Month: December 2016

Research on personality pathology has identified a set of three co-occurring toxic personality traits that have received the label of the Dark Triad personality because of the severe toxicity of these personalities:

Narcissistic Personality Traits

Psychopathic Personality Traits

Machiavellian Manipulation

A borderline personality variant of the Dark Triad personality has also been identified in the research literature, the Vulnerable Dark Triad, consisting of:

Vulnerable Narcissism

Psychopathic Personality Traits

Borderline Personality Traits

The Dark Triad Personality:

“First cited by Paulhus and Williams (2002), the Dark Triad refers to a set of three distinct but related antisocial personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.  Each of the Dark Triad traits is associated with feelings of superiority and privilege.  This, coupled with a lack of remorse and empathy, often leads individuals high in these socially malevolent traits to exploit others for their own personal gain.”  (Giammarco & Vernon, 2014, p.  23)

The Vulnerable Dark Triad Personality:

“In the current study, we posit the existence of a second related triad – one that includes personality styles composed of both dark and emotionally vulnerable traits… The members of this putative vulnerable dark triad (VDT) would include (a) Factor 2 psychopathy, (b) vulnerable narcissism, and (c) borderline PD (BPD).” (Miller, Dir, Gentile, Wilson, Pryor, & Campbell, 2010, p. 1530)

Research on the Dark Triad personality has linked it to a particular set of high-conflict styles of communication, referred to in the communication literature as The Four Horseman of conflict communication.  According to Horan, Guinn, and Banghart (2014):

“How individuals communicate during conflict is important, and the previously reviewed studies reinforce that personality is important in understanding this process.  Four conflict messages that have received academic attention are contempt, criticism, stonewalling, and defensiveness.

“Contempt involves “statements that come from a relative position of superiority… “You’re an idiot’”;

“Criticism entails “stating one’s complaints as a defect in one’s partner’s personality… “You always talk about yourself. You are so selfish’”;

“Stonewalling describes “the listener’s withdrawal from interaction;”

“and defensiveness describes self-protection in the form of “righteous indignation or innocent victimhood (Gottman, 1993, p. 62).”

“Collectively, these conflict messages are known as The Four Horsemen.” (Horan, Guinn, & Banghart. 2015, 159; emphasis added)

The research literature has established the existence of the Dark Triad and Vulnerable Dark Triad personalities:

Research has linked the Dark Triad personality to The Four Horsemen of high-conflict communication:

Horan, S.M., Guinn, T.D., and Banghart, S. (2015). Understanding relationships among the Dark Triad personality profile and romantic partners’ conflict communication. Communication Quarterly, 63, 156-170.

To vengefulness in romantic relationships:

Giammarco, E.A. and Vernon, P.A. (2014). Vengeance and the Dark Triad: The role of empathy and perspective taking in trait forgivingness. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 23–29

Rasmussen, K.R. and Boon, S.D. (2014). Romantic revenge and the Dark Triad: A model of impellance and inhibition. Personality and Individual Differences, 56, 51–56 

To lying and manipulative deception:

Jonason, P.K., Lyons, M. Baughman, H.M., and Vernon, P.A. (2014). What a tangled web we weave: The Dark Triad traits and deception. Personality and Individual Differences, 70, 117–119

Baughman, H.M., Jonason, P.K., Lyons, M., and Vernon, P.A. (2014). Liar liar pants on fire: Cheater strategies linked to the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, 71, 35–38

To attachment-related pathology:

Jonason, P.K., Lyons, M., and Bethell, E. (2014). The making of Darth Vader: Parent–child care and the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 30–34

To the absence of empathy:

Jonason, P. K. and Krause, L. (2013). The emotional deficits associated with the Dark Triad traits: Cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and alexithymia. Personality and Individual Differences, 55, 532–537

Wai, M. and Tiliopoulos, N. (2012). The affective and cognitive empathic nature of the dark triad of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 794–799

And to the core of evil:

Book, A., Visser, B.A., and Volk, A.A. (2015). Unpacking ‘‘evil’’: Claiming the core of the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences 73 (2015) 29–38.

Given the research-linked association of the Dark Triad personality to high-conflict forms of communication, all court-involved child custody evaluators and court-involved therapists working with families evidencing high-conflict patterns of communication surrounding divorce should assess for the possible presence of the Dark Triad and Vulnerable Dark Triad personality pathology within the family.

Self-report personality assessment measures have been developed to assess for the component personality traits of the Dark Triad personality:

Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Hall, 1979),

Machiavellianism (MACH-IV; Christie & Geis, 1970)

Subclinical psychopathy (Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-III; Williams, Paulhus, & Hare, 2009). 

Self-report measures have also been developed to specifically assess for the Dark Triad personality constellation:

Short Dark Triad (SD3) scale (Jones & Paulhus, 2014). 

Research on the core personality characteristics uniting the Dark Triad personality constellation has also associated the Dark Triad with low scores on scale H (Honesty-Humility) on a prominent personality assessment, the HEXACO Personality Inventory:

Low H scale on HEXACO Personality Inventory (Book, Visser, & Volk, 2015; Lee, & Ashton, 2012). 

The assessment difficulty with all of these self-report scales of the Dark Triad personality is that the Dark Triad personality parent may not accurately self-report on his or her belief systems when there might be negative consequences for this self-disclosure.

An alternative method for potentially identifying the possible presence of the Dark Triad personality within the high-conflict family is to have each parent rate the other parent on these personality pathology scales (such as the SD3).  While this approach runs the counter-risk of a motivated desire by each spouse to present the other spouse in an over-pathologized way, this alternative approach of “informant rating” nevertheless could identify the potential presence of a Dark Triad personality parent which could then be followed-up with additional relevant data collection through clinical interviewing by asking each parent to provide specific examples of the other parent’s personality trait.

What is important – what is essential – given the evidence-based association of the Dark Triad personality with The Four Horsemen of high-conflict communication is:

1.)  The essential importance of professional expertise in assessing and identifying the Dark Triad and Vulnerable Dark Triad personalities in high-conflict families surrounding divorce;

2.)  The essential importance of court-involved child custody evaluators and court-involved therapists to conduct a proper assessment for the potential presence of the Dark Triad and Vulnerable Dark Triad personalities in ALL cases of high-conflict divorce.

In cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, in which a child is rejecting a relationship with a parent, this assessment for the Dark Triad and Vulnerable Dark Triad personality should be in addition to the recommended assessment protocol for attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce (Assessment Protocol):

• Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting
• Parenting Practices Rating Scale

Assessment leads to diagnosis, diagnosis guides treatment.

Professional Competence

All psychologists are required by Standard 9.01a of ethics code of the American Psychological Association to conduct an assessment sufficient to “substantiate their findings”:

9.01 Bases for Assessments
(a) Psychologists base the opinions contained in their recommendations, reports and diagnostic or evaluative statements, including forensic testimony, on information and techniques sufficient to substantiate their findings.

If the mental health professional has NOT assessed for the pathology of pathogenic parenting and has NOT assessed for the possible presence of the Dark Triad and Vulnerable Dark Triad personality as potentially causing the high-conflict relationships within the family, then this mental health professional has NOT based their diagnostic or evaluative statements, including forensic testimony, on “information and techniques sufficient to substantiate their findings,” and they are therefore likely in violation of Standard 9.01a of the APA ethics code.

Children and families evidencing attachment-related pathology surrounding high-conflict divorce warrant the professional designation as a “special population” requiring specialized professional knowledge and expertise to competently assess, diagnose, and treat. The domains of relevant pathology needed to competently assess, diagnose, and treat this special population of children and families are:

• Attachment-Related Pathology:  Including disordered mourning, goal-corrected motivation, insecure attachment characteristics, and the the trans-generational transmission of attachment trauma;

• Personality Disorder Pathology:  Including the Dark Triad and Vulnerable Dark Triad personality pathology, and the negative influence of parental personality disorder pathology within family relationships surrounding divorce (including role-reversal relationships, psychological boundary violations, and use of the child as a “regulatory object” to stabilize the parent’s emotional and psychological state);

• Family Systems Pathology:  Including triangulation, cross-generational coalitions, homeostatic balance, and emotional cutoffs;

• Trauma Pathology:  Including the effects of child abuse and domestic violence.

Failure to possess the necessary professional knowledge and expertise to competently assess, diagnose, and treat this special population of children and families may represent a violation of Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code requiring professional competence:

2.01 Boundaries of Competence
(a) Psychologists provide services, teach and conduct research with populations and in areas only within the boundaries of their competence, based on their education, training, supervised experience, consultation, study or professional experience.

If emotional and psychological harm then befalls the child or parent as a result of the mental health professional’s violation of Standards 9.01a and 2.01a of the APA ethics code, then this may represent an additional violation of Standard 3.04 of the APA ethics code prohibiting harm to the client:

3.04 Avoiding Harm
(a) Psychologists take reasonable steps to avoid harming their clients/patients, students, supervisees, research participants, organizational clients, and others with whom they work, and to minimize harm where it is foreseeable and unavoidable. 

Assessment leads to diagnosis, diagnosis guides treatment. Mental health professionals are expected to conduct an appropriate assessment that leads to diagnosis in order to guide treatment.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Psychologists, PSY 18857

References

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Horan, S.M., Guinn, T.D., and Banghart, S. (2015). Understanding relationships among the Dark Triad personality profile and romantic partners’ conflict communication. Communication Quarterly, 63, 156-170.

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Baughman, H.M., Jonason, P.K., Lyons, M., and Vernon, P.A. (2014). Liar liar pants on fire: Cheater strategies linked to the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, 71, 35–38.

Book, A., Visser, B.A., and Volk, A.A. (2015). Unpacking ‘‘evil’’: Claiming the core of the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences 73 (2015) 29–38.

Christie, R. C., & Geis, F. L. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. New York: Academic Press.

Giammarco, E.A. and Vernon, P.A. (2014). Vengeance and the Dark Triad: The role of empathy and perspective taking in trait forgivingness. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 23–29.

Jonason, P. K. and Krause, L. (2013). The emotional deficits associated with the Dark Triad traits: Cognitive empathy, affective empathy, and alexithymia. Personality and Individual Differences, 55, 532–537.

Jonason, P.K., Lyons, M. Baughman, H.M., and Vernon, P.A. (2014). What a tangled web we weave: The Dark Triad traits and deception. Personality and Individual Differences, 70, 117–119.

Jonason, P.K., Lyons, M., and Bethell, E. (2014). The making of Darth Vader: Parent–child care and the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 30–34

Jones, D.N. and Paulhus, D.L. (2014). Introducing the Short Dark Triad (SD3): A Brief measure of dark personality traits. Assessment, 21, 28-41.

Lee, K., and Ashton, M. C. (2012). The H factor of personality: Why some people are manipulative, self-entitled, materialistic, and exploitative —and why it matters for everyone. Waterloo, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Miller, J.D., Dir, A., Gentile, B., Wilson, L., Pryor, L.R., and Campbell, W.K. (2010). Searching for a Vulnerable Dark Triad: Comparing Factor 2 psychopathy, vulnerable narcissism, and borderline personality disorder. Journal of Personality, 78, 1529-1564.

Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The dark triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 556–563.

Raskin, R. N. and Hall, C. S. (1981). The narcissistic personality inventory: alternative form reliability and further evidence of construct validity. Journal of Personality Assessment, 45, 159–162.

Rasmussen, K.R. and Boon, S.D. (2014). Romantic revenge and the Dark Triad: A model of impellance and inhibition. Personality and Individual Differences, 56, 51–56. 

Wai, M. and Tiliopoulos, N. (2012). The affective and cognitive empathic nature of the dark triad of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 794–799.

Williams, K. M., Paulhus, D. L., & Hare, R. D. (2007). Capturing the four-factor structure of psychopathy in college students via self-report. Journal of Personality Assessment, 88, 205-219.

I recently completed a professional-to-professional Skype Consultation with a psychologist, and I wrote the psychologist a follow-up email providing assessment-protocol resources. I thought this email follow-up with resources might be more broadly helpful, so I am making it available here on my blog as well.

The psychologist with whom I consulted appeared to absolutely get it.  She indicated that she will be making the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed and will be filing a suspected child abuse report with CPS.  She also indicated that she is likely to be terminating therapy under Standard of 10.10 of the APA ethics code which requires that therapy be terminated if it is likely to be harmful to the child (making the child a “psychological battleground” between the goals of therapy to restore the child’s normal-range development, and the countervailing goals and pressure placed on the child by the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent to create and maintain the child’s symptomatology), or terminating therapy if the therapy is not likely to be effective. 

This psychologist indicated that she intends to write a discharge summary with this DSM-5 diagnosis and the decision to terminate therapy under Standard 10.10 of the APA ethics code until a protective separation of the child from the psychologically abusive allied parent is enacted that will allow therapy to proceed without harming the child because of the countervailing pressures placed on the child by the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent for the child to remain symptomatic.

Is CPS likely to do anything?  Probably not.  Will the Court issue an order for a protective separation period from the psychologically abusive parent that will allow therapy to restore the child’s normal-range development while not simultaneously turning the child into a “psychological battleground” between the goals of therapy and the countervailing goals of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent to create and maintain the child’s symptomatic rejection of the other parent?  Who knows.

But this is absolutely the correct professional course of action in cases of AB-PA.   The pathology of AB-PA is a child protection issue, not a child custody issue.  Assessment leads to diagnosis, and diagnosis guides treatment.

All mental health professionals have an ethical obligation under Standard 10.10 of the APA ethics code to terminate therapy that is either harmful to the client (the “psychological battleground” issue), or when therapy is not likely to be effective (therapy that does not seek change but that simply colludes with the continuation of the pathology).

If all mental health professionals follow their professional standards of practice and decline to treat without the necessary protective separation of the child from the psychologically abusive parent, this will clearly communicate to the legal system what is needed.  Declining to treat AB-PA without first obtaining the necessary protective separation of the child from the psychologically abusive parent (a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed) is the ethical obligation of all psychologists under Standard 10.10 of the APA ethics code.

Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant developmental pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 1), personality disorder pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 2), and delusional-psychiatric pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 3) in order to meet the emotional and psychological needs of the parent represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

Pathogenic parenting is not a child custody issue; it is a child protection issue.

The following is my email follow-up after a professional-to-professional consultation.  In this follow-up email I provide the psychologist with my recommended resources for a standard-of-practice assessment in all cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce:

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Why is the dispute between the AB-PA model and the PAS model important?

It has to do with which set of diagnostic indicators is used in diagnosing the pathology.  This is key – this is fundamental – to the solution.

Gardnerian PAS provides a set of eight symptom identifiers that do not lead to the solution.  They are too vague and they allow mental health professionals too much latitude to NOT diagnose the pathology.   Furthermore, the Gardnerian 8 symptoms do NOT lead to a definition of “parental alienation” as psychological child abuse.

For thirty years we’ve been using the Gardnerian 8 symptom identifiers (or some variant of them) and they have given us precisely the situation we have right now – no solution.

When I set out a decade ago to create the solution (I’ve been working on the solution for 10 years – I didn’t just begin my work on this), I first analyzed in detail what the problem was.  I then set about constructing the solution to the problem.

The response of the mental health system to this form of attachment-related pathology is broken. As a result, the mental health system is not giving accurate feedback to the legal system that would allow the legal system to act with the decisive clarity necessary to solve this form of attachment-related pathology in the family (a protective separation period of the child from the pathogenic parenting of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent during the active phase of the child’s treatment and recovery).

