Correction: Suppression of critical scholarship on parental alienation

What is it about?

I wrote an opinion piece about retraction demands aimed at researchers who question parental alienation. The Parental Alienation Study Group (PASG) complained to the journal and asked that the article be retracted, or that the parts documenting what they had done be removed. Neither happened. The journal reviewed the complaints and I voluntarily revised some sections. I added citations showing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International Classification of Diseases both left parental alienation syndrome out. I spelled out what the American Psychological Association has said on the subject. I quoted the Committee on Publication Ethics retraction criteria directly and added a published definition of misinformation. I also added two examples where a demand to pull a paper came down to parental alienation proponents reading the same data differently than the authors did. I updated a few references. The parts about the group’s conduct are still there.

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Photo by Gama. Films on Unsplash

Photo by Gama. Films on Unsplash

Why is it important?

My article said correction is the right fix when the conclusions of a paper stand. The Parental Alienation Study Group asked for retraction anyway, which is the pattern the article describes. Minor updates to the article occurred and left the argument alone. If you cite it for what the American Psychological Association or the Committee on Publication Ethics has said, the sources are in the text now. The record of the group’s campaigns against critics remains unchanged.

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