Month: February 2017

Dorcy and I have a disagreement.

She cares so much about each kid and each family, that she struggles mightily trying to solve the problem of “parental alienation” for each individual kid she encounters, all in the face of a massively broken mental health system and rampant professional incompetence.   What I suspect is so frustrating for her is that she has the solution right in hand, she just needs to be given the opportunity to enact the solution.   Poof.   All solved.

(On June 1, 2017 in Boston, at the AFCC Convention, we will explain exactly how the High Road protocol accomplishes this.  Workshop 29;  3:30 -5:00.)

Me, on the other hand, I’m struggling directly with changing the overwhelming extent of profound professional ignorance and incompetence in mental health.  Whew.  Big system.  Little me.

As an old-school clinical psychologist who values knowledge and believes professionals should know what they’re doing, I am deeply appalled by the extent and degree of wholesale and rampant professional ignorance and incompetence surrounding the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of this attachment-related family pathology.

Seriously, it is positively medieval.  “Bring me the leeches, we need to bleed the child.”

And there is absolutely no excuse for such profound and rampant professional ignorance and incompetence.  This is not some “new form of pathology.”  It’s all standard and established stuff.  It’s just that the vast majority of mental health professionals involved with this type of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce are simply ignorant and incompetent.  No excuses.  They’re just stupid and incompetent (if you don’t like me calling you stupid… don’t be stupid – children’s lives are on the line).

We essentially have hair stylists doing open heart surgery.  Guess what?  All the patients are dying.

It is viscerally painful to me when I’m a consultant on a case to read the reports of the therapists and child custody evaluators because of the profound degree of ignorance and incompetence evidenced in these reports.  Oh my God.  It is absolutely appalling.

APA, you’ve got to do something.  It’s really bad.  The level of ignorance and incompetence is profound.  Mental health professionals are assessing and treating families with absolutely no apparent understanding of family systems constructs.  They’re just making up their case conceptualizations and treatments out of whole cloth – no grounding in any established principles or constructs of professional psychology.  They’re just making stuff up and winging it.

Seriously, APA.  The degree of professional incompetence out here with this form of attachment-related pathology is bad, bad, bad.

In my earlier career, I worked on a clinical research project with Keith Nuechterlien, Ph.D. at UCLA, one of the top-notch research investigators in schizophrenia.   Later, I worked on a clinical intervention project with Jim Swanson, Ph.D. at UCI on identifying ADHD in preschool-age children.  Jim Swanson is one of the top-level research investigators in ADHD.

I’ve worked at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and then at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, two top-level institutions.

Later, when I was the Clinical Director for a children’s assessment and treatment center that was established within the auspices of California State University, San Bernardino’s Institute of Child Development and Family Relations, we based all of our clinical diagnosis and therapy in the latest scientific evidence on assessment and treatment of childhood disorders.  We incorporated a collaborative effort of Cal State’s psychology department, Loma Linda University’s occupational therapy program, and the University of Redlands’ speech and language program.  State of the art integrated assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of early childhood trauma in the foster care system.

My professional experience has always been around top-level professionals.  I had no idea the extent and degree of professional ignorance and incompetence there is out here.

These mental health people are missing huge-huge indicators of family pathology, and they have no idea what they’re doing in terms of treatment.  It is astounding – it is appalling.

These mental health people are treating an attachment-related pathology – the child’s rejection of a parent – and they have no knowledge whatsoever about how the attachment system functions.  Zero.  Nothing.  Yet they’re treating an attachment-related pathology.  Stop it.  If you don’t know what you’re doing you’re going to hurt somebody.  Too late.

If you have no idea what cancer is, you shouldn’t be assessing and treating cancer, because you’ll keep misdiagnosing it as diabetes.  You’ll prescribe insulin for the supposed diabetes, and the patient will die from cancer.

Over and over again.

Look, mental health professionals, either:

A.)  Learn what you’re doing;

Or,

B.)  Go away.

Because,

C.)  Completely destroying the lives of children and families;

Is NOT an option.

If you are assessing or treating a family – LEARN ABOUT FAMILY SYSTEMS – Minuchin, Haley, Bowen, Satir, Madanes.  Holy cow people, how can you possibly assess and treat a family if you know NOTHING about how family systems function?   You’d think that would be a no-brainer.  If you’re going to assess and treat families then you should know about how families function.

Wait, there’s more.  If you are assessing or treating an attachment-related pathology (such as a child rejecting a parent) – LEARN ABOUT THE ATTACHMENT SYSTEM – Bowlby, Ainsworth, Mains, Fonagy.  Another seemingly obvious statement that I guess isn’t so obvious to many mental health people (I refuse to call them “professionals” at this point – they’re not. They are simply ignorant and incompetent people who are irrevocably destroying the lives of children and families as a result of their negligent ignorance and incompetence).

Look, if you’re treating cancer, learn about cancer; learn about its assessment, its diagnosis, and its treatment.

If you’re treating heart disease, then learn about heart disease; learn about its assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.

If you’re treating eating disorders, learn about eating disorders; learn about the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of eating disorders.  Seems pretty obvious to me.

So if you’re treating families, learn about family systems; learn about the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of families.

If you’re treating attachment-related pathology, learn about the attachment system; learn about its assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.

Yet these mental health people who are assessing and treating your children and your families remain grossly and negligently ignorant – and therefore grossly and negligently incompetent.

Appalling.  Just appalling.

APA – do something.  How can you simply stand by and allow so many families to be destroyed – forever destroyed – by such profound professional incompetence.  Does Standard 2.01a of your ethics code mean nothing?  If it’s not enforced, it sure does mean nothing.

This is children’s childhood.  Once gone, it can NEVER be recovered. And APA, your allowing these ignorant and incompetent people who are masquerading as psychologists to irrevocably destroy these children and families.  How can you just stand by and watch.  Do something.  Lives are being destroyed.  Children’s lives are being destroyed.

APA, if you do nothing to stop the incompetence, then you are complicit.

“If I were to remain silent, I’d be guilty of complicity.” – Albert Einstein

Each day that passes without a solution is one day too long.  This must stop.

So Dorcy covers each child against the storm of child abuse, and she screams to the storm – “STOP, you will not have this child, you will not destroy this child.”

Meanwhile, I struggle to work whatever magic I can muster to call forth the winds of change that will blow the storm entirely away, so that all children and all families can grow in the warmth of their parents’ love and affection.

At the recent fundraising event for the documentary, Erasing Family (www.erasingfamily.org), that is currently filming and that needs your financial backing and support, many people that night made the point that, “children have the right to love both parents.”

At one point during the evening, I turned to Dorcy who was sitting beside me and said,

“That’s only half of it.  Yes, children have the right to love both parents.  But equally important is that children have the right to RECEIVE THE LOVE of both parents in return.  Children flourish when they are loved.  In “parental alienation,” there are parents, and grandparents, and aunts, and uncles, and cousins – all of whom desperately want to love the child.  The child has a RIGHT to receive that love.  That love will only help that child flourish.  Love is always a good thing for a child.”

Yes, children have the right to love both parents, and children also have the RIGHT to RECEIVE the love of both parents – and grandparents – and aunts, and uncles, and cousins – in return.

There is absolutely zero reason to ever withhold love from a child.  Withholding love from a child is NEVER a good thing.

The construct of “erased families” is a good thing because it highlights that this isn’t JUST about parents – it’s about families – erased families.

Grandparent love can be some of the bestest lovin’ on the planet.  The love of uncles, aunts, cousins, all enrich a child’s life.  More love is always a good thing for a child.

The documentary-in-progress, Erasing Family, also uses the construct of “obstructed bonding.”  Another good phrase.  It highlights the blockage of children’s right to receive love from everyone who loves them.

There’s no need to get locked into the terms – I don’t care what we call it.  We can call it by any of a thousand names; obstructed bonding – “parental alienation” – pathogenic parenting – a cross-generational coalition – pathological mourning – call it whatever you want, just make it stop.

We all know what it is.  Call it what you want.  Me?  I think I’ll call it child abuse.

Children have the fundamental right to love both parents, and children have the fundamental right to receive the love of both parents in return.

… and the love from grandparents, and from aunts, and uncles, and cousins, and brothers, and sisters, and everyone else who loves that child.

Love is always a good thing for a child to receive.

On that, Dorcy and I are in full agreement.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Psychologist, PSY 18857

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a fundraising event for a documentary currently being filmed about “parental alienation” called Erasing Family.

www.erasingfamily.org

At this event, the movie’s director showed rough cuts of some of their filming to date, stories told by targeted parents and by their now reunited children.  Most powerful were the statements by the now-reunited children.  Strong stuff.  Good stuff.

