Post date: Aug 06, 2011 12:11:32 AM
EXCERPT http://www.fact.on.ca/Info/pas/gard99m.htm
Generally, the threats necessary to use in the treatment of PAS families lie on a hierarchy, and the therapist does well to pose them in order from mildest to most severe. A mild threat might simply be that the therapist will report the parent's lack of cooperation to the court. A higher level threat might involve a court-ordered reduction in the payments the alienated parent is required to provide to the alienator. Of course, there are limitations to this threat in that one cannot leave the programming parent destitute or incur such privations that the children will not be cared for properly. Obviously, this threat will be less efficacious for the wealthy than for the poor. Also, this threat is not viable when the alienated parent is not giving any money at all to the alienator. Sometimes a fine for each failure to produce the children will work; sometimes a more ongoing type of financial withholding may be necessary to help the alienator cooperate. The threat of permanent transfer of the children to the primary custody of the victimized parent (with the alienator then having visitation) can sometimes be invoked.
The highest level threat is jail. In recent years, fathers have commonly been jailed for failure to fulfill financial commitments, but I have no personal experience with mothers being jailed for failure to fulfill their commitment to enforce the visitation of the children with their fathers. Although I have repeatedly recommended such a ruling or rulings to courts, I have thus far not been successful in convincing judges that this is the only "treatment" that is likely to work. One could start with house arrest, in which the alienator would be put to jail if discovered out of the home during a prescribed period, such as the time frame of the court-ordered weekend visitation. If this does not prove efficacious, then the next step would be the more traditional house arrest, in which there is random telephone monitoring by the police and an electronic ankle band that communicates with the local police station. The next step is more formal incarceration in the local jail. Usually short periods suffice to help the alienating parent "remember" to produce the children at the assigned times.
The American Journal of Family Therapy. 27:195-212, 1999
Family Therapy of the Moderate Type of Parental Alienation Syndrome
RICHARD A. GARDNER
Department of Child Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons,
Columbia University, New York, New York, USA