Knowledge and Attitudes About the Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Survey of Custody Evaluators

Abstract

A survey study (response rate n = 106, 75.7%) was conducted of professional custody evaluators to assess their beliefs and attitudes about the parental alienation syndrome (PAS). Three overarching research questions were addressed: (1) To what extent do custody evaluators endorse the concept of PAS (2) How, if at all, do custody evaluators assess PAS and aspects of it (including general quality of parent-child relationship, extent to which child has been coached and/or is unduly influenced, and extent of parental personality disorders associated with PAS), and (3) What factors were associated with the proportion of cases that evaluators concluded PAS had occurred. Results revealed general consensus regarding the concept of PAS (familiarity with it, importance of measuring it) as well as several areas of disagreement (whether it should be included in the DSM, whether it meets Daubert and Frye standards). Evaluators who reported greater familiarity with PAS also reported having cases with more good faith allegations of it, which itself was associated with concluding that PAS had occurred in a greater number of cases. Findings suggest several avenues for improved practice and for future research.