Professor van Helsing

I’m professor van Helsing,  you know, that vampire hunter guy… that’s me, PsyD trauma, child abuse. 

There’s three primary trauma pathogens, violence, sexual abuse incest, and neglect.  I know all three.  Only sexual abuse incest is a vampire, it feeds on the child’s soul.  The sexual abuse incest pathogen isn’t about sex, it’s about sadism, violence, a gratification from feeding, a gratification from the psychological violation and destruction of the child. 

The rippling of the generational transmission of the sex abuse incest pathogen was unknown… until recently.  It’s you. It’s your families. The “high-conflict” in your families is the generational rippling transmission of the sex abuse incest child abuse pathogen.  The abuse entered a generation or two earlier, and now the consequence of that incest is rippling through the generations, carried in deviant parenting practices of psychological violation and psychological “incest” (the allied parent with the child).

The violence trauma pathogen isn’t a vampire, it’s a large and frightening monster with claws and teeth, that savages the child.  But violence does not attack the soul.  To reach the child’s soul, the pathogen of violence must do a lot of damage before it reaches that level of the child.  The generational transmission ripple of the violence pathogen is in juvenile justice.  The violence abuse pathogen begets violence as its symptom.  We know where the generational ripple of violent child abuse is, its in the children of our juvenile justice system.

I hate the neglect pathogen, it’s the most destructive of the child. There is no generational transmission of the neglect pathogen because the neglect pathogen so fully destroys the child. This is the pathogen that flows through infant trauma, from drug addicted mothers. It also arose in Eastern European orphanages, and in some Asian adoptions.  I’ve also seen its generational ripple in families from Eastern Europe, the generational ripple of the Armenian genocide and Stalin’s atrocities – the neglect pathogen is the ripple of starvation.

There is also a great deal of unprocessed traumatic grief in Russia, rippling through the generations from Stalin.  The trauma in Russia is locked right now.  No access.

You remember those children who were rescued from the Romanian orphanages after the fall of the Soviet Union, and stories about how some of the kids out of these orphanages were adopted in the U.S., and how these kids had horrible and massive problems because of the neglect in the orphanage?  I’ve worked with those adoptive families.  I hate the neglect pathogen, it’s damage is so profound, and deviant… with only narrow widows for recovery, and only limited recovery.  

The neglect pathogen is hard to treat, and it’s also hard on the treatment provider.  Vicarious trauma, the trauma experienced by the treatment provider who is in the trauma world healing the child, is also higher with the neglect pathogen.  I hate the neglect pathogen.

When children report child abuse or are discovered and rescued, and everyone is happy, who do they send these traumatized children to for treatment and recovery from their abuse and trauma?  When the media leaves, and CPS leaves, and the schools leave, and everyone leaves, they’ve rescued the child. Who do they send these children to for treatment, for recovery from their trauma?

To me.  They came to my clinic, where we recovered children from the traumas of child abuse.  They were brought to me and to my team of professionals, and I would lead this treatment team in the recovery of these children from all forms of child abuse trauma.  When the children are rescued, they’re sent to me.  I’m Professor van Helsing, and I’m an expert in vampires and monsters.

I didn’t come here to help you, although that’s top on my agenda at the moment.  I’m hunting.

When a hunter is hunting, do they make a lot of noise so the prey knows it’s being hunted?

The predatory violence of the sex abuse incest monster, a vampire feeding on the child’s soul, has my precious little girl, right now, somewhere, and it’s isolating her, and she can’t talk, she can’t tell us, there is no rescue, no one is coming to rescue her.  Are you coming for her?  Are any of you trying to find and rescue that little girl from the horrific monster that is feeding on her soul.  No.  The bystander role.  She’s abandoned.

You’ll help her certainly… once she reports, once she somehow finds the courage and strength to break free of the pathogen’s psychological control and reports, you’ll help her then.  But what about now?  Are you looking for her, or waiting for her to free herself?  Have you ever tried to free yourself from the psychological control of a vampire?  She is abandoned.  She is alone.

So are you.  I know this pathogen. I’m van Helising, I hunting.  I’m looking for that little boy or girl being held by the vampire feeding on them. 

The sex abuse incest pathogen is abandonment.  The little boy, the little girl, is being abandoned to the feeding.  No one is rescuing the child.  No one is coming to find them. No one cares.

Sound familiar?  It’s your pathogen too.

I’m Professor van Helsing.  I operate the clinic where the children are sent when we rescue them from monsters and vampires, they send these children to me for healing, because I know the trauma and abuse pathogens, and I’m the best at healing them, extracting the trauma from the child.  But I don’t wait for my child to report, to have the tremendous courage it takes for a child to break free of control and report their abuse.  I don’t wait for us to rescue, I find.  I’m Professor van Helsing.  I hunt.

