Coercive Control, Parental Alienation, And Institutional Gaslighting

Coercive Control, Parental Alienation, And Institutional Gaslighting Presented by: Dr. Chapman Date: 22 November 2022 Acknowledgements - Lakehead Thunder Bay is located on the traditional lands of the Fort William First Nation, Signatory to the Robinson Superior Treaty of 1850. Lakehead Orillia is located on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg. The Anishinaabeg include the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Pottawatomi nations, collectively known as the Three Fires Confederacy. Lakehead University acknowledges the history that many nations hold in the areas around our campuses, and is committed to a relationship with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples based on the principles of mutual trust, respect, reciprocity, and collaboration in the spirit of reconciliation - Referring to women as subject to violence and men as perpetrators - recognize that men are subject to violence and to parental alienation - Trigger warning PRISONERS OF WAR & IPV - Parallels between prisoners of war and battered women in hopes of clarifying the concept for those who have never been in a coercive and controlling environment - Coercive control = hard to classify and study because it calls on both the emotional and intellectual. - Evokes questions about our own agency, of being used and controlled by a loved one, and perhaps most insidiously of losing your identity - This has been the theme of the last decades where the criminal law system has failed to protect women, the family law system has struggled to recognize the issues COERCIVE CONTROL DEFINITION - Evan Stark - Coercive Control - Megan Stephens, then the Acting Executive Director and General Counsel of the Women's Education and Action Fund (LEAF), noted that "[w]hile there are many different working definitions of coercive control, it's generally understood as a course of intimidating, degrading and regulatory practices used by abusers to instill fear and threat into the everyday lives of their victims. Importantly, it's a highly gendered practice that often seeks to maintain or expand the gender-based privilege of a male partner." GASLIGHTING - Gaslight -1944 American film - adapted from a play of the same name from 1938 which follows a young woman whose husband slowly manipulates her into believing that she is descending into insanity. - - gas light/'gaslīt/ • verb • gerund or present participle: gaslighting Manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity. COERCIVE CONTROL - Jess Hill, See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Abuse (Victoria: Aust: Black Inc, 2019) at 2. • While those who are Indigenous or disabled, poor or young may be overrepresented, domestic violence is of equal opportunity without regard to occupation or demographics. The truth is that at the hands of an experienced abuser, "even those most secure and strong-minded woman can be reduced to someone utterly unrecognizable, herself." - Evan Stark, "Commentary on Johnson's 'Conflict and Control: Gender Symmetry and Asymmetry in Domestic Violence" (2006) 12 Violence Against Women 1019 at 1019 at 1021. • Coercive control (CC) is involved in "exploitation and deprivation as well as its links to 'psychological abuse.' If most battered women experience CC rather than domestic violence, this would explain why 'abuse' continues even when couples separate, why 'minor' violence can have significant consequences, why battered women are entrapped and develop a unique problem profile." IPV IN CANADA TODAY - The statistics: 1 in 5 homicides involves the murder of an intimate partner; - Women account for 8 of 10 victims of domestic violence and it is the most common form of violence experienced by women; - 1 in 5 women in Canada experience partner violence; - A third of Canadians self-reported abuse during childhood; - Unreported abuse, the WHO and others are estimating that as many as 1 in 3 women have experienced DV; - 59% of female survivors of domestic violence reported that their children "heard or saw the violence." - Many threats and actual violence occur post- - separation, and in fact the risk of homicide increases against not only the women fleeing abuse, - ½ of women the violent partner "threatened to hurt or kidnap their children." - "Intimate terrorism" which theorist Lewis Okun adopted from brainwashing literature. - Okun compared woman battering to torture and used the term "conjugal terrorism" to depict the "threats and the larger pattern of control by which batterers construct the victims' decision-making powers." CANADIAN CRIMINAL CODE – IPV - s. 151 following (sexual offences against children); - s. 163.1 (child pornography); - s. 162 (voyeurism); - s. 215 (failure to provide necessaries of life); - s. 218 (abandoning child); - s. 219 and following (criminal negligence); - s. 264 (criminal harassment); - s. 265-268 (assault, aggravated assault); - s. 271 (sexual assault); - s. 279 and following (kidnapping, trafficking); - s. 280 and following (abduction); - s. 229 following (homicide); - s. 264 (harassment); - s. 264.1 (uttering threats); - s. 346 (extortion); - s. 380 (fraud); - s. 372 (harassing communications); - s. 423 (intimidation); - s. 430 (mischief). CANADIAN CRIMINAL CODE 2ND SESSION, 43RD PARLIAMENT, 69 ELIZABETH II, 2020 HOUSE OF COMMONS OF CANADA BILL C-247 - The Criminal Code is amended by adding the following after section 264: - Controlling or Coercive Conduct - Offence • 264.01 (1) Everyone commits an offence who repeatedly or continuously engages in controlling or coercive conduct towards a person with whom they are connected that they know or ought to know could, in all the circumstances, reasonably be expected to have a significant impact on that person and that