Re: The letter to the editor written by Cindy Ross, California Director National Alliance for Family Court Justice, the link listed, that's supposed to lead to an expose on Dr. Richard Gardner's very wrong methods on forcing a child to deny the truth of his or her abusive parent's abuse, now leads to the website of a Dr. Warshak, one of Gardner's disciples.
A telling part of Warshak's text on the website: Within his "My story" tab, he cites that sadly, Dr. Gardner passed away during a time they were working together. Warshak's egregious omissions are that Gardner killed himself, and he omits the reason Gardner killed himself.
In one case in which Gardner's testimony caused 2 boys to have to leave their protective mother and instead go live with their abusive father, and then, they were forced to undergo "deprogramming," which boils down to the boys having to cite lies about their parents - that their dad is a good guy and their mother fed them lies - all not true, the elder boy ended up killing himself, to escape the psychological torture prescribed by Gardner, and forced by the court.
As a result, Gardner's writings were more closely examined. It became known that he was pro father/child sexual touching and sexual introduction, per an interview published in Hustler magazine some 15 years prior.
So, Gardner was outed as a proponent of child sexual abuse.
Instead of doing the right thing - admitting incest is wrong, apologizing to the children he recommended go live with their abusive fathers, and then working to right all the wrongs he perpetrated, Gardner took the coward's route and killed himself.
Warshak covers the reality of the circumstances surrounding Gardner's suicide with a lie of omission, "Sadly, Dr. Gardner passed away."
Instead of abusers looking in the mirror, and analyzing their own behavior as the cause of why a child (or their spouse), needed to get away from them for self-protection, abusers blame shift to others, and cry "Parental Alienation Syndrome."
Very wrong, and completely upside down. And Dr. Warshak is one of the perpetuators of this wrong.