You know about professor van Helsing from the Dractula stories, but now, imagine if you didn’t know any of that stuff from the Dracula story, and you were actually in the story, so you’re in the village, and this malevolent vampire monster is feeding on you, feeding on the people of your village, and no one can make  it stop.

This vampire, you never see it, but it is savage.  You know its savagery.  It’s feeding on your village pretty brutally, and often.  Your whole village is essentially just the feeding stock for the malevolence of the vampire, ripping the souls of victims and  feeding on them.  This vampire, your vampire, doesn’t simply drain your life, it feeds on your soul.

And it’s pretty much having it’s way with your village, and your town constables and magistrates are totally powerless to protect you.  The vampire feeds at will; when and where it wants.  You all go to your local mayors and town leaders, and they’re at a loss too on how to stop the vampire.  The local doctors and professors are totally baffled too. They tell you to try various amulets, charms, and magic incantations, but none of these have any effect.

And, then, into your village comes an outsider, a stranger that no one knows much about.  But he seems to have a lot of knowledge about vampires and monsters. That’s lucky, isn’t it, that this stranger with a lot of knowledge about vampires shows up in your village.  He starts doing things, a lot of things. He’s very active. And sometimes, that stops the vampire. Sometimes, when the things the stranger is doing are used, they stop the feeding, here or there. But the feeding is so vast. 

The outsider seems very active, doing things, building things, writing incantations.

The local doctors and experts tell you not to listen to this outsider, that you shouldn’t trust him. They tell you to continue to use their amulets and incantations, the ones you have been using and that don’t stop the vampire’s feeding. 

But something’s different since this outsider came.  You can feel it.  The fog is less… dense.  There’s more sun coming through during the days, there seems to be more light reaching you.

And then the stranger reveals as van Helsing.  “It’s not an accident I’m here,” he says.  I’m hunting.

And van Helsing begins to tell you about the vampire that’s feeding on your village.  It is not just a vampire in your village, it is one of the supreme of the abuse pathogens, it’s the one who feeds on souls. This one is exceptionally vicious, and exceptionally good at hiding, at not being seen.

When I locate that girl or boy, my child, trapped in the feeding of the vampire, I stalk and hunt. This is long before disclosure. She can’t disclose. She can’t talk.  The vampire makes sure of that, it’s feeding on her, it must have its food.

The vampire isolates my child, my little boy, my little girl, it isolates them from rescue and quiets them into silence through fear and intimidation, through lies and manipulation, through love, twisted abusive love.  Through surrender.  It… seduces… my child into surrender to the feeding, not willingly… but surrender to control. My child can’t talk.  There is no rescue coming.  No one cares.  The child is abandoned.  The vampire has its food, and it feeds.

I’m van Helsing.  I hunt vampires.  I don’t wait.  I hunt.

I’m here hunting.  When we kill this thing here, this thing that is feeding on you and your children.  When it is dead… I’ll leave.  I’ll start hunting again.  Do you think a top tier-trauma expert is here by accident?  When a hunter is hunting, are they noisy or quiet?  I’ve been hunting.

When does the hunter stop being quiet?  When it kills its prey.

When I find my little girl, trapped by the malevolent abuse from her father, she hasn’t disclosed, she can’t disclose. She trapped, she’s isolated, she’s alone, without hope of rescue.  She has only one hope, if she can send a message to anyone looking for her, that’s she’s in trouble and needs us to rescue her.  Her signal has to be hidden, it can’t be obvious or the pathogen will see… and then it’s feeding becomes terrible.  It’s dangerous for my child to disclose, with the vampire so close, so powerful, and feeding.

It’s too dangerous for the child to disclose, that too hard.  The child needs us to come.

The child calls to me, my precious little girl, my boy.  They have “symptoms” that concern people.  A clinical psychologist is called by symptoms.   Most often the child has school symptoms, sometimes the child stops working entirely (extreme), sometimes my child becomes very angry and hostile (extreme). Sometimes the child becomes very depressed (extreme).  My little girl, my captive boy, screams for me to come, desperate for rescue, with their anger, depression, cutting, and suicide threats.  The moment I hear them, I’m there in an instant.  Finding the vampire feeding on my child.

When I find my child, my captive child, the pathogen in the malignant parent still has her, the monster, the vampire is still feeding on her soul.  She’s not strong enough (yet) to tell us, she needs support.  I’m van Helsing, I hunt vampires, I find ways of getting my child the support they need to tell us of their nightmare.  I hear you, I’m coming.  You are not alone, you are not abandoned.  I’m coming.

