Books by PASG Members
Many PASG members are faculty members of universities in the United States and other countries. They have engaged in extensive clinical work and research regarding parental alienation. As a group, they have published hundreds of scholarly papers, book chapters, and books, some of which are listed here. The inclusion of any book on this website does not confer approval of the book or its author by the PASG Board of Directors.
Restoring Family Connections
Amy J. L. Baker, Paul R. Fine, Alianna Lacheen-Baker | English, 2020
Broken relationships between adult children and their parents is a widespread phenomenon. While the parent-child relationship is of critical importance for the child in the early years of life, their relationship continues to be a source of great importance for both the adult child and the parent. For adults and adult children who are estranged/alienated from each other, the pain and dissatisfaction never fully go away. This book provides a tool for clinicians to turn to when they are working with adult children and their parents seeking to resolve conflict, improve communication, and enhance their relationships.
The Cult of Trump
Steven Hassan | English, 2019
In The Cult of Trump, mind-control and licensed mental health expert Steven Hassan draws parallels between our current president and people like Jim Jones, David Koresh, Ron Hubbard and Sun Myung Moon, arguing that this presidency is in many ways like a destructive cult. He specifically details the ways in which people are influenced through an array of social psychology methods and how they become fiercely loyal and obedient. Hassan was a former “Moonie” himself, and he draws on his forty years of personal and professional experience studying hypnosis and destructive cults, working as a deprogrammer, and a strategic communications interventionist. He emphasizes why it’s crucial that we recognize ways to identify and protect ourselves and our loved ones. The Cult of Trump is an accessible and in-depth analysis of the president, showing that under the right circumstances, even sane, rational, well-adjusted people can be persuaded to believe the most outrageous ideas.
Understanding and Managing Parental Alienation: A Guide to Assessment and Intervention
Janet Haines, Mandy Matthewson, Marcus Turnbull | English, 2018
In Understanding and Managing Parental Alienation, Janet Haines, Mandy Matthewson, and Marcus Turnbull offer a comprehensive analysis of contemporary understanding of parental alienation. Grounded in recent scientific advances, this is the first book of its kind providing resources on how to identify parental alienation and a guide to evidence-based interventions. Recognizing parental alienation and knowing when to intervene is often the biggest challenge faced by practitioners; this book provides a guide to this process. Divided into six parts, this book examines what parental alienation is and how it is caused, how it affects each family member as a mental health concern and form of violence, and how to assess, identify, and intervene successfully from a legal and therapy standpoint. Taking on a gender-neutral approach, the book is filled with contemporary case examples from male and female perspectives, cutting-edge research, practitioner-client dialogues, and practitioners’ reflections to show the difficult realities of parental alienation.
At the Point of a Knife
Kenneth Fox | English, 2019
At the Point of a Knife is a real life thriller about a doctor who invents life-saving laser technology, his wife’s destructive inheritance, and the legal conspiracy to steal his successful hi-tech start-up. Dr. Kenneth Fox fights off predatory companies as he battles globally for his company’s rights. But, at first, he ignores the threats to his family. By day, he has a successful career. By night, he lives with an increasingly mentally ill spouse. Although she is physically abusive with him and their son, Fox is emotionally co-dependent. At the same time, he is helping his dying mother and his chronically ill father. While all of this is ongoing, the family’s two young children are being severely parentally alienated against him by his wife.
The Divorce Recovery Ladder: Your Step-By-Step Guide to Successfully Climb Out of Your Divorce
Susan Shofer | English, 2019
From thorny legal issues to your emotional, mental, and financial well-being, The Divorce Recovery Ladder is the only divorce guide that answers in a straightforward and pragmatic manner your most burning questions about all aspects of divorce. Along with Susan’s personal divorce, her experience in the financial industry and a 25-year career as a private investigator bring you sensible ways to navigate the divorce recovery journey. Divorce does not have to be financially devastating nor does it have to leave families fractured and shattered. Susan’s wisdom and humor — forces that enabled her to climb out of her own longstanding contentious divorce — shine throughout each chapter of this must-read book for every divorcee out there. The Divorce Recovery Ladder is interactive and includes downloadable .pdf’s that will help you stay organized and on-track, understanding and taking control of your divorce process.
