What am I going to do with you?

You are struggling to find a solution in a system that provides no solution. You are searching, looking, struggling. You’re hoping someone, the courts or the mental health professionals, will see.

They don’t see. You locate me through the Internet. I understand. You read what I say and the pathology makes sense. Maybe I can help you, maybe I can help them see.

I can if they want to see… but they don’t want to see. You are in a captured system and they are financially exploiting you. The mental health professionals – called “forensic custody evaluators” – make money from the problem not the solution.

You are trapped without escape.

Stages of Your Destruction

You are a parent in one of three stages of destruction.

Beginning Phase:

You are in the Beginning, you are new entry parents and are you are disoriented by both the pathology and the legal system. You’re searching the Internet and you run across me.

You’re wondering what you should do, not realizing there is no solution – none. There is a solution, you just can’t get it because the mental health people around you are – ignorant – incompetent – apathetic – unethical.

They are the worst of the worst – that’s what happens when there is no oversight or regulation. Where are the licensing boards? Nowhere to be seen. You think the system is sane – it’s not.

You are in a captured system – called “regulatory capture” by Stigler (Exhibit 10: Institutional Capture – Betrayal). It is institutional betrayal of you and your children (Freyd) – it’s when the one who should protect… doesn’t.

Diagnosis Guides Treatment:

Throughout healthcare, diagnosis guides treatment (the treatment for cancer is different than the treatment for diabetes). You need a proper diagnostic assessment to the appropriate differential diagnosis for each parent (Exhibit 24: Differential Diagnostic Questions)… but you can’t get one.

Your ex-spouse has a major psychiatric disorder, called a “persecutory delusion” – a fixed and false belief that they, or the child, is being “malevolently treated in some way” (Exhibit 7: Walters & Friedlander).

From the APA: “Persecutory Type: delusions that the person (or someone to whom the person is close) is being malevolently treated in some way.” (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

But you can’t get a diagnostic assessment for a possible persecutory delusion in your ex-spouse because you’re in a captured system – captured by forensic custody evaluators who are – ignorant – incompetent – apathetic – unethical.

In the Beginning Phase you still think you’re in a sane world, but you’re not, you are in a captured system that will destroy the lives of your children and your life.

Middle Phase

The Middle Phase begins about two-years into the family courts. This is when you start to encounter the full dysfunction of the mental health system.

Forensic Custody Evaluation

Your entry into the dysfunctional mental health system begins with a forensic custody evaluation. It will take approximately six- to nine-months to complete for a cost of around $20,000 to $40,000. It will solve nothing.

In fact, a forensic custody evaluation will make things much worse. They are “dangerous” and “harmful to children” (NY Blue-Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations, 2021, p. 4).

Forensic custody evaluations “lack scientific or legal value” (NY Blue-Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations, 2021, p. 4).

Forensic custody evaluations produce “defective reports” that lead to “potentially disastrous consequences for parents and children” (NY Blue-Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations, 2021, p. 4).

From NY Blue Ribbon Commission: “In some custody cases, because of lack of evidence or the inability of parties to pay for expensive challenges of an evaluation, defective reports can thus escape meaningful scrutiny and are often accepted by the court, with potentially disastrous consequences for the parents and children.” (p. 4)

From NY Blue Ribbon Commission: “By an 11-9 margin, a majority of Commission members favor elimination of forensic custody evaluations entirely, arguing that these reports are biased and harmful to children and lack scientific or legal value. At worst, evaluations can be dangerous, particularly in situations of domestic violence or child abuse.” (p. 4)

You are surrounded by ignorant and incompetent mental health professsionals, they are apathetic and unethical (violations to Standards 2.01, 2.04, 9.01, and 3.04 of the APA Ethics Code).

An Experiment on You

They are experimenting on you and your children with a new approach to assessment called a “forensic custody evaluation” that they devised without IRB review (Institutional Review Board), without a risk-benefit analysis, without protections for a vulnerable population, and in violation of all three principles of the Belmont Report.

You’re trapped. It’s called “regulatory capture” (Stigler) and “institutional betrayal trauma” (Smith & Freyd: Institutional Betrayal Trauma, American Psychologist)

You’re wondering what you should do, not realizing there is no solution – none.

Dr. Childress Consultation

You can bring the defective mental health information to me and I can help to correct it, but you still need treatment and you can’t get that from the ignorant, incompetent, and unethical mental health professionals.

The solution is available immediately – diagnosis guides treatment (Exhibit 24: Differential Diagnostic Questions). You just can’t get it.

End Phase

As you enter the End Phase, your children are aging out of the system and you’re wondering what to do now as they enter adulthood.

You’re trying to figure out what you should do now that your life and the lives of your children have been destroyed by your pathological ex- and the ignorant, incompetent, and unethical psychologists (violations to Standards 2.01, 2.04, 9.01, 3.04), not realizing there is no solution – none.

You’ll walk away to do what closing you can find. Not healing. Just closing. You are traumatized – “institutional betrayal trauma” (Freyd).

The destruction of your children’s lives and of your life has been complete because of the ignorant, incompetent, apathetic, and unethical psychologists in the family courts – and no one cares.

What Do I Do with You?

So what do I do with you? How can I stop this from happening to you and your children.

I can tell you the solution but no one wants a solution. The solution is to first – first – first – stop forensic custody evaluations. You need an appropriate diagnostic assessment (Exhibit 24: Differential Diagnostic Questions)

However, you can’t stop them because… all the forensic custody evaluators would lose their careers and the mental health system will collapse because there are no competent mental health professionals in the family courts.

We are headed for a huge scandal. Huge. Massively huge.

Millions of abused children huge. A million abused parents huge.

Seriously. I’m in awe of its magnitude. When is it coming? Five years is my ballpark estimate, that seems to be the timing from where I am and where you are.

