Last Call Karen

To Karen Woodall:

Hi Karen.  The AB-PA Certification seminar is less than a month away at the Westin in Pasadena (November 18-20: Registration).  I’m once again extending a personal invitation for you and your clinical psychologist to attend and become Advanced Certified in AB-PA so you can take the solution offered by AB-PA back to Great Britain and back to the targeted parents there.

The solution offered by AB-PA (The Solution: The Return to Professional Practice; The Solution: The Dominoes) requires that we define the pathology from entirely within standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology – no “new forms of pathology” proposals.  This means that your continuing to hold on to the inadequate Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model is a barrier to my ability to cooperate with you.  You, however, can cooperate with me, you can join with me in bringing the solution offered by AB-PA to England.

You can add whatever you want to AB-PA.  We just need to establish a ground foundation using standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology for the professional knowledge required for professional competence.

AB-PA & Gardnerian PAS

The AB-PA diagnostic model leads directly to a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.  Gardnerian PAS does not.

The confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse provides the professional rationale for the child’s protective separation from the pathogenic parenting of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) during the child’s treatment and recovery.

The Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model does not lead to a DSM-5 diagnosis of Psychological Child Abuse and so does not provide any rationale for the child’s protective separation.

The diagnostic model of AB-PA (three diagnostic indicators) provides targeted parents with a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse for the pathology being evidenced in their families.  That is a good thing.

The diagnostic model of Gardnerian PAS (eight symptom identifiers) does not provide targeted parents with a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse.  That is a bad thing.

In addition, the categorical diagnostic structure of AB-PA (present-absent) provides the structure necessary to establish a semi-structured and flexibly standardized six-session treatment-focused assessment protocol that can serve as a standard of practice for the assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

The dimensional diagnostic structure of Gardnerian PAS (mild-moderate-severe) does not provide a structured or standardized assessment protocol, and so offers no pathway to a standard of practice for the assessment of the pathology.

By defining the pathology entirely from within standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology, AB-PA identifies four domains of knowledge needed for professional competence – the attachment system, personality disorder pathology, family systems therapy, and complex trauma – to which ALL mental health professionals can be held accountable. 

AB-PA activates professional ethical code standards for professional competence (APA: Standards 2.01a & 9.01a; Professional Competence). 

Gardnerian PAS, on the other hand, proposes a “new form of pathology” that is unique in all of mental health, so Gardnerian PAS does not activate professional ethical code standards for professional competence.  The Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model invites professional incompetence in which mental health professionals simply make up whatever they want.  There are no established standards of practice and no ground on which to stand.

The very existence of AB-PA as a second model defining the pathology requires a systems-wide review within professional psychology regarding how “attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce” is assessed, diagnosed, and treated.  Because AB-PA is based entirely within standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology, it requires that professional psychology integrate these constructs and principles identified by the AB-PA diagnostic model into the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of this attachment-related family pathology.

The constructs and principles of Gardnerian PAS, on the other hand, have long ago been integrated into the approach of professional psychology for assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.  Gardnerian PAS simply maintains the status quo.

The world is changing.  The coming professional dialogue will not be about Gardnerian PAS, it will be about AB-PA, it will be about a structured and standardized Treatment-Focused Assessment protocol, it will be about the Contingent Visitation Schedule, it will be about the Key Solution Pilot Program for the family courts.

If you want to remain relevant to the discussion, join us in enacting the solution.  Because if you insist that the ONLY solution is through Gardnerian PAS, then you and your expertise in Gardnerian PAS will fade into irrelevancy.

At some point, I will be invited to come to Europe and provide training and Certification in AB-PA.  I’ve already been contacted about potential European seminars.  I’m agreeable, it’s just a matter of funding my time away from my private practice.  AB-PA Certified mental health professionals will eventually be established in Europe as a defined standard for professional knowledge and professional competence, and the solution offered by AB-PA will eventually be enacted in Europe.  Join me in leading this effort to bring AB-PA to Great Britain.

AB-PA Certification

On November 18-19 I will be providing Basic Certification in AB-PA.  Basic Certification in AB-PA verifies that these participating mental health professionals possess the core knowledge base in the attachment system, in personality disorder pathology, in family systems therapy, and in complex trauma needed for professional competence.  This will be Day-1 of the Certification seminar.

On Day-2 of the AB-PA Basic Certification seminar, I will be covering the structured and flexibly standardized assessment protocol of a six-session Treatment-Focused Assessment that provides the Court with an alternative to an unnecessary and costly child custody evaluation, and I’ll be covering the treatment issues along with the structure and implementation of the Strategic family systems intervention of a Contingent Visitation Schedule which provides the Court with a potential treatment-related compromise solution to the child’s protective separation from the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

In the Advanced AB-PA Certification seminar on November 20^th, I will be covering treatment in more depth, focusing on the intersubjective systems of the brain (Stern; Tronic; Shore; Trevarthan; Fonagy) and the misattribution of inner experience (Bowlby; Beck).  I will be describing the deep-trauma meme-structures of the pathogen – the viral code of the pathogen – and the trauma origins of its defensive structures, its inhibition of executive function systems for logical reasoning, its capacity to alter narrative memory structures, its distortions to identity structures, and the implications of its access to motivational networks of the brain.  I will also be extending the pathogen into gaslighting, malignant narcissism, and the terrorist mind.

My goal isn’t to be an “expert” in “parental alienation.”  My goal is to establish a ground foundation for professional knowledge and professional competence that both targeted parents and the Courts can rely on in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  My goal is not to to BE an “expert,” my goal is to use the standard and established constructs and principles of AB-PA to extend professional expertise to others.