Ex’s & Oh’s: Dealing With Parental Alienation and Healing Through the Pain
J. K. Nation | English, 2019
Going through a divorce with children is like learning to dance in a mine field and expecting not to get hurt. Ex’s & Oh’s takes you through the journey of parental alienation, giving you the tools needed to find joy, healing, and restoration in the darkest times. Parental alienation can be the darkest element in a divorce proceeding that often cuts off parents and extended family members from their children or grandchildren. The process leads to depression, financial despair, and in some cases even suicide. The goal for Ex’s & Oh’s is to bring life, freedom, and restoration to individuals and families impacted by parental alienation.
Protecting Yourself from Emotional Predators
Steven J. Wolhandler | English, 2019
The author knows how abusive and manipulative people prey on the emotions of good people, and how good people can protect themselves. For emotional predators, life is a strategy game to dominate and control, and you are either a player to be defeated or a game piece to be used. The book provides five essential steps for protecting yourself, valuable guidance for safe relationships, and over thirty specific defensive tactics for coping with emotional predators.
Parentectomy
Christine Giancarlo | English, 2018
When parents separate and divorce, kids come last in family law. Should children’s welfare be measured in “billable hours”? Christine Giancarlo thinks kids come first and need both parents. Parentectomy moves us toward that goal … for the sake of the children. Based on Dr. Giancarlo’s peer-reviewed research study, Kids Come Last: The Effect of Family Law Involvement in Parental Alienation, this book tells, in their own voices, the stories of thirty loving, capable, and dependable parents who were removed from their children’s lives. It is also the author’s own journey through the devastation caused by parental alienation. This book sheds light on an urgent social crisis, enabled by a broken family law system. An equitable and just model for eliminating this form of child abuse is proposed with an urgent plea for its implementation.
Living on Automatic: How Emotional Conditioning Shapes Our Lives and Relationships
Homer B. Martin, Christine B. L. Adams | English, 2018
Two veteran psychiatrists unravel the mystery of how thought and emotional patterns are passed from parents to children, generation after generation, “conditioning” each of us in ways that endure throughout our lives and affect all of our relationships. Living on Automatic explores a groundbreaking concept developed by two psychiatrists with 80 years of combined experience in dynamic psychotherapy with almost 2,000 patients. The book offers strategies to help readers liberate themselves from limiting ways of relating to others, avoid automatic emotional responses, live life with intention, and create happier relationships. The authors bring to life the principles presented through vignettes from dynamic psychotherapy treatment. The book is inclusive of the LGBT experience. This book provides discoveries about the development of parents’ personalities that lead to parental alienation. Personalities of both the alienator and targeted parents are described. Living on Automatic reveals how relationship conflict arises because of the two distinct personalities that are common in marriages.
Parental Alienation Survival Coach
Monica Giglio | English, 2017
Parental alienation is a form of bullying, domestic violence, and psychological abuse that severs normal parent/child bonds. The catastrophic results in children tormented this way can include teen pregnancy, depression, gang involvement, susceptibility to predators, eating disorders, and youth suicide. Immense feelings of helplessness overcome parents whose children have been enlisted in coalitions against them. After devoting their lives to trying to revert this tragedy, some parents who feel their lives have lost their meaning become withdrawn, passive and suicidal. Parental Alienation Survival Coach captures the feelings of shock, confusion and helplessness that parents experience as they are pushed out of their children’s lives, and their desperate struggle for education to understand what’s happening. Follow along on every alienated parent’s journey from crushing heartbreak, to wellness, despite significant open wounds. Chapters alternate from sad, to funny, to inspirational, to hopeful and include healing, humor, heart, prayers, verses, self-care and an exclusive 6-step program!
