Richard A. Gardner

Richard Alan Gardner ( born April 28, 1931 in Bronx, New York City; † 25 May 2003 in Tenafly, New Jersey) was an American child psychiatrist. Since 1963 he has worked as a clinical professor at Columbia University.

He achieved a high level of recognition by the introduction of the Parental Alienation Syndrome in 1985. In Germany also based on his research term parent-child alienation is now used for. He wrote more than 40 books and over 250 articles on topics in child psychiatry. In several hundred cases, he entered the United States as an expert appraiser on in custody cases in court.

Gardner's definition of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS )

Gardner coined to describe the term PAS closer to a discovered by him and other professionals in their work with mentally ill children phenomenon. It is a subtype of parental alienation in which an alienating parent programs a child in a denigration against the other parent, usually loving and committed.

He defined the following eight PAS symptoms:

Criticism of Gardner's work (PAS )

Criticism has been leveled at Gardner's work because he could not provide comprehensive, universal Therorie about parent-child alienation phenomena of separation and divorce, and has the systemic aspect of PAS into account in its proposals for overcoming PAS constellations too little. Nevertheless, it is met with recognition for having supplied suggestions about the necessary and overdue social and professional debate on alienation processes.