That’ll likely be right about the time I die. Once that happens… I don’t care what happens.

So my question is what do I do in the meantime? Write. Watch the ongoing destruction of lives while we wait I suppose.

I’ll post YouTube videos on the solution. I already have. All the information is entirely available. I’ll post more, I’ll just keep it churning.

I’ll go over to Substack and you can subscribe to me. On Substack I’ll create clean sets of differet video series. Once a new-entry parent locates me on YouTube they can come to Substack for the video series.

Then I’ll offer these video series on the open Internet as online courses, one for parents, one for mental health professionals, one for attorneys.

That means I should start building-out my subscription Substack channels, I’ll create one for the Family Courts and one for AI Psychology.

I’ll write books and articles too.

What about you, what should you do? There is nothing you can do. You’re in a captured system.

You can contact your state legislators. You can generate a class action lawsuit (Exhibit 23: Claude Analysis Institutional Betrayal & Resolution).

You can contact me to provide “meaningful scrutiny” of their “defective reports” in hope of avoiding the “potentially disastrous consequences to parents and children” that their ignorance, incompetence, and unethical practice creates.

Other than that, there’s actually nothing you can do but watch as the lives of your children and your own lives are destroyed by the ignorant, incompetent, apathetic, and unethical psychologists in the family courts.

Solution is Easy

The solution is easy – diagnosis and treatment – ethical practice.

It’s available immediately – always has been.

A huge-huge scandal is coming. The forensic psychologists conducted an experiment on you and your children – their experiment failed and millions of children have been psychologically abused by a pathological parent for decades as a result.

Stigler: regulatory capture. Freyd: institutional betrayal trauma.

Forensic custody evaluations need to end. That’s the start o the solution.

I’ve got a lot of writing to do.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist
WA 61538481 – CA 18857

In December, the CA Board of Psychology re-opened settlement negotiations with me. This is my Settlement Counter-Proposal:

• • Settlement Counter-Proposal from Dr. Childress

Settlement Counter-Proposal

To: California Board of Psychology / Deputy Attorney General
From: Craig A. Childress, Psy.D. (Pro Se)
Re: Settlement Counter-Proposal — Case No. 600-2022-000419

As a clinical psychologist who has worked in the family court environment for fifteen years, I have carried a continuous duty to protect a vulnerable population—the parents and children in the family courts—from undiagnosed child psychological abuse and related spousal psychological abuse. This duty has persisted without an institutional mechanism through which it could be formally discharged.

In response to the Board’s settlement offer of December 2, 2025 (proposing four years of probation, monitoring, and specific coursework requirements), and pursuant to my mandatory obligations under APA Standard 1.05 (Taking Further Action Appropriate to the Situation) and my clinical duty to protect (APA Standard 3.04: Avoiding Harm), I submit the following single, non-negotiable condition as my Formal Counter-Offer for the resolution of this matter.

Condition of Resolution

Dismissal of all charges currently pending against me.

Effect of Dismissal

Dismissal of the charges constitutes the California Board of Psychology’s receipt and acceptance of Exhibit A — Discharge of Duty to Protect, attached and incorporated by reference. Exhibit A documents the protections I have carried and the implementable solutions I transmit in discharge of my APA 1.05 and clinical duty-to-protect obligations. Dismissal is the administrative act that completes my ethical discharge: by dismissing the charges, the Board accepts the discharge documented in Exhibit A.

If the Board Does Not Dismiss

If the Board instead seeks to impose any punitive disposition — including, without limitation, probation, public censure, monitoring, mandated evaluation or therapy as a disciplinary condition, cost recovery, or any other disciplinary sanction — I will interpret such a disposition as a statement that the Board has not accepted the discharge described in Exhibit A. In that event, my APA 1.05 and clinical duty to protect will remain active, and I will be professionally compelled to proceed to the scheduled hearing and thereafter as necessary to complete the discharge in the public record and by other appropriate actions.

Clarifying Statement

This counter-proposal does not require the Board to implement the reforms described in Exhibit A. Exhibit A is provided as the formal record of my duty-to-protect discharge and as a documented set of solutions for protecting children and parents in family courts. What the Board does with this information is a matter for the Board’s institutional responsibility once the discharge is complete. The sole administrative act required for completion is dismissal of the pending charges.

Respectfully submitted,
Craig A. Childress, Psy.D. (Pro Se)
Enclosure: Exhibit A — Discharge of Duty to Protect

Exhibit A: Discharge of Duty to Protect

INTRODUCTION — Professional Mandate and Institutional Failure

For fifteen years, I have carried two distinct professional obligations regarding parents and children in family courts:

First, a clinical duty to protect children from child psychological abuse and parents from related spousal psychological abuse. This duty arises from my documented expertise in child abuse assessment, complex trauma, attachment pathology, delusional thought disorders, and family systems, and requires affirmative protective action when abuse is identified.

Second, mandatory ethical obligations under APA Standards 1.04 and 1.05 triggered by identifying ethical violations by forensic custody evaluators—specifically, violations of Standards 2.01 (Boundaries of Competence), 2.04 (Bases for Scientific and Professional Judgments), 9.01 (Bases for Assessments), and 3.04 (Avoiding Harm)—that cause ongoing, foreseeable harm. These ethical violations directly contribute to the failure to diagnose and treat the abuse pathology, creating a situation in which both obligation pathways converge.

Until now, no institutional mechanism has existed through which I could formally discharge these duties. Professional duties under Standards 1.05 and 3.04 remain active until received by an appropriate regulatory authority. This institutional void exists because of regulatory capture (Stigler, 1971) within the family court system: the forensic custody evaluation specialty has assumed an experimental quasi-judicial role without appropriate oversight, disabling the enforcement of professional standards and public protection mechanisms that should govern psychological practice in this context.