The reason the mental health system is broken is because of profound and extensive professional incompetence in assessing, diagnosing, and treating this form of attachment-related, personality disorder, and family systems pathology.  In order to achieve a solution, we must first clear out the extensive professional incompetence surrounding the assessment and diagnosis of this pathology, and reestablish professional standards of practice for professional competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of this attachment-related family pathology.

Gardnerian PAS Allows Incompetence

Why is there such rampant professional incompetence?  Because Gardnerian PAS allows it. That is important to understand.

By proposing that the attachment-related pathology of “parental alienation” is a “new form of pathology,” unique in all of mental health – a new syndrome – Gardnerian PAS does not rely on established constructs and principles to define domains of professional competence necessary for the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of the pathology.

The Gardnerian PAS model allows professional incompetence.  Don’t believe me?  I could explain in detail why this is, but I have a much simpler way to show how Garnerian PAS allows professional incompetence to thrive.  For thirty years – 30 years – we’ve had the Gardnerian PAS model.  Look at the degree of professional incompetence that surrounds us.  I rest my case.  Gardnerian PAS allows professional incompetence.

Among sports fans there is an airtight argument to shut-down shoulda-woulda-coulda arguments following games… Scoreboard.  Which means look at the scoreboard and see who won and who lost.  Gardnerian PAS.  Thirty years – 30 years.  Scoreboard. 

Gardnerian PAS is a failed paradigm.

The solution is to re-define the attachment-related pathology of “parental alienation” using standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology that will then allow us to define domains of professional competence to which ALL mental health professionals can be held accountable.

Once the pathology is defined using standard and established constructs and principles, we can then identify a set of definitive diagnostic indicators from within these established constructs and principles that can be used to definitively diagnose “parental alienation” 100% of the time, and we can then develop a standard of practice assessment protocol to which ALL mental health professionals can be held accountable.

So that’s what I set about doing.

AB-PA is the result.  AB-PA provides a definition of the attachment-related, personality disorder related, family systems pathology of “parental alienation” from entirely within standard and established constructs and principles, that then defines domains of professional competence required for ALL mental health professionals who are assessing, diagnosing, and treating this form of attachment-related, personality disorder related, family systems pathology.

What’s more – and this is key – a set of 3 definitive diagnostic indicators of the pathology are derived from AB-PA that can be used to establish a standard of practice for ALL mental health professionals in the assessment and diagnosis of the pathology.  Solution.

No other pathology in all of mental health will produce this specific set of all three diagnostic indicators other than the attachment-related, personality disorder related, family systems pathology I describe in Foundations.

Since AB-PA is based entirely within standard and established constructs and principles, all mental health professionals can now be held ACCOUNTABLE under standards for professional competence (Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code), and all psychologists MUST ASSESS for the attachment-related pathology of AB-PA under standards for professional competence (Standard 9.01a of the APA ethics code regarding Assessment).

They do not have a choice.  This, too, is critical to understand… they do not have a choice.  If they fail to assess for the attachment-related pathology of AB-PA in cases of attachment pathology surrounding divorce, or if they fail to possess the required domains of knowledge necessary for professional competence, then they are in violation of APA ethical code Standards and are vulnerable to licensing board complaints.  Accountability for professional competence.

Gardnerian PAS does not allow us to hold mental health professionals accountable.  Again, don’t believe me?  Let me explain.  In Gardnerinan PAS we’re trying to hold them accountable for professional competence in Gardnerian PAS, with its slippery 8 diagnostic indicators and mild-moderate-severe forms of a supposedly unique new form of pathology unrelated to any other pathology in all of mental health.  That’s impossible to do.  Just look around you and you see the result.

They maybe-kind-of make the diagnosis of “parental alienation” sometimes, but not always, and not definitively, and then even if they say there’s “parental alienation” they don’t know what to do about it and they recommend “reunification therapy” that goes on for years with no result.  That’s all a product of Gardnerian PAS.  Scoreboard.

For thirty years – 30 years – we’ve had the Gardnerian PAS model.  Look at the degree of professional incompetence that surrounds us.  I rest my case.  Gardnerian PAS allows professional incompetence.  We cannot hold mental health professionals accountable to be experts in Gardnerian PAS.  As much as we may wish we could… we can’t.  It is not possible.  30 years.  Scoreboard.  Done.  Let’s move on.

Q:  But doesn’t establishment psychology have to first accept AB-PA as a model for the pathology?

A:  No.  And this is important to understand.  Establishment psychology has ALREADY accepted the constructs of the attachment system, personality disorder pathology, and family systems pathology.  There is NOTHING for establishment psychology to accept or reject.  All of the component pathologies of AB-PA have ALREADY been accepted.

That’s the whole point of defining the pathology using standard and established constructs and principles (a procedure called “Diagnosis”).

Gardner didn’t do a proper diagnosis of the pathology.  Instead, he opted for a conceptually lazy way out by proposing an entirely new form of pathology with a set of entirely new and unique symptom identifiers unlike any other pathology in all of mental health.  That’s just bad diagnosis.

The “we need to be accepted” way of thinking is a false Gardnerian PAS way of thinking born in Gardner’s proposal of a “new form of pathology.”  Everyone is living in a dream created by Gardner’s “new form of pathology.”  Wake UP!  There is NO new form of pathology.  All we have to do is properly diagnose the pathology using standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

Wake UP!  There is no “new form of pathology.”  Wake UP!

If we are proposing a “new form of pathology” – a new syndrome – then, yes, this proposal for a “new form of pathology” needs to be accepted.  But AB-PA is NOT proposing a new form of pathology.

Get it?   Break free of Gardnerian thinking.  There is NOTHING for establishment psychology to accept or reject.  It’s simply a matter of obtaining an accurate diagnosis of the attachment-related pathology from within standard and fully established forms of existing pathologies within mental health.

Wake UP!  It’s just a matter of diagnosis.  No new pathology.  Just diagnosis – using standard and established, fully accepted constructs and principles of professional psychology.  Diagnosis.

When Gardner skipped the step of diagnosis he took everyone off the path of professional psychology and led everyone into the weeds, and brambles, and overgrowth that we’ve been slogging through for 30 years. 

Diagnosis is the application of standard and established constructs and principles to a set of symptoms.  In proposing a “new form of pathology,” Gardner skipped the step of diagnosis, and in doing so he led everyone down the wrong path, a path away from professional standards of practice and into a world of professional incompetence. 

AB-PA puts us back on the path of correct and proper professional practice; the diagnosis of pathology using standard and established constructs and principles.  NO “new form of pathology” proposals involving eight uniquely created new symptoms developed specifically for this supposedly “unique new form” of pathology.

Stop it!  There is no new form of pathology unique in all of mental health.  It’s just a matter of properly diagnosing the pathology using standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.  

AB-PA corrects Gardner’s diagnostic sloppiness.  This pathology is NOT a “new form of pathology.”  Gardner simply did not employ the necessary professional rigor to properly diagnose the pathology using standard and established constructs and principles.  AB-PA corrects Gardner’s diagnostic error.  AB-PA diagnoses the pathology by applying standard and established constructs and principles to a set of symptoms.  Because AB-PA is NOT proposing a “new form of pathology,” there is NOTHING for establishment psychology to accept or reject because everything has ALREADY been accepted.

Get it?  Wake UP!  Break free of the conceptual limitations imposed by thirty years of Gardnerian PAS.  There is NOTHING to accept or reject.  All of the component pathologies of AB-PA have already been accepted.  Through AB-PA, all mental health professionals can now be held ACCOUNTABLE for domains of knowledge necessary for professional competence and, most importantly, for an established standard of practice in the assessment of the pathology – the three diagnostic indicators that definitively identify this form of attachment-related, personality disorder related, family systems pathology.

Standard of Practice

Once we achieve the paradigm shift from the Gardnerian PAS model to the attachment-related model of AB-PA , ALL mental health professionals MUST administer the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting in all cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  Not because I say so, or because we ask them to.  They must do it as a matter of professional competence in attachment-related pathology, personality disorder pathology, and family systems pathology surrounding this form of attachment-related, personality disorder, and family systems pathology.

The only thing standing in the way is that they don’t yet know that a second model of AB-PA exists.

We cannot force mental health professionals to be competent in “parental alienation.”  We CAN, however, force them to be competent in the attachment system, and we CAN force them to be competent in personality disorder pathology, IF – IF – we define the pathology ENTIRELY in terms of the attachment system and personality disorder pathology.  Get it?

The paradigm shift to AB-PA will achieve a defined standard of practice in the assessment and diagnosis of “parental alienation,” and will achieve a defined standard of practice in the required domains of knowledge (attachment system expertise, personality disorder expertise, family systems expertise, trauma expertise) necessary for professional competence in assessing, diagnosing, and treating this pathology.  We get rid of professional incompetence.  Ta-da.

But what Happens to Gardnerian PAS?

Notice, that NONE of these domains of required professional competence (the attachment system, personality disorder pathology, family systems constructs, and trauma), include expertise in Garderian PAS.  Can you see now why the Gardnerian PAS experts are so resistant to the change to AB-PA?  They are fighting for their own status as “experts.” 

Once the paradigm shift occurs, it won’t be enough simply to be a self-proclaimed expert in Gardner’s eight unique symptom identifiers of PAS, they will actually have to expand their knowledge and become experts in the attachment system, experts in personality disorder pathology, experts in family systems theory, and experts in trauma.  There will be no such thing as “parental alienation” from a professional point of view. 

From a professional point of view, the construct of “parental alienation” disappears and becomes the attachment-related pathology of pathological mourning manifesting in pathogenic parenting by an allied parent in a cross-generational coalition with the child.  Notice I didn’t use the term “parental alienation” in any of that definition of the pathology.  I used only defined and fully established constructs in professional psychology.

The Gardnerian PAS experts hate me because I am taking away their domain of expertise. They just want AB-PA to go away.  They don’t even want to acknowledge that AB-PA exists because the mere existence of an attachment-based definition of the pathology using standard and established constructs and principles takes away their domain of expertise.

If they had the chance, I am certain that they would like to destroy me and destroy AB-PA.  Not a doubt in my mind.  Luckily for me, they can’t do it because I’m standing on the rock-solid Foundations of established psychological principles and constructs of professional psychology.  So they are left merely to fume and fluster in their desire to destroy me and negate AB-PA.

But make no mistake, they hate me.  They do not want AB-PA to become the standard of practice because they are desperately trying to hold on to their relevance as “experts.”  That’s the back-story on all of this AB-PA versus PAS controversy.  That’s why Dr. Bernet wrote an essay entitled, “Old Wine in Old Skins” trying to make the argument that AB-PA is just a version of PAS.  They don’t want to acknowledge that there is a new model for the pathology that takes away their “expert” status. 

That’s why Amy Baker and the Gardnerians produced a set of Guidelines for how to determine a “bona fide parental alienation expert.”  They feel threatened that their status as “experts” is being imperiled by me through AB-PA, so they are trying to reassert that they are the “bona fide” experts in “parental alienation” (unlike this upstart, Dr. Childress and his AB-PA model).  That’s the back-story on all of this.

And that’s why Linda Gottlieb wrote her article-essay thingy claiming that “Science Discovers PAS and Declares it to be Psychological Child Abuse” in which she made such a prominent point of saying what a great “scientist” Richard Gardner was, and how an “overwhelming consensus” of “parental alienation” experts accept Gardner’s 8 symptom identifiers.  That’ the back-story on what they’re trying to do. They are desperately trying to nullify AB-PA in order to hold on to their positions as experts in “parental alienation.”

Do you want evidence of this?  How many times do they reference me or AB-PA in their professional work?  Zero.  I am like Lord Voldemort to them; he-who-shall-not-be-named. 

There are four major scientific advances to be found in AB-PA:

• Linking the pathology to the disorganized attachment of the “alienating” parent – which is then linked to the narcissistic and borderline personality pathology in the parent.  This is a huge conceptual advance with profound implications.  Yet they ignore even mentioning it.
  

• The trans-generational transmission of attachment trauma through a false trauma reenactment narrative of “abusive parent”/”victimized child”/”protective parent.”  Again, this is a huge conceptual advance in it’s explanatory capability for the false allegations of abuse.  Yet they ignore even mentioning it.

• The induction process is NOT through “badmouthing” the other parent, it is through manipulating the child into adopting the false trauma reenactment role as the “victimized child” in the trauma reenactment narrative.  Again, this is a huge conceptual advance in explaining how the pathology is produced in the child and in explaining the presence of the encapsulated persecutory delusion (diagnostic indicator 3) in the child.  Yet they ignore even mentioning it.

• The neurologically-based description of the addition of spitting pathology to the cross-generational coalition that leads to a neurologically imposed imperative for the narcissistic/(borderline) parent to make the ex-spouse an ex-parent.  The ex-husband MUST become an ex-father, the ex-wife MUST become an ex-mother.  This is a neurologically imposed imperative of the splitting pathology.  This is huge.  Yet they ignore even mentioning it.

These are four major scientific advances in our understanding of the “parental alienation” pathology found in AB-PA.  Major conceptual advances.  And they are all completely ignored by the Gardnerian PAS experts as if they didn’t even exist.   I am their Lord Voldemort – he-who-shall-not-be-named.

Why don’t they want to discuss these major advances in defining the pathology?  Because they just want AB-PA to go away.  Dr. Bernet, in his “Old Wine in Old Skins” article even overtly said that there was nothing new in AB-PA.  It was just a version of PAS.  What?  That’s absurd.  Dr. Bernet and the Gardnerian PAS experts want AB-PA to go away.  They want to bury it so it never sees the light of day.  That is why I am he-who-cannot-be-named.  The mere mention of me or AB-PA gives life to AB-PA, and they desperately want AB-PA to just die in obscurity.

The Gardnerian PAS “experts” are no allies.

Diagnostic Indicators

But the issue is NOT which model defines the pathology – the issue is which set of diagnostic indicators is used to diagnose the pathology:

The 3 definitive diagnostic indicators of AB-PA, or

The 8 symptom indicators of Gardnerian PAS

THAT is the question. 

Since the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA are grounded in the Foundations of established and fully accepted psychological principles and constructs, we can now hold ALL mental health professionals accountable to an established standard of practice in the assessment and diagnosis of this form of attachment-related pathology.

The use of the Gardnerian 8 symptom indicators of PAS, on the other hand, give us exactly the situation we have right now.  For thirty years we’ve been using the Gardnerian 8 symptoms of PAS and this is what they have given us – no solution whatsoever.  The Gardnerian 8 symptoms ALLOW professional incompetence.

Again, don’t believe me?  One word: Scoreboard. 

30 years.  No solution.  Rampant professional incompetence. Scoreboard.

It’s not just about which model is used to define the pathology, it’s about which set of diagnostic indicators are used to diagnose it. 

So here is another vital point to understand:

When we re-frame the pathology away from the construct of “parental alienation” that is used in Gardnerian PAS, over to the construct of pathogenic parenting used in AB-PA, look what happens:

Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant developmental pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 1), personality pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 2), and delusional-psychiatric pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 3) in order to meet the emotional and psychological needs of the parent represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

There.  Right there.  That is the solution.  See it?

The AB-PA definition of the pathology leads to the 3 diagnostic indicators, which then leads directly to the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

There.  Right there.  That is the solution.

But in order to achieve this solution, we must switch from the Gardnerian definition of the pathology and its 8 symptom identifiers over to the AB-PA definition of the pathology and its 3 diagnostic indicators. Get it?

