Richard Warshak

Richard A. Warshak (born December 18, 1949) is a clinical and research psychologist and author based in Dallas, Texas and noteworthy as a leading expert on child custody battles and Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). In PAS, parents who divorce often work to turn their children against the other spouse, and so many painful repercussions result when the child becomes the pawn of parental conflicts.

Warshak has written two books on child custody issues. In The Custody Revolution (Simon & Schuster, 1992), he advocates for reform of traditional custody policies, especially in relation to the important role that fathers play in their children's lives and the hazards of traditional approaches to custody in which it is always assumed that the child is better off with the mother than the father. In Divorce Poison: Protecting the Parent-Child Bond from a Vindictive Ex (Regan Books, 2002), Warshak focuses on strategies that a parent can use to deal with the animosity of an ex spouse who seeks to poison the mind and feelings of the child through such techniques as brainwashing, badmouthing, false accusations, revisionist history, and character assassination. Warshak's premise is that a "divorce poison" occurs that is psychologically damaging to the child when bitter custody and visitation battles happen, especially on a prolonged basis. Warshak also explores the violence and aggression (both conscious and unconscious) when parents battle it out for revenge and retaliation against each other.

Warshak's (2010) article prompted the journal Family Court Review to devote a whole issue to parental alienation. In the article Warshak reported of a method which succeeded in restoring the parent relationship for 18 of the 23 treated severely alienated children (78 % of the cases). In the 2010 edition of his book Divorce Poison (William Morrow) Warshak tells about similar successful results for 130 alienated children.

Warshak earned his B.S. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He is a Clinical Professor of Psychology at the Southwestern Medical Center and is past president of the Dallas Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology. Since 1977, as Director of the Texas Custody Research Project and Co-Principal Investigator of the National Institute of Mental Health Step-family Project, he has studied the impact of divorce and remarriage. His studies in child custody research are often cited in the social science literature and in courtrooms and legislatures, and he has consulted at the White House on custody reform. He is also the author of the widely used Warshak Inventory for Child and Adolescent Assessment (WICAA), which provides an organized format for developmental and family histories.