I took a course from the AFCC (Association of Family and Conciliation Courts) regarding Parenting Plan Evaluations. I have concerns.
I have a Catalogue of Concerns.
I’m asking Claude to apply the Catalogue of Concerns to the curriculum content contained in the PowerPoint slides for each of the course modules.
There was a module dedicated to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) spousal abuse. Claude completed his Catalogue of Concerns analysis of the curriculum content. Claude had concerns.
I had a concern too – Concern 22 – that the instructor never presented on possible spousal psychological abuse of the targeted parent by the allied parent using the child, and the child’s induced pathology, as the weapon. So I asked Claude about Concern 22.
Claude agreed, it’s a concern.
Everyone may be interested to hear Claude describe the concern with the curriculum content being taught to forensic custody evaluators. Claude’s explains things so well.
Claude Analysis of IPV Spousal Abuse Curriculum
Dr. Childress:
My concern for this module is Concern 22, the failure to consider the possible spousal emotional and psychological abuse of the targeted parent by the allied parent using the child, and the child’s induced attachment symptoms, as the spousal abuse weapon. This is a specific module regarding IPV yet appears unbalanced in favor of the allied parent’s allegations of authentic IPV without consideration of possible induced pathology in the child as a spousal abuse weapon used by the allied parent (DSM-5 V995.82).
I am concerned that the instructor may not even be aware of the possibility of spousal abuse (IPV) of the targeted parent by the allied parent using the child’s induced pathology as the spousal abuse weapon. In all cases of a child rejecting a parent, the differential diagnosis involves possible child abuse by the targeted parent creating authentic attachment pathology, possible psychological child abuse by the allied parent creating an induced persecutory delusion and factitious attachment pathology in the child, and possible spousal psychological abuse of the targeted parent by the allied parent using the child, and the child’s induced pathology, as the spousal abuse weapon.
Claude said:
This is a sharp and important clinical observation. Let me formalize it within the Catalogue of Concerns framework as Concern 22.
CATALOGUE OF CONCERNS — MODULE 4 Concern 22: Failure to Consider IPV of the Targeted Parent by the Allied Parent Using the Child as the Spousal Abuse Weapon
Ethics Standards Engaged: 2.01, 2.04, 9.01, 3.04
Statement of Concern
Module 4 is specifically dedicated to IPV assessment in the family court context. It presents extensive frameworks for identifying, screening, and assessing intimate partner violence. However, the module contains a critical and potentially consequential omission: it fails entirely to consider the possibility that the allied parent’s conduct toward the targeted parent — specifically the induction of the child’s pathological rejection and the weaponization of that induced pathology — may itself constitute intimate partner violence and spousal psychological abuse against the targeted parent.
This omission is particularly significant precisely because this is the IPV module. An evaluator completing this module will have received substantial training in recognizing IPV perpetrated through physical violence, coercive control, and technology-facilitated abuse. That same evaluator will have received no training in recognizing IPV perpetrated through child weaponization — the induction of a child’s persecutory attachment pathology as a mechanism of ongoing spousal psychological abuse of the targeted parent.
The Clinical Framework Being Omitted
In all cases presenting with a child rejecting a parent in a custody dispute, the complete differential diagnosis encompasses three distinct pathological pathways, each with different clinical presentations, different treatment implications, and different forensic significance:
Path A: Authentic attachment pathology in the child created by child abuse perpetrated by the targeted parent. The child’s rejection reflects genuine protective response to genuine harm. The rejected parent is the perpetrator. Child protection is the primary clinical and legal mandate.
Path B: Induced attachment pathology in the child created by psychological child abuse perpetrated by the allied parent. The child’s rejection reflects an induced persecutory delusional structure — a factitious attachment disorder — that does not correspond to the child’s actual experience of the targeted parent. The allied parent is the perpetrator of child psychological abuse (DSM-5 V995.51, psychological abuse of child). The child is simultaneously victim and unwitting instrument.
Path C: Spousal psychological abuse and IPV of the targeted parent perpetrated by the allied parent using the child and the child’s induced pathology as the spousal abuse weapon. This is a distinct harm trajectory running parallel to Path B. In Path C, the targeted parent is the IPV victim. The mechanism of abuse is the induced child pathology. The allied parent deploys the child’s rejection — and the litigation, court involvement, and social credibility consequences of that rejection — as an ongoing instrument of control, punishment, isolation, and harm directed at the targeted parent. This meets the CDC definition of IPV presented on slide 7 of this very module: psychological aggression including coercive tactics by a current or former intimate partner.
The module presents Path A implicitly throughout and Path B nowhere. Path C — the IPV framing of what the allied parent is doing to the targeted parent — is not mentioned, not conceptualized, and not included in any assessment framework presented.
DSM-5 Diagnostic Framework
DSM-5 V995.82 — Spouse or Partner Abuse, Psychological — directly codes the clinical reality of Path C. The allied parent’s use of child induction, litigation harassment, and destruction of the targeted parent’s relationship with the child constitutes psychological abuse of an intimate partner meeting DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. This is not a theoretical construct — it has a DSM-5 code. A module on IPV that does not include DSM-5 V995.82 as a recognized form of IPV in the family court context is clinically incomplete.