This is exactly the professional grade documentary that needs to get made.

They need funding.  They need our support.

They are in the process of filming.  Go to their website.  Read about this documentary.  I strongly urge you to contribute – I did.  This documentary will be your voice, this documentary will be the authentic voice of your beloved children speaking clearly about their experience of alienation and recovery.

Things are changing.  I feel it.  The universe is shifting on its axis.  The stars are aligning.  The process of solution is beginning to emerge.

We stand on the battlefield, fighting for your children.  The time is now.  The battle is now.  The time to end the family nightmare of “parental alienation” is now.

There are many fronts to the battle.

The APA:  There is the demand to change the position statement of the American Psychological Association on “parental alienation” and for the APA to hold a high level conference of experts in attachment theory, personality pathology, family systems therapy, and developmental trauma to produce a white paper on attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  The APA is reportedly developing a working group on the issue.  Let them hear from you.

Professional Competence:  There is the ongoing battle to obtain professional competence case-by-case in the assessment and accurate diagnosis of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, in which all ignorant and incompetent psychologists will be placed on notice that they will – with 100% certainty – face a licensing board complaint for a breech of Standards 9.01a and 2.01a of the APA ethics code for professional incompetence if they fail to appropriately assess and accurately diagnose attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce..

Legislation:  There is the legislative front and changes to the child abuse reporting laws to specifically cite psychological child abuse and pathogenic parenting as reportable under mandated reporting laws.  There are some interesting developments in this area that I will address later.

Media Attention:   The documentary Erasing Family will advance the solution to “parental alienation” light years when it is finished and released.  I urge you to come together.  Support the making of this documentary.  Visit their website.  Learn about the documentary.  Contribute.

In “parental alienation” there are so many ways in which you are made powerless.  No one listens.  No one hears you.  No one believes you.  You are alone.  Erasing Family will bring your voice into the mainstream dialogue.  It is the voice of all targeted parents.  What’s more, through the voices of recovered children it also provides the voices of your authentic children were they free to speak.

I urge all targeted parents, and all the family members you can muster, your parents, your brothers, your sisters, your aunts and uncles, go to www.erasingfamily.org and support this documentary with a contribution.

Erasing Family will bring your voice into the mainstream dialogue of our culture.  It is time to bring this hidden family pathology out into the open light of day.  Erasing Family is the voice of all targeted parents, and it is the authentic voice of your children.

We stand now upon the battlefield, fighting for your children.  The time is now.  The battle is now.  The time to end the family nightmare of “parental alienation” is now.

In order to solve “parental alienation” for any one family, we must solve “parental alienation” for ALL children and ALL families.

Come together and become a single voice for change.  Erasing Family will be that voice.  Your voice.  And the voice of your authentic children.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Psychologist, PSY 18857

Things are changing.

I am increasingly being asked to consult within the mental health system and the legal system regarding the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-based “parental alienation” (AB-PA). This is a good thing.  People in the mental health system and legal system are becoming educated.

The climate is shifting.  I can feel it.  Mental health and legal professionals are beginning to understand.

And it’s really quite simple actually.  I can see the lights of understanding going on as I talk to them.  They want to do the right thing, they just need guidance out of the wilderness.

Assessment leads to diagnosis… and diagnosis guides treatment.

Simple.  Simple.  Simple.

All we are asking for is that the court-involved mental health professionals – therapists and child custody evaluators – simply assess for standard and established symptomatology in the child’s symptom display:

 Developmental Pathology:  Attachment system suppression.

Personality Disorder Traits:  Specific narcissistic personality traits in the child’s symptom display.

Psychiatric-Delusional Pathology:  An encapsulated persecutory delusion regarding the child’s supposed “victimization” by the normal-range parenting practices of the targeted-rejected parent.

All of these are standard forms of mental health pathology that are fully within the scope of practice for all mental health professionals.  No new forms of pathology – no strange new types of symptoms.  Standard stuff.  Attachment system suppression, personality disorder traits, encapsulated persecutory delusions.  Simple.  Simple.  Simple.

Just assess for the symptoms.  Then document the findings of the assessment using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting.  What could possibly be simpler?

Assessment – Diagnosis – Treatment

Step by step.  Assessment.  Diagnosis.  Treatment.

The issue isn’t “parental alienation,” it’s pathogenic parenting (patho=pathology; genic=genesis, creation).  Pathogenic parenting is the creation of significant pathology in the child through aberrant and distorted parenting practices.  It is a defined term in both clinical and developmental psychology.  Fully established “standard of practice” stuff.

Pathogenic parenting.  The creation of pathology in the child through aberrant and distorted parenting practices.

What targeted parent out there doesn’t completely understand that their beloved child’s normal emotions and normal behavior have become completely twisted up and distorted by the manipulative, self-serving, and exploitative parenting practices of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent?

Your beautiful and beloved child is no longer recognizable; twisted with anger and venom, arrogance and lies.  Where did your beloved child go?  What happened?  That’s called pathogenic parenting, the creation of significant pathology in the child through aberrant and distorted parenting practices.

What’s been done to your precious child by the other parent, by your narcissistic/(borderline) ex-, is called pathogenic parenting.  The creation of significant pathology in the child through aberrant and distorted parenting practices.

All we’re asking is that mental health professionals assess for the symptoms of pathogenic parenting by a narcissistic/(borderline) parent who has formed a cross-generational coalition with the child against the other parent (Minuchin; Haley).  No big deal.  Simple.  Just assess for the symptoms.

Then document the findings of the assessment using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting.  Seriously… what could possibly be simpler?

Assessment Leads to Diagnosis

Step by step.  Assessment leads to diagnosis.

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 parent’s own emotional and psychological needs represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse Confirmed.

All we want is an assessment by a mental health professional for the symptoms of pathogenic parenting created by an allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent who has formed a cross-generational coalition with the child against the other parent (Minuchin; Haley).

That’s all.  Simple.  Just assess for the symptoms.  Are they present or not?

Assessment leads to diagnosis.  Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant psychopathology in the child represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

Diagnosis guides treatment…

Simple.  Simple.  Simple.  From a mental health perspective, this is not a big deal.

Diagnosis Guides Treatment

Assessment leads to the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

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

In all cases of child abuse, physical child abuse, sexual child abuse, and psychological child abuse, the appropriate professional response is to protect the child.

In all cases of child abuse, the child is first protectively separated from the abusive parent.  This is the appropriate response in cases of physical child abuse.  This is the appropriate response in cases of sexual child abuse.  This is the appropriate response in cases of psychological child abuse.

Assessment leads to diagnosis.  Diagnosis guides treatment.

In all cases of child abuse, once the child is protectively separated from the abusive parent, we then treat the child for the emotional and psychological consequences of the child abuse and we restore the child’s normal-range and healthy development.

In all cases of child abuse, once the child’s healthy and normal-range development has been recovered and restored through therapy, we then reintroduce the relationship with the formerly abusive parent with sufficient safeguards in place to ensure that the child abuse does not resume once the relationship with the formerly abusive parent is reestablished.

In all cases of child abuse, the formerly abusive parent is required to obtain collateral therapy to gain – and demonstrate – insight into the causes of the prior abusive parenting.

In all cases of child abuse, the response of the formerly abusive parent to his or her collateral treatment is used as a gauge in determining the level of safeguards needed upon reintroduction of this parent to the child.

We do this for physical child abuse, we do this for sexual child abuse, we do this for psychological child abuse.

Assessment leads to diagnosis, and diagnosis guides treatment.

Simple.

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

Once I get to explain this to mental health and legal professionals, the solution is really quite simple.

Assessment.  Diagnosis.  Treatment.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Psychologist PSY 18857

Role-Reversal Relationship

A role-reversal relationship is one in which the child is used to meet the parent’s emotional and psychological needs.

In normal and healthy parent-child relationships, the child uses the parent to meet the child’s emotional and psychological needs.

In a normal and healthy parent-child relationship, the parent is said to act as a “regulatory object” for the child.

In a normal and healthy parent-child relationship, when the child becomes upset and distressed (dysregulated), the parent acts in soothing and structuring ways to bring the child back into an emotionally and behaviorally organized and regulated state.  The parent acts as a “regulatory object” – also called a “regulatory other” – for the child.

This is normal and healthy.  The child is using the parent to meet the child’s needs.  The parent is an external “regulatory other” for the child.

