Parental Alienation in Romania and Other Countries

I recently received a request from Mr. Adrian Bota in Romania on behalf of the Association Against Parental Abuse requesting my assistance in their efforts to have “parental alienation” formally recognized as a form of child abuse.  Apparently they are making some progress in Romania, but not yet enough.

His specific request of me was to:

“Please send us any of your work which can support the urgency of the intervention needed to escape from this form of child abuse and to set the custody accordingly.  Without these measures and without the corrective power of the State, we cannot protect our children.”

I have also periodically been contacted by targeted parents in other countries, both from English-speaking and non-English speaking countries, seeking my help and support for their efforts to end the family pathology of “parental alienation” in their countries.  I fully recognize the international nature of this form of attachment-related family pathology, and my thoughts generally are to focus my efforts on correcting the mental health system in the United States with the goal of changes within the U.S. mental health system acting as the first domino of influence in changing the response of mental health systems in other countries.

But if I can be of any specific assistance in the meantime, I’m more than happy to be as helpful as I can be.   The following is my email reply to Mr. Bota.  My reply to him may also be more broadly applicable to the efforts of targeted parents in other countries seeking to end the family nightmare of “parental alienation” in their countries, so with the permission of Mr. Bota and the Association Against Parental Abuse in Romania I am turning my email to him into a full blog post.

Dear Mr. Bota,

I will assist your efforts in any way I can.

The primary resource is my book, Foundations.  Unfortunately for the use of the book in foreign settings, the book is written in English and is fairly long and dense in its descriptions of the pathology, so it is unlikely to be read by politicians.  What it does do, however, is serve as the professional foundation for the origins of the three diagnostic indicators and the assessment protocol.

What you will likely want to focus on in my work is the treatment-focused assessment protocol, and the two assessment instruments that are used in this protocol:

• The Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting

• The Parenting Practices Rating Scale

These assessment instruments are both posted on my website and are in the public domain.  You have my permission to translate them into Romanian if that is helpful to you.  Please simply specify in a footnote that “Dr. Childress has not reviewed the content of this translation for accuracy.”  If you choose to translate these instruments into Romanian, you may want to put the name of the translator under my authorship name (Translated by So-n-So).  If there are technical terms that you would like to ask me to explain a little more fully to aid in the translation, please feel free to contact me.

The formal handout for the treatment-focused assessment protocol is also on my website. 

• Treatment-Focused Assessment Protocol

Since the Treatment-Focused Assessment Protocol handout is also on my website, it too is in the public domain and you have my permission to translate it into Romanian, with the caveat that you specify on this translation that I have not reviewed the translation for accuracy, and again you may wish to specify the person or group responsible for the translation.

I am currently in the process of publishing my second book, Diagnosis.  Until this book is published, the diagnostic indicators and Associated Clinical Signs used in the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting are described in Chapter 4 of my book, Essays on Attachment-Based Parental Alienation, and I have made a pdf of Chapter 4 available on my website. 

Since this chapter is on my website and is from a blog post of mine on 11/3/15 (Diagnosis of Parental Alienation), the content from Chapter 4 of Essays is similarly in the public domain.  If you want to translate this Chapter into Romanian, that would also be fine with me with the caveat that you indicate in a footnote that I have not reviewed the translation for accuracy (and you may want to specify the person or group responsible for the translation).

For documenting and monitoring the child’s symptoms prior to and during treatment (an ABA single-case evidenced-based treatment design), I recommend using the Parent-Child Relationship Rating Scale available from my website.  As with the other forms, you have my permission to translate this form into Romanian as well.

Best wishes,

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