed 20 years ago, the GAPP was intended primarily for use with pre-adoptive and adopted children, to assess the extent to which unresolved relationship issues with family of origin and/or with adoptive family may be impeding the chances for successful adoption. Part l of the GAPP addresses family of origin issues, and Part ll addresses adoptive family issues. Preliminary reliability and validity findings were reported in the attached Gries Assessment of Psychological Permanence (GAPP): A Pilot Study (Unpublished, 2005). The study, based upon testing of 56 pre-adoptive children in foster care, revealed some interesting findings, as well as limitations inherent in the measure. Because of the very small sample size, the “normative” data that was gathered cannot be assumed to be reflective of the general pre-adoptive foster care population. Of interest is how so many of the Part ll items were significantly correlated with various measures of child behavioral and emotional well-being, whereas Part l items yielded mixed and unexpected results. It was concluded that whereas GAPP Part l “appears to offer entry into areas of adoption related, inner conflict which are not tapped by other available clinical measures … (it seems to offer) more in the form of a structured interview with heuristic opportunities for identifying unresolved adoption issues, than as a psychometric instrument yielding meaningful predictive scores…”
 
    With minor modifications, portions of the GAPP may offer a comparable opportunity for identifying the alienated child, when conducting child custody/parenting plan evaluations. Instead of family of origin parents being the frame of reference in Part l, those items would pertain to the “rejected parent.” Instead of adoptive family being the frame of reference in Part ll, those items would pertain to the “favored parent”, who may or may not turn out to be an alienating parent. The 14 Part ll items would otherwise remain intact, with the child being asked to rate how close to the ideal his/her relationship with favored parent is. It would be expected that an alienated child would obtain a total Part ll score that is very close to the ceiling score of 98. On the other hand, only some of the six Part l items appear applicable for tapping a child’s estrangement or alienation from a “rejected parent.” Specifically, the Betrayal, Understanding (Confusion with) Birth Parent, Forgiveness (Obsession with Victimization), and Future Outlook items would be used. It would be expected that the most alienated children would obtain very low scores (i.e. approaching basal score of 5 or 6) on the Betrayal, Understanding and Forgiveness items, and very high scores (i.e. approaching ceiling score of 30) on the Future Outlook item. Findings from the GAPP could be compared with findings from the aforementioned Bricklin questionnaire and test measures, as well as from observations during conjoint parent-child interaction interviews. Convergent findings can strengthen the basis for concluding that the child in question is either substantially estranged or alienated. Additional data would be needed to see if there is evidence of alienating behaviors on the part of the “favored parent”.

     Research is needed to determine whether a battery of interview techniques, tests and questionnaires can be used to reliably assess for the presence or absence of child alienation. This may be a doctoral dissertation waiting to happen within a forensic clinical psychology program. Your comments are invited.
 
 
 
 
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D.
February 19, 2016

    Judicial integrity is of paramount importance in ensuring that families are treated fairly and that decisions about best interests of the child are reached objectively, following procedures and standards governing child custody proceedings in Family Court. As a NYS Licensed Psychologist, and impartial forensic evaluator, I am required to maintain total independence in interviewing, and assessing the parties, and in reaching conclusions and recommendations concerning child custody arrangements and parenting plans. I must operate under rules set forth by the Court. Judges and Referees are charged with the responsibility of seeing to it that the rules are followed. The credibility of the entire process hinges upon judicial enforcement of said rules.

    My recent involvement in a Nassau County Family Court case has exposed me to practices and an underlying culture among some court officials that raise great concern about the extent to which ethical standards are upheld or compromised, i.e. concern about whether the rules for fair play are being followed or broken. In the case in question, there was a concerted effort made by Judge Tammy Robbins, Legal Counsel to the Presiding Judge on the case, Conrad Singer, to edit and suppress portions of the forensic evaluation report that I completed. This constituted what is referred to as ex parte communication, i.e. out of court contact, with me, the evaluator, concerning the content of my report, a practice that is strictly forbidden by ethical guidelines governing the conducting of forensic evaluations. To engage in such ex parte communication is to taint the cloak of impartiality that is so essential to the process. To then attempt to coerce the evaluator to make changes to his report, thereby obfuscating the basis for conclusions reached, is to blatantly subvert the process. In this instance, Judge Robbins ultimately suppressed the entire report, and, acting in behalf of Judge Singer, refused to approve payment for the extensive services rendered. In response to good faith efforts to resolve the matter, Judge Robbins issued the following terse, vulgar e-mail, reiterating her demand that changes to the content of the report be made.