In a role-reversal relationship, however, this normal and healthy parent-child relationship is turned upside down.  In a role-reversal relationship, the parent uses the child to meet the parent’s emotional and psychological needs.

In a role-reversal relationship, the parent uses the child as a “regulatory object” to stabilize the parent’s emotional and psychological state.  When the parent is upset and distressed, the child responds in ways that soothe the parent, keeping the parent in an organized and regulated state.  The child becomes an external “regulatory object” for the parent.

A role-reversal relationship is extremely pathological and damaging to the healthy emotional and psychological development of the child.  It robs the child of self-authenticity and damages self-structure development.

Instead, in a role-reversal relationship, the child continually monitors the parent’s emotional and psychological state and must become who the unstable parent needs the child to be in order to keep the parent in an emotionally and psychologically organized and regulated state.

In clinical and developmental psychology, a role-reversal relationship is considered a psychological “boundary violation” that violates the child’s psychological integrity.  At its more extreme, a role-reversal relationship is essentially a form of psychological incest in which the parent psychologically violates and intrudes into the psychological integrity of the child so that the parent can meet the parent’s own emotional and psychological needs by using the child as a “regulatory object” for the parent’s fragile and damaged emotional and psychological state.

A role-reversal relationship is extremely pathological.

Inverted Family Hierarchy

In a healthy and normal-range family, parents occupy positions of executive leadership within the family hierarchy. 

Parents have more knowledge than children.  Parents have more experience than children.  Parents have better judgement than children.  Parents therefore occupy positions of executive leadership within the family.  That is a healthy family hierarchy.

In a healthy and normal-range family, children cooperate with the executive leadership provided by parents.  Children express wants and desires, but children also cooperatively defer to the executive leadership of parents.  This represents a healthy family hierarchy.

In a healthy family hierarchy, parents judge children’s behavior as appropriate or inappropriate, and parents deliver consequences (rewards and punishments) based on parental judgements of children’s behavior.  This reflects a normal and healthy family hierarchy.

An inverted family hierarchy, however, flips the normal and healthy family hierarchy upside down, so that children become empowered into positions of executive judgement OVER parents.

In an inverted hierarchy, children are empowered to judge parents’ behavior as appropriate or inappropriate, and children are empowered to then deliver “punishments” to parents based on child-judgments of the parent.  The normal and healthy family hierarchy is flipped upside down.

An inverted hierarchy is caused by either of two possibilities:

1.)  Parental Abdication of Power:  The judged parent is not exercising appropriate parental authority and executive leadership and the parent has instead abdicated parental authority and position in the hierarchy to the child.

2.)  Cross-Generational Coalition:  The child is drawing power to judge a parent from a hidden cross-generational coalition in the family that the child has formed with an allied parent against the other parent.  Through the covert and hidden alliance with the supposedly “favored” parent, the allied parent is empowering the child in the family hierarchy to an elevated position above the other parent, in which the child feels “entitled” to judge the adequacy of the parent.

A cross-generational coalition represents a child being “triangulated” into the inter-spousal conflict by the allied (and supposedly “favored” parent), thereby turning a two-person (spouse-spouse) marital conflict into a three-person (spouse-child-spouse) triangulated conflict in which the child is caught in the middle of the spousal conflict, a pawn in the inter-spousal conflict.

In the general popular culture, the construct of “triangulation” is called “putting the child in the middle” of the spousal conflict – which generally involves one parent (the allied and supposedly “favored” parent) manipulating the child into “choosing sides” in the inter-spousal conflict.

The function of the cross-generational coalition is to allow the allied and supposedly “favored” parent to divert spousal anger at the other spouse through the child.  The child is being used by the allied parent to meet the allied parent’s own emotional and psychological needs in the inter-spousal conflict with the other spouse.

The renowned family systems therapist, Jay Haley, refers to a cross-generational coalition as a “perverse triangle” because the formation of a cross-generational coalition represents a “boundary violation” involving a “role-reversal relationship” in which the parent is using the child to meet the parent’s emotional and psychological needs.

Empowering the Child

In the psychologically incestuous relationship of a parent’s “boundary violation” of the child’s psychological integrity, the parent first manipulates the child into a “perverse” cross-generational coalition, and then empowers the child in the family hierarchy, creating the inverted family hierarchy in which the child is empowered to judge the adequacy of the other parent.

The tell-tale signs of the “perverse triangle” of the cross-generational coalition by an emotionally needy parent using the child to meet the parent’s needs, are:

1.)  A role-reversal relationship in which the child is being “triangulated” into the inter-spousal conflict in order to allow one parent to divert this parent’s spousal anger toward the other spouse through the child.

2.)  An inverted family hierarchy in which the child is empowered into an elevated position in the family of judging the adequacy of a parent.

3.)  The empowerment of the child by the allied and supposedly “favored parent” who is using the child in the “perverse” cross-generational coalition to meet the parent’s emotional and psychological needs.

The psychologically incestuous relationship created by the “boundary violation” of the cross-generational coalition is typically offered in the refrain:

“We need to listen to the child.”

In a normal and healthy family, parents occupy positions of executive leadership.  Parents are responsible for their children’s behavior.  If the child is disrespectful to a teacher at school, the teacher sends a note home to the parent who punishes the child because the parent takes responsibility for not teaching the child appropriate social behavior.

In a normal and healthy family, parents take responsibility.  Parents are in the role of executive leadership, parents accept the role of executive leadership, and parents exercise the role of executive leadership within the family.

In the perverse relationship of the cross-generational coalition, the allied parent is psychologically manipulating and controlling the child to meet the parent’s own emotional and psychological needs.

In the perverse relationship of a cross-generational coalition, the allied parent abdicates the role of parental executive leadership, elevating the child into this parental role, while the allied parent denies normal-range parental responsiblity and alleges parental incompetence in altering the child’s behavior, typically in the refrain of:

“What can I do?  I can’t force the child to…”

Normal-range and healthy parents exercise parental executive leadership and do not abdicate parental leadership to the child. 

Normal and healthy parents are expected to show parental guidance and leadership to teach their children not to disrespect teachers at school, not to bully other children, and to develop appropriate responsibility for homework and chores around the house.  This is is not called “forcing the child” to be respectful, to not bully other children, to do homework and chores – this is called “parenting.”  Normal-range and expected parenting.

The abdication of “parental responsibility” by pleading selective parental incompetence is disingenuous – and ALL healthy and normal parents see this clearly – because we are normal and healthy parents.

The ONLY people who do not see this are people who do not understand parenting – who have their own agenda in working through their own childhood family relationship issues.  Every single normal and healthy parent understands the expected role of normal and healthy parental executive leadership in the family.

It is our job as parents to teach our children to be respectful, kind, and cooperative with authority.  This is not called “forcing our children” – this is called “parenting” our children.

Every normal and healthy parent understands this.

Boundary Violations

A role-reversal relationship, in which the child is being used to meet the parent’s emotional and psychological needs, represents a psychological boundary violation of the child’s psychological integrity – and a boundary violation of the child’s psychological integrity is a form of psychologically incestuous parent-child relationship.  That’s why Jay Haley refers to the cross-generational coalition as a “perverse triangle.”

The pathology of incest festers and is allowed to grow in the dark recesses of hidden secrecy within the family.  No one sees into the darkness of the family secret to identify the extremely pathological and repulsive parental pathology that is dominating and damaging the child’s psychological core-self integrity.

The treatment of incest begins with exposing it from its secrecy; exposing it from its hiding.  This is true for the reprehensible pathology of physical incest, and this is true for the reprehensible pathology of psychological incest, the “perverse” role-reversal relationship of the cross-generational coalition in which the parent violates the child’s core psychological integrity in order to use the child to meet the parent’s own emotional and psychological needs.

Trans-Generational Transmission of Trauma

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

The current symptoms of a child rejecting a parent are the echo – a reflection from earlier times – of an attachment-related trauma that entered the inter-generational attachment system of the family a generation or two prior to its current manifestation in the “perverse” cross-generational coalition evidenced in “parental alienation.”

The pathology of “parental alienation” is a ripple of trauma from generations gone by, yet carrying the same trauma-themes of the original trauma experience a generation or two earlier – the role-reversal use of the child to meet the parent’s needs – the boundary violation – the betrayal and abuse of the child’s love for a parent.

Themes of childhood trauma echoing across the generations, twisted into the current themes of “listening to the child” and “forcing the child” to do things against the child’s will – that were once accurate, but are now simply twisted echos of the childhood trauma from generations ago.  An echo of inter-generational childhood trauma.

