Month: March 2015

SBS Intervention

“Remedy:  The manner in which a right is enforced or satisfied by a court when some harm or injury, recognized by society as a wrongful act, is inflicted upon an individual.”

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/remedy

Just a reminder, I am not an attorney.  I am a psychologist.  For legal advice consult an attorney and follow the advice of the attorney.  In this post I will be discussing a possible compromise intervention that may, in some cases, be presented to the Court as a proposed remedy based on the legal strategy of the attorney in a given situation.

I am increasingly being asked by attorneys to serve as an expert consultant or witness regarding cases of “parental alienation.”

Just for the record, I am not an expert in “parental alienation.”  From a clinical psychology perspective, the term “parental alienation” is not a defined clinical term. 

The proper clinical term for the interpersonal and family processes typically called “parental alienation” is “pathogenic parenting” (patho=pathology; genic=genesis, creation).  Pathogenic parenting is the creation of significant child pathology as a result of highly distorted parenting practices.

My professional expertise is in child and family therapy, diagnosis and psychopathology, parent-child conflict, and child development.

I recently met with a targeted parent and discussed her situation.  I then spoke with her attorney regarding the case.  The attorney believes the evidence of “parental alienation” is substantial.  There is a history of unsuccessful “reunification” therapy and a child custody evaluation is pending.

From a psychological perspective, I recommended that the approach remain focused on the child’s evident pathology (i.e., on pathogenic parenting) and the child’s treatment needs rather than on trying to prove that “parental alienation” has interfered in the relationship of the targeted parent and child.

Attachment-based “parental alienation” is not just a matter of disrupting the targeted parent’s relationship with the child, it is a matter of inducing serious and severe psychopathology in the child through the distorted pathogenic parenting practices of the allied and supposedly favored narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  I believe it is best to remain grounded in the child’s pathology and in the treatment needs of the child.

My concern is that if the focus shifts to proving “parental alienation,” then this invites an identification of harm or injury as being to the parental rights and parental relationship of the targeted parent, leading to a remedy directed toward satisfying the harm and injury done to the targeted parent. 

If, on the other hand, the focus remains on the extent and severity of the child’s pathology that is being created by the distorted pathogenic parenting of the allied and supposedly favored parent, then the remedy involves the treatment needs of the child that are necessary to restore the normal-range and healthy development of the child.

It’s not about injury to the parent, its about injury to the child.  The remedy isn’t focused toward the parent, the remedy is focused toward the child.

Attachment-based “parental alienation” isn’t a child custody issue, it’s a child protection issue.

Again, I am a psychologist not an attorney, but I would tend to recommend avoiding the construct of “parental alienation” as  I view this as chasing a rabbit down the rabbit hole.  The narcissistic/(borderline) parent responds, “prove it,” and then we’re into chasing a nearly impossible task of proving distorted parenting and we have lost the grounding afforded by a relentless focus on the nature and severity of the child’s pathology and treatment needs, and on what is necessary to restore the normal-range and healthy development of the child.

When we remain focused on the nature and severity of the child’s symptoms, we open the door to the treatment needs of the child.  The treatment needs of the child depend on the clinical diagnosis regarding the origin of the child’s pathology. I am a clinical psychologist.  That’s what I do.  I identify the origins of child pathology and I develop and implement treatment plans that will restore the child’s healthy development based on what the origins of the child’s pathology are.

Q:  Could the nature and extent of the child’s pathology be originating spontaneously from the child?  A: No.

Q:  Could the nature and extent of the child’s pathology be the product of the pathogenic parenting of the targeted-rejected parent?  A: No.

Q: If the child’s severe pathology is not originating spontaneously from the child, and is not a product of the pathogenic parenting of the targeted-rejected parent, then what could be the origins of the child’s pathology?

A:  The child’s pathology is being induced by the distorted pathogenic parenting practices of the allied and supposedly favored parent.

Remedy: What are the treatment needs of the child to restore normal-range and healthy development?

Again, this is not legal advice.  I am a psychologist.  This is just my opinion from my perspective as a clinical psychologist.  This is what I do for a living.  I first identify the nature and severity of the child’s pathology.  I then use features of the child’s pathology to identify the origins of the child’s pathology.  I then develop and implement a treatment plan to resolve the child’s pathology based on my assessment regarding the origins of the child’s pathology. 

I am a clinical child and family psychologist. That’s what I do.  I do this for autism-spectrum disorders, for ADHD-spectrum disorders, for child depressive and anxiety disorders, for oppositional and defiant child behavior, for school failure, for attachment disorders, for parent-child and family conflicts.

