The AB-PA pilot program for the family courts will provide the Court with the highest caliber of professional knowledge and professional standards of practice. The highest caliber.
If any aspect of an attachment-based model of “parental alienation” is not at the highest caliber of professional knowledge and professional standards of practice, then I fully expect and invite professional critique and criticism.
When the Court turns to professional psychology for consultation, for assessment of pathology, and for treatment of pathology, it should expect and receive the highest caliber of professional knowledge and professional standards of practice.
If you are a mental health professional who will be seeking to work with the AB-PA pilot program for the family courts as this model begins to be replicated as a standard of practice in jurisdictions beyond Houston, you are expected to bring you’re A-game. Nothing less is acceptable.
AB-PA is a scaffolding of professional knowledge until we achieve the required standard of professional knowledge and professional standards of practice across all court-involved mental health professionals. We will start with AB-PA, but then AB-PA will gradually fade away, replaced by the actual knowledge from the actual source material within professional psychology, Bowlby, Minuchin, Beck, Bowen, Millon, Kernberg, Haley, Linehan, Haley, Perry, van der Kolk, Fonagy, Stern, Sroufe, Tronick, and all of the scientific literature surrounding the attachment system, narcissistic/borderline personality pathology, and complex trauma in childhood – will all be required reading for standards of professional practice.
Required reading: My 40-page reference list for AB-PA is online (Dr. Childress Personal Reference List). If you are a court-involved mental health professional working with attachment-related pathology, start with this reference list. Start with Bowlby regarding the attachment system and attachment pathology, expand to Minuchin, Bowen, and Haley regarding family systems pathology, and extend this into Beck, Millon, Kernberg, and Linehan regarding personality pathology. Then move into the research literature, particularly the research literature linking attachment pathology to personality disorder pathology.
If you are a mental health professional and this seems like a lot of work… then go away. You are not of the professional caliber required to provide services through the AB-PA pilot program for the family courts. AB-PA is a scaffolding of knowledge, it is not a replacement for knowledge.
John Houseman: The Paper Chase -1 – Be Prepared to Work
The days of tolerance for professional ignorance and incompetence are over. This is NOT about the comfort level of court-involved mental health professionals, this is NOT about the comfort level of the American Psychological Association, this is NOT about the comfort level of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts – this is about solving pathology, attachment-related family pathology surrounding divorce.
It is about providing the Court with the highest caliber of professional knowledge and professional standards of practice in psychological consultation, court-involved assessment of pathology, and court-involved treatment of pathology.
We have been led into, and have become mired in, profound professional ignorance and incompetence by the conceptually lazy and indolent construct of “parental alienation” and by the passivity and indolence of professional psychology generally surrounding court-involved mental health, and it will take some time for mental health professionals working within the AB-PA pilot program to catch up on their reading list. They have a lot to learn, and we need that knowledge today… right now.
AB-PA and the diagnostic workup of Foundations provide a scaffolding during this catching up period. The scaffolding diagnostic framework of AB-PA is not a replacement for the core knowledge, Bowlby, Minuchin, Beck, Bowen, Millon…
Once we have returned to standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology and professional standards of practice, then AB-PA as a construct will disappear into Bowlby, Minuchin, Beck and the scientifically established ground of professional psychology. There is no such thing as AB-PA, it is Bowlby, Minuchin, Beck, and the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.
Any mental health professional who claims that AB-PA is “new” or that AB-PA is “Dr. Childress’ work” is simply displaying their profound ignorance of actual constructs and principles in professional psychology; Bowlby, Minuchin, Beck. If they don’t know Bowlby, Minuchin, and Beck, then what I’m saying may sound “new” to them. AB-PA is not “new,” they’re just ignorant.
Bowlby, Minuchin, Beck.
Do you really want to display your ignorance to John Housman?
John Houseman: Paper Chase – 2 – Engaging the Material
Nothing about AB-PA is Dr. Childress. I am just a clinical psychologist. AB-PA is diagnosis. Foundations is a diagnostic treatise on the pathology, explaining the origins of three incredibly disparate, highly unusual and unlikely child symptoms by grounding the description of these symptoms into a full diagnostic treatise on the origins of these symptoms in attachment pathology, personality pathology, family systems pathology, and complex trauma.
None of these constructs are Dr. Childress, they are all fully established and scientifically supported domains of information (information sets) within professional psychology – Bowlby, Minuchin, Beck.
