Child therapists who are predisposed to making negative inferences about significant others in the child's life may inadvertently reinforce a child's sense of anger and blame toward a target parent, sometimes in very subtle, pernicious ways. Where the therapist's own view of the target/alienated parent is negative, even if only to mild degree, the therapist's view is likely to adversely influence the child. This provides fertile ground for the development and reinforcement of PAS. A detailed example of such a process is presented in The Real World of Child Interrogations which contains an analysis of multiple child therapy sessions in a contested custody case (36). Transcripts of the sessions illustrate the process by which the therapist helped teach the child to make abuse allegations and reinforced the child's expressions of hatred toward the target parent
When abuse is alleged, anyone in a position of authority can act as a "validator," including therapists, police, child protection workers, and medical personnel (37). Validators are professionals who, when presented with allegations of abuse, assume that abuse occurred. They see their role as validating the alleged abuse rather than conducting an objective investigation. Validators are relatively easy to find, especially when sought out by a parent seeking to strengthen their position in legal proceedings. (Rand, 1997)

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