The trauma pathogen of damaged information structures that are locked into the inter-generational attachment networks seeks to remain hidden from view, so it can enact its vile malevolence – punish the parent – the parent deserves to be punished.

Echoes from the past, traveling across generations, damaging love and bonding.  Creating the pathology of the narcissistic and borderline personality, creating the pathology of “parental alienation” – lost bonds of love and affection.

The pathology of the cross-generational coalition seeks to remain a hidden family pathology – weaving a false story of the other parent’s supposed “badness” that justifies the child’s rejection.  A hidden psychological abuse of the child in a “perverse triangle.”

I see the pathogen.  I know what it is.  I’ve seen it before – when I worked in the foster care system.  Then, I looked into the abyss of the childhood trauma.  Now, I see its echo, a dark and malevolent echo of childhood trauma from generations past.

This type of trauma pathogen seeks to remain hidden.  It derives all of its malevolent power to inflict its terrible psychological damage onto the child by remaining a hidden family pathology – a family secret. 

No.  This stops.  It must remain hidden no more.  We are exposing it – so we can protect the current children from the “perverse” role-reversal relationship and psychological boundary violation of their manipulative use by parents to meet their parent’s own damaged emotional and psychological needs.

To the allies of the pathogen, to the flying monkeys who seek to prevent us from exposing this pathogen to the light – consider carefully what you are doing, because you’re furthering the echo transmission of a very malevolent and destructive child attachment pathogen.  Wake up.  You are NOT protecting children, you are collaborating in the continuing abuse of children in a ripple of childhood trauma across generations.  You are hearing the echo of trauma, and your own attachment trauma networks are responding in psychological resonance to the echo, thinking that the echo is real.  It’s not.  It is a ripple of trauma from generations past.

The source trauma that is creating the devastating family pathology of “parental alienation” – in which families are torn apart and loving parent-child relationships are destroyed – is from a generation or two earlier.  The current manifestation is not real, it is an echo of the earlier trauma.  It is time to heal the children.  It is time to heal the trauma that is traveling across time, embedded in the family’s inter-generational attachment networks, a trauma being passed across generations of love and bonding.

It is time to bring this nightmare family tragedy – this inter-generational nightmare – to an end.  The current manifestation of this inter-generational attachment trauma is a false story – a false drama.  An echo.

It is time to heal this inter-generational echo of trauma.  It is time return to the beautiful and wonderful children a normal and healthy childhood of loving and healthy attachment bonds to both parents.  It is time to heal.

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

Citations:

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

“The people responding to each other in the triangle are not peers, but one of them is of a different generation from the other two… In the process of their interaction together, the person of one generation forms a coalition with the person of the other generation against his peer.  By ‘coalition’ is meant a process of joint action which is against the third person… The coalition between the two persons is denied.  That is, there is certain behavior which indicates a coalition which, when it is queried, will be denied as a coalition… In essence, the perverse triangle is one in which the separation of generations is breached in a covert way.  When this occurs as a repetitive pattern, the system will be pathological.” (p. 37)

Kerig, P.K. (2005). Revisiting the construct of boundary dissolution: A multidimensional perspective. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 5, 5-42.

“The breakdown of appropriate generational boundaries between parents and children significantly increases the risk for emotional abuse.” (p. 6)

“In the throes of their own insecurity, troubled parents may rely on the child to meet the parent’s emotional needs, turning to the child to provide the parent with support, nurturance, or comforting (Zeanah & Klitzke, 1991). Ultimately, preoccupation with the parents’ needs threatens to interfere with the child’s ability to develop autonomy, initiative, self-reliance, and a secure internal working model of the self and others (Carlson & Sroufe, 1995; Leon & Rudy, this volume). (p. 6)

“When parent-child boundaries are violated, the implications for developmental psychopathology are significant (Cicchetti & Howes, 1991). Poor boundaries interfere with the child’s capacity to progress through development which, as Anna Freud (1965) suggested, is the defining feature of childhood psychopathology. (p. 7)

“A theme that appears to be central to the conceptualization of boundary dissolution is the failure to acknowledge the psychological distinctiveness of the child.” (p. 8)

“Examination of the theoretical and empirical literatures suggests that there are four distinguishable dimensions to the phenomenon of boundary dissolution: role reversal, intrusiveness, enmeshment, and spousification.” (p. 8)

“By binding the child in an overly close and dependent relationship, the enmeshed parent creates a psychological unhealthy childrearing environment that interferes with the child’s development of an autonomous self.” (p. 10)

“Barber (2002) defines psychological control as comprising ‘parental behaviors that are intrusive and manipulative of children’s thoughts, feelings, and attachments to parents, and are associated with disturbances in the boundaries between the child and the parent’ (p. 15) (see also Bradford & Barber, this issue).” (p. 12)

“As Ogden (1979) phrased it, ‘It is as if the parent says to the child, if you are not what I need you to be, you do not exist for me’ (p. 16).” (p. 12)

“Rather than telling the child directly what to do or think, as does the behaviorally controlling parent, the psychologically controlling parent uses indirect hints and responds with guilt induction or withdrawal of love if the child refuses to comply.  In short, an intrusive parent strives to manipulate the child’s thoughts and feelings in such a way that the child’s psyche will conform to the parent’s wishes. (p. 12)

“In order to carve out an island of safety and responsivity in an unpredictable, harsh, and depriving parent-child relationship, children of highly maladaptive parents may become precocious caretakers who are adept at reading the cues and meeting the needs of those around them.  The ensuing preoccupied attachment with the parent interferes with the child’s development of important ego functions, such as self organization, affect regulation, and emotional object constancy. (p. 14)

“There is evidence for the intergenerational transmission of boundary dissolution within the family.  Adults who experienced boundary dissolution in their relationships with their own parents are more likely to violate boundaries with their children (Hazen, Jacobvitz, & McFarland, this volume; Shaffer & Sroufe, this volume).” (p. 22)

Shaffer, A., & Sroufe, L. A. (2005). The Developmental and adaptational implications of generational boundary dissolution: Findings from a prospective, longitudinal study. Journal of Emotional Abuse. 5(2/3), 67-84.

“Role reversals observed among children with disorganized attachment histories, which may include both controlling/punitive and caregiving behavior patterns, may be attempts at fear mastery and self-protection.” (p. 72)

“In this study the dissolution of generational boundaries was child-specific within the identified families.” (p. 75)

“A maternal history of sexual exploitation has emerged as a significant predictor of boundary dissolution at 42 months.” (p. 75)

“Mothers who tend to disregard generational boundaries in interacting with their children are not simply more “warm” than other mothers, but in fact show more conflict or hostility.” (p. 78)

“Parent-initiated boundary dissolution in early childhood instantiates a pattern of relationship disturbance in the child. Role reversal is apparent by early adolescence and the available data suggest links to psychopathology in later adolescence, particularly as a result of sexualized behavior observed at age 13.” (p. 80)

Beck, A.T., Freeman, A., Davis, D.D., & Associates (2004). Cognitive therapy of personality disorders. (2nd edition). New York: Guilford.

“Various studies have found that patients with BPD are characterized by disorganized attachment representations (Fonagy et al., 1996; Patrick et al, 1994).  Such attachment representations appear to be typical for persons with unresolved childhood traumas, especially when parental figures were involved, with direct, frightening behavior by the parent.  Disorganized attachment is considered to result from an unresolvable situation for the child when ‘the parent is at the same time the source of fright as well as the potential haven of safety’ (van IJzendoorn, Schuengel, & Bakermans-Kranburg, 1999, p. 226).” (p. 191)

I love science.  My wife takes a bestseller novel to the beach to read, I take a book on quantum physics.  I love science.

And in my professional practice I’ve always been an old-school conservative psychologist.  Show me the data.  Scientifically grounded practice. 

And my background in early childhood mental health has grounded me in the neuro-development of the brain – Bowlby; Stern; Tronic; Shore; Fonagy (Fonagy’s work on parental “mentalizing” of the child’s psychological state is wonderful).

I love science, and I love scientifically grounded professional practice.  There is a beauty and elegance to scientifically grounded practice.

When I was supervising interns and post-doctoral fellows as a pediatric psychologist at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, and again when I was supervising interns and post-docs as the Clinical Director for an early childhood assessment and treatment center, I would always hold my trainee’s feet to the fire on diagnosis and treatment planning.  Justify your diagnosis.  Show me how this child meets the criteria for your diagnosis.   Tell me what your 3-month, 6-month, 9-month treatment plan is going to be for this child and family.  Justify how your treatment plan is going to solve your diagnosis.