Because something is “new” to you does not make it new, it simply means you’re ignorant. Don’t be ignorant. Preventing the destruction of the lives of children, ending the psychological abuse of children, is depending on you NOT being ignorant.
No AB-PA Certified mental health professional is ignorant. On May 22, 23, and 24th I will be providing seminars in Houston to ensure that. We will then have monthly online clinical case consultation groups within the AB-PA pilot program for the family courts to provide additional application knowledge regarding the principles of standard and established constructs and principles.
Then… once this is completed,… then the work begins for the mental health professional. AB-PA is not the end… it’s the start of professional knowledge and professional competence. We will then build on this foundation to create the highest standard of professional knowledge and professional standard of practice.
Nothing less than the highest standards of professional knowledge and professional practice is acceptable. Because the children need this, because the court requires this, and because our moral compass as professionals compels this.
If you are a mental heath professional and you are not willing to acquire the knowledge, go away. Go work with some other form of pathology. Do NOT work with attachment-related family pathology surrounding divorce.
My 40-page reference list is on my website. If you are a mental health professional working with attachment-related family pathology surrounding divorce and have NOT read every book and article on that reference list… why not? You don’t think knowledge about pathology is necessary to solve pathology?
Paper Chase Scene – 3 – Professional Caliber Work
Dr. Childress: From a professional psychology perspective, we will start with the knowledge of the attachment system, then we’ll work our way into personality disorder pathology, then family systems therapy, and then complex trauma within the family.
If you are a mental health professional who does not want to learn this material. Go away. Go work with some other pathology. Do not work with attachment-related family pathology surrounding divorce. If you are a mental health professional who is lazy or indolent. Go away. Go work with some other pathology. I am stone-cold serious.
John Houseman Paper Chase – 4 – Here’s a Dime
Unfortunately, I could only find a poor quality YouTube for this scene, and it ends one sentence too soon.
Here is the complete dialogue:
Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.: Mr. Hart, here is a dime. Take it, call your mother, and tell her there is serious doubt about you ever becoming a lawyer.
James T. Hart: [pause, as he is leaving the room] You… are a son of a bitch, Kingsfield!
Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.: Mr. Hart! That is the most intelligent thing you’ve said today. You may take your seat.
If you are passive, go away. If you have fire, if you are willing to work, if excellence is the only caliber of professional practice acceptable to you, stay… learn.
Professional Standards of Practice
We are returning to the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology. In Houston Texas, the AB-PA pilot program for the family courts will establish a baseline of professional knowledge required and professional standards of practice expected in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of pathology.
The court has a right to expect the highest caliber of professional knowledge and standards of practice in consultation, court-involved professional assessment, and court-involved treatment of pathology.
Parents and children have the right to expect the highest caliber of professional knowledge and standards of practice in assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of child and family pathology.
Nothing less is acceptable.
Dr. Childress, you are a son of a bitch. That is the most intelligent thing I’ve heard so far. So let’s sit down and get to work, because there are kids and families whose lives are being destroyed, and who deserve and require the highest caliber of professional knowledge and standards of practice
Clinical Leadership
The AB-PA pilot program for the family courts uses a clinical treatment team model (because this represents the highest caliber of professional practice), and leading this clinical team in Houston is Jayna Haney, MS.
I am excited and immensely pleased that Jayna Haney, MS is providing this leadership for the clinical team of the AB-PA pilot program for the family courts. She is EXACTLY the type of high caliber professional who will bring solution. What the AB-PA pilot program for the family courts provides is the proper framework of establishment psychology from which to work.
Jayna Haney is Advanced Certified in AB-PA through three days of seminars she took with me last November, and he has also trained directly with Karen Woodall. I couldn’t imagine a better mental health professional to lead the clinical team in the AB-PA pilot program for the family courts.
Jayna Haney, MS is currently the clinical coordinator for the treatment team in Houston, and I am hopeful she will accept the position of Clinical Director for the AB-PA program for the Houston family court system once the structure for the pilot program is in place.
Jayna Haney is immensely smart and capable. She is fully aware of the pathology in its various presentations and displays. I am exceptionally pleased that she will be directing the clinical psychology team of the AB-PA pilot program.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857
Dr. Craig Childress: Attachment Based "Parental Alienation" (AB-PA) 