Dr. Cathy Ayoub
speaker
148 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Dr. Cathy Ayoub’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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I don't know anything about it, but I totally support her way of thinking. And I think of the one case I was involved in a number of years ago where mother was tried criminally and was convicted. Dad was in the courtroom and he walked out and he said to the press, they've just convicted an angel. So he was firmly connected to her.
There's another fairly significant group of fathers that are estranged from their partners, either were never married or oftentimes were quickly married and divorced, and they're fighting for their children. And those situations show up most often in family court. And I think there are a couple of us who've probably done more work in family court than a lot of other folks.
And it's almost the hardest to manage those cases in family court because in family court, when you come in for a divorce, the assumption is that both parents are fit. And so it's often very hard to really demonstrate that this is going on. And I always think of the case I can talk about, which was a criminal case in Dallas back in 2019 with a...
trying to remember the little boy's name was, I probably even have it here, Christopher Bowen.
And I actually testified in the sentencing portion of that criminal trial just about what Munchausen is, what the prognosis is, what the likelihood is that she would you know, continue to do this. But that was such an interesting case.
And I did talk to Ryan afterwards and, you know, heard more of his story and how he really, you know, how he was really found in contempt of court and family court trying to present this information. And not surprisingly,
It's really so painful and so tragic. There are lots of fathers. And what I always say is, you know, have you filed for divorce? If that's something you're going to do, You need to make sure that you get a guardian ad litem or an expert on Munchausen appointed by the judge to do an assessment. A guardian ad litem is really looking at the best interest of the child.
It's the best way in family court to get someone to evaluate both parties. But it has to be somebody who knows something about Munchausen if that's what they're suspecting. And I have, you know, and I've done probably almost a hundred cases in family court, maybe more. And, you know, some of them have turned out not to be Munchausen.
It's interesting that most of them have, because I think by the time they get there, there's enough information, but judges need to be convinced. And unfortunately, I think it's going to take someone to put all the pieces together and
And what they shouldn't do is have someone do one piece and another person do a second piece and another person do a third piece and try to put the information together because that's what These perpetrators want, they want to divide and conquer. So the kinds of assessments that often happen in family court, well, we'll go have you do a psychological evaluation of both parents.
Well, that's not that helpful. It is really hard when fathers haven't left, and it's really hard to know what to say to them except to describe what kids look like and what the perpetrators look like and have them make their own decisions. I do think that some of the groups that Be Yorker is running are absolutely critical. These partners feel so lost and so alone.
And the other thing that tends to happen, particularly in those divorce situations, is these mothers never give up. And that's something I want to make sure I get to say is that in thinking about the long term, they do not give up. They do not give up. When the children turn 18, if their rights have been terminated, they're on the doorstep on that child's birthday.
I've seen it over and over and over again. So when I'm talking to fathers, I'll say, you know, when your child gets ready to turn 18, if they're willing, get a restraining order. for your ex-wife because there's no protection.
And these women are just relentless and they may come back into the situation when rights haven't been terminated five, six, seven years later and say, oh, here I am, I love my child. I want to do something. And if there aren't any legal protection for these children, adolescents, and even young adults, they get pulled right back into the same kinds of behavior patterns.
We're really hoping to reach out to more adult survivors. This study started 20 years ago when we had to wait. We published some current information on it, but not about the follow up. And so I think this is really important. First of all, when we look at what the children are like, you know, when they're in this situation,
One of the things that's really critical is they are very unlikely to acknowledge their abuse until they're separated and safe. And Judy LeBeau did a study 20 years ago. She talked to adult survivors. She literally put an ad in the paper and said, you know, do you think this might've happened to you? And she talked to folks.
And what she found was that half of them said they didn't, they were unsure that they were being abused until they really heard about this as an adult. And some perpetrators are very overt and others are much more subtle.
And so that's one thing about victims is that they're very confused because they're being told that they're feeling things or particularly when illness is being induced, that they're feeling things that aren't really there. So we know, for example, that sexual abuse victims have a lot of difficulty. They often will not disclose. Munchausen by proxy victims are even more likely to not disclose.
I had one case. The little girl was seven. and her mother was convicted five years after she was removed, she could not even think or say anything about her mother until she actually heard on the news that her mother was convicted. And then she finally could begin to say, you know, my mother did that to me. My mother did hurt me. So once these children are in a safe place,
And, you know, part of this depends on their ages, but they often then begin to show some signs of behavioral difficulties. So the other problem is particularly in a divorce situation, this child custody changes from mother to father. And all of a sudden, you know, three or four or five months later, father has a child who's got some attachment difficulties.
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