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on the cover

in
the

Broken Bonds

Though either parent may be targeted, parental
alienation is a damaging dynamic for all.

RONELLE GRIER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

P

arental alienation made international headlines in June
2015, when Oakland County Circuit Judge Lisa Gorcyca sent
three Jewish children to a juvenile detention facility for refus-
ing to spend time with their father. The Michigan Judicial Tenure
Commission found Gorcyca guilty of judicial misconduct because of
her actions and behavior in the courtroom that day.
Last week, Michigan Supreme Court justices heard her case. Their
decision on the commission’s recommended 30-day suspension is
pending. Gorcyca and her attorneys claim her behavior came from
accumulated frustration after presiding over a five-year contentious
child custody case she deemed a classic case of parental alienation.
Attorneys for the mother, Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni, claimed the
children’s father, Omer Tsimhoni, was abusive, while his legal team
maintained the mother had waged a deliberate, long-running cam-
paign to poison the children against their father. While a shared cus-
tody agreement was reached following hundreds of legal proceedings
and a court-ordered reunification program, the lasting effects of the
fighting and alleged alienation on the children remain to be seen.
While this case was more high-profile than most, there are many
other acrimonious situations where one parent is pitted against the
other, a behavior pattern that causes significant and long-term harm
to the entire family system, especially the children.

HARMFUL BEHAVIOR

Parental alienation is defined as a dynamic wherein one parent
attempts to damage the child’s (or children’s) relationship with the
other parent. This can include bad-mouthing the other parent to the
children, accusing the other parent of various wrongdoings or sabo-
taging or withholding parenting time.
“It [parental alienation] is an unfortunate result of insecurities in
adults who care more about themselves than they
do for their child,” said Richard Victor, a seasoned
family law attorney who is of counsel to the Hertz
Schram law firm in Bloomfield Hills. “They believe
if their child is aligned with them against the other
parent, they will have ‘won’ the emotional battle,
which oftentimes is involved in divorce cases. They
are looking for their child to ‘love them more’. It is
one of the worst things a parent can do to a child,
Richard Victor
especially a child of divorce.”
When children are used as pawns by parents, it is
a losing battle for all, with kids suffering the most significant losses.
“Because a child comes from both parents, when a child is taught
one parent is ‘bad’ or evil, there is no doubt this will decrease the self-
esteem of the child,” Victor said. “They grow up doubting whom to

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March 16 • 2017

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