Adding Descriptions

If the Gardnerians wish to add Gardnerian PAS to AB-PA, that’s fine by me.  Just SWITCH to the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA so we can get the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed that is available through AB-PA. 

My goodness, if they want to add a theory that “alienating parents” are products of Atlantis created by ancient aliens, fine by me… Just SWITCH to the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA so we can get the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

One critique I sometimes hear is that AB-PA doesn’t address mild and moderate cases.  So what.  Let’s solve the severe cases and then we can solve the mild and moderate cases.  Holy cow people.  You’re going to wait on solving the severe cases until we also solve the mild and moderate cases?  That’s absurd.  Besides, the mild and moderate cases are just standard cross-generational coalitions without the addition of parental personality disorder pathology.  Easy-peasy.

Ahhh, but there’s a problem for the Gardnerians in switching to the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA.  The three diagnostic indicators are ONLY available through the AB-PA model.  They’re not available through the PAS model.  So while they can ADD the PAS model to AB-PA, they nevertheless have to accept the AB-PA model in order to get the three diagnostic indicators that define the pathology as a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51, Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed. 

And the moment they accept the AB-PA model, the domains of expertise switch to the attachment system and personality disorder pathology, not Gardnerian PAS, and since they are only experts in Gardnerian PAS they immediately cease to be experts.  Wow.  Now that’s a problem for them.  If they switch to the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA, then they immediately cease to be experts in “parental alienation” because they have to accept an AB-PA model in which the construct of “parental alienation” disappears into standard and established constructs and principles.

Quite the professional dilemma for them.  What will they do?  That’s been the question they’ve been facing for several years now.  I’ve known it, and they’ve know it.  I provided ample opportunity for them to join me in enacting the solution.  They’ve had ample opportunity to switch to the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA that immediately – immediately – provide the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

But what is their choice?  None of them has switched to the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA, none of them even acknowledges that AB-PA exists, and most recently Linda Gottlieb creates an article-essay thingy falsely claiming that “Science Discovers PAS and Declares it Psychological Child Abuse.”

They are trying to co-opt the claim that PAS is Psychological Child Abuse.  That would be fine if it were true.  But it’s not.  It’s a lie.  Science has not “discovered” PAS.  That’s absurd.  30 years.  Nor has science declared that PAS is psychological child abuse.  That is simply false.  It is a lie.

So why did Linda Gottlieb say this?  Because they are threatened by the fact – the true fact – that the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA lead directly to a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse Confirmed.

Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant developmental pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 1), personality pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 2), and delusional-psychiatric pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 3) in order to meet the emotional and psychological needs of the parent represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

If they adopt the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA then they cease to be experts in “parental alienation.” So what do they do?  They make up a lie that PAS also leads to a diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse.  It doesn’t.

They have decided they would rather try to remain experts in “parental alienation” than switch to the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA that provide an immediate DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.  That’s the relevance (and backstory) of Ms. Gottlieb’s recent article-essay thing in which she claims that “Science Discovers PAS and Declares it to be Psychological Child Abuse.”  They’ve decided to try to find some way of making PAS be a DSM-5 diagnosis of child abuse because come hell or high water, they will NOT adopt AB-PA which provides an immediate DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

But here’s the problem with what Ms. Gottlieb did.  In making the false claim that science declares PAS to be Psychological Child Abuse (as if wishing made it so), Ms. Gottlieb muddies the waters with regard to establishment mental health.  Establishment psychology hears something like that and says that’s ridiculous. 

Establishment Psychology: “There go those “parental alienation” crackpots again, making false claims that science has declared “parental alienation” to be psychological child abuse.”

Then, when we present to establishment mental health the true diagnosis, that the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA are a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, we will be dismissed as just making the false PAS claim.  So it will take us an additional year or longer to clear up the confusion caused by Ms. Gottlieb, requiring us to explain to establishment psychology that AB-PA is not PAS, and that the claim of AB-PA is true, whereas the other claim regarding PAS is false.  In writing her article-essay thingy making the false claim that science declares PAS is Child Psychological Abuse, Ms. Gottlieb threatens to delay the solution to “parental alienation” by a year or more by muddying the waters with false claims.

All so that the Gardnerians can try to remain relevant and hold on to their self-assigned roles as “experts” in “parental alienation.”

That is the back-story.

Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant developmental pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 1), personality pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 2), and delusional psychiatric pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 3) in order to meet the emotional and psychological needs of the parent represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

Right there.  That is the solution.  But it is only available through the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA.

Why is AB-PA / PAS Important?

The solution to the attachment-related pathology of “parental alienation” is found in the set of diagnostic indicators we use to diagnose the pathology.  THAT’s why the debate surrounding which model is adopted is critical.  It’s not about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, it’s about which set of diagnostic indicators are we using to diagnose the pathology.

Because AB-PA is based entirely within established constructs and principles of professional psychology, we can hold ALL mental health professionals ACCOUNTABLE (using established ethical Standards for professional competence) regarding their assessment and diagnosis of the standard and established forms of attachment-related and personality disorder related family pathology.

In proposing a “new form of pathology” – a new syndrome – Gardner took everyone away from established standards of practice in professional psychology – specifically the established professional practice standard for professional diagnosis (the application of established and accepted constructs and principles of professional psychology to a set of symptoms.).

AB-PA leads us out of the brambles and overgrowth and returns us BACK to the proper path of professional psychology.

Assessment leads to diagnosis.  Diagnosis guides treatment.

A proper assessment of the pathology using the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA will lead us directly to a proper DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

Simple.  There is the solution.  Right there.  And this solution is available immediately. Right now.  Today.  This instant.

I don’t care if the Gardnerians ADD Gardnerian PAS to AB-PA, or add ancient alien theories, or theories that link “parental alienation” to a race of underground reptoids.  It doesn’t matter to me one bit.  Just switch to the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA that immediately give us – every targeted parent and every mental health professional working with this form of attachment-related pathology – the immediate DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.

Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant developmental pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 1), personality pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 2), and delusional psychiatric pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 3) in order to meet the emotional and psychological needs of the parent represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

But instead of switching, we are watching the Gardnerians twist themselves into knots to the point of making false and misleading statements, trying to somehow make Gardnerian PAS lead to a diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse.  It can’t be done.  If it could be done, I’d be fine with that.  There would have been no need for me to spend the last 10 years working out the solution provided by AB-PA.  But Gardnerian PAS does not lead to a diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse.  Gardnerian PAS leads us nowhere.

Scoreboard.

If the Gardnerian PAS experts are so desperate for a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse, all they have to do is switch to an AB-PA definition of the pathology and they immediately have it.  No need to twist themselves into all sorts of convolutions trying to make Gardnerian PAS into a form of Child Psychological Abuse.  Just switch to AB-PA.  Poof.  Done deal.

But no.  Absolutely not.  Why not?  Because then they also have to accept AB-PA and they will cease to be “experts” in “parental alienation,” because they are only experts in Gardnerian PAS.

Let there be no misunderstanding.  The Gardnerian PAS experts hate me.  They want to destroy me and kill AB-PA.  They want AB-PA to go away and never see the light of day.  They are no allies.  I’ve known this for quite a long time now.  But it’s time to bring this out into the open because we are entering a new phase in the solution.

My battle will soon be with the pathogen itself, as represented by its allies in establishment psychology.  I suspect that Dr. Silbert and Dr. Meier may be leading this opposition, but I will not pick a fight with them if they don’t pick a fight with me.  I absolutely 100% understand the concerns of Dr. Silbert and Dr. Meier and of all of the authentic child abuse and domestic violence protection advocates.  I listened to their valid concerns and I have addressed them in AB-PA.

Dogs exist.  And cats exist.  The existence of dogs does not nullify the existence of cats.  Both authentic child abuse trauma AND the psychological decompensation of parental narcissistic and borderline personality pathology surrounding divorce exist.  The diagnostic indicators of AB-PA will differentiate dogs from cats 100% of the time.  Our goal is to protect all children, 100% of children, 100% of the time from all forms of child abuse, physical, sexual, and psychological.

I will not be entering with any preconceived notions regarding conflict with Drs. Silbert or Meier, or others who seek to protect children from authentic child abuse.  I have worked in the foster care system.  I understand what child abuse looks like up close and personal.  I understand the legitimate concerns of mental health professionals regarding protecting children from child abuse.  Dogs exist.

Cats also exist.  Narcissistic and borderline personality pathology exists, and narcissistic/borderline personality pathology is particularly vulnerable to collapse in response to rejection and abandonment, which are exactly the circumstances surrounding divorce.

PAS is a bad model for a pathology.  I absolutely understand the legitimate concerns of professional psychology with regard to the PAS model.  AB-PA resolves these concerns.  AB-PA is based entirely within standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.  What’s more, AB-PA is true.

AB-PA affords us the opportunity to end the rift in mental health surrounding the pathology of “parental alienation” and bring mental health back together again into a single voice to protect all children, 100% of children, 100% of the time from all forms of child abuse, physical, sexual, and psychological.

I am willing to work collaboratively with everyone seeking to solve the legitimate attachment-related pathology of “parental alienation.”  The allies of the pathogen will reveal themselves as we move toward the solution.

For all targeted parents, you will know which model a professional is using by the diagnostic indicators they use to diagnose the pathology; the 3 diagnostic indicators of AB-PA or the 8 symptom identifiers of Gardnerian PAS. 

If they are using the 8 symptoms of Gardnerian PAS, this is just more of the same.  Thirty years; no solution. 

If they are using the 3 diagnostic indicators of AB-PA, then they are on the forefront of scientific advancement and are on the leading edge of enacting the solution.

Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant developmental pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 1), personality pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 2), and delusional-psychiatric pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 3) in order to meet the emotional and psychological needs of the parent represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

That is the solution.  Right there.  This set of diagnostic indicators emerges from AB-PA and is only available from the AB-PA model.

The time is now.  The solution is available now.  The battle to reclaim your children is now.  Join us in moving forward.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Psychologist, PSY 18857

After Julius Caesar conquered the Gauls in France, the senators in Rome felt threatened by Caesar’s popularity and power, so they ordered him to return to Rome but to leave his legions in Gaul.  Their goal was to disempower Caesar and bring him under their control so they could kill him.

Caesar responded by marching – with his legions – to Rome.  After he crossed the Alps, he came to the river Rubicon that demarcated the boundary between Gaul and Rome.  If he crossed the Rubicon with his legions he would be in direct violation of his orders from the Roman senate, and he would essentially be starting a civil war. 

He crossed the Rubicon with his legions and he entered Rome.

To “cross the Rubicon” has come to mean that a decisive decision has been made. 

I have crossed the Rubicon with my legions.  We’re taking Rome.  It’s time.

---

Dr. Bernet, one of the leading figures advocating in support of the construct of “parental alienation,” and founder of the Parental Alienation Study Group, posted the following Comment about my blog  critiquing Linda Gottlieb’s… essay?  article? in which she asserts the supposedly “BREAKING NEWS” that science has discovered Parental Alienation Syndrome and has declared that it is child abuse:

Chilldress blog: PAS is a Bad Model for a Pathology

In my blog post, I said that I would be willing to debate any Gardnerian PAS expert anytime, anywhere.  In response, Dr. Bernet wrote the following:

I am sorry that Dr. C becomes so offensive when he engages in conversation with professional colleagues. Why would anyone agree to debate a person whose goal is to insult his opponent? Dr. C has made some useful and interesting proposals regarding parental alienation, so it would be nice if he could discuss his ideas in a friendly and collaborative manner.

I believe the issue raised by Dr. Bernet to be of such importance that I have decided to make my response to Dr. Bernet’s Comment a full blog post on my part.

I wasn’t being insulting, Dr. Bernet.  I was being truthful.  Granted, I was blunt in my truth-telling – but everything I said was the truth.  If the truth is insulting, might I suggest changing the truth. 

Point out one thing I said in my response to Ms. Gottlieb that wasn’t truthful.

Misleading Headline

I called Ms. Gottlieb’s headline false and misleading.  That’s not insulting.  That’s the truth. 

Science has not just discovered PAS.  That’s absurd on its face.  PAS has been here for 30 years.  So that’s not true.  What do we call something that’s not true?  It’s called a lie.  To be perfectly blunt, Ms. Gottlieb is lying.  That’s not my fault.  So actually, I showed restraint by not saying that she’s lying.  That’s what we call something that someone says that isn’t true.  It is not “BREAKING NEWS” that “Science Discovers PAS.”  That simply isn’t true.  PAS has been here for 30 years and nothing has changed recently.

Is it insulting to say she’s not telling the truth when she is clearly not telling the truth?  PAS has been here for 30 years, yet Ms. Gottlieb is saying it’s “BREAKING NEWS” that “Science Discovers PAS.”

Come on, Dr. Bernet.  You’ve got to admit, that’s just not a true statement, especially with the lead in of “BREAKING NEWS.”

If Ms. Gottlieb, or you, finds the truth insulting, it’s not my fault.  Change the truth.  She shouldn’t be deceitful by making misleading statements that aren’t true.

Furthermore, science has not declared that PAS is psychological child abuse.  All of the studies cited by Ms. Gottlieb state that child abuse is bad.  Not one of them declares that PAS is child abuse.  To be blunt, again…  Ms. Gottlieb is not telling the truth.  When something is not true it is called a lie.  That’s not my fault.  My goal is not to be insulting.  My goal is to tell the truth.  Science has not declared that PAS is psychological child abuse. Ms. Gottlieb is not telling the truth – she’s lying.  It’s not my fault that she is not telling the truth.

If you find the truth insulting, don’t blame me.  Change the truth.  Ms. Gottlieb needs to stop making misleading and false statements. 

Ms. Gottlieb is looked upon as one of the leading advocates for “parental alienation.”  When she makes these clearly false and over-the-top statements it not only hurts her credibilty, it hurts all of our credibility.  We are all painted with the same broad brush of professional irresponsibility.  The APA looks at something like that and says, “those parental alienation people are fringe fanatics who don’t care about truth or accuracy in their work.”  Is that okay with you?  Because let me tell you, I don’t want to have my professional credibility tainted by Ms. Gottlieb’s loss of professional credibility.

So in order to maintain my own credibility with establishment mental health, I must repudiate Ms. Gottlieb’s loose relationship with truth and accuracy.  If you want to defend lies and deception, it’s up to you.  For my part, I am going to sternly rebuke anyone who engages in making false and deceptive statements.

I’m not insulting Ms. Gottlieb by calling her an un-truth teller, I’m just bluntly telling the truth.  If Ms. Gottlieb feels insulted by the truth, I suggest she change the truth and moderate what she says so that it reflects actual reality.

Professional Standards for Style

I said that Ms. Gotlieb’s article, or essay, or whatever it is, did not achieve, or even approach, a professionally acceptable standard stylistically – inaccurate authorship attribution, no quotes differentiating author content from quoted content, a seemingly biased author with an agenda who is posing as a “newspaper reporter” reporting “BREAKING NEWS.”  You know what that’s called nowadays?  Fake News.

The presentation is not even remotely professional on Ms. Gottlieb’s part. I’m not “insulting Ms. Gottlieb.”  I’m telling the truth.  Yes, I’m blunt.  I will admit that.  But the truth is the truth.  If you don’t like the truth, change the truth.  Come on, Dr. Bernet… no quote marks, inaccurate authorship attribution.