Half the Child
William McGee | English, 2018
Half the Child takes place over four consecutive summers in the lives of Michael Mullen and his son Benjamin, who ages from 2½ to 5½. The novel chronicles the separation, divorce, custody battle, and abduction that threaten to tear apart father and son. Mike is a 34-year-old air traffic controller at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport who is also pursuing a graduate degree in Psychology. He and Ben’s mother were married for less than five years when she suddenly decided to seek a divorce. Throughout these four summers the legal stakes keep dramatically increasing, as mediation devolves into litigation, and her romantic and career aspirations spur her to first take Ben to Indiana, and then to abduct him and resettle outside the U.S. For Mike, the cost of asserting his rights as a father and Ben’s rights as a son continues to escalate. Over the course of the four summers, the battle for Ben negatively affects Mike’s career, education, financial state, friendships, romantic life, physical health, and emotional well-being. Ultimately, refusing to relinquish his parental rights leads Mike to personal bankruptcy, temporary homelessness, potentially catastrophic errors at work, and suicidal depression. Yet Mike steadfastly refuses to consider a life that consists of him living apart from Ben. With courts continually ruling against Ben’s father, it remains uncertain if their bond will survive. Ultimately, they will write their own love story.
From the Mob to the Therapist’s Chair
Monty Weinstein, Vickie Taylor | English, 2018
Dr. Monty Weinstein grew up in a wealthy family that made its millions off the grid and most definitely illegally. He was the birth son of a notorious mobster, and hustled his way through his teen-age years packing a pistol that was supplied by his very own father. He was encouraged to show it off while he made the rounds collecting the “rent” that small business owners reluctantly turned over to him as part of his summer job. He felt powerful, cocky, intimidating and proud, at least for a few weeks. Then he began to feel weary, hopeless and ashamed. He didn’t like the guilt that was settling into his soul. When the guilt started keeping him awake at night, he started to ponder what else might be out there for him. Young Monty was somehow able to bumble his way through high school, and once settled into college, found his spark of new beginnings in a philosophy class. He became focused and devoted to strengthening the family unit. Once Dr. Monty broke free from his past, he was able to create a successful, rewarding career as a marriage and family therapist. It was during his experiences as a marriage and family therapist where he began to realize that some parents going through divorce were being severely alienated by their ex-spouses, and children were being brainwashed and literally turned against the other parent. Parental alienation syndrome is a phenomenon that is calculated and widespread across all races and socioeconomic boundaries. Children are systematically and methodically turned against the other parent. It is an epidemic that is slowly being recognized nationwide. Dr. Monty has made it his business to uncover the truth and create more awareness that this phenomenon is occurring worldwide.
Woody, Healer of Hearts and Souls
Monica Giglio | English, 2018
Come inside the mind, thoughts, and feelings of a dog with a wise old soul, very focused on helping and healing the humans in my life. Follow me through several homes where you will meet families and friends I have lived with, loved, prayed for, taught and learned from. Laugh, cry and love with me on my journey from Georgia to the Northeast to find Madolyn and help heal her breaking heart. Through my relationship and travels with her, I also touch the hearts and souls of her friends, while my own heart literally breaks and bleeds. But I’m comforted with the assurance I’m where I’m supposed to be, doing what I’m supposed to do, and that with my Madolyn, love always flows freely in both directions. Some say dogs come back as humans in their next life, and some people say all dogs go to Heaven, and both are partially correct. We sometimes go to Heaven, and we sometimes come back, but not as humans! We begin life with a love of humans already in us and and because love should always be a two way street, our baby canine noses can always smell whether people have the scent of the love of dogs on them or not.
Preserving Family Ties: An Authoritative Guide to Understanding Divorce and Child Custody, for Parents and Family Professionals
Mark D. Roseman | English, 2018
Preserving Family Ties was not written to provide a formula for action. Rather, this is a guidebook for understanding. It was written to give a clearer understanding of the complexity in child custody when parents separate. This book provides the historical context for the changes that parents may experience, and what they may fear. This book offers parents and professionals the context in which the new reality unfolds. It was written to help parents understand that one can move forward best when they (1) acknowledge their feelings as they endure so many life changes, often abrupt and unexpected; (2) recognize the obstacles and options in the child custody and divorce process; and (3) seek support from family, friends, and community resources to affect the best transition for parents and their children.