I’m an old-school conservative clinical psychologist.

That’s one of the reasons I absolutely shudder at the Gardnerian model of PAS.  It’s bad.  Really, really bad.  If an intern had brought that “new syndrome” proposal to me, I’d have been pretty harsh. 

You can look through all of my writings about the pathology of “parental alienation” (and I’m certain the pathogen’s allies have already done that — which, as an aside, is actually kind of nice when you think about it; that they are so interested in my work – for odd reasons, but nevertheless…) and you will not find a single time when I ever advocated for adopting a Gardnerian PAS derivative model of the pathology.  From the very earliest days of my investigation into this attachment-related pathology, I have always grounded my approach in the established scientific literature (DSM-IV TR Diagnosis; Attachment Foundations: Regulatory Systems; The Regulatory Other).  Not once have I ever advocated for the adoption of a Gardnerian PAS derivative model for the pathology.

I am a conservative old-school psychologist who believes we should ground our professional practice in the latest scientific evidence.  If an intern or post-doc fellow had brought me a Gardnerian PAS proposal for a diagnosis, I would have provided a stern rebuke:

Dr. Childress:  Okay, see here where you say, “absence of ambivalence”?  That’s called “splitting” pathology.  Splitting suggests narcissistic and borderline personality traits.  So I want you to go back to this family and collect additional information about the potential presence of narcissistic and borderline personality features in a parent.  Look specifically for the allied and supposedly “favored” parent demonizing the targeted parent as all-bad.  If you find the splitting pathology, look for the surrounding personality traits of either a narcissistic personality organization or a borderline personality organization.  In particular, look for the parent using the child as a “regulatory object” for the parent’s emotional and psychological state. We can talk more about the child as a “regulatory object” for the parent next time if you identify personality pathology with the parent.

Dr. Childress:  And here, where you note the absence of guilt and remorse, that’s an absence of empathy, a primary feature of a narcissistic personality.  Go back and assess whether the allied parent – the supposedly “favored” parent – also evidences this same absence of empathy.  If the allied parent in this case happens to be a more borderline personality style mother (or father), assess for projective identification and the diffusion of psychological boundaries between the parent’s experience and the child’s.  If the allied parent in this case is a more narcissistic-style father (or mother), assess for a grandiose style haughty and arrogant judgement regarding the fundamental inadequacy of the other parent (the other spouse) – and probe for the diffusion of these inadequacy judgements regarding the other parent as actually having their origin in beliefs about the “spousal worth” of the targeted parent.

Dr. Childress:  And see this, where you’re proposing that the primary symptom of this supposedly “new syndrome” is an unwarranted child rejection of a parent?  Well, a child’s rejection of a parent involves the child’s attachment system – the neurological brain system that governs all aspects of love and bonding throughout the lifespan, including grief and loss.  The loss of an attachment bond will always – 100% of the time – produce a grief response.  So go back and do an analysis of this family from an attachment perspective.  For one thing, identify where the child’s grief response is at the loss of the attachment bond to targeted-rejected parent.  How is the child manifesting this grief response?  Work that out, and then we’ll talk some more.  Also, assess whether the allied parent is expressing unwarranted and excessive anxiety about the parenting ability of the other parent; is the allied parent obsessively fixated on “protecting” the child when there is actually no risk to the child?  Parental signals of anxiety surrounding the parenting practices of the other parent will act to define the other parent as representing the “predator threat” relative to the child’s attachment system.  So excessive signals of parental anxiety and “protection” could account for the termination of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward the targeted parent, who is being defined to the child’s attachment networks by the anxiety of the allied parent as representing the “predator threat.”  Parental signals of anxiety will also motivate the child through the attachment networks to remain in continual close “protective proximity” to the supposedly “protective parent,” and not to separate from this “protective parent” who is giving off anxiety signals.

Dr. Childress:  And what’s this crazy “independent thinker” symptom.  Everyone always believes that their feelings are authentic to them.  That’s true 100% of the time in every diagnosis; depression, oppositional defiant disorder, child abuse trauma.  You can’t just go around discounting and invalidating people’s opinions and experiences.  What I think you’re trying to get at is that the child may be misattributing the cause of the child’s authentic self-experience to an incorrect causal source.  The child may authentically feel sad and hurt surrounding the targeted parent, but under the distorting influence of the allied parent the child is misattributing this experience of sadness to something bad that the targeted parent is “doing” – after all, when people do bad things to us, it hurts.  Whereas in actual truth, the origins of the child’s sadness may be a misunderstood and misinterpreted authentic grief response that the child is having to loss – first to the loss of the intact family that occurred with the divorce, and then amplified exponentially when the child began rejecting  a relationship with the beloved-but-now-rejected targeted parent; the child’s authentic sadness and hurt triggered by the presence of the targeted parent is actually grief surrounding the loss of the beloved-but-now-rejected targeted parent.  But this “independent thinker” symptom, that’s just not allowed.  You cannot simply invalidate the authenticity of someone’s self-experience like that.

Dr. Childress: So don’t bring me a “new syndrome” diagnosis.  Go back and do the work.

Child Custody Time-Share

I am an old-school conservative psychologist.  I love science.  I love scientifically based decision-making.  Professional practice needs to be based in science, not strange constructs that are simply made up out of thin air.  When psychologists start to move away from the solid bedrock of science and the surrounding theoretical literature, we open the door for introducing our own personal biases and our own personal histories into our decision-making. 

We may have had a bad relationship with our own mother growing up, so we unconsciously side with the father and child against the mother in our assessment and interpretation of the data.  Or maybe we had a childhood history of our father being cruel to and mistreating our mother, so we feel a natural affinity to protect the mother and child when we are presented with this narrative in the assessment.  In professional psychology, introducing our unconscious bias from our own history into our work is called “counter-transference” – and recognizing the potential for our own counter-transference in psychological work is as old as Sigmund Freud.

Since we are all formed in the context of families, the dangers of professional bias due to counter-transference is so intensely present in psychological work with families that we need to remain scrupulously grounded in the scientifically established literature for our assessment and interpretation of data.  The more subjective we become in our interpretations of family-related data, the more the danger increases that our own counter-transference issues will unconsciously creep into our work – and we will not realize it – because our own counter-transference issues are always unconscious to us in their hidden influence on our perceptions and interpretations.

As professional psychologists, we need to remain entirely grounded in the scientific research and surrounding theoretical literature.

As a clinical child and family psychologist who’s worked with oppositional defiant disorder across the various developmental periods of childhood – from infancy to teenagers – and with ADHD and other regulatory disorders, with autism-spectrum disorders, and with abuse and attachment-trauma disorders in childhood, of all types; sexual abuse trauma, physical abuse trauma, neglect trauma, including foster care placement and issues surrounding prenatal exposure to drugs and alcohol, I am exceedingly familiar with the research and theoretical literature surrounding parenting; normal-range and healthy parenting, parenting and the development of child pathology, and parenting’s involvement in the neuro-development of the child’s various brain systems, including self-structure systems and emotional-behavioral regulatory systems.  I know the scientific research and surrounding theoretical literature on parenting.

So let me be entirely clear on this:

With the exception of child abuse…

There is nothing – absolutely nothing – zero – in the scientific research and the surrounding theoretical literature that would allow us to determine the relative outcomes of various parenting time-share schedules following divorce.

In the absence of child abuse, there is absolutely nothing – nothing – in the scientific research and surrounding theoretical literature that would allow us to determine the relative benefits in any given situation regarding the future benefits to the child from a 60-40% custody time-share, or a 70-30% custody time-share, or an 80-20% custody time-share, or a 90-10% custody time, or a 50-50% custody time-share following divorce.

In the absence of child abuse, whenever professional psychology is asked to render an opinion regarding the relative benefits of various custody time-share schedules in any particular family following divorce, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – in the scientific research and surrounding theoretical literature that would allow us to render an opinion on this question.  Nothing.

Am I clear enough.

So any opinion rendered by any mental health professional regarding the relative benefits of differing custody time-share schedules in any specific circumstance is EXTREMELY vulnerable to the personal biases of this specific mental health professional – because there is NOTHING in the scientific research or surrounding theoretical literature that would justify a professional opinion.