It’s just really sloppy work, and it raises the question that if she is that sloppy in her work in this basic area of simple attention to basic principles of stylistic format (no quote marks, Dr. Bernet – that’s just sloppy work), is she also that sloppy with her work in other areas, such as diagnosis and treatment? 

Do you want your heart surgeon writing blog posts that are that sloppy?  Or do you want your heart surgeon to demonstrate a professional level of attention to excellence in everything she does?  I mean, it’s your life, Dr. Bernet, but I’d want my heart surgeon to demonstrate a commitment to excellence in everything she does.  Which raises the point of why targeted parents and children should expect any less.  Why is it acceptable for Ms. Gottlieb to bring anything less than excellence to her advocacy for these children and families?

Am I insulting her, Dr. Bernet?  Or am I holding her to a standard for excellence which targeted parents and their children deserve?

Primitive and Conceptually Lazy

I said that Ms. Gottlieb’s analysis was primitive and conceptually lazy.  That’s not insulting, that’s the truth.  She might find it insulting because she wants to think that her analysis was something special, but it wasn’t.  That the pathology of parental alienation is triangulation and the formation of a cross-generational coalition that includes enmeshment is, in truth, a primitive and conceptually lazy professional analysis.  That’s not my fault, that’s just the truth.

No one is disputing the triangulation, cross-generational coalition, enmeshment presentation.  Enough already with the one-note analysis.  Go further.  My goodness gracious, Dr. Bernet, I provided this analysis two years ago in my Master’s Lecture Series presentation.  Both the presentations and my slides are online.  Look on pages 3-4 from the handout for my November 21, 2014 presentation:

Master’s Lecture Series Powerpoint Handout

Masters Lecture Series: 11/21/14 Treatment of Attachment-Based Parental Alienation

Masters Lecture Series: 7/14/14 An Attachment-Based Model of Parental Alienation

My goodness, Dr. Bernet.  That was from two years ago.  What Ms. Gottlieb is talking about in her article, or essay, or whatever it is, is hardly “BREAKING NEWS.”  What’s more, I incorporated this family systems analysis into a broader discussion that included personality disorder and attachment-related pathology. Ms. Gottlieb is ONLY talking about three basic family systems systems constructs.

But wait, I also offered this same analysis of “parental alienation” as triangulation, a cross-generational coalition, and homeostatic stabilization of the family in 2013 in an essay up on my website (that also includes a broader analysis of the personality disorder and attachment-related pathology).  In this 2013 essay, I state,

Family processes that have traditionally been referred to as “parental alienation” represent standard family systems dynamics (Haley, 1977; Minuchin, 1972) involving the child’s triangulation into the spousal conflict through the actions of the alienating parent, who forms a cross-­generational coalition with the child referred to by Haley (1977) as a “perverse triangle,” whereby the child becomes over-­empowered and inappropriately elevated in the family hierarchy to a status above that of the targeted parent (Minuchin, 1974). The child’s over-empowered elevation in the family hierarchy is created, supported, and maintained by the child’s coalition with the allied and favored parent.  These family processes are in homeostatic balance with the child’s symptoms present (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 1996) because the child’s symptoms serve to stabilize the alienating parent’s psychological functioning within a role-­reversal parent-child relationship. Krugman (1987) describes this process… (Reconceptualizing Parental Alienation, Childress, 2013)

Come on, Dr. Bernet.  This is from something I wrote three years ago.  Not exactly groundbreaking material from Ms. Gottlieb in 2016.  She didn’t even discuss how the symptoms maintain the homeostatic balance within the family.  Her analysis is primitive and conceptually lazy.  Three years ago I described this – 2013 – along with the additional attachment-related and personality pathology.

Wait, there is a handout on my website from back in 2012 (Structural Family Systems Constructs) in which I provide visual diagrams and discuss the triangualtion, inverted hierarchy, and cross-generational coalition involved in “parental alienation.”  2012, Dr. Bernet.  Four years ago.  Four years.  And Ms. Gottlieb is presenting this as if it’s “BREAKING NEWS.”  It’s just beneath… It’s just…. <sigh>

And as recently as 2015, in Foundations, I devote the first two Chapters to a family systems analysis of “parental alienation.”  Listen to the description from page 8:

“The construct of “parental alienation” represents the child’s triangulation into the spousal conflict through the formation of a cross-generational coalition with a narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  This cross-generational coalition of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent with the child is directed against the other parent, causing a breach in the child’s relationship with the targeted parent.  In this cross-generational coalition, the child is being used by the narcissistic/(borderline) parent in a role-reversal relationship as a “regulatory object” for the regulation of excessive parental anxiety triggered by the divorce.” (Childress, 2015)

Look at that, triangulation, cross-generational coalition, narcissistic-borderline parent, role-reversal relationship, regulatory object for anxiety.  Look at all the constructs linked in a single paragraph.  That’s just one paragraph from Foundations, and that’s from a year ago.  Ms. Gottlieb in her essay, or article thingy, only discusses three very basic family systems constructs (triangulation, a cross-generational coalition, and enmeshment) and acts as if this is “BREAKING NEWS.”  Come on, Dr. Bernet.  Hardly earth-shattering conceptual work from Ms. Gottlieb, is it?

The truth is the truth.  If you find the truth insulting, change the truth.

Constructive Feedback

In my analysis of Ms. Gottlieb’s essay (?), or article (?), or whatever, I then go even further by providing a constructive criticism of what Ms. Gottlieb would need to do to raise her level of professional discussion:

“In order for Ms. Gottlieb’s analysis to enter the domain of professionally responsible discourse, she would need to address the attachment system level of the pathology as well as a more comprehensive integration of the family systems pathology she describes with the personality disorder pathology of the parent.” (Childress, 2016)

That’s not insulting, that’s constructive feedback.  My statement that her analysis is primitive and conceptually lazy is followed by specific recommendations for what is needed to improve her analysis.  That is constructive feedback.  The truth is the truth.  Granted, I’m a blunt truth-teller, but it’s still the truth.  If you don’t like the truth, change the truth.

I could have stopped there in my constructive feedback, but I provided even more constructive feedback regarding specifically – specifically – how she might have enhanced her analysis using specific family systems constructs through the application of the basic, and I mean basic, family systems construct of “homeostatic balance,”

“The dysfunctional family is in “homeostatic balance” with the symptom present.  The family will therefore resist efforts to remove the symptom because the symptom is actually serving a function, it is stabilizing the dysfunctional family system.  According to established family systems theory, families develop symptoms when they are faced with a transitional event that they cannot successfully master.  The symptom develops to stabilize the dysfunctional family system faced with an unmanageable transition.

What is the transition faced by the family evidencing the symptom of “parental alienation” (a child’s rejection of a normal-range and affectionally available parent)?  The divorce, of course.  A major family transitional event.

Why is the family having difficulty transitioning from the previous intact-family structure to the new separated-family structure?  Because the narcissistic or borderline personality pathology of one of the parents (the allied parent in a cross-generational coalition with the child) is characterologically unable to process the emotions of sadness, grief, and loss surrounding the divorce… [leading to a discussion of pathological mourning (Bowlby, 1980)]…

The symptom of the child’s triangulation into the spousal conflict through the formation of a cross-generational coalition with the allied narcissistic/(borderline) personality is emerging in order to stabilize the psychological structure of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent that is threatened with collapse as a consequence of the rejection and abandonment by the spousal attachment figure surrounding the divorce.” (Childress, 2016)

I’m not insulting Ms. Gottlieb, I’m pointing out – albeit bluntly, I’ll admit – the profound inadequacy of her analysis.  It’s not my fault that Ms. Gottlieb offers a woefully inadequate analysis of the pathology and frames it as “BREAKING NEWS” with the misleading intention of asserting that science has just discovered this analysis (Childress, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 – fully four years ago, Dr. Bernet, WITH an additional analysis of personality disorder and attachment-related pathology).

To be current, Dr. Bernet, Ms. Gottlieb should be discussing pathological mourning (Bowlby, 1980) not triangulation.

In my critical analysis of Ms. Gottlieb’s essay (?), article (?), I am backing up my professional critique of her arguments as being primitive and conceptually lazy, first with general guidelines for what would constitute a more professional-level analysis, and then with specific feedback in this regard.  I’m not insulting Ms. Gottlieb by calling her analysis primitive and conceptually lazy – that’s the truth.

If you don’t like the truth – change the truth.

Man on the Moon vs Fire

Yes, I am mocking Ms. Gottlieb with this analogy.  Yes, I’m sure it stings.  That’s the point.

My intent in mocking her professionally inadequate analysis of the pathology (and her presenting it as “BREAKING NEWS”) is meant to sting so that next time she advocates for these children and families she will be motivated to exert more effort to improve her analysis.  That’s the point.

Look, Linda Gottlieb is one of the leaders in the “parental alienation” movement, and her effort on this was significantly below professional standards.

Who is this article written by?  Linda Gottlieb takes credit for it, “By Linda J Gottlieb.”  Right there, under the title, it says, “By Linda J Gottlieb” – she’s saying she wrote it.  If she didn’t write it, that’s called plagiarism, taking credit for someone else’s work.  But in the article the writer self-refers as “this newspaper reporter” and most of the article (or essay, or whatever) sounds like it’s written by someone else who quotes Ms. Gottlieb.  So it seems pretty clear that Ms. Gottlieb isn’t actually intending to plagiarize, but it’s just sloppy – sloppy – sloppy.  And not including quote marks to demarcate direct quotes. It’s just sloppy work.  Far-far below acceptable professional standards.  But she’s taking credit for it by posting it to her Facebook page.

She is a representative for all of us.  Her work reflects on all of us.  How do you think establishment psychology is going to look at this essay or article or whatever it is?  “Those “parental alienation people are sloppy – they’re just not professional.” 

She represents us, Dr. Bernet.  The level of her work reflects on all of us.  So she needs to bring her A game.  Not something this sloppy and this conceptually inadequate, and then claim it as “BREAKING NEWS.”  We all lose credibility when she does sloppy work.

But there’s something even more important at stake here.  We’re fighting for targeted parents and their children.  These parents are suffering tremendous heartbreak, and the children are being subjected to psychological abuse and are losing a loving relationship with a loving parent.  We’re fighting for them.  We should ALWAYS be bringing our A game, Dr. Bernet.

There is absolutely no excuse – no excuse whatsoever – for anything less than our best effort each and every time we advocate for these children and families.  Is this Ms. Gottlieb’s best effort?  Really?  No.  It’s sloppy professional work that reflects poorly on all of us who are fighting for the families and children affected by “parental alienation.”  And these children and families deserve our best.  Nothing less than our best is acceptable.

So does my mocking her sloppy effort sting.  Yes.  Good.  Don’t be sloppy.  Don’t be lazy.  Don’t be untruthful.  Don’t mislead.  Bring your A game each and every time, because these children and families deserve no less.  And if you’re sloppy, and lazy, and don’t bring your absolute best to advocating for these children and families, you should be afraid of me, because that is NOT acceptable.

Sloppy and lazy work may be acceptable to you, Dr. Bernet.  It’s not to me.  Not when we’re fighting for these children and families.  You may care more about the sensitivities of “professional colleagues” than excellence in professional work – but I don’t.  I don’t care one whit for our polite little professional enclave.  The ONLY thing I care about is ending this nightmare of “parental alienation” as fast as is humanly possible.  If you join me, we move faster.  If you resist me, the end will take longer to achieve.  You are currently an impediment to the solution.  That is the truth.  I’m not insulting you, but the truth is the truth. 

It is acceptable to you that Ms. Gottlieb’s work is sloppy and reflects poorly on all of us. It is acceptable to you that her work is stale and conceptually lazy.  It is acceptable to you that she does not bring her A game each and every time she advocates for these children and families.  It is acceptable to you that she distorts the truth and misleads with false statements.  It is NOT acceptable to me. 

I don’t care one whit about discussing “ideas in a friendly and collaborative manner.”  The ONLY thing I care about is bringing this nightmare to an end for all of these suffering parents and their children.  You may find me “offensive” because I expect excellence in advocating for these children and families.  I don’t care.  If the price to be paid for bringing this pathology to an end is that a whole bunch of people think I’m an pompous ass, I don’t care.  Gladly paid if it brings this nightmare to an end for these children and families. 

I’m not fighting this fight to be popular, to make friends, to attend conferences, to be an expert, to pontificate in a self-congratulatory echo chamber that accomplishes nothing.  I’m in this fight to win.  I’m in this fight to return these children to their authentic parents who love them dearly.  And with or without you, that’s what we are going to do.

If Ms. Gottlieb is so sloppy, untruthful, misleading, and conceptually indolent in this essay or article or whatever it is, is she also that sloppy, and untruthful, and indolent in all of her work as well?  Does she approach her diagnosis and treatment with the same disregard for the highest standards of professional practice?  Or is she only this sloppy, and untruthful, and indolent, when it doesn’t matter? Or when she doesn’t care?

She is advocating for targeted parents and their children.  What possible excuse could she have to NOT bring her absolute best effort?  Seriously, Dr. Bernet… do you honestly believe that inaccurate authorship, misleading and false sensationalistic headlines, and sloppy professional standards in writing and presentation represents her best work, her A game?

Because if she is NOT bringing her A game in advocating for these parents and these children… why not?  Shame on her. 

So if my mocking her for her obvious lack of effort and sloppy professional work stings… good.  My question to you, Dr. Bernet, is why aren’t you demanding more of her?  Why is her sloppy professional work acceptable to you?  Why is it more important to you that we professionals discuss ideas in a “friendly and collaborative manner” when with each passing day the hearts and souls of so many parents are being torn apart in grief so profound that it’s unbearable?  And you’re worried about professionals discussing ideas in a “friendly and collaborative manner.”  You and I obviously have different priorities.

If my mocking of her sloppy and conceptually lazy works stings so that she steps up and brings her A game each and every time… good.   That’s what it’s designed to do.

She Represents Us

My mocking of her sloppy and conceptually lazy effort is also designed to regain our credibility with establishment psychology.  This analysis by Ms. Gottlieb, in which she distorts truth, brings tired arguments, and is professionally sub-standard in her sloppy presentation, reflects poorly on all of us.  She represents us.  In my taking her to task for her sloppy and conceptually lazy effort, I am reestablishing our credibility with establishment psychology. 

This does not represent who we are or the level of our professional work.

Come on, Dr. Bernet.   You’re honestly going to maintain that this article, or essay, or whatever it is from her represents our best effort?  That these are our best arguments presented in the most compelling and cogent fashion?  You’re proud of this piece of work by Ms. Gottlieb?  You feel comfortable with this piece representing to the APA the quality of work produced by “parental alienation” experts? 

Because, I tell you, Dr. Bernet.  I’m not at all comfortable with any of that.

You honestly believe this represents Ms. Gottlieb’s A game – recycling arguments I made years ago and acting as if they’re new – “BREAKING NEWS” – and overstating reality to the point of falsification.  You feel comfortable with this representing your quality of work, Dr. Bernet?

Because I’m not at all comfortable with this representing my quality of work.  Not by a mile. 

In my taking Ms. Gottlieb to task for sloppy work, I am making a clear statement that this is sub-standard and unacceptable.  We are fighting for these parents and their children.  There is NEVER any excuse to bring anything less than our best.

Insulting, Dr. Bernet?  No.  It’s the truth.  If you don’t like the truth, don’t blame me.  Change the truth.

Multiple Communication Channels

Murray Bowen, who Ms. Gottlieb cites so prolifically, described how different communication messages can be delivered across differing channels of communication.  A person’s words might say one thing, but their body language or tone of voice might send a conflicting message.  Virginia Satir, another prominent family systems therapist, also described the discrepancies in messages delivered across multiple channels of communication.

