The Pathogen is Afraid of Us

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