     “…MAKE THE CHANGES AND SHUT THE F**K UP”!!! Judge Robbins was neither subtle about her improper demands nor civil in her manner of communicating. She broke the rules forbidding ex parte communication; she broke the rules forbidding any intrusion on the independent impartiality of the evaluator, and she broke the rules of civility, in or out of court. Her actions and the above email from her are illustrative of her utter disregard for ethical standards, her readiness to abuse her position of power, and her utter contempt for others who attempt to uphold ethical standards in their conduct.

    Judge Singer did nothing to remedy the situation. He permitted the forensic evaluation report to be permanently suppressed, thereby depriving the Court of data and information needed to reach objective decisions about a child custody and parenting plan that would optimally meet the needs of the subject child. By doing so outside of court, he circumvented the customary practice of making such decisions about the admissibility of evidence within court proceedings. He thereby broke the rules about the handling of evidence, ignoring information that was collected in order to inform the Court in making determinations about what may be in the best interests of a minor child.  He also ignored requests for payment by permitting his Legal Counsel to return unsigned vouchers to me. He thereby broke the rules set forth in his own order of appointment concerning conditions and obligations regarding payment. Only belatedly, under pressure from a state investigation, did he approve partial payment. The investigation, conducted by the office of the Inspector General of the NYS Unified Court System, has been on-going for over a month. It is an internal investigation that is confidential and therefore not open for public scrutiny. The NYS Commission on Judicial Conduct has also been contacted. This Commission is on record for sanctioning Judge Singer for errors he made, including engaging in ex parte communication, approximately six years ago. Finally, a complaint has been filed with the Grievance Committee of the Nassau County Bar Association, pertaining to the unethical actions of Judge Robbins in this matter. Robbins served as County Court Judge in Nassau County from 2005 through 2014, but was voted off the bench in November, 2014. She is currently on the ballot for the November 3, 2015 election, seeking a new 10 year term as County Court Judge. I am seeking a public airing of the facts of this matter, so as to ensure that ethical standards are faithfully observed, particularly by officials of the Court who are charged with intervening in the lives of children and families under duress in a fair and unbiased manner. Investigation is especially necessary because of the failure of the Presiding Judge and his Legal Counsel to acknowledge any mistake or wrongdoing on their part.

    It would be most helpful to learn about their motives and reasons for breaking the rules. Were rules broken because allegiance to another entity or other agenda superseded the obligation to adhere to unambiguous ethical standards of conduct? In the present case, we are still awaiting feedback and corrective action to be made by the powers that be who are ultimately responsible for restoring integrity to the Family Court system, when it goes astray. The outcome of investigations will have an impact on all who are involved with or affected by Family Court, including judges, referees, forensic evaluators, lawyers serving as counsel to judges, lawyers for parents, attorneys for the children, the parents of the children and the children themselves, especially the children!

    While awaiting responses from investigatory bodies, it may be helpful to begin a dialogue among professionals as well as parents who have their own concerns based upon personal experiences with Family Court. To what degree is greater administrative oversight and monitoring necessary? What training is needed in order to clarify standards and identify the appropriate course of action to take when rules are not being followed? Is there a need for greater transparency concerning any aspects of the child custody/parenting plan litigious process? How can the process be modified to make it less stressful, less adversarial, and more efficient? How can the child’s time in a state of family limbo be minimized?

James R. Gries, Psy.D.

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Forensic Evaluator

Clinical Director, IEH