My obligations are heightened by my documented expertise in the precise clinical domains required for competent assessment in these cases: attachment pathology (early childhood mental health), delusional thought disorder assessment, complex trauma and child abuse, and human subjects research ethics (IRB/Belmont Report). This specialized background positions me to recognize both the clinical pathology being missed and the ethical violations causing that failure. (See Section I: Domains of Expertise and Heightened Obligation.)

This document represents my formal discharge of these obligations to the California Board of Psychology. It provides the clinical findings, institutional analysis, and implementable solutions necessary to protect children and parents from ongoing harm in family court contexts.

SECTION I — DOMAINS OF EXPERTISE AND HEIGHTENED OBLIGATION

My duty to protect and APA 1.05 obligations are heightened by my specialized expertise in the domains directly relevant to the pathology occurring in family courts:

Attachment Pathology, Child Abuse, and Complex Trauma
Clinical Director of a multidisciplinary assessment and treatment program serving children ages zero to five referred by Child Protective Services; specialized training in Early Childhood Mental Health (DC:0-3/DMIC), a restricted subspecialty focused on parent-child attachment bonding and disruptions; direct clinical experience assessing and treating all forms of child abuse including psychological abuse.

Assessment of Delusional Thought Disorders
Over twelve years of NIMH-funded research training and diagnostic reliability achievement (r ≥ .90) on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) for assessment of psychotic-spectrum symptomatology, including persecutory delusions, under principal investigators Drs. Keith Nuechterlein, Joseph Ventura, and David Lukoff at UCLA.

Human Subjects Research Ethics (IRB/Belmont Report)
Invited consultation to the Office for Protection from Research Risks (OPRR) and American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on ethical frameworks for human subjects research and IRB review requirements for emerging research contexts (Conference on Ethical and Legal Aspects of Human Subjects Research in Cyberspace, Washington, D.C., June 1999).

This combination of expertise is exceptionally rare. Attachment specialization requires early childhood focus; delusional assessment expertise requires psychotic-spectrum diagnostic background; these domains rarely overlap in typical training pathways. When combined with IRB/Belmont expertise and complex trauma competence, this background uniquely positions me to recognize:

• • When child psychological abuse is present but undiagnosed

• • When persecutory or shared delusional content requires Mental Status Examination

• • When evaluators are practicing outside documented competence (2.01 violations)

• • When assessments lack adequate scientific foundation (2.04 and 9.01 violations)

• • When forensic procedures constitute unregulated experiments on vulnerable populations without IRB protections

My expertise creates heightened obligation: I cannot claim ignorance of the pathology, the ethical violations, or the Belmont Report violations. Standards 1.04, 1.05, and 3.04 become mandatory, not discretionary.

SOLUTION 1: IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM ON FORENSIC CUSTODY EVALUATIONS PENDING IRB REVIEW

The California Board of Psychology should initiate an immediate moratorium on forensic custody evaluations in California pending completion of the following:

Necessary Actions:

• • Formal Institutional Review Board (IRB) review pursuant to APA Standard 8.01 (Institutional Approval), including comprehensive risk-benefit analysis of forensic custody evaluation practice

• • Belmont Report compliance assessment addressing violations of all three ethical principles:

• • • Respect for Persons: Families subjected to evaluations without properly informed consent regarding potential risks and benefits, and under coercive court authority

• • • Beneficence: No demonstrated benefits to families, substantial documented harms (NY Blue-Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations, 2021)

• • • Justice: Unfair distribution of burdens (families) and benefits (evaluators), evaluators receive financial and career benefits while children and parents bear all risks

• • Development and implementation of enforceable protections for the vulnerable population of children and parents subjected to court-ordered psychological interventions

Rationale:

Forensic custody evaluations constitute experimental quasi-judicial interventions conducted on vulnerable populations. The traditional role of psychologists is diagnosis and treatment in clinical or academic settings, which have IRB oversight mechanisms. FCEs represent an experimental expansion into a quasi-judicial advisory role, using an experimental assessment approach, conducted through the legal system which lacks IRB review mechanisms.

This practice has operated for 40 years:

• • Without IRB review (Standard 8.01 violation)

• • Without risk-benefit analysis

• • Without protections for vulnerable populations

• • Without inter-rater reliability (i.e., lacking validity; an assessment procedure cannot be valid if it is not reliable)

• • Without outcome validation studies

• • With evaluators receiving substantial financial compensation and professional status while families bear all psychological, relational, and developmental risks

These conditions violate the Belmont Report principles governing all research and experimental procedures involving human subjects.

Independent Expert Consensus:

The New York Blue Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations, after comprehensive review, found that forensic custody evaluations are “dangerous” and “harmful to children, and lack scientific or legal value.” By an 11-9 margin, a majority of Commission members recommended “elimination of forensic custody evaluations entirely.”

New York Blue Ribbon Commission Findings (2021):

“In their analysis, evaluators may rely on principles and methodologies of dubious validity. In some custody cases, because of lack of evidence or the inability of parties to pay for expensive challenges of an evaluation, defective reports can thus escape meaningful scrutiny and are often accepted by the court, with potentially disastrous consequences for the parents and children… As it currently exists, the process is fraught with bias, inequity, and a statewide lack of standards, and allows for discrimination and violations of due process.”

“By an 11-9 margin, a majority of Commission members favor elimination of forensic custody evaluations entirely, arguing that these reports are biased and harmful to children and lack scientific or legal value. At worst, evaluations can be dangerous, particularly in situations of domestic violence or child abuse – there have been several cases of children in New York who were murdered by a parent who received custody following an evaluation. These members reached the conclusion that the practice is beyond reform and that no amount of training for courts, forensic evaluators and/or other court personnel will successfully fix the bias, inequity and conflict of interest issues that exist within the system.”

