Los Angeles, CA–At least since the McMartin Pre-School case, we”ve known that attorneys, sociologists, psychologists, medical doctors, etc. could and sometimes did elicit patently false statements from small children. In that case, children at the McMartin Pre-School were coaxed into making bizarre and outrageous claims of physical and sexual abuse against the school”s teachers and owners.
As videotapes of the children”s questioning made clear, investigators used a variety of techniques to get the children to fabricate claims they originally denied. A seven-year trial that cost the State of California $15 million resulted in zero convictions. Other defendants in similar cases were not so lucky.
Now the Psychiatric Times of December 8, 2008 has an article showing just how children can be manipulated into producing virtually any claim adults want. As author Dr. Charles L. Scott, M.D. writes,
Although these poor interview techniques were observed in the McMartin interview tapes, do such techniques actually elicit false allegations? Current research on this topic provides a clear answer: yes.
Here”s the link to the article (Psychiatric Times, 12/8/08).
So the question becomes this: If children can be manipulated into making false allegations of abuse, can they be manipulated to believe those allegations themselves? If they can be, then one parent can plant and nourish the seed of parental alienation syndrome in a child.
Indeed, PAS expert R.A. Gardner, M.D.”s description of children of alienating parents sounds remarkably like the children in the McMartin Pre-School case. Gardner writes that these children parrot the claims of the alienating parent and that these beliefs are sometimes irrational; the children”s beliefs are often not based on their own experience with the other parent, but on the claims of the alienator and the children have difficulty differentiating between the two. That aptly describes the children in the McMartin Pre-School case as well. Here”s a link to the details of the McMartin case.
My own thought is that it is a short step from getting a child to repeat what you say to getting him to believe what you say. The techniques of PAS appear similar to those used in the McMartin Pre-School case and others like it. Why would the results be different?