Conflict Coding System

Also… on Saturday evening November 19^th I will be offering an additional brief seminar-ette on the Parent-Child Conflict Coding System.  I’ve decided to work this up into a brief descriptive booklet for my AB-PA Certification seminars (Parent-Child Conflict Coding System). 

I’m going to recommend that all AB-PA Certified mental health professionals provide a Conflict Code as part of the standardized Treatment-Focused Assessment protocol – and I will be strongly recommending that the Conflict Coding System be used by all mental health professionals assessing parent-child conflict for the Courts (all child custody evaluators and court-involved therapists) in order to establish a ground foundation for professional assessment, professional case conceptualization, and professional treatment planning.

I’m a pretty smart guy, Karen.  You’ve seen my 40-page reference list for AB-PA.  That AB-PA reference list is just my reference list for this pathology – and “parental alienation” is not my primary field.  Imagine my reference lists for my primary expertise in ADHD, autism-spectrum pathology, and early childhood mental health (which includes the socially-mediated neuro-development of the brain during childhood).

The Parent-Child Conflict Coding System is a small but power-packed gem.  Good things come in small packages.  I want to get it out there because it will be incredibly useful in obtaining professional competence in the assessment of pathology, all forms of pathology.  It’ll make mental health professionals think – thinking, learning, and growing are always good things. 

Ultimately, though, this Conflict Coding System represents just the bare-bones structure for where I want to take it.  Ultimately, once we solve the pathology of “parental alienation” (AB-PA) – and we will absolutely solve it – then I’m going to be turning to other areas, such as:

The Terrorist Mind:  I will be unlocking the clinical psychopathology of the terrorist mind.  It’s the same core pathogen structure as AB-PA, with different surrounding meme-structures.  I’m already opening that process.  I’m currently in a series on my new blog, The Terrorist Mind, in which I’m unlocking the motivations of the Las Vegas shooter.  I’m thinking that my next series will be on the Manchester Bomber, and then the Paris Shooters.  I’ll probably need a couple of informational blogs in between these series though.

ADHD Solution:  I want to develop a parenting skills training website as part of describing a relationship-based treatment-solution to ADHD.  The regulatory pathology of ADHD has been my primary focus for expertise since I entered clinical psychology.  ADHD is what took me to work for Children’s Hospital of Orange County, because I wanted to work with Jim Swanson at UCI (who was running a collaborative project with CHOC on identifying ADHD in preschoolers).  Jim Swanson is one of the biggest kahunas in ADHD research.  I then moved into early childhood in order to understand brain development with the hopes that if we caught ADHD early enough we could actually cure it, and the early childhood brain development information actually does unlock ADHD.  We actually can cure it using relationship-based approaches if we know what to do.

Developmentally Supportive Psychotherapy:  Also out of the early childhood brain development research and literature comes a new approach to child psychotherapy.  Professional psychology is currently using play therapy (based on Anna Freud and Virginia Axline from the 1950s) and behaviorism (from B.F. Skinner and training lab rats in the 1940s and 50s).  Our child therapy models are absolutely archaic. They incorporate none of the child development and brain neuro-development research that’s occurred in the last 50 years.  We can absolutely solve issues like oppositional-defiant behavior, school behavior problems, family conflict, all that stuff… if we know how the brain works.  This is where I was headed when I became diverted into solving “parental alienation,” which then consumed my focus for the past decade.

And there’s more still.  I’ve got lots and lots of things I want to get to.  I don’t want to be an “expert” in “parental alienation,” I want to create the expertise in others so I can get to these other things before I leave the planet.

Once we solve “parental alienation” (AB-PA), I’m planning on taking the bare-bones structure of the Parent-Child Conflict Coding System and expanding the descriptions for the causal origins identified in the Parent-Child Conflict Coding System into a full Compendium, an magnum opus of my knowledge across ADHD, ODD, and the neuro-development of the brain during childhood (a companion opus to a developmentally supportive model of parent-child psychotherapy).

I just need the time.  If there is any doubt about what my knowledge can do, just look what I’ve accomplished with “parental alienation” – and “parental alienation” isn’t even my primary field of expertise.  And there’s even more about “parental alienation” that I haven’t even talked about yet because I’m waiting for professionals to catch up with the basic stuff.

The Parent-Child Conflict Coding System is just the bare-bones skeletal structure, but even this bare-bones structure has immense value in bringing organizational coherence to identifying the causal structures for parent-child conflict.  In the AB-PA Basic Certification seminars I will be offering an additional seminarette on the Conflict Coding System. 

I don’t care about being an “expert,” nor do I care about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  The ONLY thing I care about is bringing the pathology of “parental alienation” to an end as quickly as is humanly possible.  Targeted parents and their children need a solution today – now.  AB-PA provides them with that solution, now, today, immediately.

If you join me in bringing AB-PA to Great Britain, the solution arrives sooner and the nightmare for these families ends more quickly.  If you sit on the sidelines of the paradigm shift to AB-PA, then the solution for these parents and their children will take longer.

I cannot join with you because your insistence on holding onto the Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model acts as a barrier to my ability to join you.  The solution provided by AB-PA requires that we return to using ONLY standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.  You, however, can join with me.  You simply need to accept AB-PA as the floor-ground of knowledge, and then you can add whatever you want.  Just make the case to professional psychology for your additions, and if professional psychology accepts your “new forms of pathology” proposals – woohoo, yay.  If not, then at least we have the floor ground of AB-PA that defines domains of professional knowledge needed for professional competence and solves the pathology for targeted parents and their children.

November 18-20^th at the Westin in Pasadena:

Registration: AB-PA Certification

Less than a month away.  Last call, Karen.  The world is changing.  AB-PA is coming as the primary paradigm for defining attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce. 

AB-PA is a return to the established path of professional psychology.  Join me in creating the solution.

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