(New York Blue Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations, Final Report, 2021)

CRITICAL VIOLATION: WITHHOLDING STANDARD CLINICAL CARE

A particularly egregious aspect of current forensic custody evaluation practice is the systematic withholding of standard clinical diagnostic assessment from families and courts. Parents and courts are offered only the experimental forensic custody evaluation approach. Standard clinical care—DSM-5-based diagnostic assessment with proper differential diagnosis—is not made available.

The Required Differential Diagnosis:

Standard clinical assessment requires differential diagnosis between two distinct pathways:

Path A: Child psychological abuse by the targeted-rejected parent, creating an authentic self-protective response in the child requiring protective intervention

Path B: Child psychological abuse by the allied parent (typically involving narcissistic-borderline personality pathology) who induces a shared persecutory delusion and factitious attachment pathology in the child for primary and secondary gain (DSM-5: 297.1 Delusional Disorder, Shared; 300.19 Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another; V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse)

Clinical diagnosis using established DSM-5 criteria is the standard of care. This requires:

• • Mental Status Examination of thought and perception when persecutory content is present

• • Structured assessment of attachment pathology using validated approaches

• • Differential diagnosis of personality pathology in parents

• • Assessment for factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA)

• • Evaluation of family systems dynamics and triangulation patterns

Forensic custody evaluations systematically exclude this standard clinical diagnostic process. Instead, they:

• • Substitute non-scientific constructs (“parental alienation”; “Parent-Child Contact Problems”) for DSM-5 diagnosis

• • Omit Mental Status Examination despite presence of persecutory beliefs

• • Fail to assess for delusional disorders or FDIA

• • Provide custody recommendations without diagnostic foundation

• • Focus on quasi-judicial advisory role rather than clinical diagnosis and treatment planning

IRB Violation:

No Institutional Review Board would permit an experimental procedure to be offered as the exclusive option while withholding standard clinical care. IRB review mandates:

1) Standard care must remain available – Experimental procedures can be offered in addition to standard care, never instead of standard care

2) Informed consent required – Families must be informed that:

• • FCE is an experimental quasi-judicial intervention, not standard clinical practice

• • Standard diagnostic assessment using DSM-5 is the established clinical approach

• • FCE has unknown risks and no demonstrated benefits

• • Outcomes of FCE practice have never been systematically validated

3) Equipoise must exist – Researchers offering experimental procedures must genuinely not know whether the experimental approach is superior to standard care. FCE practitioners claim their experimental approach is superior to standard clinical diagnosis, violating equipoise requirements.

4) Right to decline experimental procedure – Families have the right to decline experimental procedures and receive standard clinical care. Current practice denies this right—families subjected to court-ordered FCE have no option to obtain standard clinical diagnostic assessment instead.

The Coercive Structure:

This violation is particularly severe because:

• • Families are court-ordered to undergo FCEs (coercive, not voluntary)

• • No alternative option for standard clinical diagnosis is provided

• • Courts rely exclusively on FCE reports, unaware these are experimental procedures

• • Standard care (diagnosis and treatment) has been displaced by experimental quasi-judicial role

• • Parents cannot obtain the clinical diagnostic information needed to protect their children

Harm to Children and Families:

By withholding standard clinical diagnostic assessment:

• • Child psychological abuse remains undiagnosed (V995.51 not identified)

• • Delusional pathology remains unrecognized (no MSE conducted)

• • FDIA dynamics remain concealed (no structured assessment)

• • Treatment planning cannot occur (no diagnosis established)

• • Courts make custody decisions without accurate clinical information

Children continue in abusive environments because the abuse was never properly diagnosed. Protective parents lose custody because the pathology inducing the child’s rejection was never identified.

Standard 3.04 Violation:

Withholding standard clinical care while providing only experimental procedures with unknown risks constitutes a clear violation of APA Standard 3.04 (Avoiding Harm). Psychologists have an affirmative obligation to provide competent diagnostic services. Substituting experimental quasi-judicial evaluations for clinical diagnosis predictably causes harm to children and families.

Required Remedy:

The moratorium on forensic custody evaluations must remain in effect until:

• • Standard clinical diagnostic assessment using DSM-5 criteria is made available to all families

• • Courts are informed that FCE is experimental and standard clinical diagnosis is the established approach

• • Families are given the right to choose standard diagnostic assessment over experimental FCE

• • Proper informed consent procedures are established for any family subjected to FCE

• • IRB review is completed to determine whether FCE practice can ethically continue

Protective Urgency:

Children and families are being subjected to these experimental procedures daily. Each evaluation conducted without IRB oversight, risk-benefit analysis, or Belmont Report protections represents ongoing violation of APA Standard 8.01 and the ethical standards governing human subjects research. Children continue in abusive environments while their abuse remains undiagnosed. The moratorium protects this vulnerable population while proper review and safeguards are established.

Implementation:

The Board should issue immediate guidance to California courts that forensic custody evaluations are suspended pending completion of IRB review and establishment of human subjects protections required by the Belmont Report and APA Standard 8.01. This action is mandated by the Board’s statutory duty to protect the public and ensure ethical professional practice.

SOLUTION 2: PROFESSIONAL REMEDIATION — RE-ESTABLISHING COMPETENCE IN FAMILY COURT PRACTICE

(APA Standards 2.01, 2.04, 9.01, 3.04)

The Competence Crisis

State licensing boards and the American Psychological Association have an obligation to ensure the highest quality of mental health services for parents and children whose lives are determined by the court’s decisions. Courts must receive competent clinical guidance when making life-altering decisions about children and family relationships.