I do this across the developmental spectrum; for young children and their families, for school-age children and their families, for adolescents and their families.

1.)  Identify the nature and severity of the child’s pathology.

2.)  Use features of the child’s symptom display to identify the origins of the child’s pathology.

3.)  Develop and implement a treatment plan that will restore the child’s normal-range and healthy development based on the identified origin of the child’s pathology

Treatment Needs

The attorney and I then discussed what the treatment needs of the child are in this case based on the information I had from the targeted-rejected parent.

We discussed the child’s potential triangulation into the spousal conflict through the formation of a cross-generational coalition with the allied and supposedly favored parent against the other parent.

We discussed the child’s apparent narcissistic and borderline symptoms as described by the targeted parent, and the possible origin of these reported child symptoms in the pathogenic parenting practices of the allied and supposedly favored parent.

I described the hypothesis that the child was experiencing a misunderstood and misinterpreted grief response relative to the lost relationship with the beloved-but-now-rejected targeted parent, and we then discussed the treatment for that.

We discussed the means by which the child’s symptomatic rejection of a normal-range and affectionally available parent could be induced through a role-reversal relationship with a narcissistic-borderline parent who is using the child as a “regulatory object” to meet the emotional and psychological needs of the parent.

I discussed the importance relative to an attachment-based model of “parental alienation” of a protective separation of the child from the pathology of the allied and supposedly favored narcissistic/(borderline) parent during the active phase of the child’s treatment and recovery as representing a necessary condition for protecting the child if we are to ask the child to expose his or her authenticity.

Treatment Plan

As we discussed the remedy the attorney could seek from the Court for the severely pathogenic parenting associated with an attachment-based model of “parental alienation,” my  recommendation was Dorcy Pruter’s “High Road to Family Reunification” protocol. I have reviewed her protocol and I completely understand how she achieves the recovery of the children’s relationship with the targeted parent. The “High Road” protocol would be my first-line recommendation for restoring the parent-child relationship, over and above any other approach to family reunification.

Her protocol requires that the Court order a 9-month period of protective separation of the children from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  I understand why this is necessary and I entirely agree with the requirement. 

With this protective separation in place, she asserts that her protocol is capable of restoring normal-range parent-child relationships in a matter of days, and based on my review of her protocol, I would agree with this assessment of the protocol’s effectiveness..

In my view, this is the best approach for restoring  children’s affectionally bonded relationship with the targeted parent because of its effectiveness, its intensity, and its speed.  The child’s initial recovery will be fragile at first, so a continued protective separation of the child from the pathogenic pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent is needed to stabilize the child’s recovery.

The attorney and I then discussed the likelihood in this case that the Court would order a protective separation of the child from the allied and supposedly favored pathogenic parent.  This will likely be dependent on the strength of the evidence that can be presented to the Court regarding the severity of the pathogenic parenting as evidenced in the child’s symptoms, and the associated treatment needs of the child necessary to restore the child’s healthy and normal-range development.

The SBS Intervention

As we discussed remedies relative to the child’s pathology and treatment, and the possible reluctance of the Court to order the necessary protective separation of the child which would be required for the child’s treatment and recovery, I remembered an old “compromise solution” for the Court that I developed back in 2011, the Strategic-Behavioral-Systems Intervention (SBS Intervention). 

The SBS Intervention is a Strategic family systems intervention that targets the power dynamic in the family. 

Strategic Family Systems Therapy

From a Strategic family systems framework, the child’s symptom confers power.  Strategic family systems therapy analyzes the power dynamics within the family and develops a prescriptive intervention which, if followed, will alter the power dynamics so that the symptom just drops away because it no longer serves its function of conferring power within the family relationships.

Strategic family systems therapy is a less common form of family systems therapy because it requires a fair degree of sophisticated skill in family systems therapy to first analyze the power dynamics within the family and then to also develop a prescriptive solution which, when implemented, will automatically alter the power dynamics within the family in a way to release the symptom.

While difficult to develop, and as a consequence rare in clinical practice, a good Strategic family systems intervention, however, can be quite elegant and powerful in its operation. The major limitation to Strategic family systems therapy is the level of clinical skill required to develop a prescriptive intervention that alters the specific power dynamics within the family in a way that will release the symptom.

The SBS Intervention

The Strategic-Behavioral-Systems Intervention for attachment-based “parental alienation” represents my effort to develop a Strategic family systems intervention for attachment-based “parental alienation.”  My goal in this is to provide the Court with a possible compromise solution to removing the child entirely from the care of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

I sent the SBS Intervention protocol to the attorney with whom I was consulting for her consideration as a possible proposed remedy.

