As I sit here and type this commentary about the now deceased Dr. Richard Gardner, I am still in *shock and awe* by his passing. I've been involved in the tangled web of overzealous child protection and contentious custody cases for about 20 years now. And, it was slightly over 20 years ago that one Richard Gardner, M.D., coined the ever-controversial science we all know as PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome).
Over these past two-plus decades Dr. Gardner endured as many ad hominem and character assassination attacks by left-wing gender feminists as PAS cases he consulted on. He published his rebuttal views to these attacks with integrity and science at his website www.rgardner.com. His work, while spurned by many, slowly goaded other psychologists nationally - Warshak, Ward, Perry, Rand, Cartwright, Darnall, Mart, Kirkpatrick, et al, to publish in this similar vein. Today, Dr. Gardner's work is referenced directly or indirectly in scores of scientific journal articles, books, and monographs.
He did not create a monster, but helped to elucidate an area of law and psychology that few, if any, could put their finger on - this emotional and psychological form of child abuse - characterized by a chronic campaign of deprecation, disparaging, berating, denigration and brainwashing of one parent against the other parent with the children being wielded as ammunition in the middle. He sought to differentiate PA (Parental Alienation) versus PAS, whereby in the latter the children not only start to participate in the denigration campaign, but also start to vilify the targeted and alienated parent. I saw this firsthand in my consultative role in the high-profile Elian Gonzalez case. And, Dr. Gardner, for all the *abuse* he took in being tapped as a hired gun for fathers, anecdotally and empirically proved that PA and PAS were not and are not gender biased entities and that mothers are the recipients of PAS in scores of cases. Dr. Gardner not only testified at Frye Hearings, nationally, laying the predicate and foundation for his hotly contested science to be accepted by judges, but also maintained an invaluable website that listed the states and countries where PAS has passed legal muster.
I was saddened in 1995 when Dr. Gardner's provisions to repeal the Mondale Act (Child Abuse Prevention & Treatment Act), which were disseminated to Congress, did not gain acceptance. I've been saddened that his PAS has met a staunch opponent less far in the American Psychiatric Association by not recognizing same in the DSM-IV or DSM-IV-TR. It is my heartfelt hope they do so when the time comes to publish the DSM-V (I'm told in 2010). Dr. Richard Gardner was a legend before his time. His work will continue to be cited in scientific journal articles and books and in courtrooms around the world. I know I'll be referencing it when I speak on Father's Day at the Million Dads March in Washington, DC. And, there I'll be one step closer to getting it heard by lawmakers up on capitol hill.
God's Speed, Dr. Gardner.
