MESSAGE
| DATE | 2024-08-25 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Parental Alienation is a mess..
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A Court-Ordered Therapy That Separates Kids from a Parent They Love
Stirs a Backlash
PHOENIX—Tori Nielsen was 16 when she and her 12-year-old brother were
whisked away from their mother at the Maricopa County courthouse by four
strangers in a white minivan on the morning of May 27, 2021.
The strangers wouldn’t tell Tori and her brother where they were going,
she recalled, as the siblings held hands and cried in the back seat.
After hours on the interstate, they arrived at a hotel somewhere by
the ocean. The strangers, three men and one woman, barricaded the door
to their room with furniture so they couldn’t leave, Tori said.
The next morning, she remembered one of them saying: “You’re going to
have a meeting with your father now.”
What Tori didn’t know was that a judge had ordered the children to
attend a four-day family reunification program in Ventura, Calif., with
their father. The judge determined it was the only way to repair their
relationship, damaged during a decadelong custody battle, court
documents show.
The children had been living mostly with their mother, Angela Nielsen,
and resisted seeing their dad because of his temper, Tori said. But
court-appointed evaluators determined that Nielsen was poisoning the k
ids against their father. She was suddenly barred from contacting her
children to ensure they no longer rejected their dad.
It would be around two years before Tori and her brother saw or talked
to her again.
“I tried to numb myself to what was happening. It was like surviving,”
said Tori, who moved back in with her mom the day she turned 18 in May
2023. “But that only worked for so long because it all absolutely d
estroyed me.”
Tori’s father declined to speak about his family’s situation, saying he
was focused on being the best father to his children.
The treatment the Nielsens underwent is part of an industry of
intensive “reunification therapy” that has sprung up during the past
decade and is ordered by family courts to settle custody fights.
Services lik
e Building Family Bridges, where the Nielsens were forced to go, use
videos and exercises to try to break a child’s pattern of rejecting a
parent. The child is then ordered to live with that parent for an exte
nded period and barred from having contact with the other parent. A
battle has erupted over the approach in courtrooms and statehouses
across the country.
After Tori told her story at a hearing with Arizona lawmakers earlier
this year, the Republican-led legislature passed a measure prohibiting
courts from ordering any reunification treatment that cuts off a chi
ld from the parent they prefer unless both parents agree. It was signed
by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in April.
Utah, New Hampshire and Tennessee approved similar proposals this year.
California and Colorado passed laws restricting reunification treatment
in 2023.
Some legal experts and family advocacy groups say the treatment is too
extreme and traumatizes children. Child-abuse researchers have raised
concerns that the operations, which can cost families tens of thousa
nds of dollars, are unregulated and use pseudoscience to sway courts
into believing they can help kids and parents.
“Children are being court-ordered into costly, unregulated
reunification treatments or ‘camps,’ which force them into contact with
a parent who they often fear for good reason,” said Danielle Pollack,
policy m
anager for the National Family Violence Law Center at George Washington
University, which supports restricting the treatment.
A disputed theory
Only about 10% of divorces in the U.S. involve significant conflict
over custody arrangements, and just a fraction of these need to be
decided by a judge, according to Robert Mnookin, a Harvard University
prof
essor who studies divorces.
It’s in these cases that the idea of parental alienation syndrome
emerged in the 1980s with the late child psychiatrist Richard Gardner.
Gardner posited that a child can be brainwashed by one parent into
rebuffing the other during custody fights and even persuaded to make up
abuse claims. He testified in numerous cases, recommending in extreme
circumstances that a child be taken from the “alienating parent” who
had custody and placed with the “rejected parent.”
Gardner posited that a child can be brainwashed by one parent into
rebuffing the other during custody fights and even persuaded to make up
abuse claims. He testified in numerous cases, recommending in extreme
circumstances that a child be taken from the “alienating parent” who
had custody and placed with the “rejected parent.”
‘Burst into tears’
The website for Building Family Bridges greets people with a silent
video showing what appears to be a teenager on a couch having an intense
conversation with a parent. A clipboard-toting counselor looks on.
Describing itself as the “gold standard” of family reunification
services, Building Family Bridges says it can help families who
therapists and courts thought were beyond reach.