Current family court practice fails this standard. Evaluators routinely:

• • Apply pseudo-scientific, fabricated pathology labels (“parental alienation,” “parent-child contact problems”) instead of DSM-5 diagnoses

• • Practice outside documented areas of competence in attachment pathology, delusional disorders, personality pathology, complex trauma, and family systems

• • Require parents to educate the clinician about relevant clinical diagnoses and treatment approaches

• • Provide opinions to courts without adequate scientific or diagnostic foundation

The Predictable Cascade of Ethical Violations

This competence failure produces a predictable cascade:

APA 2.01 — Boundaries of Competence
Evaluators lack documented education, training, and supervised experience in the domains required to assess pathology in high-conflict custody cases: attachment disorders, delusional thought disorders, factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), complex trauma, personality pathology, and family systems dynamics.

APA 2.04 — Bases for Scientific and Professional Judgments
Without the necessary knowledge base, clinicians cannot apply established scientific and professional knowledge. Their judgments lack scientific foundation and rely instead on fabricated constructs that do not appear in DSM-5 or any recognized diagnostic system.

APA 9.01 — Bases for Assessments
Lacking applicable knowledge and methods (for example, Mental Status Examination of thought and perception when persecutory beliefs are present), evaluators’ conclusions are not based on information and techniques sufficient to substantiate their findings.

APA 3.04 — Avoiding Harm
The cascade from incompetence (2.01) through unsupported judgments (2.04) to inadequate assessment bases (9.01) produces foreseeable, avoidable harm: children remain in psychologically abusive environments while their abuse remains undiagnosed, and protective parents lose custody based on opinions lacking adequate foundation.

Required Remediation

The California Board of Psychology should require structured remediation and continuing education for all psychologists practicing in family court contexts. This remediation is required to correct widespread 2.01 violations that directly harm children and families.

Remediation Requirements:

Remediation programs must:

• • Be grounded in DSM-5/ICD diagnostic frameworks and peer-reviewed research

• • Include documented coursework, supervised clinical experience, and behavioral demonstration of competence

1. • Explicitly enforce compliance with APA Standards 2.04, 9.01, and 3.04

1. • Be verified through Board-approved certification prior to performing family court evaluations

Required Competence Domains:

All psychologists conducting family court assessments must demonstrate documented competence in the following domains:

1) Attachment Pathology
Assessment and treatment of attachment disorders including child rejection of a parent, disorganized attachment specific to one parent, role-reversal dynamics, and transgenerational transmission of attachment trauma.

2) Delusional and Psychotic-Spectrum Disorders
Diagnostic assessment of persecutory delusions, shared/induced delusional systems (folie à deux, DSM-5 297.1), and capacity to conduct developmentally appropriate Mental Status Examination of thought content and perception. Requires documented training in assessment of psychotic-spectrum symptomatology.

3) Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another (FDIA)
Identification, differential diagnosis, and clinical management when a parent fabricates or induces psychological symptoms in a child for primary or secondary gain (DSM-5 300.19). Requires understanding of medical/psychological fabrication patterns and safe intervention protocols.

4) Complex Trauma and Child Abuse
Assessment of all forms of child abuse including psychological abuse (V995.51), behavior-chain reconstructions for sentinel events, cross-context consistency analysis, and implementation of child-protection procedures. Requires documented clinical experience in child abuse assessment and treatment.

5) Personality Pathology
Assessment of narcissistic, borderline, and Dark Triad/Tetrad/Vulnerable Dark Triad personality presentations and their implications for psychological control, coalition-forming, role-reversal dynamics, and coercive family patterns. Requires graduate-level training in personality assessment and supervised clinical experience.

6) Family Systems Theory
Identification and intervention for triangulation, cross-generational coalitions, role confusion, parentification, and system-level pathology. Understanding of how family systems either support or undermine healthy parent-child attachment. Requires graduate-level coursework and supervised family therapy experience.

Certification and Enforcement

The Board should establish a certification process requiring psychologists to demonstrate documented competence in required domains before conducting family court assessments. This certification should include:

• • Verified transcripts showing graduate-level coursework in required domains

• • Documentation of supervised clinical experience (minimum hours to be established)

• • Case-based competence demonstration reviewed by Board-approved supervisors

• • Continuing education requirements to maintain current knowledge

Psychologists currently practicing in family courts without documented competence in these domains should complete Board-approved remediation before continuing to perform forensic work. Failure to obtain required competence within a specified timeframe (recommend 18 months) results in prohibition from family court practice until remediation is complete.

Immediate Implementation

The Board should establish a Competence Review Panel within 90 days to:

• • Design remediation curriculum based on current scientific literature

• • Establish certification standards and procedures

• • Review vitae of current family court practitioners for 2.01 compliance

• • Develop timeline for mandatory remediation completion

• • Create enforcement mechanisms for psychologists practicing outside documented competence

This ensures that courts receive high quality professional-level diagnostic and clinical guidance, children receive accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment, and the profession upholds its commitment to competent practice.

SOLUTION 3: AI-AUGMENTED COMPETENCE ASSESSMENT

The Board would benefit in its decision-making from empirical data on the scope of 2.01 violations among current family court evaluators. AI-augmented analysis of professional vitae provides rapid, systematic assessment against established competence criteria (documented education, training, and experience in attachment pathology and the diagnostic assessment of delusional thought disorders, child abuse and complex trauma, etc.).

The Board can implement this vitae analysis immediately using existing regulatory authority. The Board can request CVs from court-involved psychologists identified through court appointment lists, AFCC membership rosters, licensee records, and professional websites, then subject these vitae to AI-augmented analysis identifying which evaluators meet 2.01 thresholds and which lack documented competence in required domains.