Child Custody Evaluations

In my consultation on legal cases I have read countless child custody evaluations. I love science.  I love scientifically based decision-making.  So let me be equally clear on this point…

The practice of child custody evaluations is essentially voodoo assessment.  There is no – absolutely no – scientifically established foundation for the conclusions and recommendations offered by child custody evaluations.  They are little more than performing “magical” rituals under the cover of “professional procedures” (the data collection procedures), the recitation of “magical incantations” of professional-sounding words in writing a report, and “reading the entrails of a goat” in prognosticating the supposed future “best interests” of the child based on completely arbitrary criteria with no foundation in the scientific research or surrounding theoretical literature..

Furthermore,…

There is absolutely zero established reliability (inter-rater reliability) or scientifically established validity to the conclusions and recommendations offered by child custody evaluations.  Zero.   Each child custody evaluator makes up their own interpretations and conclusions – and two different custody evaluators can reach two entirely different interpretations and two entirely different sets of conclusions and recommendations from exactly the same data (a professional construct of assessment called “inter-rater reliability”).

The conclusions of child custody evaluations simply represent the personal bias of a single evaluator, who is simply a person with a full bevy of personal counter-transference biases, who happens to also have a degree in psychology that allows him or her to perform the “magical ritual” of a child custody evaluation – reciting the incantations – and reading the entrails of a goat.

Given the complete absence of scientifically established validity for the practice of child custody evaluations, I am astonished that they are allowed as evidence in court.  Okay… that’s one person’s opinion.  What’s Joe the barber’s opinion.  Since there is no scientific research or surrounding professional theoretical literature on which the custody evaluator is basing his or her opinion, Joe the barber’s opinion is just as valid.

Since the custody evaluator’s opinion is just this one person’s opinion – shouldn’t we get a second opinion?  Not on whether the “proper procedures” were followed (did the custody evaluator “rattle the proper beads” and “recite the proper incantations”), but on the evaluator’s INTERPRETATION of the data, which is where the inherent unconscious bias of counter-transference enters.  Shouldn’t we have a second, balancing opinion on the INTERPRETATION of the data?

The first evaluator has mommy-issues from his or her past that unconsiously bias this evalutor’s interpretation of the data, the second opinion might have daddy-issues that unconsciously bias this intepretation.  But at least we get both perspectives before the court. Otherwise, the court only gets one, biased interpretation that is simply the luck-of-the-draw regarding the initial assignment of the custody evaluator.

Does any mental health professional disagree?  There is a Comment section to this post.  Cite for me a single research study that demonstrates the inter-rater reliability for the conclusions and recommendations offered by child custody evaluations… a single study… I’m waiting…  <crickets>

Not one.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zero.  There is no scientifically established inter-rater reliability to the conclusions and recommendations offered by child custody evaluations.  Might as well have a monkey throwing darts at a dartboard.  Luck of the draw regarding the personal biases of the custody evaluator.

Standardization of data collection is NOT the issue.  The inherent counter-transference bias enters in the INTERPRETATION of the data – not in the collection of the data.  Standardizing the collection of the data does NOT affect the bias in the INTERPRETATION of the data.

A foundational principle of assessment – absolutely foundational – is that an assessment procedure CANNOT be valid (provide true and accurate information) if it is NOT reliable.

This is an absolutely bedrock foundational principle of professional assessment.

Again, I challenge any mental health professional to cite for me a single research study demonstrating the inter-rater reliability of the conclusions and recommendations of child custody evaluations.

This doesn’t mean that custody evaluators are bad people.  They’re good people who authentically want to be helpful.  It just means that they are inherently biased by their own family of origin histories.  And their inherent bias is entirely unconscious.  They can’t help themselves.  None of us can.  That’s why basing our professional practices in scientifically established research and the surrounding theoretical literature is so crucially important.

And there is nothing – absolutely nothing – zero – nothing – in the scientific research and the surrounding theoretical literature that would allow us to determine the relative outcomes of various parenting time-share schedules following divorce.

Scientifically Based Practice

Honestly, I feel like I’m living in the middle ages regarding our approach to child custody decisions.  When it comes to child custody, it’s like professional psychology is putting on bizarre bird-like masks and calling for the leeches, “Bring me the leeches, we need to bleed the child to balance the child’s humours.”

Please, if there is any psychologist who disagrees, please… there is a Comment section to this blog post.  Provide a single citation to research that demonstrates the inter-rater reliability of the conclusions and recommendations offered by child custody evaluations.  <crickets>  Nothing.

Or if you disagree, provide me with a single citation – just one – to the scientific research or surrounding theoretical literature that would allow us to make a determination regarding the relevant future benefits for the child from differing custody time-share schedules in any given situation – by what scientifically established criteria would a 70-30% custody time-share be better for the child than a 60-40% custody time-share in any specific situation.  <crickets>

Or bring me a goat.

50-50 Custody Timeshare

I love science.  I’m a scientifically grounded guy.  I believe we should make scientifically supported and scientifically grounded decisions.

So, once again, let me be abundantly clear regarding the scientific foundation for custody-related decisions…

In the absence of a scientifically supported justification (provide the citation) for a professional opinion regarding the relative benefits of a 60-40% custody time-share, or a 70-30% custody time-share, or an 80-20% custody time-share, or a 90-10% custody time, or a 50-50% custody time-share following divorce. …

The ONLY professionally responsible opinion is that children benefit from a complex relationship with both parents…

And – with the exception of child abuse – the ONLY scientifically and theoretically supported professionally responsible opinion regarding custody time-share following divorce should be for a 50-50% custody time-share schedule.

That is the ONLY opinion supported by the scientific evidence and surrounding theoretical literature.

The child’s parents can agree to a different time-share arrangement. That’s fine.  That is within their parental rights and prerogatives.  If the parents agree to a different schedule, fine by me.  But the only professionally responsible opinion would be based on the foundational premise that children benefit from a complex relationship with both parents – leading to a professional recommendation of a 50-50% custody time-share in all cases except child abuse.

“But Dr. Childress, sometimes it is clearly obvious that one parent is a better parent.”

Fine.  Cite for me the scientific research and theoretical literature that serves as your foundational criteria for “better parent” – develop your assessment protocol for this criteria – conduct the psychometric research to establish inter-rater reliability and validity for your assessment procedure – and we’ll be good to go.  Scientific foundation.

Yay.

Otherwise, you’re simply reading the entrails of a goat.

In the absence of this scientifically or theoretically grounded decision-making – the ONLY professionally responsible opinion regarding custody time-share following divorce should be for a 50-50% custody time-share schedule (with the exception of child abuse).

“What about when there is a history of domestic violence?”

Now we’re talking about the issue of child abuse (hostile-aggressive dangerous parenting).

“What about the manipulative pathology of a narcissistic or borderline personality parent following divorce.”

Now we’re talking about the issue of child abuse (psychological abuse).

“What about chronic parental alcoholism or substance abuse?”

Now we’re talking about the issue of child abuse (neglect).

If you document for me the current risk of child abuse, I’m with you 100%.

But in the absence of child abuse, there is no scientifically or theoretically supported criteria by which we can render a professionally responsible opinion regarding the relative future benefits to the child afforded by a 60-40% custody time-share schedule as compared to a 70-30% custody time-share schedule, as compared to an 80-20% custody time-share schedule, as compared to a 90-10% custody time-share schedule, as compared to a 50-50% time-share schedule.

Or bring me a goat.

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

The pathogen sees Dorcy and me.  And it is afraid.

Expect to see the attacks on Dorcy and me increase in intensity, and notice something about these attacks – they won’t be attacks on the substance of AB-PA. The attacks will be personal attacks seeking to damage our credibility.

There’s a reason for this.  The substance of AB-PA is true.

AB-PA is an accurate description of the pathology.  The pathogen cannot attack the substance of AB-PA.  Its only hope is to attack Dorcy and me personally.

Attack 1: Linking AB-PA to PAS

The first thing the pathogen will try to do is try to link AB-PA to Gardnerian PAS, and then it will use the same tried-and-true attacks that were used against Gardnerian PAS.

But this line of attack will fail.

AB-PA is not Gardnerian PAS.  Gardner proposed a “new form of pathology” unique in all of mental health, identifiable by a unique new set of symptoms that Gardner simply made up uniquely for this supposedly “new form of pathology.”

AB-PA, on the other hand, does not propose a “new form of pathology.”  AB-PA is defined entirely through established psychological constructs and principles.  AB-PA is not a “new theory” – AB-PA is diagnosis.

Diagnosis is the application of standard and established psychological constructs and principles to a set of symptoms.

AB-PA and Gardnerian PAS are entirely different models of pathology. Anyone who claims they are the same is simply nuts.  I mean that.  They are delusional (out of touch with reality). 