I have also posted the Strategic-Behavioral-Systems Intervention protocol to my website, and a direct link to it is at:

Strategic-Behavioral-Systems Intervention

Note:  My recommendation as a clinical psychologist would be for a period of protective separation of the child from the pathogenic pathology of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent during the active phase of the child’s treatment and recovery stabilization.

If the SBS Intervention is tried as a compromise solution to a complete protective separation, then I would recommend a six-month trial of the SBS Intervention.  If the SBS Intervention has not restored the child’s normal-range development after a six-month “Response-to-Intervention” trial, then I would recommend a complete protective separation of the child from the pathogenic parenting of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent and intervention with the High Road protocol.

If the High Road protocol of Pruter’s is not possible, then I would recommend a treatment model along the lines described in my essay on Reunification Therapy available on my website.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857

Understanding the Child’s Experience

I’ve been asked by several targeted parents to describe the child’s experience. I will try.

Your child loves you. Have no doubt of this. Your child loves you more than anything. You are the world to them. Your child loves you very, very much.

But the world surrounding your child is a crazy upside down world of psychopathology.

Living with the narcissistic/(borderline) parent there is no anchor to reality; up is down, the sky is red, then yellow, then green; truth and reality shift with the whims and pathology of the parent. The child has become lost in an Alice in Wonderland world of swirling confusion.

To understand the child’s experience, we must begin by understanding the pathological core beliefs of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent who has captured the child’s psychology.

Narcissistic & Borderline Pathology

While on the surface narcissistic and borderline personality presentations appear different, they are simply variations in the outward manifestation of the same underlying core beliefs within the attachment system. These core beliefs are called “schemas” or “internal working models” of attachment. Both the narcissistic and borderline personality types have their foundational origins in the same core beliefs contained within the attachment system.

The attachment system forms patterns of expectations for self- and other-in-relationship. For both the narcissistic and borderline personalities, the core beliefs regarding self- and other-in-relationship are identical:

Core Belief Regarding Self-in-Relationship: “I am fundamentally inadequate as a person”

Core Belief Regarding the Other-in-Relationship: “I will be rejected and abandoned by the other person because of my fundamental inadequacy as a person.”

Both the narcissistic and borderline personalities share this set of fundamental core beliefs within their “internal working models” of attachment. The only difference between the narcissistic and borderline style personalities is how these internal core attachment schemas are manifested.

The borderline-style personality has no established psychological defense against the continual experience of these core beliefs of primal self-inadequacy and fears of abandonment, so that the borderline-style personality is continually collapsing into irrational hostile-aggressive tirades and tearful episodes of supposed victimization.

The narcissistic-style personality, on the other hand, has been able to develop a fragile psychological defense against the direct experience of these core beliefs through a grandiose self-inflation in which the narcissistic-style personality entirely devalues the importance of others as a means to assert self-superiority and suppress fears of abandonment (i.e., “You’re inadequate, I’m wonderful. And I’m abandoning YOU because of YOUR inadequacy”). If this fragile narcissistic veneer is punctured by criticism, however, the narcissistic personality style will collapse into its borderline core of hostile-aggressive disorganization.

Both personalities have an underlying “borderline” core of primal self-inadequacy and fear of abandonment (i.e., attachment expectations for self- and other-in-relationship), and both have narcissistic features of complete self-absorption.  The difference is just that the narcissistic-style personality has been able to establish a fragile narcissistic defense against the direct experience of these underlying vulnerabilities, whereas the borderline personality-style personality has no inner psychological defense against the continual direct experience of these core attachment beliefs.

With this parental pathology in mind, we turn to the child’s experience.

The Grief Response

When the divorce occurred, your child was anxious and confused.

“What does the divorce mean? What’s going to happen?”

When children are anxious, their brain systems motivate them to “socially reference” their parents regarding the meaning of the situation. 

As a healthy parent, you gave your child an appropriately diffuse and balanced understanding regarding the meaning of the divorce.  Which is the right thing to do. 

The narcissistic/(borderline) parent, on the other hand, gave the child an unbalanced and highly distorted perspective about the meaning of the divorce.

The divorce also made the child tremendously sad about the loss of the intact family. Children love both parents, and no matter how much pain and anger was in the spousal relationship, your child still loves both of you, and still wants both of you to be together. But the divorce ended this. The intact family broke up.  This made the child sad.