Parental Alienation: A Loving Father’s Lost Years
Allan Freeman-Jones | English, 2017
Parental alienation is the scourge of modern day co-parenting. Aided by indifferent and often out-dated family court systems, a legion of children and co-parents are living alienated lives. This is a story of our time. In the space of four years Allan went from bachelor to alienated father. When it looked like Allan may have gained increased access to his son Timothy, Margaret played her trump card: the father was accused of sexually abusing his son. Upon the order of the Family Court, contact between father and son ceased. When re-established, contact was supervised. Investigations by the Department For Child Protection and the police concluded the allegations were unfounded. Allan was saddened his son had now become a stranger to him. For the sake of his son’s mental and emotional wellbeing, seeing it as his only realistic course of action, Allan exited his son’s life. Nearly eight years have passed without any contact between Allan and Timothy. After a few false starts, Margaret’s alienation plan ultimately proved successful.
Selfies
Gabriel Gilbert | English, 2017
“Brutally honest,” “guilty indulgence” and “inventive” all describe Gabriel Gilbert’s debut novel, Selfies. The characters narrate this literary adult thriller, each one dangerously blind to the other’s truest nature. Carinda Campbell, a streetwise southern woman, seeks refuge in the wake of her ex-husband’s white collar crimes. Online, she captures the interest of Ray Welles, former Marine and tech entrepreneur, who has just left a soulless marriage and battles traumas old and new. Their explosive chemistry distracts from their children, ex’s, and careers. Between the heat and wealth of Boca Raton and the hard but humble wards of Milwaukee, Gilbert’s mastery of psychology and technology gradually expose his cast’s many secrets, lies, and personal demons. While Carinda and Ray enjoy a brief, tender respite from reality, dark clouds form with the all-too-easy abuse of law. Selfies’ many tensions and complexities finally unleash the perfect storm. Who will survive and at what cost?
Parent Deleted: A Mother’s Fight for Her Right to Parent
Michelle Darné, | English, 2017
An acclaimed spokesperson for equality at the helm of And Baby, a pioneer magazine, radio show, and TV series on alternative parenting, Michelle Darné found herself at once callously erased from the lives of her children and silenced by the law. Parent Deleted is a gripping tale of one non-biological, lesbian mother’s fight for her children. And it is a courageous, disturbing, and necessary exposé of a likely emergent social justice frontier: the rights of all children to be with their parents, whether they are biologically linked, straight, gay, prepared or knocked up, perfect spouses or fallible ones.
Don’t Hug Your Mother
JP Byrne, Brendan Byrne | English, 2016
From their loving mother’s warm embrace to the stinging lash of their father’s leather belt, things changed rapidly for Brendan and JP when their parents separated. They were just eight and ten years of age at the time. Any hopes of their mother saving them from their torment were dashed when she was then torn from their lives. Don’t Hug Your Mother takes you on a dramatic journey through Brendan and JP’s difficult childhood as they recount episodes of their dark past in harrowing detail. It is a compelling, heart-breaking and ultimately uplifting true story of how two young boys grew up and learnt to confront evil and follow their hearts.
The Year of Loving
Traci Slatton | English, 2016
This novel involves parental alienation in its story line. Art gallerist Sarah Paige’s world is crumbling. One daughter barely speaks to her and the other is off the rails. Sarah is struggling to keep her gallery afloat in a tough market when she learns that her most beloved friend has cancer. In the midst of her second divorce, two men come into her life: an older man who offers companionship and stability and an exciting younger man whose life is as chaotic as hers. Sarah’s courage, humor, and spirit strengthen her, but how much can she bear, and what sustains her when all else falls away?
For the Love of Eryk: Surviving Divorce, Parental Alienation and Life After
Rod McCall | English, 2016
In For the Love of Eryk, Rod McCall shares his personal experience with parental alienation, which was so severe, it led to the death of his son Eryk. The boy was killed by the hands of his own mother when she lost her parental rights as the courts finally saw through her alienating behaviors. Part One of the Book is Rod’s captivating and important story, showing how parental alienation can happen. Part Two of the book tells the stories of many others, specifically addressing what parental alienation is and how it can be stopped. Through interviewing many other parents, as well as professionals in family law, Rod’s book is a powerful resource which can raise awareness, educate, and be a catalyst for change.