has such an impact on that person. CANADIAN CRIMINAL CODE 2ND SESSION, 43RD PARLIAMENT, 69 ELIZABETH II, 2020 HOUSE OF COMMONS OF CANADA BILL C-247 - Interpretation - connected - (3) For the purposes of subsection (1), two persons are connected if - (a) they are current spouses, common-law partners or dating partners, or have agreed to marry each other; or - (b) they are members of the same household, and - (i) are former spouses, common-law partners or dating partners, - (ii) have agreed to marry each other, whether or not the agreement has been terminated, - (iii) are relatives, or - (iv) carry out, or have carried out, parental responsibilities in respect of the same child, that child being under the age of 18 years. - Criminalizing the right thing to do? Divorce Act Federal, provincial acts for those who are not married, Criminal Code federal - make coercive control embedded in all provinces? Jennifer Koshan yes, Pamela Cross say bring women within the criminal justice realm CUSTODY - DIVORCE ACT – CANADIAN GOVERNMENT - Section 2(1), Divorce Act, new section (March 1, 2021) - family violence means any conduct, whether or not the conduct constitutes a criminal offence, by a family member towards another family member, that is violent or threatening or that constitutes a pattern of coercive and controlling behavior or that causes that other family member to fear for their own safety or for that of another person and in the case of a child, the direct or indirect exposure to such conduct - and includes • (a) physical abuse, including forced confinement but excluding the use of reasonable force to protect themselves or another person; • (b) sexual abuse; • (c) threats to kill or cause bodily harm to any person; • (d) harassment, including stalking; • (e) the failure to provide the necessaries of life; • (f) psychological abuse; • (g) financial abuse; • (h) threats to kill or harm an animal or damage property; and • (i) the killing or harming of an animal or the damaging of property; (violence familial) DIVORCE ACT – CANADIAN GOVERNMENT - Best interests of the child, Family violence, (Section 16(3)(j), Divorce Act), new section - (j) any family violence and its impact on, among other things, the ability and willingness of any person who engaged in the family violence to care for and meet the needs of the child, and the appropriateness of making an order that would require persons in respect of whom the order would apply to cooperate on issues affecting the child; - Rationale - Government: • To assess the ability and willingness of a perpetrator of family violence to care for and meet the needs of the child, the court must consider what the history of family violence demonstrates about that person's ability to parent in the child's best interests. For example, the court would need to consider whether the person might be violent with the child might use their relationship with the child to be violent with or control another person has caused the child to be fearful of them can be an appropriate role model for, and provide guidance to, the child. In cases of family violence, particularly spousal violence, it is crucial that the court consider whether a co-operative parenting arrangement is appropriate. A victim of family violence might be unable to co-parent due to the trauma they have experienced or ongoing fear of the perpetrator. In addition, co-operative arrangements may lead to opportunities for further family violence. - Best interests of the child, Supporting the child's relationship with other spouse, (Section 16(3)(c), Divorce Act), new section - (c) each spouse's willingness to support the development and maintenance of the child's relationship with the other spouse; - LB v PE [2021] OJ No 987, Ontario Court of Justice case where coercive and controlling behavior stressed that if the mother facilitated contact and put the abuse aside, this was the preferential solution EVIDENCE - System is set up to deal with episodic domestic violence - How do you possibly prove some of these allegations? - Love/hate relationship with evidence in these cases - Joyanna Silberg & Stephanie Dallam, "Abusers Gaining Custody in Family Courts: A Case Series of Over Turned Decisions" (2019) 16:2 Journal of Child Custody 140 at 141. • There are no great scientific tests of parenting ability, but even more disturbing in the evidence of "experts" is that "psychological tests like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) are not normed on women who have suffered domestic violence and may produce misleading results in traumatized women. For example, The MMPI may initially indicate a personality disorder that leads a custody evaluator to question her parental fitness, yet elevated scores often return to normal when a woman achieves safety." - There is no scientific test to determine if a person is an offender, whether a child has been abused, or if the concern of a mother is truthful. DEFINING PARENTAL ALIENATION - J. S. Wallerstein and J. B. Kelly, "The Effects of Parental Divorce: Experiences of the Child in Later Latency" (1976) 46:2 American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 256 • Pathologizing a child's anger towards a parent was first recognized by Judith Wallerstein and Joan Kelly in 1976 in their article, "The Effects of Parental Divorce: Experiences of the Child in Later Latency" PARENTAL ALIENATION DEFINITION - From the inception of this concept, lawyers, social scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists and a host of other medical and social science practitioners saw something of interest in this "disorder." - Concept of "parental alienation" as a term was first used by Richard A. Gardner in the 1980's. Gardner expanded this notion to the condition of "Parental Alienation Syndrome" (PAS) which was coined