I would also note in this regard that diagnostic indicator 3 of AB-PA is an encapsulated persecutory delusion.  This pathology is delusional.  We can expect to see delusional allegations emerging from the flying monkey allies of the pathogen – delusion: a fixed and false belief that is maintained despite contrary evidence.

AB-PA is NOT a “new theory” – AB-PA is diagnosis. The application of standard and established constructs and principles to a set of symptoms.  Diagnosis.

Attack 2: Returning Children to Abusive Parents

The second line of attack that the pathogen will level against Dorcy and me is that we are returning children to abusive parents – again, this is the same line of attack the pathogen used with Gardnerian PAS.

This line of attack will also fail.

First off, with regard to Dorcy, she does not diagnose.  Nor does she issue the court order for a protective separation.  So this line of attack is completely irrelevant to Dorcy.  But this pathology is delusional.  Truth and reality are not relevant to this pathology.

Every single targeted parent understands the pathogen’s use of wildly untrue false allegations.

The blatant falsehood of this line of attack relative to Dorcy is irelevant to pathogen – because the pathogen’s delusional.  Actual truth and actual reality are of no concern to the pathogen (and there is a reason for this).

In truth:  A mental health professional makes a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse regarding the parenting practices of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

In truth:  The judge who hears the evidence in the case is the one who makes the order for a protective separation because of the confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis made by a mental health professional of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.

Dorcy has nothing to do with this.  Dorcy does not make the diagnosis. Dorcy does not issue the court order.  Yet truth and reality are not relevant to the pathogen.  The only thing that is relevant to the pathogen is to stop Dorcy from restoring the normal-range functioning of these children’s attachment systems.

Yet listen for it – the line of attack by the pathogen will be that Dorcy returns children to an abusive parent, entirely disregarding the role of the mental health professional and the confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse made by the mental health professional AND the role of the judge in listening to the evidence in the case and issuing a court order – by the judge – based on the evidence presented in court.

This attack by the pathogen will also fail.

But the pathogen will not stop at Dorcy in this line of attack.  It will attack me personally as well, claiming that I am in favor of returning children to abusive parents.  And listen for this line of argument offered by the pathogen:  The reason I’m supposedly in favor of returning children to an abusive parent is because I endorse the High Road workshop of Dorcy Pruter for resolving the child’s attachment-related pathology of disordered mourning surrounding high-conflict divorce.

But wait, didn’t we just establish that it’s not Dorcy who makes any sort of diagnosis – it’s the involved mental health professional who makes the diagnosis?  And just to be clear, in the vast majority of these cases I’m not the involved mental health professional making the diagnosis.

And didn’t we just establish that it’s not Dorcy who issues the court orders for the protective separation from the psychologically abusive parent; it’s the judge. 

So what kind of convoluted and twisty line of reasoning is that?  Dorcy’s not responsible for the making the diagnosis and she is not responsible for issuing the court orders, but she’s somehow responsible for supposedly returning children to abusive parents… and I’m supposedly responsible for returning children to abusive parents because I say – correctly – that Dorcy’s workshop protocol will restore the normal-range functioning of children’s attachment systems.

With the pathogen, logic and reasoning swirl in confusion and inflammatory false allegations.  Truth and reality are irrelevant.

Notice that the pathogen won’t attack the mental health diagnosis.  Instead, it makes a false inflammatory allegation that Dr. Childress seeks to return children to an abusive parent – which, by the way, is exactly the same line of attack the pathogen used against Gardner and Gardnerian PAS.

Why These Attacks

The pathogen is simply trotting out it’s Gardnerian attacks and applying them to AB-PA, whether they are relevant or not.  Why?

Because the pathogen is stupid. 

The pathogen is incredibly dangerous.  The pathogen is incredibly manipulative.  But it is also stupid as sin.

The pathogen is comprised of a specific set of damaged information structures in the attachment system, and it has particular structures that shut down functioning in certain areas of the frontal lobe executive function system having to do with reasoning.  The brain infected by the pathogen (by this specific constellation of damaged information structures in the attachment system) can’t reason.

The pathogen shuts down brain systems associated with rational thought and reasoning – hence the delusional component of the pathology.  Truth and reality become malleable constructs in a brain infected with the pathogen (a specific trauma-created constellation of damaged information structures in the attachment system).

Instead, the pathogen attacks.  It hurls out a barrage of wild attacks, irrespective of reason or truth.  Then, whichever attack seems to stick, the pathogen will increase its focus on that line of attack.   That’s the “strategy” of the pathogen.  Wild attacks, place the other person on the defensive, and follow up with whatever line of attack seems to be productive.

I know this pathogen better than anyone on this planet.  I know exactly what it is.  I know its structure.  I see it.  And AB-PA is going expose it from behind its veil of concealment.

And then Dorcy is going to extract the pathogen of “disordered mourning” from the attachment system of the child, restoring the child’s attachment system to healthy normal-range functioning.  Once the High Road protocol extracts the pathogen from the child’s attachment networks (reorients a specific constellation of damaged information structures in the attachment system), then a capable and competent mental health professional will help stabilize the normal-range functioning of the child’s recovered attachment system.

Ta-da.  Solution.

The Pathogen is Afraid of Us

The pathogen sees Dorcy and me now.  It sees the threat we pose to it.  Watch, the attacks against Dorcy and me will begin to escalate – but they will be personal attacks not attacks on substance, because the pathogen can’t reason.

Nowhere in any of these attacks will the critique be directed toward the substance of AB-PA.  Notice that.  That will be very telling for identifying the allies of the pathogen who are seeking to maintain the pathogen’s hold on the child to meet their own needs.

I am totally okay, and indeed welcome, a substantive discussion of the foundations of the AB-PA model.

But that’s not the attack that will come from the pathogen.  The pathogen will ignore the substance of AB-PA (because the pathogen has shut down the reasoning systems of the brain), and instead the pathogen will:

1.)  Try to link AB-PA to Gardnerian PAS, and then trot out the same tired arguments it used to disable the threat posed by Gardnerian PAS (“new theory” – “peer-reviewed research” – “returning children to an abusive parent”)

That’s why I addressed each of these irrelevant lines of attack in the Flying Monkey Newsletters up on my website.  When these attacks come – these irrelevant Gardnerian-based attacks on AB-PA – I can simply refer to the edition of the Flying Monkey Newsletter that addresses that particular irrelevant attack.

2.)  Personal attacks.  With Dorcy, the attack will be that she doesn’t have a college degree and that she seeks to return children to abusive parents .  With me it will be that I am unethical and seek to return children to an abusive parent because I support Dorcy.

In these non-substantive personal attacks against Dorcy and me, listen for the splitting pathology of demonization in these attacks.  According to the pathogen, Dorcy and I are evil incarnate.  Listen for the demonization inherent to splitting pathology.

The pathogen is incredibly dangerous.  It will seek to destroy Dorcy and me, both professionally and personally.

The pathogen is incredibly manipulative.  It will trot out an array of flying monkey allies who will levy attacks of profound maliciousness.  But let me issue a cautionary word of warning to these flying monkey allies – there are libel laws.

Libel: A published false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation; a written defamation.

What you won’t hear from the allies of the pathogen are attacks based in the substance of AB-PA, because the pathogen is stupid as sin.  The pathogen’s structure shuts off cognitive reasoning systems of the brain. 

It is defenseless against AB-PA.

The three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA can identify the presence of the pathogen in the child’s attachment networks 100% of the time.

The three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA can differentiate this form of attachment-related pathology (disordered mourning) from all other forms of child pathology 100% of the time, including childhood trauma exposure and including authentic parent-child conflict caused by problematic parenting of the targeted parent.

The presence of the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA leads 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 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 is a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

What will be happening more and more is that mental health professionals will begin using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting and the Parenting Practices Rating Scale in their assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  And when the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA are present, these mental health professionals will make a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

We will have identified the pathogen.  Gotcha.

Then we begin the process of extracting the pathogen (the set of damaged information structures in the child’s attachment networks) that is creating the attachment-related pathology of pathological mourning:

“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)

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

The pathogen now sees Dorcy and me.  Dorcy and I represent a threat.  The pathogen is deathly afraid of us – and it should be. 

We’re coming for it.  We see it, we know what it is, and we are going to stop it from distorting children’s love for their authentically beloved parent into abhorrent symptoms of malicious hatred and rejection.  No more.  The nightmare tragedy of “parental alienation” stops.

Pathogenic parenting is not a child custody issue.  It is a child protection issue.

Children have the right to love both parents, and to receive the love of both parents in return.