“This innovative four-day workshop helps children reunify with a parent
they claim to hate or fear,” the site says.
The site quotes unnamed parents and judges lauding its success. It also
cites a study by a former workshop leader that says out of 83 children
who had participated in Building Family Bridges, a “significant nu
mber” repaired their relationship with the parent they’d previously
rejected.
Tori Nielsen’s experience was far different.
After arriving in Ventura and spending a sleepless night together, Tori
and her brother were ushered across the street to a Crowne Plaza hotel,
she said.
In a conference room, their dad, his girlfriend and several Building
Family Bridges staff members were waiting. One introduced himself to
Tori. She later learned from speaking with other children who’d gone th
rough Building Family Bridges and from a picture she found online that
this was Randy Rand, a founder.
Staff read aloud the court order and laid out rules, Tori recalled. The
children couldn’t contact their mother for 90 days. If they tried to
leave or didn’t participate, they could be sent to a wilderness camp
, she said. Bringing up incidents from the past was forbidden. If
someone did, staff told Tori that they would stop them by saying,
“Moratorium!”
The first two days were spent watching videos that appeared aimed at
shifting the kids’ memories about their parents, Tori said. One focused
on “The Monkey Business Illusion,” a psychological study that aims t
o show blind spots in people’s perception of events. The second two days
were interactive, with the group writing down traits about themselves
and family members.
Rand declined to comment on any specific cases and described parental
alienation as “complex, painful for those involved, and nuanced.”
“The Building Family Bridges methodology is available for severe
parental alienation cases and continues to be an effective tool for
families,” he said.
Lorandos, the psychologist who worked with Building Family Bridges, said
he’d observed its workshops and trainings. He likened their work with
children who had rejected one parent to deprogramming people who’d
been in a cult.
“There’s a lot of re-education around things your dad, for example, may
have said about your mom that are not true,” he said.
At night, the children were moved into a hotel room with their father
and his girlfriend, said Tori, recalling how the hotel phone was
removed from the room so they couldn’t try to call their mom. Their
cellph
ones had been confiscated the day they were taken from Arizona.
“One morning, I woke up and went to the bathroom, and I just looked in
the mirror and I thought about what was happening and I burst into
tears,” she said.
Immediately following the workshop, Tori and her brother were required
to vacation with their dad, who took them to San Diego. Under the court
order, they then returned to live with him at his home in the Phoe
nix suburbs.
Angela Nielsen lived just a few miles away. But under the no-contact
order, she couldn’t interact with her children until she completed
Building Family Bridges’s “aftercare” curriculum.
It included writing out explanations on why she was forbidden from
contacting her kids and why the court had intervened to protect them.
Nielsen said she worked for countless hours on the responses. The
therapist administering the program for Building Family Bridges said
they were insufficient and that Nielsen was combative, documents show.
The therapist wrote that Nielsen drafted multiple iterations of answers
but refused to acknowledge that she’d “ever engaged in any parental
alienating patterns.” She therefore couldn’t move onto the program’s
next level.
In another report, the therapist noted that while the children’s
relationship with their dad was “close and healthy,” they missed their
mother and desperately wanted to see her. The report said Tori would
prefer to live primarily with her mom, and felt more supported and happier
living with her.
-e emotions, while normal, were also examples of the kids’ own
alienating beliefs, the therapist wrote.
“I would get so upset and so down,” Nielsen said. “Like why can’t I pass
this program? I would spend entire weekends working on these questions.
I just wanted my children to come home.”
Now staying with her dad and his girlfriend, Tori buried herself in
activities: cheerleading, a mentorship club, time at her boyfriend’s
house. She stayed “neutral” toward her father, trying to get along with
him, hoping it would speed a chance to see her mother, she said.
Her dad’s mood swings continued to upset her, Tori said. And she
developed panic attacks, overcome with nausea and shakiness.
On her closet mirror, Tori marked off the days that passed. Just after
midnight on May 7, 2023, her 18th birthday, she packed her belongings
and told her dad she was leaving. He asked if she was certain she wa
nted to leave like this, she recalled. Her brother implored her not to
forget about him. It broke her heart.
“I kind of just showed up at my mom’s house that day,” Tori said. “We
just hugged and cried. It was a surreal and relieving moment, but it was
really hard because my brother wasn’t there with me.”