in 1985, and the concept was touted as a true intersection between psychology and the law. DR RICHARD GARDNER - Evidence from his own practice, Gardner identified the "alienating parent," brainwashing or programming their child to vilify and become hostile towards the other parent, or the "alienated" parent. - Gardiner defined PAS as referring to, "a disturbance in which children are obsessed with deprecation and criticism of a parent that is unjustified and/or exaggerated." denigration - 90% of children in custody litigation suffered" from PAS - When true parental abuse and/or neglect is present, there is no PAS? • - Where there is abuse there is not PAS - too simplistic? Only solution is to "transfer to the home of the so-called hated parent" as therapy alone is not going to be effective as the child will still be subjected to denigration and influences of the alienator PARENTAL ALIENATION – DR. GARDNER - In 2000 he had testified for two days in a court in Tampa Florida where PAS met the American standard (the "Frye Test" for admissibility) - Went on to say that he had testified in approximately 30 US states by 2002 and he has testified on this matters since 1960. He boasted that that "not once has a court of law ruled that I was no qualified to testify as an expert." - However, many have been very critical of the "scientific" basis of PA research. - "Research designs in PA studies to date have been shown to have serious, even fatal, methodological flaws (Michael Saini, et al., 2012, 2016). These include inadequate assessment instruments, biased selection of subjects, lack of adequate comparison groups, inadequate statistical analyses, and circular reasoning. All these flaws are obstacles to achieving construct validity." THE DARK SIDE OF DR RICHARD GARDNER? - Pedophilia "discussion of the condition does not amount to an endorsement" - Richard Gardner died by suicide in 2003 at the age of 72. - Obituary in the New York Times identifies Dr. Gardner as "a professor of child psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University from 1963 until his death," but a later correction clarified he was actually "an unpaid volunteer - not a professor of child psychiatry." - Joan S. Meier claims Dr. Gardner was "loosely affiliated with Columbia Medical School" but that he ran a clinical practice "that focused on counseling divorcing parents." DEFINING PARENTAL ALIENATION - Jennifer J. Harman, William Bernet, and Joseph Harman, "Parental Alienation: The Blossoming of a Field of Study" (2019) Current Directions in Psychological Science 1 at 1. • Although there is still so much uncertainty over the accurate use of the term, there is a plethora of research on both sides of the aisle including "over 1,000 books, book chapters, and articles in professional journals on the topic across 35 countries and six continents." - Linda C. Neilson, "Responding to Domestic Violence in Family Law, Civil Protection & Child Protection Cases" 2017 CanLIIDocs 2 (updated 2020) at 631 • "Despite controversies among child and mental-health experts about the usefulness and scientific validity of the concept, there has been a literal explosion of parental alienation claims and court findings (between 2002 and 2020) in Canada. The claim has been raised and endorsed so often that 'parental alienation' has now become more a 'legal' than a social science and child well being concept in Canada. As indicated earlier, once this happens parenting concepts and assumptions become very difficult to challenge and refute on a scientific evidence basis." INSTITUTIONAL GASLIGHTING - Deborah Epstein and Lisa A Goodman, "Discounting Women: Doubting Domestic Violence Survivors' Credibility and Dismissing their Experiences" (2019) 167:2 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 399 at 405. • Many parents have to go through the "credibility discount gauntlet, she often finds that the systems to which she turns for help dismiss her experiences and trivialize the importance of her harms, adopting and enforcing policies with little or no regard for the ways in which they operate to her detriment." - Women in our system in Canada today are facing gaslighting not simply from their abuser, but from the system they turn to for help. This includes the police, their lawyers, opposing counsel, and most damaging of all, the judges assigned to protect them. PETER JAFFE - Despite all of the televised campaigns educating the public about coercive control, domestic violence and child abuse, we entice these women into the system to say that we have the resources then we pull the rug out from under them. • Jaffe has explained these four painful stages in disclosure to those within the system. He says that the first is, "not being believed; then being believed, but having the violence minimized; then being told that the violence is an adult issue and not relevant for the children; and, finally, recognition of the impact of the violence but being told to get over it and become a co-parent and put the past behind them." - Peter Jaffe, "Assessment of Parenting Arrangements after Separation in the Context of Domestic Violence: Emerging Issues in Promoting Safety, Accountability & Healing" (Workshop delivered at the College of Psychologists of British Columbia, 21 November 2013) [unpublished]. WHAT IS THE SOLUTION? - Screening for domestic Mediators/Arbitrators in Canada violence - Training young lawyers make screening mandatory for all clients (not just family and criminal) - Earlier intervention make a difference? - Protect those persons who are vulnerable to discuss their coercive control - Narrow the concept of parental alienation as a concept in court? Another term? Too late? Still a use? - Harmed by judges? Is that the answer need to transform actions not just thoughts… - Trauma informed