The battle for you children is now.

Dorcy and I will stand squarely in the center of the battlefield, with firm resolve and unwavering commitment to your children, we will refute the false allegations and the slander hurled at us by the pathogen’s allies that is designed to destroy us personally in order to prevent our efforts to restore your children to you.  We are fighting for your authentic children and we will not give an inch of ground to the allies of the pathogen that seek to keep your beloved children from you.

You, the targeted parents, must continue moving forward as Dorcy and I hold the center of the battlefield.  Contact the APA (Arise).  Contact your state legislators (Arise).  Hold mental health professionals accountable for standards of professional competence (AB-PA Has Teeth).

The battle to recover your children is now, come together for each other.  You are all in this together.  We cannot solve this horrific pathology in any one case until we solve it for all families and all children.  Come together, work for each other, and become an unstoppable force for change.

AB-PA is your weapon.  AB-PA exposes the pathogen from its hiding.  Through the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA we can return your children to you.

The pathology of “parental alienation” is not a child custody issue, it is a child protection issue.

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

I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the amazing work of two parents, Howie Dennison and Susan Remus, for their work in fighting for children.

APA Advocacy

Howie is one among a group of capable advocate-parents who are leading the fight to have the pathology of “parental alienation” (AB-PA) acknowledged and addressed by the American Psychological Association.  This includes advocating with the APA for a change in their position statement on “parental alienation” (Position Statement on PAS), and for the APA to convene a high-level conference of experts in attachment theory, personality disorder pathology, family systems therapy, and childhood trauma, leading to a white paper on the issue of attachment-related pathology surrounding high-conflict divorce (“parental alienation”).

Howie has written a professionally well-referenced e-book that accurately chastises the American Psychological Association for not formally recognizing the pathology of “parental alienation.

The APA and the Mental Health Child Abuse Scandal:
Mental Health is Commonly Complicit in Child Abuse
The American Psychological Association (APA) Should Revise Its Policy

Remaining silent regarding child abuse is complicity in the abuse.

I found Howie’s work to be a well-reasoned and scathing critique of the APA’s complicity in the psychological abuse of children.  If “parental alienation” is recognized as a form of psychological child abuse – and Howie’s e-book highlights the many ways the APA and professional mental health has already acknowledged this to be true – then remaining silent on protecting children is complicity in the abuse of children.

I asked Howie to provide me with a statement regarding his advocacy efforts.

From Howie Dennison:

“Asking for changes from psychological organizations is critical.

The only reason why we suffered under the horrible APA parental alienation policy for the last 20 years is because we erased parents never hunted down the people at the APA in charge of the policy and asked for a change.

According to unofficial communication from the APA, they say they are now in the process of organizing a working group to examine it.  Please continue to reach out to the APA and the psychological organizations in your country/state/province and ask for greater awareness.  Friend me on Facebook if you want more information on where to write and what to write, and then PM me after I accept your request.”

Howie is not alone in this advocacy effort with the APA.  There is a collaborative team of amazing, focused, and intelligent parent-advocates who are making a difference.  Join them.  They need your voice with the APA.  It is time to bring the nightmare of “parental alienation” to an end.

Children have the right to love both parents, and children have the right to receive the love of both parents in return. 

The pathology of “parental alienation” is not a child custody issue, it is a child protection issue.

It is long past overdue for the APA to formally acknowledge that:

1.)  The family pathology of “parental alienation” exists, using whatever terminology the APA wants; cross-generational coalition, trauma reenactment pathology, “parental alienation” – whatever – just acknowledge it exists; and

2.)  To designate the children and families experiencing this attachment-related family pathology as representing a “special population” requiring specialized professional knowledge and expertise in the attachment system, personality disorder pathology, and family systems therapy to competently assess, diagnose, and treat.

Howie offers recommendations for targeted parents regarding media contact and he has compiled a list of APA contact information on a Facebook post:

            APA Contact Information

I would urge targeted parents to join with Howie and the team of collaborative parents working to change the APA response to the pathology of “parental alienation.” 

The APA cares – they really do.  They just don’t like the Gardnerian PAS model.  AB-PA offers them an alternative.  AB-PA meets the APA’s criteria for defining a pathology entirely within standard and established psychological principles and constructs.

The time is now.  The battle is now.  Join us on the battlefield.  You are not alone in this fight.

Florida Child Abuse Reporting Laws

Susan Remus has been doing some amazing political advocacy work in Florida to amend Florida’s child abuse reporting laws to:

1.)  Include specific instruction that child psychological abuse as diagnosed by a mental health professional (a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse) is reportable to child protective services under mandated reporting laws; and

2.)  That includes statutory reference to “pathogenic parenting” (producing severe psychopathology in the child through aberrant and distorted parenting practices) as representing a form of child psychological abuse.

Susan has succeeded in her efforts to have legislation written and sponsored for upcoming introduction into the Florida state legislature.  Yay, Susie!  An amazing achievement and a profound advancement in our fight to protect children – everyone’s children – from the deeply damaging psychological child abuse of “parental alienation.”

Susan consulted with me on the wording of the legislative amendment:

Legislative Proposal for Amending Child Abuse Reporting Laws

And at Susan’s request, I am currently in the process of sending the involved state representatives and state senators copies of my books, Foundations and The Narcissistic Parent along with a cover letter:

            Cover Letter to State Legislators

Life experience has taught me never to count chickens before they hatch, so I am abundantly cautious… but the legislative bill has been written and I am being assured by Susan that it is going to be submitted.

If  – WHEN – this legislation is submitted, Susan has invited me to come to Florida to attend the formal introduction of this important child protection legislation, and I would be delighted to be there (looking at the egg and hoping all goes well in its hatching).

The efforts of Susan in this regard are truly remarkable – but not extraordinary.  You can do exactly the same thing with your state representative – in Illinois, in Texas, in New York, in South Carolina, in…  Your legislators work for you.

I asked Susan if she’d like to provide a brief statement on legislative advocacy.

From Susan Remus:

“One day I was getting off the bus and happened upon my state senator’s office.  Before I knew it, I was in front of her sharing my story and talking about the devastation of parental alienation.

I have found informing legislators is effortless, and I use my sorrow in a useful way by telling them what they need to do.  Although my heart breaks, it also cares for the people who, if I did nothing, would go through the same thing all of us are.  I believe there is a future for our families, and by educating our legislators I know I am laying the foundation for helping my children and grandchildren.

Basically what I do is lobby or “schmooze.”  When a person says yes, I keep moving forward.  When another says no, the “no” gets the Amway treatment; “NEXT!”  

Last Friday my representative filed our bill to go into its first draft.”

Send a short and focused letter to your representative – if you get a positive response, you’ll be passed on to an aide.  Work with the aide.  Come together into a working group with other parents in your state, each pinging your own and each others’ representatives.

Having legislation introduced that amends child abuse reporting laws to specifically reference child psychological abuse would send a clear and distinct message to all mental health professionals – who are mandated child abuse reporters – that they should begin to assess for and diagnose the DSM-5 disorder of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.

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 is a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

Failure to properly assess for the attachment-related pathology of pathogenic parenting in ALL cases evidencing suppression of the child’s normal-range attachment bonding motivations toward a normal-range and affectionally available parent surrounding divorce (“pathological mourning”) likely represents a violation of Standard 9.01a of the APA ethics code that requires psychologists to base their diagnostic statements and forensic testimony on “information and techniques sufficient to substantiate their findings,” and likely represents a violation of the mental health professional’s “duty to protect.”

Legislation to amend child abuse reporting laws to specifically reference child psychological abuse as being reportable under State statutes represents a clear message to all mental health professionals regarding their professional obligations to protect all children from psychological child abuse.

Well Done

And so to Howie Dennison (and his collaborators), and to Susan Remus I say, well done.

Join them.  You have more power than you know.

Through Foundations, the AB-PA model provides you with the solid bedrock of established psychological principles and constructs on which to stand in advocating for your children.  Foundations is your weapon in your fight for your children, and you are the warriors fighting for your authentic children – all of your children.  Join together and become an unstoppable force for change.

Let the APA hear from you about your heartbreak and suffering.  Let the APA hear your voice, asking them for their help to end this family nightmare. 

Let your legislators hear your pleas to protect your beloved children from the cruel and distorting pathogenic parenting of your ex-spouse.

We will be relentless in fighting for your children – ALL of your children.  We will not stop until all of your beloved and authentic children – of all ages – even your now adult kids – are back in your arms.

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

(And grandparents, I hear you too.  First things first.)