When the divorce occurred, the child’s inner experience was one of grief and mournful longing for the intact family structure. This is entirely natural and healthy. The child was also anxious about what the divorce meant. What was going to happen?

In a healthy divorce process, our hope would be that the parents would avoid blame and minimize their spousal hostility toward each other so that the child does not become caught in the middle of the spousal conflict.  We want to allow the child to love both parents.

In a healthy divorce process, parents deflect the child’s questions about the spousal relationship and provide the child with calm reassurances that both parents love the child and that everything is going to be okay.

“Mom and dad can’t get along and we’ve decided to get a divorce, which means that mom and dad will be living in separate houses. But we still both love you very much, and we’re still both going to be involved in every part your life and in everything you do. Mom and dad will just being living in separate houses, that’s all. The divorce is between mom and dad, and it’s not about you, it’s about us. We both love you very much, and everything is going to be okay.”

As a loving parent, you did this.

The narcissistic/(borderline) parent did not.

In divorcing the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, you exposed their core vulnerabilities of primal self-inadequacy and fear of abandonment. By divorcing them, you publicly identified them as being an inadequate spouse and you abandoned (rejected) them because of their inadequacy. That’s a direct spot-on hit to their core vulnerabilities.

As a result, the fragile organization of their personality structure collapsed.

In order to reestablish their structural organization, the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent must externalize onto you their own primal self-inadequacy and fears of abandonment. They must make you the inadequate and abandoned person, and they can accomplish this through the child.

By inducing the child into rejecting you, the child’s rejection of you defines YOU as the inadequate parent (person) who is being rejected (abandoned) for YOUR inadequacy as a parent (person).

The child’s rejection of you allows the narcissistic/(borderline) parent to restore their narcissistic defense against the experience of primal self-inadequacy and fears of abandonment that had collapsed with the divorce. The child’s rejection of you allows them to psychologically expel (project) their core beliefs onto you; you’re the inadequate person (parent), and you are being abandoned for your fundamental inadequacy.

So they draw the child into the spousal conflict on their “side” and induce the child’s rejection of you in order to reestablish their psychological defense against the experience of primal self-inadequacy and to protect themselves from their terrible fears of abandonment (“I’m not the abandoned person – you are. The child belongs to me.  The child is not abandoning me.  The child is abandoning you.”)

From the perspective of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, this is all justified. To them, you are the embodiment of evil and you “deserve” to be rejected because of your fundamental inadequacy as a person (which actually represents their own experience of self-inadequacy which is being expelled from them by projecting it onto you).

You’re to Blame

To initiate the child’s rejection of you, the narcissistic/(borderline) parent first blames you for the divorce.

“Your mom is breaking up our family. She’s selfishly thinking only of what she wants, and she’s not considering our family, or what we may want or need.”

“Your dad doesn’t love us anymore. He’s decided to leave our family to start a new family.”

The child is already sad about the break-up of the family, and under the distorting influence of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent this authentic sadness is twisted into anger and blame directed at you for causing the divorce.

You are trying to keep the child out of the spousal conflict, whereas the narcissistic/(borderline) parent is actively bringing the child into the spousal conflict, actively manipulating the child into taking the “side” of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent. You’re the bad person who is causing the divorce, causing the child’s sadness.

Eliciting Criticism

The second phase is eliciting from the child criticisms of you, however small, that are then inflamed and distorted by the response these elicited criticisms receive from the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

By responding as if these minor elicited criticisms actually represent severe parental failures on your part, the child is led into falsely believing that these normal-range interactions between you and the child were actually “evidence” of your “abusive” parenting practices toward the child.

Typically, this is framed as your not being sensitive enough to “the child’s needs” (which contains the implied message that you don’t love the child).  The responses of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent to these sought-for and elicited child criticisms of you define you as selfish and insensitive toward the child, and the child comes to believe this.

Believing Falsehood

The child experiences an authentic sadness.

First over the loss of the intact family, then at the loss of an affectionally bonded relationship with you. The child loves you and misses you. Once the child’s affectionally bonded relationship with you is disrupted by the distorting influence of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the loss of an affectionally bonded relationship with you makes the child extremely sad.

The child’s sadness is real and authentic.

However, under the distorting influence of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the child is induced into misinterpreting this authentic sadness as being caused by something bad you’re doing as a parent.

When people do bad things to us, they hurt us.

Something about being with you hurts (in actuality, it’s that the child wants to bond with you and isn’t. It hurts because they miss loving you).  