I’m a clinical psychologist, Dr. Bernet.  I absolutely hear the multiple communications across different channels.  That’s part of my profession.  These multiple communications are called “crazy-making” because they’re designed to be denied if they are challenged – “No, what do you mean?  I never said that.”

Ms. Gottlieb’s essay-article thing is replete with multiple communications between-the-lines.  I hear them (and I hear yours).

Take, for example, her title… “BREAKING NEWS” is laughable it is so absurd.  There’s nothing at all new in PAS.  Thirty years.  Stale and dead.

What IS breaking news is AB-PA.  That’s new.  And you know what, AB-PA leads directly to a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.

Wow.  What a strange coincidence, isn’t it.  AB-PA is breaking news and leads to a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse and Ms. Gottlieb produces an article-essay thing that claims that PAS is “BREAKING NEWS”  and leads to a diagnosis of child abuse. And wow, her claim is supposedly supported by science.

AB-PA represents a new paradigm describing the pathology of “parental alienation” that is in direct competition with the PAS model, and AB-PA leads directly to a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed – and then what do you know, Ms. Gottlieb produces an article-essay thing claiming that PAS is “BREAKING NEWS” and that science has declared that PAS is psychological child abuse.

Thirty years of PAS and this is now “BREAKING NEWS.”  Give me a break.  This article, or whatever it is, is clearly designed to counter the threat to PAS posed by AB-PA.

She’s trying to reassert the relevance of PAS in the face of my attacks on PAS as a construct.  It is so incredibly transparent.  In my younger days with my buddies, I’d say… “I’m calling BS on that.”

This multiple communication continues through the body of the essay, or article thingy.  The between-the-lines communications trying to “put me in my place” are so transparent.  The overt words convey one message but there is a secondary meaning contained between the lines, yet if I try to respond to the secondary message then this message will be denied.

“Dr. Gardner’s eight symptoms or manifestations exhibited by an alienated child have been accepted by overwhelming consensus among those who are experts on alienation.” (Gottlieb?, 2016)

That is directly trying to slap me down and put me in my place.  I hear it.  Everyone hears it.  But you know what?  I’ll bet you and Ms. Gottlieb deny that the message is designed to put me in my place. 

“No, it’s not directed at you Dr. Childress. It’s just the truth.  Myself, and Linda, and Amy Baker, and all of us Gardnerian PAS experts accept Gardner’s eight symptoms of PAS.”

Of course you do.  That’s a stupid argument.  You’re experts in Gardnerian PAS.  If you didn’t accept Gardner’s eight symptom identifiers then you wouldn’t be experts in Gardnerian PAS.  And if Gardnerian PAS is replaced by AB-PA, then you all cease to be experts in “parental alienation” because you are only experts in Gardnerian PAS.  I understand.  It is completely transparent.

Sorry, Dr. Bernet.  I’m a clinical psychologist and I call cow pucky on that.  I know exactly the message.  If Ms. Gottlieb doesn’t want a fight with me, then she shouldn’t pick a fight with me – “No, I wasn’t referring to you, I never mentioned you.”  Cow pucky.  Pure cow pucky.

Condescending and Patronizing

And you Dr. Bernet…

“Dr. C has made some useful and interesting proposals…”

Now that’s insulting.  Patting me on the head in such a condescending and patronizing tone.  Don’t patronize me, Dr. Bernet.  I find that insulting.  First off, I am Dr. Childress.  I am not Craig.  I am not Dr. C.  Let me be clear, Dr. Bernet, I am a clinical psychologist.  I take a measure of a man.  I don’t trust you one bit.

I am not Craig.  You have not earned the right to call me Craig.  I am not Dr. C.   You have not earned the right to call me Dr. C.  Show me respect.  Are we clear?

I am a clinical psychologist, Dr. Bernet.  I don’t trust you farther than I can throw you.  You are no ally.  You would like to bury AB-PA in obscurity so that it never sees the light of day, and never threatens PAS as a model for describing the pathology.

Let me be frank with you, Dr. Bernet.  I prefer an open adversary to a false ally.  I deem you to be a false ally.  Presenting words of “cooperation” while you carry a dagger under your cloak.

I have never once posted in the Parental Alienation Study Group.  Not once.  You know why?  Because I don’t trust you.  Beware the Ides of March, Caesar.  There’s no way I’m going near the senate.

The qualitative difference between AB-PA and PAS as models for the pathology is not even close.  AB-PA is so far superior as a model of pathology compared to PAS.  It is not even close.  There is no credible or rationally justifiable reason that you or anyone else would continue to hold on to the PAS model in the face of AB-PA.  None.

It’s not that you don’t want to debate me because I have poor manners.  You don’t want to be exposed as not having a rational leg to stand on in your continued defense of PAS.

I’ve clearly articulated why AB-PA and PAS are logically incompatible models, one is true and the other is false.  A pathology cannot be both a unique new form of pathology AND, at the same time, an existing form of pathology.  It’s either one or the other. 

If you hold to PAS and it’s unique eight symptom identifiers developed specifically for this supposedly unique new form of pathology, then you must believe that the AB-PA model is false.  Tell us why.  Support your position.  If you don’t want to do it in a one-on-one debate because you find my expectations for professional competence to be offensive – Fine.  Write an article.  Tell us why you believe AB-PA is wrong and why PAS is a better model of pathology.  Targeted parents and their children deserve this.  They deserve a robust professional debate.

One year ago, on 11/11/15, in my blog post Gardnerian PAS Offers No Solution, I posed this challenge to you:

For thirty years the Gardnerian PAS model has provided no solution whatsoever to the pathology of “parental alienation.”  What solution do they propose that the continuation of the Gardnerian PAS paradigm is now going to provide that it hasn’t provided in the last 30 years?

The Gardnerian PAS model has actually created exactly the situation we have right now, and as far as I can tell it promises another 30 years of the exactly the same.  I would ask any Gardnerian PAS expert to please describe for me how they envision the continuation of the Gardnerian PAS paradigm is going to lead to a solution?

That seems like an offer to discuss “ideas in a friendly and collaborative manner.”  Tell us the roadmap by which PAS will create a solution.  Then we can compare the solution offered by AB-PA to the solution offered by PAS.  Yet for an entire year, my question has gone unanswered.

I’m still waiting for an answer to that question.  Tell us your roadmap, Dr. Bernet.  Tell us how PAS is going to produce a solution to “parental alienation.”  Why will PAS give a solution now when it hasn’t given us a solution in 30 years?

You don’t want to debate?  Fine.  Write an article.  Just tell us the answer to the question I posed one year ago.  What is your roadmap for a solution using the PAS model so that we can compare the solution offered by PAS to the solution offered by AB-PA?

I have clearly laid out in several blog posts the roadmap for a solution that is available immediately – today – using the AB-PA model (The Solution; Dominoes Part 1: Paradigm Shift, Dominoes Falling: The Sequence; I’ll Explain It Just Once).

Once again, I ask you, after a year of your silence… tell us your roadmap for a solution using the PAS model.

The truth is, I don’t think you have an answer.  Gardnerian PAS provides no solution.  You know it, and I know it.  So then why do you hold on to it?  Ahhh, that’s an interesting question.  And the answer to that question is why I don’t trust you, Dr. Bernet.

I prefer an open adversary to a false ally.  I am crossing the Rubicon, Dr. Bernet, and I am not leaving my legions in Gaul so you can quietly kill AB-PA.

AB-PA will replace PAS.

AB-PA will solve “parental alienation.” 

You are 100% wrong.  My goal is not to insult anyone.  My goal is to bring an end to the nightmare of “parental alienation” as quickly as is humanly possible.

Linda Gottlieb did not bring her A game in advocating for the children and parents suffering from “parental alienation.”  That is inexcusable.  These children and families are suffering day in and day out.  Each day that passes is lost.  Each day that passes is one day too long.  There is NO excuse for not bringing our A game each and every time we advocate for these children and families.  No excuse.

Linda Gottlieb’s lack of professional responsibility in presenting a misleading (false) headline reflects badly on all of our credibility.  Science has NOT just discovered PAS and science has not declared that PAS is child abuse.  That is not true.  Ms. Gottlieb is making false and misleading statements in an attempt to counter the paradigm shift to AB-PA so that Gardnerian PAS and her expertise in Gardnerian PAS remains relevant. In attempting to remain relevant by maintaining the inadequate paradigm of PAS that offers no solution whatsoever, she becomes an impediment to enacting the solution, she delays the solution and continues the suffering of these children and families.  That is not acceptable.

The solution to “parental alienation” only comes with the paradigm shift.  Trying to hold on to PAS delays the paradigm shift and so delays the solution.  Holding on to PAS is prolonging the suffering of these families.

The River Kwai

I began with the river Rubicon, let me end with the river Kwai.

There is a wonderful academy award winning movie from 1957, The Bridge on the River Kwai, staring Alec Guinness and William Holden.  If you haven’t seen it, you should watch it.  The Alec Gunness character, a British colonel, is in charge of a company of British soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese during WW2.  As the story unfolds, the Alec Guinness character leads his soldiers in building a magnificent bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in order to maintain the British esprit de corp in his soldiers.  But in the process, he becomes so enamored of the bridge his British POW soldiers are building for the Japanese that when a group of Allied commandos led by William Holden come to destroy the bridge as part of the war effort, the Alec Guinness character tries to stop the destruction of the bridge. As William Holden dies at his feet in an unsuccessful effort to blow up the bridge, Alec Guinness suddenly realizes that he has lost sight of the broader war effort in his fixation on the bridge he has built.  To save Allied lives, and to win the war, the bridge over the river Kwai must be destroyed, and he has been working to prevent the destruction of the bridge.  Good movie.  Seven academy awards.

AB-PA will replace PAS.

AB-PA will solve “parental alienation.” 

To enact the solution, we must relinquish Gardner’s model of PAS.  It does not lead to a solution.  The bridge over the river Kwai needs to be destroyed in order to achieve victory over “parental alienation.”  Your efforts to delay the paradigm shift to AB-PA have only served to continue the suffering of the children and families you have fought for so long to save.

Look at the concepts Ms. Gottlieb refers to as “BREAKING NEWS” and look at these same descriptions (and more) that I made four years ago.  If you had provided your support for AB-PA, there is not a doubt in my mind that this pathology would have been solved several years ago.  Instead you have made me do this entirely on my own.  You want to bury AB-PA so it never sees the light of day and never challenges PAS.

I prefer an open adversary to a false ally.  I’m coming to Rome.

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

Dorcy Pruter takes great delight in annoying me.

I prefer to lead my life in blissful ignorance regarding the activities of the Gardnerian PAS experts.  They are essentially irrelevant.  The paradigm is shifting to an attachment-based model of “parental alienation” which will solve the pathology without requiring targeted parents to prove “parental alienation” in court.  We are rapidly reaching the tipping point in the paradigm shift.

Dorcy seems to enjoy disrupting my peaceful ignorance regarding the activities of the Gardnerian PAS experts.

One is True; the Other is False

This is important to understand: One paradigm is true, and the other is false.  Either AB-PA is true, which makes Gardnerian PAS false.  Or Gardnerian PAS is true, which makes AB-PA false.

Let me explain…

AB-PA proposes that the pathology of “parental alienation” is a manifestation of established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

Gardnerian PAS proposes that “parental alienation” is an entirely unique new form of pathology that requires a new name (“parental alienation”) and a new and unique set of symptom identifiers that are unrelated to any other pathology in all of mental health.

It is a logical impossibility for both of these proposals to be true at the same time.  The pathology of “parental alienation” cannot logically be both a manifestation of existing forms of pathology and, at the same time, also be a unique new form of pathology.   It is a logical impossibility for both to be true.  One model is true, and the other model is false.

Either “parental alienation” is a manifestation of existing forms of pathology, or it is a unique new form of pathology.  It cannot logically be both.

It is my firm belief that the pathology of “parental alienation” is completely understandable as a manifestation of existing forms of pathology – attachment-related pathology, personality disorder pathology, and family systems pathology.  I describe this attachment-based model for the pathology in Foundations. 

An attachment-based model for the pathology is true. The pathology commonly called “parental alienation” is therefore not a unique new form of pathology.  The PAS model which proposes a unique new form of pathology is therefore false.

Dr. C – Have You Seen This?

So how does Dorcy annoy me?  She seemingly delights in sending me stuff written by the Gardnerians who continue to simply ignore AB-PA and who continue to promote a false model of the pathology as being a unique new form of pathology.  It’s clear to me that Dorcy sends me this stuff just to provoke a response out of me, like poking the slumbering bear because she enjoys seeing the bear rise up on its haunches and growl.

Usually it’s a very short email from her with a link to something Gardnerian saying, “Hey, Dr. C.  Have you seen this?”

No I haven’t, and I’d really prefer not to see it because the ignorance contained in whatever you want to show me is just going to annoy me. 

I know whenever I get an email like this from Dorcy it’s going to be trouble – “Hey, Dr. C.  Have you seen this?”  Curiosity gets the better of me, I follow the link, and sure enough it leads me to something Gardnerian that gets me all in a huff, and I’ll start growling, and ultimately I’ll rise up on my haunches and write a blog post about it… like this one.

If it were up to me, on the other hand, I would simply like to slumber in my blissful ignorance regarding the activities of the Gardnerians.

So what’s the most recent provocation?  “Hey Dr. C.  Have you seen this from Linda Gottlieb?”

Linda Gottlieb: Science Discovers PAS and Declares It Psychological Child Abuse

Uhhh, no, I haven’t seen it.  I don’t think I want to see it.  Oh, okay, I’ll bite.  What’s she saying?… Ahh, geez. Really Linda?  Oh my gosh.  But that’s… But… Alright, this deserves a blog.

First off, let’s just start with the title: “BREAKING NEWS: SCIENCE DISCOVERS PAS and Declares it Psychological Child Abuse.” That’s not true.  Science has not just “discovered” PAS, and science has not declared that PAS is child abuse.  PAS has been around for 30 years and the family systems stuff Ms. Gottlieb discusses has been around for nearly 50 years.  And no, science has not “declared” that Gardnerian PAS is child abuse. Wishing doesn’t make it so.

That headline is so over-the-top false that it makes me wonder if Ms. Gottlieb is losing her grasp on reality.

It’s kind of problematic when the very headline is false.  It absolutely destroys professional credibility to make false claims.   But let’s move on…

Who is this written by?  The byline at the top says “By Linda J. Gottlieb, LMFT, LCSW-R” but it’s written as if someone is interviewing Ms. Gottlieb, but there is no indication of the author’s name.  I’m confused.  If someone else wrote this, as it appears, then why does the byline say, “By Linda J. Gottlieb”?  Most often the voice of the text refers to Ms. Gottlieb as if someone was interviewing her.

“When this newspaper reporter interviewed Ms. Gottlieb, she affirmed that parental alienation is triangulation, but only more so, and this is the explanation she provided…” (Someone, 2016, the author did not identify themselves)

But then at other times the article (is it an article, or an essay?) seems to directly quote Ms. Gottlieb but does not use quotes to separate these portions:

How does Ms. Gottlieb respond to the naysayers about the existence of PAS? She is very affirmative about this:

Let me be very clear–there is no basis in science for the claims that PAS is not a valid syndrome and that it has also been overwhelmingly rejected by the scientific community.