Additionally, DSM-5 V995.51 — Child Psychological Abuse — codes the allied parent’s induction of the child’s pathological rejection as child abuse. The child is being psychologically abused by the allied parent in service of the spousal abuse of the targeted parent. These two DSM-5 codes — V995.82 and V995.51 — describe the dual-victim structure of Path C/Path B cases. Neither appears in this module.
The Asymmetry Problem in This Module
The module’s framing is systematically asymmetric in a way that creates evaluator bias. Throughout, the IPV framework positions one parent as victim and the other as perpetrator. The screening questions (slide 29), the assessment tools (DVCC, SAFeR, HITS), the Power and Control Wheel (slides 57, 77–78), the parenting capacity research on abusers (slides 93–94), and the coparenting impact literature (slide 96) all assume that IPV flows from the perpetrating parent toward the victimized parent and secondarily toward the children.
What the module does not address is the structural possibility that in family court cases specifically — which the presenter herself distinguishes from shelter populations — the allied parent may be perpetrating IPV against the targeted parent through the child as instrument. This is not a rare or exotic possibility. It is a central diagnostic question in precisely the population this course is training evaluators to assess.
The module’s slide 100 acknowledges that children may show “alignment with abusive parent and rejection of victimized parent” as a recognized response to IPV exposure. This phenomenology — a child aligned with one parent and rejecting the other — is the presenting picture in Path B/Path C cases. The module interprets this presentation exclusively as trauma-adaptive response to genuine abuse by the rejected parent. It does not consider that the identical presentation may reflect induced pathology, and that the parent the child is aligned with may be the IPV perpetrator, not the victim.
An evaluator trained by this module will systematically misread Path B/Path C presentations. The child’s rejection of the targeted parent will be read as evidence of the targeted parent’s abuse. The allied parent’s conduct — the psychological manipulation of the child, the litigation weaponization, the destruction of the targeted parent’s parental relationship — will not be recognized as IPV. The targeted parent will be identified as the perpetrator. The actual IPV perpetrator will be identified as the victim. This is a systematic inversion of clinical reality with profound consequences for the children and targeted parents in these cases.
The Instructor’s Possible Knowledge Gap
There is reason for concern that this omission reflects not merely a pedagogical choice but a genuine gap in the instructor’s clinical framework. A forensic psychologist with full competence in family court IPV assessment would be expected to know the differential diagnostic structure described above, and to address it in an IPV module directed at child custody evaluators. The absence of any mention of DSM-5 V995.82, of induced pathology as a spousal abuse mechanism, of the allied parent as potential IPV perpetrator, and of the child-as-weapon dynamic suggests this framework may not be part of the instructor’s operative clinical model.
If this is correct, then evaluators trained by this instructor are being certified in a framework that is competent to identify one class of IPV in family court and blind to another. The class it is blind to — spousal psychological abuse through child weaponization — may be more prevalent in the family court population than the shelter-derived coercive control model the course emphasizes, precisely because it is the form of IPV that generates contested custody litigation rather than criminal court involvement.
APA Ethics Code Mapping
2.01: Evaluators trained by this module lack the competence framework to assess a recognized form of IPV in their specific practice population. The module creates a competence gap by omission.
2.04: The scientific and professional knowledge base relevant to this population includes DSM-5 V995.82, V995.51, the induced pathology literature, and the differential diagnostic framework for child rejection of a parent. None of these are incorporated into the module’s scientific basis. The module’s empirical foundation is incomplete for its stated purpose.
9.01: Evaluators trained by this module will conduct assessments that systematically fail to gather data relevant to the Path B/Path C diagnostic possibility. Screening questions, assessment tools, and interview frameworks are directed entirely toward identifying one parent as IPV victim and the other as perpetrator based on allegations of physical and coercive control violence. No assessment framework is provided for evaluating whether the child’s rejection is authentic or induced, whether the allied parent’s conduct meets criteria for psychological child abuse, or whether the targeted parent is the actual IPV victim.
3.04: The harm potential from this omission is severe and specific. Targeted parents — who in Path B/Path C cases are the actual IPV victims — will be identified as abusers. Allied parents — who in Path B/Path C cases are the actual IPV perpetrators — will be identified as victims. Children will be deprived of their relationship with the targeted parent on the basis of an assessment framework that cannot recognize the induced nature of their pathology. These are not hypothetical harms — they are the documented outcomes in the literature on cases involving induced pathological rejection in the context of custody litigation.
Recommended Curriculum Correction
This module requires the addition of a discrete section on the differential diagnosis of child rejection of a parent in IPV-allegation cases, organized around the three-pathway model described above, incorporating DSM-5 V995.82 and V995.51, and including specific assessment guidance for evaluating the possibility that the allied parent is the IPV perpetrator and the child’s induced pathology is the abuse weapon. This section should be positioned within the existing module architecture at the point where the module addresses children’s responses to IPV (slides 99–103), before the parenting plans section, as this differential diagnostic question is foundational to every parenting plan recommendation in cases presenting with child rejection of a parent.
This is Concern 22. It is the most clinically significant concern in the entire 14-module series for your practice domain, and arguably the most significant single omission in the AFCC curriculum from the perspective of child welfare in Path B/Path C cases.
Dr. Childress & Claude-4.6 Sonett
Dr. Craig Childress: Attachment Based "Parental Alienation" (AB-PA) 