The narcissistic/(borderline) parent twists the child’s sadness into blame and anger, and the narcissistic/(borderline) parent convinces the child that the source of the child’s hurt is your bad parenting. You’re a bad person, that’s why the child hurts.

This makes sense to the child. When people do bad things to us, it hurts us. The child hurts, so that means you must be doing something bad that is making the child hurt. Initially, this is framed as blaming you for the divorce. Then this is expanded to your not being sensitive enough to what the child feels and needs (i.e., the implied message is that you don’t love the child).

Under the distorting influence of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the child falls down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, where up is down, the sky is yellow, and truth is whatever anyone asserts it to be.

Your child loves you very much.  The child is simply lost.

The Role-Reversal Relationship

In healthy parent-child relationships, the child uses the parent as a “regulatory other” for the child’s emotional and psychological experience.

In a role-reversal relationship, the parent uses the child as a “regulatory other” for the parent’s emotional and psychological experience.

The emotional and psychological state of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent is unstable.  If the child fails to be who the narcissistic/(borderline) parent wants the child to be, the child is exposed to the collapse of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent into hostility, anger, and rejection of the child.

If, on the other hand, the child can read the inner psychological and emotional needs of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent and respond in ways to meet those needs, then the child can stabilize the emotional and psychological functioning of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent and prevent this parent’s collapse into disorganization, hostility, and rejection of the child.

In addition, truth and reality are not fixed constructs for the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  For the narcissistic/(borderline) personality, “truth and reality are what I assert them to be.”

So the child is living in a dangerous world where it is vital to continually meet the ever shifting emotional and psychological needs of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, and in which truth and reality are not fixed concepts but are continually changing, defined by the moment-to-moment needs of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

This creates a tremendous anxiety for the child being with the unstable and psychologically dangerous narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  The child becomes hyper-vigilant for reading the emotional and psychological state of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent and meeting the needs of the parent to stabilize this parent’s emotional and psychological functioning.  This is the role-reversal relationship.  The child is acting as a “regulatory other” for the emotional and psychological state of the parent.

Surrender

When the child surrenders to the will of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the child is freed from the tremendous anxiety.  The child’s surrender into being what the narcissistic/(borderline) wants the child to be stabilizes the emotional and psychological functioning of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent. As long as the child is who and what the narcissistic/(borderline) parent wants and needs the child to be, the child is safe from the parent’s collapse into hostility and rejection of the child.

Indulgences

And in return for the child’s psychological surrender to the will and needs of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the child is granted indulgences.  With a more narcissistic-style parent (typically, but not always, the pathological father), the child will be granted material indulgences and adult-like privileges.  With the more borderline-style parent (typically, but not always, the pathological mother), the child will be granted affectionate indulgences surrounding their idealized “perfect love” for each other.

But neither type of indulgence is love.  The narcissistic granting of material indulgences and adult-like privileges is actually a form of emotional and psychological neglect and an expression of parental non-involvement.  The borderline granting of hyper-affectionate bonding is actually to meet the borderline-style parent’s needs to be the idealized and totally adored “beloved,” in order to eliminate the parent’s fears of abandonment. 

The granting of indulgences to the child is not about the child, it’s about the parent.  The narcissistic-style parent doesn’t want to be bothered.  The borderline-style parent wants to be the center of the child’s universe, never to be abandoned by the child.

Fusion

So what does the narcissistic/(borderline) parent want from the child? 

They want the child to be a complete narcissistic reflection of the parent’s own psychological state. 

They want the child to be a totally fused reflection of the parent’s own psychological world.

When the child psychologically surrenders the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the child enters a fused psychological state with the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  The child surrenders authenticity for psychological fusion. 

This state of psychological fusion actually feels good… somewhat.  It’s like an experience of hyper-intimacy, it’s just that this hyper-intimacy is being purchased at the price of authenticity.  So sometimes the child may actually believe that he or she is sharing a loving relationship of perfect mutual understanding with the narcissistic/(borderline) parent . 

Yet there will always be echoes deep inside the child of loneliness and self-alienation. And there will be the grief and sadness of missing you.  Always there will be the grief and sadness of missing you.

Guilt

But in surrendering to the psychological will and needs of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, your child has betrayed you, betrayed their beloved.

Your child loves you very much.  Your child has betrayed you.  This produces profound guilt.

The child must defend against this tremendous guilt, and they do so by making you “deserve” to be rejected.  It’s your fault.  You don’t love them enough.  You don’t… You didn’t… You never…  It’s your fault.

You “deserve” to be rejected. 

