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" Richard Gardner (2004), the creator of ‘‘parental alienation syndrome’’, considers that the ‘‘parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is primarily a disorder of childhood. The false memory syndrome (FMS) is a disorder of young adults, primarily women. They share in common a campaign of acrimony against a parent’’. In reality, these so-called syndromes are both used to discredit the testimony of individuals who claim to have been abused, sexually or otherwise. When adults report that they have recovered memories of childhood abuse, others may claim that they have false memory syndrome. When children do not repress or forget the abuse, if there is no period of amnesia, then some may claim that they have parental alienation syndrome (Ceci & Bruck, 1995; Dallam, 1999). "
― Jenny Ann Ryberg
3
" After moving his family from Yakima to Paradise, California, in 1958, he enrolled at Chico State College. There, he began an apprenticeship under the soon-to-be-famous John Gardner, the first " real writer" he had ever met. " He offered me the key to his office," Carver recalled in his preface to Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist (1983). " I see that gift now as a turning point." In addition, Gardner gave his student " close, line-by-line criticism" and taught him a set of values that was " not negotiable." Among these values were convictions that Carver held until his death. Like Gardner, whose On Moral Fiction (1978) decried the " nihilism" of postmodern formalism, Carver maintained that great literature is life-connected, life-affirming, and life-changing. " In the best fiction," he wrote " the central character, the hero or heroine, is also the ‘moved’ character, the one to whom something happens in the story that makes a difference. Something happens that changes the way that character looks at himself and hence the world." Through the 1960s and 1970s he steered wide of the metafictional " funhouse" erected by Barth, Barthelme and Company, concentrating instead on what he called " those basics of old-fashioned storytelling: plot, character, and action." Like Gardner and Chekhov, Carver declared himself a humanist. " Art is not self-expression," he insisted, " it’s communication. "