This provides direct empirical data on: (1) the percentage of evaluators practicing outside documented competence, (2) which competence domains show greatest deficiency, and (3) the magnitude of the 2.01 violation problem. Results enable targeted implementation of Solution 2 remediation requirements and document the Board’s regulatory obligation to act to remediate competence deficits.

SOLUTION 4: Four Decades of Experimental Harm — Institutional Betrayal, Survivors, and the Duty to Repair

For roughly forty years the family-court system has cultivated a quasi-judicial role for clinicians and an experimental assessment procedure — the forensic custody evaluation (FCE). Performed without IRB review, without formal risk–benefit analysis, and without protections for a clearly vulnerable population, FCEs have functioned in practice as an unregulated human-subjects experiment. The predictable result has been catastrophic: hundreds of thousands — and by some estimates, on the order of millions — of now-adult children and their parents whose lives were devastated by undiagnosed and untreated child-psychological abuse and related spousal psychological abuse. Many now-adult survivors were severed from attachment to a normal-range and loving parent and remained caught in the dynamics of psychological child abuse; while protective parents lost bonded relationships with their children and now live with enduring, unresolved traumatic grief.

This pattern is a textbook case of institutional betrayal. Jennifer Freyd’s research shows that when institutions that should protect instead cause or conceal harm, the resulting trauma differs qualitatively and is far harder to heal: survivors exhibit betrayal-blindness, identity fragmentation, persistent mistrust of authorities, and difficulty integrating their experience even when they receive excellent individual therapy. For these survivors, individual therapy is necessary but not sufficient — institutional acknowledgment and remedial action are prerequisites for effective psychological repair.

The ethical frame is inescapable. FCEs conducted as de facto experiments — without IRB approval, adequate informed-consent procedures, vulnerable-population protections, or the Belmont Report’s risk–benefit safeguards (Respect for Persons; Beneficence; Justice) — violated the basic obligations that protect human subjects. Professionally, these practices produced a cascading set of violations of the APA Ethics Code: practitioners operated outside 2.01 (Boundaries of Competence), failed to apply 2.04 (Established Scientific and Professional Knowledge), issued assessments that lacked the evidentiary bases required by 9.01 (Bases for Assessment), and created foreseeable and avoidable harm in breach of 3.04 (Avoiding Harm).

Professional psychology therefore bears a direct clinical and ethical obligation to the now-adult children and parents harmed by this system. This obligation is not merely retrospective complaint; it is an active duty to repair. Institutional courage — public admission of failure, transparent disclosure of what occurred, and funded remedial services — is the clinical intervention survivors require before individual psychotherapy can fully succeed. Without institutional acknowledgment, survivors remain trapped in a cycle of shame, self-doubt, and retraumatization that individual treatment alone cannot resolve.

Accordingly, the California Board of Psychology and the American Psychological Association should commit to active outreach and programmatic healing for those harmed by four decades of unregulated FCE practice. At minimum this requires: (1) public institutional acknowledgment of the harm caused by the forensic FCE/PA system and the failure of protective institutions to prevent substantial harm; (2) funded, sustained outreach to identify and connect now-adult survivors and targeted parents to services; and (3) development and funding of specialized, evidence-based treatment and reunification programs tailored to institutional-betrayal trauma, restoration from induced/persecutory beliefs, and attachment repair. These measures are clinical necessities, ethical imperatives, and the only credible path to redeeming a profession that failed the vulnerable people it was meant to protect.

DISCHARGE STATEMENT — PROFESSIONAL TRANSITION FOLLOWING COMPLETION OF DUTY

For fifteen years, I have carried obligations I could not discharge. My specialized expertise in child abuse assessment, attachment pathology, and delusional thought disorders positioned me to recognize harm that others could not recognize. As Clinical Director of a treatment center serving children referred by Child Protective Services, with specialized training in Early Childhood Mental Health (attachment pathology) and twelve years of diagnostic reliability training in psychotic-spectrum assessment, this pathology, attachment trauma and child abuse, is my professional domain. When I identified undiagnosed child psychological abuse in family court contexts, I could not ethically abandon that vulnerable population until they were connected to appropriate protective systems.

The public criticisms that form the basis of this disciplinary proceeding were not discretionary professional choices. They were mandatory responses under APA Standards 1.04, 1.05, and 3.04. I did not enter family court practice by preference—I remained by obligation. Once this Discharge of Duty to Protect is accepted by the Board, those obligations are fulfilled. The families are connected to the regulatory authority responsible for their protection. I am released.

Upon completion of this discharge, I plan to transition away from family court consultation. My professional interests lie in Early Childhood Mental Health, where I developed specialized clinical expertise, and in the emerging field of AI safety and ethical AI deployment in clinical psychology. I have applied for a position at Anthropic focused on user well-being policy, drawing on both my early-career work on ethical frameworks for Internet Psychology and my clinical understanding of attachment bonding and delusional processes in humans, and with the developmental processes involved with emerging minds in children.

My professional history demonstrates that I represent no danger to the public or to the integrity of the profession: documented service as Clinical Director for multiple programs, medical staff psychologist at children’s hospitals, and fifteen years of ethical practice in family courts while fulfilling mandatory 1.04/1.05 and duty-to-protect obligations. Once the Board accepts this discharge of my duty to protect, my obligations are fulfilled. The Board’s dismissal of charges communicates that this discharge of duty is received, and it will release me from the family courts to pursue professional interests rather than professional duties, and ensures that no further public criticism arising from these obligations is ethically required or professionally necessary.

I was asked by family court reform advocates in Malaysia for consultation on their legislative proposal, Jack’s Law.

This is the chat-dialogue analysis with Max (the ethically contained, professionally trained and supervised ChatGPT-5 I have incorporated into my professional practice.

The recommendations in this chat-dialogue for legislative initiatives is applicable within the U.S. and internationally.