(Gottlieb, 2016, I think, I can’t be sure because the original author didn’t use quote marks)

Even a basic “newspaper reporter” knows to use quote marks to differentiate statements that are quotes from someone else.  Was this written by a fourth-grader?  Yet Ms. Gottlieb posted this to her Facebook page.  Come on, Ms. Gottlieb.  If you’re going to participate in serious professional dialogue about this pathology you’ve got to be more professional.  Quote marks please.  Accurate attribution of authorship please.  This is just basic professional stuff here.  By the way, the tenor and tone taken by the “newspaper reporter” hardly seems unbiased.  This isn’t fake news with an agenda posing as unbiased objective reporting is it?  You wouldn’t stoop to that, would you Ms. Gottlieb?

I haven’t even gotten to the content yet, and already I’m spinning.  Oh well, let’s move on…

Overall Impressions

My overall impression is that Ms. Gottlieb’s analysis is fairly primitive and, to be frank, conceptually lazy.  What she says (or the reporter says, I can’t figure out which is which without quote marks) is accurate regarding family systems constructs from Bowen and Minuchin, but she does not address the attachment system level of the pathology and she only passingly notes the personality disorder component of the pathology.  Nor does she integrate the family systems constructs with the attachment level constructs and with the personality disorder pathology.

By analogy, if AB-PA represents the Apollo space program putting a man on the moon (a complex analysis of the pathology across three distinct levels of professional constructs, the attachment system, personality disorder pathology, and family systems constructs), I find Ms. Gottlieb’s analysis to be sort of rudimentary, kind of like rubbing two sticks together to get fire.  Will rubbing two sticks together produce fire?  Uh, yeah, okay.  But that’s kind of a primitive level of professional discussion.  And rubbing two sticks together to get fire is a far cry from putting a man on the moon.  In my view, if Ms. Gottlieb wants to remain relevant, she needs to step up her game.

In order for Ms. Gottlieb’s analysis to enter the domain of professionally responsible discourse, she would need to address the attachment system level of the pathology as well as a more comprehensive integration of the family systems pathology she describes with the personality disorder pathology of the parent.

Until she raises her level of professional discourse, she’s welcome to rub two sticks together to create fire and think she’s actually accomplished something.  Congratulations, Ms. Gottlieb, fire.  Science, according to Ms. Gottlieb, has just “discovered” that there are actually family systems constructs available from the 1970s that address triangulation and enmeshment.  Great.

I’m going to pass over the fact that some of the discussion of triangulation by Minuchin and Bowen cited by Ms. Gottlieb referred to the coalition of the parents against the child, not a cross-generational coalition.  But there is only so much critique I can get into, and for the most part her characterizations of the family systems constructs were accurate.

But I’ve got to raise one point, Ms. Gottlieb apparently asserts (I can’t quite tell who’s saying what without quote marks) that,

“Traditional family therapists represent triangulation to be a 50-50-process meaning that the parents contribute equally”

Uhhh, that’s not quite true.  In a cross-generational coalition, the targeted parent is not a 50-50 co-contributor to the “perverse triangle.”  In the alternative triangle involving a coalition of the two parents against the child, this 50-50 distribution of parental responsibility may or may not be accurate, but it’s not true of the cross-generational coalition.  You’re not allowed to just make stuff up, Ms. Gottlieb.  If you’re going to assert this 50-50 causal attribution for cross-generational coalitions by “traditional family therapists,” I’m going to need a citation please.

And Ms. Gottlieb’s analysis also relies on the highly dubious construct of “brainwashing.”

“As a result of the brainwashing, alienated children loose [sic] critical reasoning skills and thereby confuse love with hate, protection with abuse, attention with stalking, gifts with bribery, caring with intrusiveness, discipline with tyranny, and affection with sex abuse.”

(I think Ms. Gottlieb said this.  I can’t be sure because the original author didn’t use quote marks.  I’ve inserted quote marks in my blog because I do use quote marks when I quote from another source)

No, Ms. Gottlieb. Please don’t tell me you are relying on the construct of “brainwashing” as a supposedly defined construct in clinical psychology.  Not “brainwashing.”  Please don’t take us down that conceptual and highly controversial rabbit hole.  Use the established construct of “psychological control” as defined by Barber instead (Barber, 2002):

Barber, B. K. (Ed.) (2002). Intrusive parenting: How psychological control affects children and adolescents. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Family Systems Pathology

But moving on, in addition to being a conceptually lazy analysis of the pathology, there are several logical leaps in this… article (?) essay (?) that are not justified.

Ms. Gottlieb argues (persuasively – although I could do without the over-the-top cheerleading by the author, whoever it is) that PAS is essentially the family systems constructs of triangulation, coalition, and enmeshment.  Exactly.  So why do we need a “new form of pathology” called “parental alienation”?   Uhhh, we don’t.   Even Ms. Gottlieb apparently admits as much in this essay (?), this article (?), that the construct of Gardnerian PAS is superfluous:

“Gardner’s conception of alienation—a dysfunctional cross-generational coalition between a parent and a co-opted child to marginalize and dismiss the other parent—is identical to the family therapists description of triangulation.” (Gottlieb?, 2016)

So if the two constructs are “identical” why do we need the second one?

“Ms. Gottlieb states in several of her articles that she could find no better description for parental alienation and its detrimental effects on children than the description of triangulation by founding family therapists and their consensus determination that it inflicts disastrous effects on children.”

Uhhh, okay then.  If there is “no better description” of the pathology than that offered by the family systems constructs, let’s just stick with the family systems constructs that are extensively defined and described by some of the most preeminent figures in professional psychology.

But Ms. Gottlieb seemingly contends that Gardner extended the work of these preeminent family systems theorists by proposing an entirely new form of pathology called “parental alienation” rather than relying on “identical” established family systems constructs of triangulation, cross-generational coalition, and enmeshment.

“Returning to Ms. Gottlieb’s discussion of PAS in its historical context, she describes Dr. Richard Garner [sic] as a brilliant scientist who—like any good scientist—built on the findings of those who went before him”

Mmmmm, that’s not quite true.  Gardner didn’t “build on the findings” of Bowen, and Minuchin, and Haley, he ignored the findings of Bowen, and Minuchin, and Haley by proposing an entirely “new form of pathology” that is unique in all of mental health, so unique in fact that it requires an equally unique new set of symptom identifiers that Gardner made up specifically for this unique new form of pathology. Gardner isn’t describing how to diagnose triangulation or cross-generational coalitions. Gardner is proposing an entirely new form of pathology.

So as much as Ms. Gottlieb would like to sort of re-write history to present Gardner as extending family systems theory so that she can support her starry-eyed adulation of Richard Gardner as a “brilliant scientist,” he actually simply ignored family systems theory in proposing a new form of pathology. 

And if, as Ms. Gottlieb seemingly suggests, the construct of “parental alienation” is essentially “identical” to the pre-existing and far more elaborated constructs from family systems therapy, and if, as Ms. Gottlieb seemingly asserts, “she could find no better description for parental alienation… than the description of triangulation by founding family therapists,” then we really don’t need the construct of “parental alienation.” 

The pathology traditionally called “parental alienation” is simply the child’s triangulation into the spousal conflict through the formation of an enmeshed cross-generational coalition with the allied parent against the targeted parent.  Add a dash of narcissistic or borderline personality pathology from the parent (originating in this parent’s childhood attachment trauma history) and, voila – everything is explained and there’s no need for a “new form of pathology.”

What’s more, as long as we’re describing the pathology using family systems constructs, one of the foundational constructs Ms. Gottlieb did not address is the “homeostatic balance” that the family achieves with the symptom present.

Homeo=the same; static=no change.  Homeostatic balance is a stable state of sameness that resists change. 

The dysfunctional family is in “homeostatic balance” with the symptom present.  The family will therefore resist efforts to remove the symptom because the symptom is actually serving a function, it is stabilizing the dysfunctional family system.

According to established family systems theory, families develop symptoms when they are faced with a transitional event that they cannot successfully master.  The symptom develops to stabilize the dysfunctional family system faced with an unmanageable transition.

What is the transition faced by the family evidencing the symptom of “parental alienation” (a child’s rejection of a normal-range and affectionally available parent)?  The divorce, of course.  A major family transitional event.

Why is the family having difficulty transitioning from the previous intact-family structure to the new separated-family structure?  Because the narcissistic or borderline personality pathology of one of the parents (the allied parent in a cross-generational coalition with the child) is characterologically unable to process the emotions of sadness, grief, and loss surrounding the divorce.

“They [narcissists] are especially deficient in genuine feelings of sadness and mournful longing; their incapacity for experiencing depressive reactions is a basic feature of their personalities.  When abandoned or disappointed by other people they may show what on the surface looks like depression, but which on further examination emerges as anger and resentment, loaded with revengeful wishes, rather than real sadness for the loss of a person whom they appreciated.” (Kernberg, 1975, p. 229)

Why is the narcissitic/(borderline) parent unable to process sadness, grief, and loss?  It has to do with the childhood attachment trauma and disorganized attachment that produced the narcissistic and borderline personality pathology.

“The deactivation of attachment behavior is a key feature of certain common variants of pathological mourning” (Bowlby, 1980, p. 70)

“Disturbances of personality, which include a bias to respond to loss with disordered mourning, are seen as the outcome of one or more deviations in development that can originate or grow worse during any of the years of infancy, childhood and adolescence.” (Bowlby, 1980, p. 217)

There we have it.  Right there.  Pathological mourning that is preventing the family from successfully transitioning from the intact family structure to a separated family structure following the divorce.  The symptom of the child’s triangulation into the spousal conflict through the formation of a cross-generational coalition with the allied narcissistic/(borderline) personality is emerging in order to stabilize the psychological structure of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent that is threatened with collapse as a consequence of the rejection and abandonment by the spousal attachment figure surrounding the divorce.  Ta-da.  All described using standard and established constructs and principles.  No need to propose a “new form of pathology.”

AB-PA offers a full description of the pathology from within standard and established family systems constructs, with an assist from standard attachment-related constructs and personality disorder constructs.  Why do we need a proposal for a “new form of pathology”?  We don’t.

And see what happens when we stay anchored in established psychological constructs and principles?  The family systems constructs of Ms. Gottlieb’s more simplistic analysis are extended and become pathological mourning through the addition of attachment-related and personality pathology constructs.  We can go even further in our analysis if we want by adding the splitting pathology characteristic of narcissistic and borderline personality pathology to the cross-generational coalition, and further still if we shift to the trauma reenactment narrative originating in reactivated internal working models of attachment representations.

My frank assessment of Ms. Gottlieb’s analysis is that she needs to seriously up her game.  There is absolutely no need for the construct of “parental alienation.”

Attachment Constructs

Ms. Gottlieb briefly touched on Cluster B personality disorders, and vaguely addressed the attachment system with her discussion of “survival needs” and children not rejecting a parent.  But both of these discussions warrant greater elaboration using standard and established constructs.

For example, her discussion of “survival needs” is based in the attachment literature.

“The paradoxical finding that the more punishment a juvenile receives the stronger becomes its attachment to the punishing figure, very difficult to explain in any other theory, is compatible with the view that the function of attachment behavior is protection from predators.” (Bowlby, 1969, p. 227)

The attachment system is called a “goal-corrected” motivational system.  Meaning that it ALWAYS maintains the goal of forming an attached bond to the parent.  In response to problematic parenting, the attachment system alters HOW it attempts to form this bond, but it ALWAYS maintains the goal of forming an attached bond to the parent. Children do not reject parents.  Children who rejected parents were eaten by predators.

There are only a limited number of situations in which extremely pathogenic parenting (such as incest or extremes of parental violence) can disrupt the attachment bonding motivations of the child leading to the child’s rejection of the parent, but these are very limited and specific forms of extreme pathogenic parenting by the rejected parent.

In all other cases, problematic parenting produces what’s called an “insecure attachment” that MORE strongly motivates the child to bond to the problematic parent.  Problematic parenting more fully exposes children to predation and other environmental dangers.  Children who were MORE strongly motivated to bond to problematic parents were more likely to receive parental protection, and were therefore more likely to survive than children who rejected problematic parents.  Genes that MORE strongly motivated the child to bond to the problematic parent increased in the collective gene pool, while genes that motivated child rejection of the problematic parent were selectively eliminated from the gene pool.

Ms. Gottlieb vaguely touched on these features, but her discussion was imprecise.  Step it up, Ms. Gottlieb.  The attachment system.  Goal-corrected motivational system.  Insecure attachment.

Her vague description of these constructs was almost as if she didn’t want to use the construct of attachment.  That’s so odd.  I wonder why she would avoid the construct of attachment?  The attachment system is the brain system governing all aspects of love and bonding throughout the lifespan, including grief and loss.  A child’s rejection of a parent is clearly a form of attachment-related pathology.  So why didn’t she even mention the construct of the attachment system?  Puzzling.

Parental Alienation “Experts”

Which brings me to another critique of Ms. Gottlieb’s analysis about what constitutes an “expert” in “parental alienation.”  Clearly, Ms. Gottlieb is a “parental alienation” expert.  How do we know that?  Because she tells us so right at the top of her analysis, “In a speech presented on 12/4/16 by Parental Alienation Expert, Linda J. Gottlieb, LMFT, LCSW-R.”  Good to know who’s an “expert” and who’s not.

It must be pretty special to be a bonafied “parental alienation” expert.  You see, I wouldn’t know since I don’t seem to be qualified as an expert in “parental alienation.”  Ms. Gottlieb asserts that,

“Dr. Gardner’s eight symptoms or manifestations exhibited by an alienated child have been accepted by overwhelming consensus among those who are experts on alienation.” (Gottlieb?, 2016)

I reject Gardner’s eight symptoms of “parental alienation” because I find them to be irrational diagnostic indicators for a pathology.  In fact, I believe they are horrific symptom identifiers for a variety of reasons.  So either I’m not considered an expert on “parental alienation” or I’m outside the “overwhelming consensus” of “experts on alienation.”

(Personally, I believe that the “overwhelming consensus” of which Ms. Gottlieb speaks is simply an echo chamber of Gardnerians talking to themselves.)

Ms. Gottlieb also seemingly suggests that,

“…a small—but very vocal—group of naysayers persist in rejecting science by denying the existence of PAS. There are likely a variety of rationales—or combination thereof—for the naysayers’ denial. These include but are not limited to: ignorance, laziness, incompetence, a rescue fantasy, self-interest, and/or bias.”

Mmmm.  I wonder if “very vocal” is referring to me?  I seem to be one of these supposedly science-rejecting naysayers who deny the existence of PAS.  I wonder which category of motivation I belong in for my “naysaying”?  Am I ignorant?  Or maybe I’m just lazy.  Can you please clarify for me, Ms. Gottlieb, which category of motivation do I fit into because of my science-rejecting proclivities to reject Gardnerian PAS as an actual form of pathology?

From where I sit, there is simply no need for a “new form of pathology.”  The pathology commonly referred to as “parental alienation” can be fully explained using standard and established constructs of the attachment system, personality disorder pathology, and family systems constructs.  There is absolutely zero need for proposing a new form of pathology.

Poof.  New pathology vanishes, and in its place is a description of the pathology from entirely within standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

Oh well, I guess I’m just not part the “overwhelming consensus” of experts on “parental alienation” who accept Gardnerian PAS.  Pity.  It must be nice to be a bonafide expert.

Psychological Child Abuse

Well what about Ms. Gottlieb’s asssertion that science declares that PAS is psychological child abuse? (and “Breaking News” no less).

