Arizona is on the brink of banning reunification therapy.

I may have helped trigger this bill making its way through the Arizona legislature.

Screenshot from my interview with Tori Nielsen on YouTube

The Arizona Mirror recently broke news that its home state legislature is on the brink of passing legislation to ban reunification therapy in custody cases. The story has a familiar name for long time readers of Michael Volpe Investigates.

Tori Nielsen is a reunification camp survivor. Throughout her 13-year-long family court case, she and her younger brother have repeatedly reported the abuse they have endured at the hand of their father to anyone who would listen, only to be ignored and told their claims of abuse were lies. 

She said that the court fabricated reasons to give her father custody of both children, ignoring their wishes, and his past domestic violence convictions, or his violent and neglectful tendencies. 

As a result, Nielsen said in May 2021, she and her brother were “illegally kidnapped and trafficked across state lines” as they were taken from their Arizona home to a reunification camp in Ventura, Calif., by four strangers, later revealed to be private transporters hired by the court. Once there, they were barricaded in a hotel room and forced to stay the night with the transporters.

Nielsen said the camp was secretive, and used threats of being sent to a “wilderness camp” and brainwashing tactics to get the children to cooperate. Afterward, she and her brother were turned over to their father’s care for what was meant to be 90 days, as the court order stated, but in fact turned out to be much longer. 

I exclusively interviewed Tori about her experience at the reunification therapy camp Family Bridges in September 2023.

{Also, check out my exclusive report about the so-called after care program at Family Bridges}

Family Bridges is run by Randy Rand, who has a medical license which is not active.

Tori described a Josef Mengeleesque experience of being forced from her home, driven many hours, forced to sleep under the watchful eye of strangers, while being subjected to mind control therapy which culminated in Rand and his cohorts refusing to allow her to speak of the abuse she suffered from her dad.

Part of my previous article where Tori described her father’s abuse

Family Bridges calls this last piece a “moratorium on the past.”

Former Major Leaguer David Segui and Donna McCracken also had their children subjected to Rand’s pseudo psychology.

Segui’s case also occurred in Arizona- though the Mirror didn’t cite it- while McCracken’s case happened in Orange County, California.

{Check out this report from 2018 by future Today Show correspondent Vicky Nguyen about reunification therapy in California}

The Mirror article drew heavily on my work, including citing the passage of Piqui’s Law in California which also banned the use of reunification therapy.

Reunification therapy is pure quackery. It is used in cases where courts find that one parent is alienated. Its goal is the reunify the children with said parent.

This so-called therapy includes the use of threats and coercion.

I also recently cited Om’s Law, which is making its way through the Utah legislature, and it would limit the use of reunification therapy.

Clearly, politicians have discovered this abuser friendly therapy and are targeting it.

The Mirror article also made this argument about the field of parental alienation itself.

Coined by Richard Gardner, the term “parental alienation syndrome” describes a situation where one parent uses their influence to turn their children against the other parent. 

But it is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association or any other scientific organization, nor is it based on any legitimate, peer-reviewed research. Instead, its foundations are Gardner’s opinions and beliefs – and his work has been refuted and denounced by experts since his death in 2003. 

I have made nearly the exact same point many times, including in my 2015 treatise Making Divorce Pay.

Among the most controversial concepts in family court is the term Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), coined by the psychiatrist Richard Gardner. Among other things, this concept holds that one parent will plant false memories of abuse and molestation in their child as a means of alienating the other parent from the child.

Parental Alienation Syndrome is not listed in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems produced by the World Health Organization, nor does it appear in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The District Attorneys Association of the State of New York instructs that “Prosecutors should diligently question any case law or article that is cited as supporting PAS theory.”

About the only place where PAS is accepted is in some family court rooms.

The reason given for banning reunification therapy is that it is not based on any sound or rigorously tested psychological principles.

When Center for Investigative Reporting did a story on parental alienation, they were quick to note that reunification therapists could not tell them how many children were successfully reunited.

The same arguments made to ban reunification therapy can be made to ban the term, parental alienation, because both are based on equally unsound psychological principles.

It is not something that can be measured objectively, and it requires the subjective analysis of someone brought in- an expert- whose business relies on the maximum number of cases being deemed parental alienation.

As I have said repeatedly, “it’s whatever each person wants it to be.”

That’s not real but purple unicorns.

The Mirror article noted that this bill- SB 1372- passed out of committee with only one vote against it. The one vote-Senator Christine Marsh- told the Mirror that she will vote for the bill once it hits the floor as soon as minor changes are made.

I expect Arizona to be the second state to ban reunification therapy soon.