Troubled histories
Concerned by reports of children being traumatized after being removed
from a parent to attend reunification programs, Danielle Pollack’s group
at George Washington University has been working with lawmakers t
o limit them.
Kayden’s Law, passed by Congress in 2022, provides federal funding to
states that restrict reunification treatment not shown to be effective,
and trains judges on how best to evaluate abuse allegations in cust
ody fights. The law was named after Kayden Mancuso, a 7-year-old
Pennsylvania girl who was fatally beaten by her father after a judge
allowed him unsupervised visits despite warnings from her mother about
his
violent history.
“These camps are not about protecting our children or bringing families
together. They manipulate children and pass on exorbitant fees to
families,” said Arizona state Sen. Shawnna Bolick, a Republican who spo
nsored the recent measure there.
Supporters of more restrictions note that while the reunification
industry includes some well-intentioned therapists, leading proponents
have come under scrutiny.
Randy Rand of Building Family Bridges was disciplined by the California
Board of Psychology in 2009 for misconduct in two cases, records show.
In one, the board found Rand blatantly sided with the father in a
custody case he was supposed to be impartially mediating. In a separate
case, Rand recommended a permanent custody change without ever
interviewing the child, which amounted to gross negligence, the board
said
.
Rand’s license was placed on probation for five years unless he agreed
to have his practice monitored, take an ethics course and pay a $43,000
fine. His license is currently inactive.
In board filings, Rand denied wrongdoing.
Rand said he does not lead Building Family Bridges workshops and serves
as “administrative services director.” He said he occasionally provides
support to the licensed mental health workers and legal professio
nals running the sessions.
Linda Gottlieb, who runs the Turning Points for Families reunification
program in New York, is the subject of a lawsuit filed in New York state
court in March. In the lawsuit, an Ohio woman, Tricia Singer-Romo
hr, sued Gottlieb for violating rules on deceptive and unfair trade
practices, alleging she falsely represented parental alienation as a
scientifically accepted disorder that her program could cure.
A judge ordered Singer-Romohr’s two children to participate in
Gottlieb’s program in 2021 after determining she was manipulating them
into rejecting their father and after hearing testimony from Gottlieb.
Sing
er-Romohr, who had primary custody, was initially barred from contacting
her kids for 90 days until Gottlieb determined she was supporting the
kids’ relationship with their dad.
In court filings, Singer-Romohr included copies of letters that Gottlieb
required she write to her children. Her letters included recollections
of good times the kids shared with their dad, and encouraged them
to have a loving relationship with him while apologizing for making
them feel like they shouldn’t.
Gottlieb told Singer-Romohr that wasn’t enough, according to emails
from the filings. After Gottlieb said Singer-Romohr wasn’t complying,
the no-contact order ultimately got extended for around 900 days, accor
ding to the suit.
Attorneys for Singer-Romohr referred to the lawsuit when asked for
comment.
Gottlieb, a marriage and family therapist and social worker, wouldn’t
comment on the case. In legal filings, she said parental alienation was
widely accepted by courts and that she favors lifting no-contact or
ders as soon as it’s “clinically advisable.” Gottlieb asserted that it
was the judge who extended the no-contact orders and she never made any
recommendations about them. In court filings, her lawyer said Sing
er-Romohr didn’t object to Gottlieb’s involvement until she disagreed
with the outcome of the case.
“I think my entire profession, including what I do, has been unfairly
criticized with deliberate lies,” Gottlieb said in an interview.
‘Unnecessary and sad’
The house where Tori lives with her mother is cluttered with court
documents that have been the weapons in her parents’ war.
Three years since the two children attended Building Family Bridges,
Tori’s brother still lives solely with his dad. The aftercare program
is effectively on hold, Nielsen said. Earlier this year, a judge grant
ed her four hours a week of supervised visitation with her son.
‘Unnecessary and sad’
The house where Tori lives with her mother is cluttered with court
documents that have been the weapons in her parents’ war.
Three years since the two children attended Building Family Bridges,
Tori’s brother still lives solely with his dad. The aftercare program
is effectively on hold, Nielsen said. Earlier this year, a judge granted
her four hours a week of supervised visitation with her son.
------------------------------------------
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