Ms. Gottlieb asserts that the pathology of “parental alienation” warrants a DSM-5 diagnosis of psychological child abuse. I agree.

But here’s the thing, we can’t get to the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse through Gardnerian PAS.  Let me explain;

God help any clinical psychologist who makes a DSM-5 diagnosis of child abuse based on the presence of Gardner’s eight symptoms, because the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent will absolutely file a licensing board complaint against the therapist who makes that diagnosis based on PAS.

N/(B) Parent:  How dare you say that my wonderfully bonded relationship with the child is child abuse.  You’re incompetent.  It is clear that the child and I love each other very much.  On what basis are you calling the clear love the child and I share as being child abuse?

Therapist:  Because the child is rejecting the other parent, and it is my opinion that the child’s rejection of the other parent is caused by you.

N/(B) Parent:  The child doesn’t like the other parent because the other parent is a bad parent.  Just ask the child.  I constantly tell the child to get along with the other parent.  But what can I do?  I can’t force the child to get along with the other parent.  I can’t make the other parent be a better parent.  Just ask the child.  To claim that because the child doesn’t like the other parent that’s child abuse on my part, when clearly the child and I share a wonderful bond of love and affection, is absolutely absurd.  You’re incompetent and your diagnosis is incompetent.  You’ll have to defend your diagnosis to the licensing board and in a malpractice lawsuit.

Are you kidding me?  No rational psychologist will make a DSM-5 diagnosis of child psychological abuse based on Gardner’s eight symptoms of PAS and then have to face that counter-accusation from the narcissistic/(borderline) parent. 

I have a question for Ms. Gottlieb.  She indicates that she’s treated over 550 cases of “parental alienation.”  In how many cases did she give the diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse?  You’re a mandated child abuse reporter, Ms. Gottlieb.  In how many of those 500+ cases did you file a suspected child abuse report with Child Protective Services?  In how many cases of “parental alienation” over the past 30 years of PAS did CPS remove a child because of PAS?  Are you now giving the DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse in every case you treat, Ms. Gottlieb?  If you’re relying on PAS for your DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse, Ms. Gottlieb, good luck with your licensing board complaints for professional incompetence regarding your diagnosis.

What about AB-PA?  How does AB-PA lead to the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed?

The pathology of concern in AB-PA is not “parental alienation,” it’s pathogenic parenting; it’s the creation of significant psychopathology in the child through aberrant and distorted parenting practices.  I clearly lay out, in detail and using standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology (no “new form of pathology” proposal), exactly why we see the specific set of three diagnostic indicators for AB-PA.

No other pathology in all of mental health will evidence this specific set of three diagnostic indicators other than AB-PA as defined and described in Foundations, and all of these symptom indicators represent standard and established forms of pathology in professional mental health (NO unique new symptoms developed specifically for some supposedly “new form of pathology”).

Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant developmental pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 1), personality disorder pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 2), and delusional psychiatric pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 3), in order to meet the emotional and psychological needs of the parent represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

AB-PA is 100% defensible.

Ms. Gottlieb (and other Gardnerians) are seemingly trying to co-opt the child abuse diagnosis provided by AB-PA and apply it to Gardnerian PAS.  It doesn’t work.  Gardnerian PAS does not lead to a DSM-5 diagnosis of psychological child abuse.  God help the mental health professional who makes a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse based on Gardner’s symptom set.  It doesn’t work.  Try it if you want, Ms. Gottlieb.  It’s your license on the line, not mine.

All of the child abuse research cited by Ms. Gottlieb at the end of the article (?), essay (?), only states that child abuse is bad.  None of it states that PAS is a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse. 

Misleading titles aside, science has not declared that PAS represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse, because PAS doesn’t exist. Triangulation exists. Cross-generational coalitions exist.  Personalty disorder pathology exists.  The attachment system exists.  A new form of pathology that is unique in all of mental health and is identifiable by an equally unique new set of symptom identifiers that have no relationship to any other pathology in all of mental health… does not exist.

Both AB-PA and PAS cannot simultaneously be true models for the pathology.  If one is true, then the other is false.

If AB-PA (existing form of pathology) is true, then PAS (unique new form of pathology) is false.

If PAS (unique new form of pathology) is true, then AB-PA (existing form of pathology) is false .

AB-PA is true.

Conclusion

So let me wrap this up with my broad overall analysis of this… article?  essay? concerning Ms. Gottlieb’s analysis entitled, “Science Discovers PAS and Declares It Psychological Child Abuse.”

First, that’s not true.  And saying things that aren’t true undermines professional credibility.  Science has not “discovered” PAS – PAS has been here for 30 years and there are no new developments.  The family systems constructs of triangulation and enmeshment are from the 1970s.  That hardly represents science suddenly discovering PAS.

Second, no, science has not declared that PAS is psychological child abuse.  Pathogenic parenting as documented by the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA is a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, but PAS is not. Sorry.  I know you wish it was true that science declared that PAS is psychological child abuse, but wishing does not make it so.

AB-PA represents an accurate and true model of the pathology.  No model of pathology could explain the pathology within each of three separate domains of analysis (the family systems level, the personality disorder level, and the attachment system level) and also integrate this description across all three levels of analysis (the attachment system pathology creates the personality disorder pathology, and the personality disorder pathology then creates the family systems pathology), unless that description of the pathology were true.  AB-PA is true.

I am more than happy to debate AB-PA versus PAS with any Gardnerian PAS expert.  Anytime.  Anywhere.

This would be a wonderful debate for the Parental Alienation Study Group to sponsor.  Dr. Childress versus whomever.  A two-hour moderated debate, using an online platform for everyone to watch.

The AB-PA / PAS Debate

Opening Statements

• 10 minutes:  Opening Statement by Gardnerian PAS expert
  
•   5 minutes:  Rebuttal by Dr. Childress
•   5 minutes:  Follow-up response by Gardnerian expert

• 10 minutes:  Opening Statement by Dr. Childress on AB-PA
  
•   5 minutes:  Rebuttal by Gardnerian expert
•   5 minutes:  Follow-up response by Dr. Childress

Solutions

• 10 minutes:  Gardnerian expert on the PAS roadmap for solution
•   5 minutes:  Rebuttal by Dr. Childress
•   5 minutes:  Follow-up response by Gardnerian expert

• 10 minutes:  Dr. Childress on the AB-PA roadmap for solution
•   5 minutes:  Rebuttal by Gardnerian Expert
•   5 minutes:  Follow-up response by Dr. Childress
  

Cross-Analysis

• 10 minutes:  Gardnerian expert analysis of AB-PA
•   5 minutes:  Rebuttal by Dr. Childress
•   5 minutes:  Follow-up response by Gardnerian expert

• 10 minutes:  Dr. Childress analysis of PAS
•   5 minutes:  Rebuttal by Gardnerian expert
•   5 minutes:  Follow-up response by Dr. Childress

Wouldn’t this be exciting?  Wouldn’t this be enlightening?  If properly publicized this could draw a huge audience of mental health professionals (child custody evaluators and therapists), and perhaps even legal professionals (family law attorneys, guardians ad litem, and minor’s counsels), and because it would be on the Internet, it could be a globally attended event.

I’m in.  Anytime.  Anywhere.  Parental Alienation Study Group?  Whaddya say?  Want to sponsor the debate?

Oooo, but we’ll have to find a Gardnerian PAS expert willing to debate.  But clearly if they are maintaining that the Gardnerian PAS model is true and AB-PA is false, there must be at least one Gardnerian PAS expert willing to display his or her expertise.  After all, I’m only one of a “small – but very vocal – group of naysayers who persist in rejecting science” by going against the collective wisdom of an “overwhelming consensus” of “experts on parental alienation.”  Surely we could find one bonafide PAS expert willing to expose the fallacy of AB-PA as being an accurate model for the pathology of “parental alienation.”

An online moderated debate.  Two hours.   I’m in.  Contact my second, Dorcy Pruter, to schedule the event.  She’ll send me an email, “Hey Dr. C.  Have you heard about the plans for a debate?”

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

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss. Vol. 1. Attachment, NY: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss: Vol. 2. Separation: Anxiety and anger. NY: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Loss: Sadness and depression. NY: Basic Books.

Kernberg, O.F. (1975). Borderline conditions and pathological narcissism. New York: Aronson.

I’ve recently been working with several attorneys as an expert consultant regarding their cases of “parental alienation.”  In this capacity as an expert consultant, I developed a generic letter that the attorney, or their client, could provide to the involved mental health professionals describing the pathology of concern and my recommended assessment protocol.

This generic letter may be of use to other targeted parents and to attorneys representing them, so I have posted it to my website:

Recommended Assessment Protocol

I am appending to this blog post the content of this letter which describes my recommended assessment protocol :

---

Re:  Standard Recommended Assessment Protocol

I have provided professional-to-professional consultation with therapists and child custody evaluators regarding an attachment-based formulation for the pathology traditionally called “parental alienation” surrounding divorce (AB-PA: attachment-based “parental alienation”).  In addition to discussing the nature and development of the family pathology of AB-PA, I recommend a specific assessment protocol of two measures for child custody evaluators and three measures for therapists.

The Family Pathology of AB-PA

The pathology traditionally called “parental alienation” involves a child’s rejection of a normal-range parent surrounding divorce.  A child’s rejection of a parent represents an attachment-related pathology.  The attachment system is the brain system that governs all aspects of love and bonding throughout the lifespan, including grief and loss.  The pathology traditionally called “parental alienation” involves the artificial suppression of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward a normal-range parent as a result of “disordered mourning” surrounding the divorce (Bowlby, 1980). 

“The deactivation of attachment behavior is a key feature of certain common variants of pathological mourning.” (Bowlby, 1980, p. 70; emphasis added)

The primary case of “disordered mourning” is the allied parent in a cross-generational coalition (Haley, 1977; Minuchin, 1974) with the child against the other parent (the targeted-rejected parent).  The allied parent’s pathological mourning is being transmitted to the child through the manipulative and distorted parenting practices of the allied parent.  The reason the allied parent’s mourning is pathological is because this parent has prominent narcissistic or borderline personality traits that fundamentally cannot process sadness, grief, and loss.  The narcissistic and borderline personality cannot process sadness, grief, and loss because this personality style emerges from disorganized attachment – disorganized attachment being a defined category of attachment (Main & Hesse, 1990; van IJzendoorn, Schuengel, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1999). 

The borderline personality has disorganized attachment with anxious-ambivalent overtones, whereas the narcissist personality has disorganized attachment with anxious-avoidant overtones.  At their core, the narcissist and the borderline have the same underlying disorganized attachment networks, but they manifest differently because of the overtones.  By analogy, both a violin and a trumpet can play middle C.  The difference between a violin and a trumpet is not in the note they play, it’s in the overtones produced by the instrument.  Similarly, both the narcissistic and borderline personality emerge from the same disorganized attachment patterns.  The differing external manifestations of these two personality styles is the product of their anxious-ambivalent or anxious-avoidant overtones.

These overtones develop in response to the childhood attachment trauma experienced by the narcissistic or borderline personality parent as a child.  Disorganized attachment is created in response to a frightening parental attachment figure (van der Kolk, 1989).

Van der Kolk, B.A. (1989). The compulsion to repeat the trauma: Re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 12, 389-411.

“Disorganized attachment can be described as the breakdown of an otherwise consistent and organized strategy of emotion regulation… Disorganized attachment behaviors are not just bizarre and incoherent, they are considered to be indicators of an experience of stress and anxiety which the child cannot resolve because the parent is at the same time the source of fright as well as the only potential haven of safety… Maltreating parents, for example, are supposed to create disorganized attachment with their children because they confront their children with a pervasive paradox: they are potentially the only source of comfort for their children, whereas at the same time they frighten their children through their unpredictable abusive behavior.  The parent is thought to be a source of fear for the child and at the same time the only attachment figure who can provide relief from distress.” (p. 226-227)

In response to a frightening and dangerous attachment figure, the child who later emerges as a borderline personality style nevertheless tried to form an attachment bond to this frightening parental attachment figure, creating the anxious-ambivalent overtones to the fundamentally disorganized attachment.  The borderline personality as a child sacrificed safety for intimacy.  But trying to bond to a frightening and dangerous attachment figure creates intense anxiety and a hyper-vigilance for abandonment by the attachment figure because the child’s psychological safety with the dangerous parent was always tentative and fragile.  The intense anxiety created by trying to bond to a frightening attachment figure prevented the formation of core-stabilizing personality structures (anxiety is a fragmenting emotion; anger is a cohering emotion).

The narcissist as a child, when faced with this same dilemma of having to bond to a frightening attachment figure (which creates the core disorganized attachment), chose to avoid bonding to the frightening attachment figure, which created the anxious-avoidant overtones to the fundamentally disorganized attachment.  The narcissist sacrificed intimacy for safety.  This allowed the narcissistic personality to structure at a more stable level because there is less anxiety fragmenting the personality formation, but the sacrifice of intimacy leaves the core personality empty inside – there is no core self-structure to the narcissistic personality.  Instead, at their core, the narcissistic personality experiences a profound emptiness created by the absence of psychological intimacy during childhood, an emptiness they try to fill through the “narcissistic supply” of social adulation and grandiose self-opinion.

The “internal working models” (the schemas) of the narcissistic and borderline parent’s attachment system are triggered by the divorce to mediate the sadness, grief, and loss of the spousal attachment figure.  But since their core attachment networks are disorganized, their personality structures collapse into immensely painful disorganization surrounding their rejection and abandonment by the spousal attachment figure in divorce.  What we see as the symptoms of “alienation” are the subsequent coping strategies of the narcissistic and borderline personality trying to stave off collapse into a complete – and immensely painful – disorganization. 

As a result of their differing overtones, the narcissistic and borderline styles of “parental alienation” display slightly different manifestations of symptoms.  The narcissistic style of “parental alienation” tends toward greater child expressions of angry hostility and contemptuous judgement of the targeted-rejected parent, whereas the borderline expression of the pathology tends toward a stronger display of elevated anxiety and hyper-activated threat-perception expressed by the allied borderline parent, and this parental anxiety is then created into the child’s over-anxious symptom features.

Custody Evaluation Assessment Protocol

The primary feature of prominent concern in the pathology traditionally called “parental alienation” is pathogenic parenting; the creation of significant psychopathology in the child through the aberrant and distorted parenting practices of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent (pathogenic parenting: patho=pathology; genic=genesis, creation). 

There are three specific domains of pathology creation that are of prominent clinical concern.

1.)  Developmental Pathology: Suppression of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward a normal-range and affectionally available parent, resulting in the loss of this parent-child relationship.

2.)  Personality Disorder Pathology: The presence in the child’s symptom display of specific a-priori predicted narcissistic personality traits displayed by the child that are acquired from the psychological influence and control of the child by the allied narcissistic/(borderline) personality parent.

3.)  Psychiatric-Delusional Pathology: The presence in the child’s symptom display of an encapsulated persecutory delusion regarding the child’s supposed “victimization” by the normal-range parenting of the targeted-rejected parent (a symptom reflecting the child’s incorporation into the false trauma reenactment narrative created by the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent).

In all cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, the recommended assessment and symptom documentation protocol would include two measures:

The Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting. This symptom rating scale identifies the three diagnostic indicators of pathogenic parenting by an allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent, along with a set of 12 Associated Clinical Signs that are often present with this form of attachment-related pathology (a description of the three diagnostic indicators and 12 Associated Clinical Signs are contained in Chapter 4: Diagnostic Indicators of Essays on Attachment-Based Parental Alienation, a pdf of which is available on my website).