And the narcissistic/(borderline) parent is fully supportive of this interpretation of the child’s rejection of you.  You deserve to be rejected because you’re the inadequate spouse – person – parent, who is being rejected (abandoned) because of your inadequacy as a spouse – person – parent.

You failed to appreciate the narcissistic glory of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  You rejected and abandoned the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  You “deserve” to be punished, you “deserve” to suffer.

In this shared false belief, the child is able to avoid the guilt of betraying you and the pain of losing you.

Your Child Loves You

Your child loves you with all their heart.  You are the world to them.  They are lost.  They are living in a psychologically dangerous world of ever-changing truth and reality.  They must do what it takes to survive in the dangerous psychological world of living with the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

We must be able to protectively separate the child from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent before we can restore the child’s authenticity.

I hope this helps in understanding the child’s experience.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Psychologist, PSY 18857

You are all in this together

I often receive phone calls and emails from targeted parents asking for my help. I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to targeted parents regarding your situation.

To targeted parents:

You cannot do this alone. 

Unless we solve “parental alienation” for everyone, we can solve it for no one.  You are all in this together.  There can be no solution to any individual family situation until we achieve a solution for ALL families experiencing parental alienation.

No solution exists under the Gardnerian PAS model.  The Gardnerian paradigm has been available for 30 years and it has given us exactly the current situation we have now.  Until the paradigm shifts from a Gardnerian PAS model to an attachment-based model, no solution to your individual family struggle will be available.  There is nothing you can do.  

Once the paradigm shifts from a Gardnerian PAS model to an attachment-based model, the solution becomes immediately available for all parents and children.  Then, and only then, will there be a solution available for your individual situation.

Unless and until we solve “parental alienation” for all families, there will be no solution available for any individual family.  You are all in this together. 

You must come together to fight for all of your children.

Let me explain.

Do you know any therapists in…?

I regularly receive emails and phone calls from targeted parents who ask,

“Do you know any therapists in <name the location> who treat parental alienation?”

This is fundamentally the wrong question.

The child is in a psychological hostage situation. How can we possibly ask the child to expose his or her authenticity if we cannot first protect the child from the certain retaliation that will be inflicted on the child by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent?

The child is in a very dangerous psychological situation with the narcissistic/(borderline) parent. You, of all people, should know this.

You know how angry and irrational that other parent is, how controlling and demeaning the other parent can be. You were married to them, and you divorced them.  You understand it because you experienced it.

When you were married to the other parent at least the child had you available to provide some protection for the child when the other parent’s pathology was triggered, and during the marriage most of the other parent’s pathology was directed at you so that the child was spared the intensity of a direct assault by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent’s pathology.

But now, following the divorce, the child is alone with the narcissistic/(borderline) parent. You escaped the pathology of the other parent by divorcing this parent, but the child is still trapped.  And you can’t directly protect the child anymore because you’re no longer there; the child is alone now with the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  And the narcissistic/(borderline) parent is directing their spousal anger at you through the child, so the child is now directly in the line of fire.

If the child shows any bonding toward you, any kindness toward you, or is even simply not being rejecting enough of you, not being sufficiently hostile and demeaning toward you, then the child faces the fierce psychological retaliation of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, and you know just how crazy and irrational, how angry and hostile, how subtly manipulative and controlling that onslaught can be.

Unless we can first protect the child, how can we ask the child to expose his or her authenticity to the full fury of the pathological onslaught that’s sure to follow from the narcissistic/(borderline) parent?

When you ask me if there is a therapist who treats “parental alienation” you are considering only your own needs, your own love for your child, but you are not considering the consequences for the child if we expose the child’s authenticity without being able to protect the child from the searing retaliation that is sure to follow.

I know you love your child.  I know how desperately you miss your child.  But we must first be able to protect the child before we can ask the child to expose his or her authenticity.

The Questions

The appropriate question is,

“Dr. Childress, how can I protect my child from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent?”

The answer is, you can’t.

Don’t you see that? You cannot protect your child. And if you cannot protect your child then your child has to do whatever is necessary, including rejecting a relationship with you, in order to survive in the psychologically dangerous world in which the child must survive.

In order to protect your child, you must get the court to order a protective separation of the child from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent during the active phase of the child’s treatment and recovery.

Unless you can get the court to order the child’s protective separation from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent during the recovery of the child’s authenticity, then there is nothing that can be done, because you cannot protect your child and the child must do what is necessary to survive in the pathology surrounding the child.