When I first find my child, it might be six weeks before I can construct the support for my child to report, probably to the mother, maybe to a teacher, maybe to an aunt or uncle.  Then, when the child finally has the support of strength needed to break free of the control, needed to tell us, to speak, I want to have everything in place to secure the forensic evidence – because I don’t want that vile monstrosity ever having anything to do with this little boy or girl ever again.  I need to make sure of that. I need to make sure the forensic evidence of the child’s reporting is secured.  And I want the child to tell us the story – once.  We will make that little girl or that little boy do this only once, so we need to be ready for them. 

I’m van Helsing.  I hunt vampires.

While I’m constructing the rescue, though, I’m meeting with the family for “therapy.” I’m not really doing therapy, not when there’s a vampire feeding on my child.  I’m hunting, I’m rescuing.  But I don’t want the monstrosity to know it’s being hunted, I don’t want it to flee, or to increase its hiding, or its control of the child.  I want the vampire, the foul malignancy of parent, to be relaxed as I stalk.

I’ll meet with with all three, and mother and father together, the child alone, the father alone… and the mother alone.  The mother is where I want to build support to the child to disclose.  The mother knows.  She’s just not protecting… she’s sacrificing.

When I meet with the child… I must be careful, I cannot elicit, but I can be available for disclosure. But the child can’t speak.  Not yet.  That little boy, or my precious little girl, has surrendered to the feeding and psychological control of the vampire.  And my child is afraid, so afraid of the vampire – no one sees the vampire – no one sees my child’s fear.

It’s what I construct in the individual sessions with the mother that I want to conceal from the pathogen’s sight, under the veil of “therapy.”  My sessions with the mother look like family sessions, after all, I’m meeting with everyone.  But this is where my focus of rescue is, with the mother.  I need to unlock the mother as the child’s protector, to give my child an avenue, a resource, to support. 

The mother cannot elicit, we protect the forensic evidence… and the mother also knows.  An invitation from the mother for the child’s disclosure will be received gladly by the child.

This pathogen hides. I hide too, from the pathogen, when I need to… when I’m hunting.

I’m not hiding anymore.  When the time comes, we act to rescue that little boy or girl from the malignancy of the pathogen.  That’s when the pathogen of the father knows exactly who I am.  I’m van Helsing, you’re a malignancy, and you’re going to jail – I hope for a very long time.  Your feeding on this sweet precious child is done.   

He thought we were doing family therapy.  He’s surprised.  No, I’m hunting.

I know, it looks like I’m Dr. Childress, doesn’t it?  I’ve been busy, haven’t I?  We have AB-PA and Foundations and new solutions… shhh, I’m stalking.

You know how van Helsing has all his stakes, and crosses, and holy water things to fight vampires.

Doesn’t it seem curious that there are all these double-bind knots sort of things emerging for all of your adversaries.  When people look back to analyze this, they’ll probably find about five of six of the double-bind knots.  There’s a few more, I can’t remember.

The really interesting one is the Escher paradox – you know, the hands drawing each other.  Diagnostic Indicator 3, the persecutory delusion, is the trauma symptom.  That’s the symptom that will have the pathogen diagnosing itself.

When we ask the pathogen to diagnose itself with Diagnostic Indicator 3 – to identify the trauma reenactment narrative – the brain that contains the trauma pathogen is being asked to gain sufficient distance and perspective from the trauma reenactment narrative to see the narrative structure.  Brains that do not contain this particular trauma pathogen will be able to do that. 

For brains with the trauma pathogen, but which are close to escape from their trauma narrative, the pressure applied by diagnosing Diagnostic Indicator 3 will pop them out of the trauma narrative as they gain psychological perspective and distance, and they will identify and diagnose the pathology.

But what happens in the brain of the mental health professional that contains the malignant trauma pathogen when it is asked to identify the trauma reenactment narrative, itself, by Diagnostic Indicator 3, the trauma symptom of the delusion?

Diagnostic Indicator 3 puts the pathogen-brain in a feedback loop with its defenses, with each cycling through the loop increasing the intensity of psychological defenses against awareness, until the defenses are either shattered and awareness dawns, or the defenses collapse into their most primitive – dissociation and denial.

Diagnostic Indicator 3 of AB-PA asks the pathogen-brain to diagnose the presence of the reenactment narrative.  The psychological defenses of the pathogen brain will not allow recognition of the reenactment narrative.  As this Escher loop cycles, the defenses against awareness and recognition will be amplified, until perception breaks from the pathogen’s domination, or the defenses collapse into dissociation and denial.

I wonder what will happen with the Escher paradox of Diagnostic Indicator 3?  Let’s find out.

I hunt vampires.  I found one.  I’m going to put a stake through it’s heart.  The stake is called… diagnosis.  I’m van Helsing, I hunt.  I rescue my little boy, I rescue my little girl.  The feeding on them stops, and their nightmare ends.

I’m van Helsing.  I hunt the vampires of child abuse and trauma.  You have one here.  But then… you knew that already, didn’t you.

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