Attorney Ashish Joshi and Judge Jon Van Allsburg (Ottawa County, Michigan) gave a very interesting presentation, “Proving Alienation Without Experts: Storytelling in the Courtroom.” Their engaging presentation was replete with examples where courts had spoken about the nature of parental alienation and the ability of courts to determine its existence without assistance from expert witnesses. For example, in Malhotra v. Henhoeffer (2018 ONSC 6472) the court wrote: “Parental alienation is a legal concept as opposed to a mental health diagnosis. As such, it is my view that the court can make a finding of alienation based on an analysis of facts alone without expert evidence.” Sidestepping debates about the diagnosis of parental alienation as a syndrome, the Michigan Court of Appeals wrote:
“[Mother] … essentially contends that ‘parental alienation’ is junk science. While there may be a dispute in the scientific community about whether there is a diagnosable, pathological condition called parental alienation syndrome … there is no reasonable dispute that high-conflict custody disputes frequently involve acts by one parent designed to obstruct or sabotage the opposing parent’s relationship with the child” (Martin v. Martin, Michigan Court of Appeals No. 349261, January 28, 2020).
The bottom line for parents is this: if the other parent is engaging in sustained alienating behaviors, in order to get the court to take action, you should “let the facts do the heavy lifting”–by which is meant: don’t try to advance a diagnosis of the other parent; simply present the facts of repeated and serious behaviors that serve to obstruct or sabotage your relationship with the child(ren).
Those who have followed the research by experts like Drs. Jennifer Harman, Demosthenes Lorandos, and William Bernet and compared it with that of the critics of parental alienation, know that there is a vast gulf between the high quality of the first group and the agenda-driven nature of the latter. (A handy summary of the differences is available on the NPO website here.) The difference between the two is apparent and stark, making the charge of critics that parental alienation research is “junk science” laughable. But is there an objective measure of the scientific rigor of parental alienation research?
It turns out there is.
Joshua Marsden, who is completing his Ph.D. studies under Professor Jennifer Harman, analyzed parental alienation research using a standard tool for evaluating research rigor, the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. What Marsden concluded, based on a review of hundreds of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method studies is that parental alienation research “exhibits a high level of scientific rigor” (emphasis in original).