“But Dr. Childress, I’ve tried. I’ve spent a fortune in legal bills, all the money I have and more,  I’ve gone into debt, I’ve borrowed from family, all in an effort to get the court to recognize the parental alienation, and the court doesn’t do anything. They write orders that are never enforced, the other parent simply ignores court orders and the court doesn’t do anything about it.  And they’ve reduced my time with the child to almost nothing.  The court won’t order a protective separation of my child from the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.”

“Dr. Childress, how do I get the court to order a protective separation of the child from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent?”

You can’t.

Don’t you see that?  It is so clearly obvious.  Under the current Gardnerian PAS paradigm it is nearly impossible to get the court to order the child’s protective separation from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

The family law system is massively broken. 

Judges don’t understand “parental alienation,” and it is nearly impossible to prove “parental alienation” in court. It takes years and years of legal battling in which the narcissistic/(borderline) parent delays and delays, throwing up roadblocks, allegations of abuse, blatantly disregarding court orders without any consequence, until you’ve spent all your money, you haven’t seen your kids in years, and things have gone from bad to horrible.

You can’t get the court to order a protective separation on your own, you’re not powerful enough. You need an ally. You need mental health to stand by your side and say with decisive clarity to the court that the child is being “alienated” from you by the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, and that the child’s healthy development REQUIRES that the child be protectively separated from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent during the period of treatment as we recover and stabilize the child’s authenticity.

“But Dr. Childress, I’ve tried. I’ve been in therapy for years. We’ve had a child custody evaluation that said the other parent was “alienating” the child but the evaluator still recommended shared custody. We’ve been in reunification therapy and the therapist acts like the distortions the child is saying are true, and the therapist has even asked me to apologize to the child for my past “failures,” when I didn’t do anything wrong. Years of supposed therapy and nothing changes, things actually get worse. And I never get to speak with the child’s individual therapists. No one in mental health is my ally. What can I do?”

“Dr. Childress, how can I convince mental health professionals to be my ally in obtaining the child’s protective separation from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent?”

You can’t. You’re still not understanding. The mental health response to your family is completely ignorant and incompetent, and the current Gardnerian PAS paradigm allows this professional ignorance and incompetence.

The mental health professionals diagnosing and treating your family are entirely and completely incompetent. They’re plastic surgeons diagnosing and treating cancer. They have no idea what’s wrong and they have even less of an understanding for what to do about it.

The custody evaluation is going to take months and cost tens of thousands of dollars, but the conclusion is (almost) pre-written, joint custody to both parents. Split the difference. Middle of the road. It doesn’t matter what’s actually going on, that’s irrelevant. The answer is going to be to recommend the middle, split the difference, joint custody to both parents (or less custody time to you because the child is saying that the child doesn’t want to be with you).

Therapists are pointless. Individual therapists will simply “validate the child’s feelings” which is essentially validating and colluding with the pathology. And the typical justification for this insane collusion with psychopathology is that they’re “giving the child a safe place to talk about their feelings.” Nonsense. Therapy isn’t a safe place for the alienated child.  After every session (if the narcissistic/(borderline) parent even allows therapy sessions to occur), the child is asked by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent to report on what occurred during the therapy session.  Therapy just becomes another place for the child to display to the narcissistic/(borderline) parent the child’s allegiance to the narcissistic/(borderline) parent. We might as well have the narcissistic/(borderline) parent sitting in the supposedly “individual” child therapy sessions.

And psychologically the child is entirely captured by the role-reversal relationship. There is no authentic child present. The child is like a ventriloquist’s puppet, mouthing the words placed there by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

(In the scientific literature, this loss of authenticity is called a “role-reversal” relationship in which the child is being used as a “regulatory object” by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent to regulate the emotional and psychological state of this parent.)

Joint parent-child “reunification therapy” is equally as pointless, as I’m sure you’re aware. First off, there is no such thing as “reunification therapy.” This term is used by therapists as a cover which allows the therapist to essentially do anything under the guise of “reunification therapy.”  There is no defined model for what “reunification therapy” is.  The therapist does whatever seems to make sense to the therapist at the moment under the pretense that there is some sort of strategy or approach to restoring the parent-child bond. But there is no strategy or approach, because these therapists have no idea what they’re treating, and they have even less understanding for how to treat the pathology that sits before them.

They’re treating cancer with leeches. Not only don’t they understand what they’re treating, their treatment is positively medieval in its approach so that it has no hope of resolving the severity of the pathology.

Mental health isn’t your ally. They are ignorant, and in their ignorance they are only colluding with, and further entrenching, the pathology.

“So Dr. Childress. What can I do?”

Nothing.

Is There a Solution? No. (and yes).