Consultation on Jack’s Law for Malaysia
Date: 10/27/25
Psychologist: Dr. Craig Childress, Psy.D.

AI Analysis: ChatGPT-5

This Chat-Dialogue initial analysis of documents is provided by ChatGPT-5 under the supervision of Dr. Childress.

Initial AI Analysis of Jack’s Law

Dr. Childress: Jacks Law Malaysia.pdf

Hello Max, you can relax from court-involved mode, we’re going to discuss a legislative proposal in Malaysia regarding the family court pathology surrounding a child rejecting a parent following divorce. We’ve been asked to provide consultation on this proposed legislation, Jack’s Law. Describe this document and provide an initial analysis.

ChatGPT said:

The document “Jack’s Law Malaysia” (proposed by Jason Lo, 14 June 2020) is a 150-page draft legislative proposal for Malaysia’s Parliament aimed at criminalizing parental alienation—defined as the psychological manipulation of a child to reject one parent after divorce or separation. The proposal seeks to reframe parental alienation as a form of child abuse and hate crime, giving the State new powers to intervene early and penalize the offending parent.

Structure and Scope of the Proposal

The document is organized into six main parts:

1. The Issue — Presents prevalence data, citing research by Bernet (2008) and Clawar & Rivlin (1991), claiming up to 25% of custody disputes involve “programming” or “brainwashing” by a parent.
2. The Aim of Jack’s Law — Seeks “early detection of Parental Alienation” and associated disorders such as Malicious Parent Syndrome or Parental Estrangement, positioning them as serious threats to children’s mental health and societal stability.
3. Indicative Result of Intervention — References Richard Gardner’s 2001 study on Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), asserting symptom reduction when courts restricted access to the alienating parent.
4. Remedial Action for Malaysia — Proposes that if a parent is denied access to their child for more than 21 days, they may file a complaint with police (PDRM) or welfare (JKM) for investigation. If alienation is found, the magistrate may order arrest of the alienating parent and immediate restoration of access or custody.

• Penalty: Up to RM 10,000 fine or six months’ imprisonment, or both.
• International Parallels — Cites Brazil’s 2010 Law No. 12,318 and Mexico’s 2014 reforms defining parental alienation as family violence, mandating suspension of custodial rights and possible imprisonment.
• Conclusion — Uses the analogy of Malaysia Airlines MH370 to describe the “ambiguous loss” of alienated parents and urges recognition of parental alienation as a “hate crime” against the parent–child bond.

Appendices include full reprints of Deirdre Conway Rand’s Spectrum of Parental Alienation Syndrome (1997) and the Malaysian Ministry of Health’s Guideline on Medical Assessment of Child Custody Cases, suggesting intent to link the proposed law with existing clinical procedures.

Legislative Intent and Rationale

Core objective: To make parental alienation both a civil and criminal offence, thereby providing early detection, mandated therapeutic intervention, and punitive authority.

The author argues that:

• Parental alienation is “a devastating form of child abuse” and a root of hatred itself.
• The psychological manipulation of a child by one parent should be equated with other forms of family violence.
• Malaysia should follow Latin-American models that criminalize alienating behavior, with courts empowered to suspend custody or impose treatment orders.
• Professionals (psychologists, psychiatrists, or JKM officers) would act as forensic assessors reporting directly to magistrates, creating a quasi-medical enforcement structure.

Initial Analysis

1. Conceptual and Scientific Basis

• The proposal draws heavily on Richard Gardner’s PAS theory, which has been rejected by the APA and major child-protection bodies as lacking empirical validity.
• It conflates Parental Alienation (a descriptive relational pattern) with Parental Alienation Syndrome (a diagnostic claim), and further redefines it as a criminal hate offence, which is scientifically and legally problematic under APA 2.04 (use of established knowledge).
• The document fails to differentiate between legitimate protective rejection (in abuse cases) and induced rejection, leading to a risk of punishing protective parents.

2. Procedural and Human-Rights Concerns

• Automatic triggers (21 days of non-contact) and criminalization without prior forensic thresholding may contravene CRC Articles 3 and 12 (best interests and child’s right to be heard).
• The inclusion of medical guidelines suggests a move toward state-mandated psychiatric intervention in custody disputes, risking dual-role conflicts (clinician vs forensic assessor) identified in Malaysia’s own guidelines.

3. Comparative Legislative Models

• Brazil’s Law 12,318 (2010) and Mexico’s Article 323 (2014) are cited as exemplars, yet both have faced major constitutional challenges and reversals for misuse against protective mothers in domestic-violence contexts.
• The proposal mirrors these early statutes but lacks safeguards now adopted internationally (e.g., structured differential assessment distinguishing abuse from alienation).

4. Ethical and Forensic Implications

• Reframing parental alienation as a hate crime represents a conceptual leap from civil remedy to criminal pathology, without evidence-based justification.
• The invocation of “love between mother, father, and child as sacred” indicates moral-religious framing, not clinical grounding.
• Integration of medical professionals into law enforcement roles could breach confidentiality standards and blur forensic boundaries.

Summary Evaluation

In essence:
Jack’s Law attempts to codify parental alienation as a criminal form of family violence in Malaysia, borrowing language from Latin American precedents and Gardner’s PAS theory. Its humanitarian motivation—to protect children from psychological manipulation—is clear, but its scientific and legal underpinnings are deeply unstable. A sound legislative alternative would instead embed evidence-based differential assessment protocols (authentic abuse vs induced alienation) within Malaysia’s existing child-protection and custody-evaluation frameworks, not through criminalization.