The Parenting Practices Rating Scale.   This rating scale documents a professional assessment of the parenting practices of the targeted parent across a range of relevant parenting dimensions.

These two symptom identification and rating scales serve to professionally document the relevant domains of concern regarding the attachment-related pathology of disordered mourning within the family, as expressed in the child’s symptoms of rejecting a relationship with a normal-range and affectionally available parent.

Professional-to-Professional Consultation

If a custody evaluator would find it helpful to consult with me, perhaps at the suggestion of one of the clients or their attorney, then this custody evaluator can reach out to me (drcraigchildress@gmail.com) and – without disclosing confidential identifying information about the client which would require a release of information – this evaluator and I can discuss the general pathology of AB-PA, perhaps surrounding pathology-related questions of concern to the evaluator.

The key recommendation I would make to all custody evaluators is to routinely administer the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting and the Parenting Practices Rating Scale for all cases involving attachment-related pathology following divorce.  Routinely.  These are simple and quick ways of structuring the documentation of symptoms.  That’s their function, to clearly document the child’s symptoms and the normal-range (or abnormal-range) parenting of the targeted parent.  Documentation is good.

Of note is that there is an understanding in clinical psychology that a narcissist will sometimes marry a borderline, so that both parents are emotionally problematic parents.  The goal of all assessments is accuracy, without reference to a particular outcome.  Once we know what the problem is, whatever it is, we can solve it.  So in all assessments, the goal is accuracy not a particular agenda.  We can fix anything as long as we know what it is we’re treating.  Assessment of pathology should be without an agenda to identify “parental alienation,” and all assessments should follow the data wherever it leads.

Therapist Assessment Protocol

My recommendation to therapists is also to routinely document symptoms using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting and the Parenting Practices Rating Scale for all cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  These two instruments quickly and clearly document the child’s symptoms and the parenting practices of the targeted parent.

In addition, I would also recommend that the treatment process include the ongoing use of an additional rating scale, the Parent-Child Relationship Rating Scale (also available on my website), from the earliest point possible.  This rating of the child’s behavior is made daily by the targeted parent (and perhaps also made weekly by the treating therapist as confirmation of this therapist’s assessment of the parent-child relationship symptoms).  This brief 4-item rating scale provides an evidence-based foundation for treatment planning and decision-making.  The combined and integrated use of the three rating instruments:

• The Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting
• The Parenting Practices Rating Scale
• The Parent-Child Relationship Rating Scale

represents a strong move toward evidence-based practice and data-driven decision-making.  Each measure documents a different feature of the family pathology: 1) the child’s symptoms of direct clinical concern, 2) the surrounding parenting practices of the targeted parent, and 3) the ongoing outcome of the inter-relationship of these two factors in forming a healthy and normal-range parent-child bond.  Documentation allows for data-driven decision-making and evidence-based practice.  Data is good.  Documentation is good.  These three measures offer quick and efficient methods of documenting different aspects of the family situation and the pathology evident in the family.

Professional-to-Professional Consultation

If a therapist believes that a professional-to-professional consultation would be helpful, I am available for consultation on the treatment and resolution of the attachment-related pathology of AB-PA.  Since the pathology is, at its core, an expression of pathological mourning within the family (with the primary case of the allied parent transferring this disordered mourning to the child’s response to the divorce), the central treatment-related issue is the resolution of sadness, grief, and loss.

The treatment for disordered mourning is to mourn.  The effective processing of sadness and grief through affectionate bonding with the beloved but currently rejected parent will restore the normal-range functioning of the child’s attachment system.  On the other hand, as long as the child remains under the distorting parental influence of the allied parent, who represents the primary case of disordered mourning, the child’s own symptoms of pathological mourning will likely continue, reflected in the child’s continued rejection of a normal-range and affectionally available parent (the targeted-rejected parent).

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Psychologist, PSY 18857

References:

Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Loss: Sadness and depression. NY: Basic Books.

Haley, J. (1977). Toward a theory of pathological systems. In P. Watzlawick & J. Weakland (Eds.), The interactional view (pp. 31-48). New York: Norton.

Main, M., & Hesse, E. (1990). Parents’ unresolved traumatic experiences are related to infant disorganized attachment status: Is frightened and/or frightening parental behavior the linking mechanism? In M.T. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti, & E.M. Cummings (Eds.), Attachment in the preschool years: Theory, research, and intervention (pp. 161–182). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and family therapy. Harvard University Press.

Van der Kolk, B.A. (1989). The compulsion to repeat the trauma: Re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 12, 389-411.

van IJzendoorn, M.H., Schuengel, C., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J. (1999). Disorganized attachment in early childhood: Meta-analysis of precursors, concomitants, and sequelae. Development and Psychopathology, 11, 225–249.

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Childress, C.A. (2015). An Attachment-Based Model of Parental Alienation: Foundations. Claremont, CA: Oaksong Press.

The pathology of “parental alienation” is NOT a defined construct in clinical psychology.

AB-PA is a defined construct. 

An attachment-based model of “parental alienation” (AB-PA) – as defined in Foundations – is an explanatory application of standard and established constructs and principles from professional psychology to a set of symptoms.  That’s called diagnosis.

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Q:  What is the sun?

A:  It’s that bright thing in the sky over there.

Q:  Yes, I know.  But what is it, what is the sun?

A:  I just told you.  It’s that bright thing in the sky.

“That bright thing in the sky” is NOT a professional-level definition of the sun.

Definition: The sun is a dense cloud of hydrogen gas that is so dense that the pressure exerted by the pull of its gravity is fusing the hydrogen atoms into helium (and ultimately into denser elements) and is releasing great amounts of energy in the process.

That is a professional-level definition of the sun.  “That bright thing in the sky” is not a professional-level definition of the sun.

Statement:  The child is rejecting the parent because of “parental alienation.”

Q: What is “parental alienation”?

A:  It’s when a child rejects one parent because of the influence on the child by the other parent (it’s that bright thing in the sky).

Q:  Yes, I know.  But what is it, what is “parental alienation”?

A: I just told you.  It’s when a child rejects one parent because of the influence of the other parent (it’s that bright thing in the sky).

That bright thing in the sky is NOT a professional-level definition of “parental alienation.”

AB-PA is a professional-level definition of parental alienation:

Pathological mourning (Bowlby) involving a cross-generational coalition (Haley; Minuchin) of the child with a narcissistic and/or borderline personality parent (Beck; Kernberg, Millon).

The trans-generational transmission of attachment trauma from the childhood of an allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent to the current family relationships, mediated by the personality disorder pathology of the allied parent, which is itself a product of this parent’s childhood attachment trauma.

An Attachment-Based Model of Parental Alienation: Foundations

That is a professional-level definition of the pathology.  Not “that bright thing in the sky over there.”

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The Gardnerian PAS definition of “parental alienation” is that bright thing in the sky over there.

Gardner proposed a unique new form of pathology.  So unique, in fact, that this “new form of pathology” required a unique new name, “parental alienation,” and a unique new set of 8 symptom identifiers that are unrelated to any other pathology in all of mental health.

Gardner’s proposal of a unique new form of pathology drew substantial criticism from establishment psychology.  They said:

Establishment Psychology:  If there is a pathology present, then you must provide a professional-level definition for the pathology using standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

Gardnerians:   It’s when a child rejects one parent because of the influence of the other parent (it’s that bright thing in the sky over there).

Establishment Psychology:  That’s not an adequate professional-level definition for a pathology.

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AB-PA:  The sun is a dense cloud of hydrogen gas that is fusing into helium and releasing intense energy in the process.  And you know what?  The sun is not unique.  All of those stars we see at night are also suns, they’re just very far away.  Our sun is one of countless stars in our galaxy,  And there are other galaxies as well.

AB-PA:  The pathology of “parental alienation” is a form of “disordered mourning” (Bowlby) having to do with the distorted processing of sadness, grief, and loss, surrounding the divorce.  The “alienating parent” is the primary case of disordered mourning in the family, and this parent is passing on their own pathological mourning to the child through a cross-generational coalition with the child against the targeted parent (Haley, Minuchin).

The reason the allied parent’s mourning is pathological is because this parent has a narcissistic or borderline personality, that, at its core, fundamentally cannot process sadness, grief, and loss (Kernberg).

The reason the narcissistic and borderline personality cannot process sadness, grief, and loss is because this personality style emerges from a disorganized attachment – disorganized attachment being a defined category of attachment. The borderline personality has disorganized attachment with anxious-ambivalent overtones, whereas the narcissist personality has disorganized attachment with anxious-avoidant overtones. At their core, the narcissist and the borderline have the same underlying disorganized attachment networks, but they manifest differently because of the overtones.

A violin and a trumpet both play middle C.  The difference in sound is not in the note itself (they are both playing middle C), the difference is in the overtones provided by the differing instruments playing the same musical note.

The “internal working models” of the narcissistic and borderline parent’s attachment system are triggered by the divorce to mediate the sadness, grief, and loss of the spousal attachment figure surrounding divorce, but since their core attachment networks are disorganized, these personality structures collapse into immensely painful disorganization surrounding the rejection and abandonment of the spousal attachment figure inherent to divorce. 

What we see as the symptoms of “alienation” are the coping strategies of the narcissistic and borderline personality trying to stave off collapse into complete – and immensely painful – disorganization surrounding the rejection and abandonment of this parent by the attachment figure of the other spouse; the collapse of the narcissistic personality structure into an inner void of utter emptiness, and the collapse of the borderline personality into an inner void of consuming darkness (you are unloved and unlovable).

That, is a professional-level definition of pathology.

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The Pathology to be Defined:  A child’s rejection of a normal-range and affectionally available parent following a divorce.

The attachment system is the brain system governing all aspects of love and bonding throughout the lifespan, including grief and loss.

The child’s rejection of a normal-range and affectionally available parent is an attachment-related pathology.

Q:  How does the attachment system become turned off?

“The deactivation of attachment behavior is a key feature of certain common variants of pathological mourning” (Bowlby, 1980, p. 70)

Okay, then.  So we’re looking at a version of “pathological mourning” surrounding the divorce.

Q:  How does pathological mourning develop?

“Disturbances of personality, which include a bias to respond to loss with disordered mourning, are seen as the outcome of one or more deviations in development that can originate or grow worse during any of the years of infancy, childhood and adolescence.” (Bowlby, 1980, p. 217)

Okay, so we’re looking at a “disturbance of personality.”  And we just continue to work it out from there.

Notice that in less than a minute of diagnostic inquiry, the pathology of “parental alienation” is defined as a form of disordered mourning involving personality pathology.

That’s sooooo much better than, “that bright thing in the sky over there.”

All mental health professionals – ALL of us – must stop referring to this form of attachment-related family pathology as “that bright thing in the sky over there” (“parental alienation”).  We can use the term in our general discussions I suppose – if I’m explaining to a child what the sun is, I might say, “It’s that bright thing in the sky over there.” 

But in our professional-level discussion with other mental health professionals regarding this form of attachment-related pathology, we must STOP referring to any non-defined form of pathology.  “Parental alienation” is a non-defined form of pathology.  AB-PA is a defined form of pathology.  If the Gardnerians wish to come up with some other proposed professional-level definition, fine by me.  Let’s hear it.  But no more “it’s that bright thing in the sky over there” definitions of pathology.  That’s NOT a professional-level definition of pathology.

All mental health professionals, in their professional-to-professional discourse, must stop using the non-defined construct of “parental alienation” (that bright thing in the sky over there) to describe a pathology.  Yes, I know that the sun is the bright thing in the sky over there.  And I suppose that is a sort of rudimentary definition of what the sun is.  But we need to go further.

The sun is a dense cloud of hydrogen gas that is fusing into helium and releasing great amounts of energy in the process.

Come on people.  We can do better than “that bright thing in the sky over there” – we can do better than, “a child’s rejection of one parent because of the influence of the other parent”  Yes.  I know.  But what is it?  What is the pathology?  Why is this occurring? – “Because of brainwashing” – ahhhgghhrrr – that’s like saying, “Sun hot.”  “Sun hot” is not an answer – “brainwashing” is not an answer.  Brainwashing is an equally non-defined construct.  Try substituting the construct of psychological control as defined by Barber (2002).

Standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.  Not brainwashing, not demon possession, not an imbalance in yellow bile.  Standard and established constructs and principles.

Pathological mourning.  Personality disorder pathology.  Splitting.  Cross-generational coalition.  Trauma reenactment narrative.  We’re professionals.  We’re experts.  We need to stop referring to this pathology as “that bright thing in the sky over there.”  That’s not a professional-level definition of a pathology.

It’s acceptable as a lay definition for the pathology.  Targeted parents, attorneys, the Court, they can all call it “that bright thing in the sky” because they are not mental health professionals.  Psychology is not their area of professional expertise.  But it is OUR area of expertise, and calling a pathology “that bright thing in the sky over there” is simply not acceptable at a professional level.

When I ask the corner grocery store clerk, “What’s the sun?” the clerk might reasonably say, “It’s that bright thing in the sky over there.”  But if I ask an astrophysicist, “What’s the sun?” I better at least get “A dense cloud of hydrogen gas fusing into helium.”  Come on people.  Professionals. 

An attachment-based model of “parental alienation” (AB-PA) as defined in Foundations provides a professional-level description of the attachment-related pathology commonly called “parental alienation” in the general-culture.  Foundations sets the bar for a definition of the pathology.  No more “that bright thing in the sky over there” definitions.

Gardner took everyone down the wrong road when he proposed a unique new form of pathology that required a unique new name (“parental alienation”) and a unique new set of 8 symptom identifiers that are unrelated to any other pathology in all of mental health.  He skipped the step of diagnosis.  Diagnosis is the application of standard and established constructs and principles to a set of symptoms. 

AB-PA puts us back on the solid ground of professionally anchored constructs and principles.  Disordered mourning, personality disorder pathology, cross-generational coalitions, trans-generational transmission of attachment trauma, splitting pathology, trauma reenactment schema.

Foundations sets the bar.  I’m expecting all mental health professionals to be professional.  No non-defined constructs in professional-to-professional discourse.  If you’re going to use a construct, define it at a professional level.  No primitive “that bright thing in the sky” definitions.  Professional-level definitions using standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

The remarkable thing is that once we define what the sun is, a whole new realm emerges of white dwarfs and red giants, neutron stars, supernovas and black holes, galaxies and quasars.  But as long as we remain with “that bright thing in the sky” definitions, this whole world of phenomena remains beyond our reach.  I guarantee you, once we switch to an attachment-based definition of the pathology, a whole new world of wondrous knowledge will open up to us.

Mental health professionals, read this article:

Fonagy, P., Luyten, P., and Strathearn, L. (2011). Borderline personality disorder, mentalization, and the neurobiology of attachment. Infant Mental Health Journal, 32, 47-69.

We should be talking about the “mentalization” of the child’s psychological state by the pathological parent.  And there is so much more once we move beyond “that bright thing in the sky” definitions of the pathology.

The attachment system is the brain system that governs all aspects of love and bonding throughout the lifespan, including grief and loss.  A child’s rejection of a normal-range and affectionally available parent is foundationally an attachment-related pathology. 

That’s the road to the realm of answers.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Psychologist, PSY 18857

Barber, B. K. (Ed.) (2002). Intrusive parenting: How psychological control affects children and adolescents. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.