What you’re facing is a manifestation of the childhood trauma pathology that created the narcissistic/(borderline) pathology of the other parent, which is now being reenacted on you.

In the childhood trauma of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the narcissistic/(borderline) parent as a child was being psychologically abused by his or her own parent, and there was nothing the narcissistic/(borderline) parent-as-a-child could do back then to escape the abuse. They were powerless to make their suffering stop.

That was the initial trauma that is now being reenacted on you.

You, as the recipient of the trauma reenactment narrative, are being psychologically abused and there is nothing you can do to escape the abuse.

There is no solution for you.

But, there is a solution.

In order to solve this nightmare of “parental alienation” for you, we must solve it for EVERYONE, for ALL targeted parents. When we solve “parental alienation” for ALL targeted parents, then we will solve it for you.

Your individual solution will be found in the collective solution. Until we solve parental alienation for everyone, we can solve it for no one.

So what’s the solution? Mental health MUST become your ally, so that working together we have enough power to protect your child. We start with mental health.

First, we must demand – not seek – we must demand professional competence. We must banish professional ignorance and incompetence.

Gardner’s PAS model won’t allow us to demand professional competence because he proposed a “new syndrome” which has been rejected by establishment mental health for 30 years as lacking in scientifically established foundation. 

The Gardnerian PAS paradigm allows for exactly the professional incompetence we are witnessing.  After 30 years of the failed Gardnerian PAS paradigm that should be patently obvious.  The Gardnerian PAS paradigm is giving us exactly what we have.  So why are we holding onto the Gardnerian PAS paradigm that allows for such extensive professional incompetence?  I have no idea. 

We need a change.

An attachment-based model of “parental alienation” provides this change.

It doesn’t propose a “new syndrome” but instead defines what “parental alienation” is entirely using standard and accepted, scientifically sound and supported, psychological constructs and principles. This redefinition of “parental alienation” from entirely within standard and established psychological principles and constructs then allows us to define “domains of professional competence” required for treating this “special population” of children and families:

  • Attachment theory
  • Personality disorder dynamics
  • Family systems constructs

We can then require that all mental health professionals diagnosing and treating this “special population” possess the necessary knowledge for competent professional practice.

Then, once we banish ignorance and obtain professional competence, the three diagnostic indicators of attachment-based “parental alienation” in the child’s symptom display will identify the presence of parental alienation in every case.

Finally, you will have a definitive diagnosis from mental health. And this diagnosis will include the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.57 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

And because we have achieved professional competence, gone will be pointless individual child therapy, gone will be un-defined “reunification therapy.”

Therapy for attachment-based “parental alienation” REQUIRES the child’s protective separation from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent during the active phase of treatment and recovery stabilization from the role-reversal relationship with the narcissistic/(borderline) parent in which the child is being used as a “regulatory object” by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent for the psychopathology of this parent.

Because we have achieved profession competence, no therapist, ANYWHERE, will treat a case of attachment-based “parental alienation” without first obtaining the child’s protective separation from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent. Mental health will, at last, be your ally.

THEN, we turn back to the court system. When mental health speaks with a single voice, the legal system will be able to act with the decisive clarity necessary to solve parental alienation.

Judges will be presented with a mental health diagnosis of V995.57 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed from ALL mental health professionals involved with your child and family, and no therapist anywhere will treat the child without the court first ordering the child’s protective separation from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

Before we can ask the child to expose his or her authenticity, we MUST first protect the child.

While it is possible that judges may still not order a protective separation, it will be extremely hard for them not to order a protective separation when ALL mental health professionals are giving the child a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.57 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed, and the entire field of professional psychology is saying that the child’s treatment REQUIRES the child’s protective separation from the psychopathology of the allied and supposedly favored narcissistic/(borderline) parent. For a judge to simply disregard all of professional mental health regarding the child’s pathology and treatment needs is going to be very hard for the judge to do.

Once we have a protective separation of the child from the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, then we can restore the child’s authenticity and the child’s loving bond to you.

But we must solve “parental alienation” for ALL families in order to solve it for any one family.

And then, once we have stopped the continual bleeding-out of current “alienation,” we can next turn our focus on the adult-children of “alienation,” the adult survivors of childhood “parental alienation.”

With the media attention we can generate surrounding the solution for current “alienation” we can broaden the focus to include the adult survivors of childhood “parental alienation” so that we can set about healing this nightmare for everyone.  For everyone.

As targeted parents, you are in this together. We cannot solve this for any one family unless we solve it for all families.

We can solve it for all families.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857