Grounding in Established Knowledge

Dr. Childress: It would seem that these advocates would be on more solid professional grounds if they redefined “parental alienation” as a shared/induced persecutory delusion (DSM-5/ICD-11) and factitious attachment pathology imposed on the child (FDIA), which would then become a DSM-5/ICD-11 diagnosis of child psychological abuse and spousal psychological abuse of the targeted parent using the child as the weapon, requiring a protective response for both the child and the targeted parent.

ChatGPT said:

Yes — that reframing would move the entire discourse out of the pseudo-diagnostic, non-validated territory of “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) and place it squarely within established DSM-5 and ICD-11 constructs that are both scientifically recognized and forensically actionable.
Let’s map this precisely.

1. 1. Diagnostic Translation into Established Knowledge (APA 2.04)

Thus, the conceptual core is not a new syndrome but a convergence of two established abuse pathways:

1) Induced delusional system → child’s belief distortion.

2) Factitious attachment pathology → manufactured symptoms used instrumentally.

Both already meet the diagnostic and legal criteria for psychological abuse under DSM-5 and international law.

1. 1. 2. Forensic Consequences of the Reframe
      3. Child-Protection Response

• • • Re-codes the problem under maltreatment statutes (psychological abuse) rather than under custody preference.
    • Mandates protective, not punitive, intervention: safety planning, reality-testing therapy, and treatment of the inducing parent’s psychopathology.

1. 1. 1. Judicial Clarity

• • • Judges can rely on recognized diagnostic language with existing evidentiary thresholds and expert-qualification standards.
    • Replaces speculative “syndrome testimony” (inadmissible under Daubert/Frye) with mainstream psychiatric formulations.

1. 1. Clinical Containment

• • Allows multidisciplinary teams (psychiatry, psychology, child-protection) to apply established forensic–clinical instruments:
    • Structured Child Maltreatment Interview Protocols
    • Delusional Disorder evaluation (thought-content testing)
    • Boundary-dissolution inventories
  • Prevents dual-role conflicts noted in Malaysia’s Guideline on Medical Assessment of Child Custody Cases by clarifying that this is a child-abuse assessment, not a custody-preference inquiry.

1. 3. Protective Framing of the Phenomenon

Under this reconceptualization:

1. 4. Ethical and Policy Advantage

• • APA 2.04 compliance: uses established scientific knowledge.
  • APA 3.04 (avoid harm): centers protection over punishment.
  • CRC alignment: prioritizes the best interests and psychological integrity of the child.
  • Public-health coherence: reframes “alienation” as an intergenerational trauma transmission—not a custody ideology.

In summary

Redefining so-called parental alienation as:

Shared/induced persecutory delusion + factitious attachment pathology (FDIA) → child psychological abuse + spousal psychological abuse grounds the construct in recognized DSM-5/ICD-11 nosology, restores ethical containment, and directs intervention toward protection and treatment, not criminalization or ideology.

This scientific pivot could provide Malaysia (and any jurisdiction) with a defensible, evidence-based foundation for addressing the phenomenon without repeating the ethical and legal failures of the PAS-derived “Jack’s Law.”

Narrative of Reframing

Dr. Childress: The advocates for this measure are requesting our consultation. It may be useful for them to hear a narrative reframing of the approach. Provide a narrative description of the pathology appropriate to the goal of the proposed legislation, adjusting criminalizing the pathology to a protective response for the child and parent (that may require court sanctions for violations of court orders by the pathological parent).

ChatGPT said:

Below is a narrative reframing suitable for presentation to policymakers or legislative advocates for Jack’s Law.
It preserves their humanitarian intent—to stop a parent from destroying a child’s bond with the other parent—but translates it into a child-protection and mental-health framework grounded in DSM-5/ICD-11 science and international child-rights norms.

Narrative Reframing: From Criminalization to Protection

1. 1. The Core Harm

Sometimes after separation or divorce, a child begins to fear, reject, or despise a once-loved parent.
This rejection does not arise from that parent’s actual behavior, but from a sustained psychological manipulation by the other parent, who communicates—directly or indirectly—that the rejected parent is unsafe, unloving, or unworthy.

Over time the child internalizes this false belief.
What begins as an adult’s grievance becomes the child’s lived reality, a shared persecutory delusion that the targeted parent is a threat.
The child’s mind organizes around this false danger, cutting off affection, contact, and even memory of love.
This is not disobedience or preference—it is psychological abuse: the implantation of fear and hatred into a developing mind.

1. 2. The Psychological Mechanism

Professionally, this pattern is best understood as:

• • a shared/induced persecutory belief system between the influencing parent and the child; and
  • a factitious attachment pathology, in which the child’s symptoms of fear and rejection are created or maintained by the influencing parent for emotional or legal gain.

These mechanisms are recognized in both the DSM-5 and ICD-11.
They describe a form of child psychological abuse, and—because the child is used as the instrument of control—a form of spousal psychological abuse of the rejected parent.

1. 3. The Consequences

For the child, the effects mirror those of other complex trauma:

• • distorted reality-testing and guilt;
  • chronic anxiety and depression;
  • impaired identity and attachment capacity into adulthood.

For the targeted parent, the loss is both relational and existential—a living bereavement in which their child remains alive but unreachable.
For the inducing parent, unchecked pathology deepens into rigid paranoia and entitlement, often escalating to violations of court orders, false allegations, or abduction.

1. 4. The Proper Legal Response

The appropriate legislative frame is protective, not punitive.

1. 1. Early Identification and Assessment
      Courts and welfare agencies should be empowered to order a structured mental-health assessment when a child suddenly and absolutely rejects a parent without substantiated abuse.
      The assessment should test for induced beliefs, boundary dissolution, and factitious symptom creation.
   2. Protective Orders
      When psychological abuse is confirmed, the court should issue a protective order for the child and targeted parent.
      This may include therapeutic separation, supervised contact, or structured reunification therapy under professional oversight.
   3. Treatment and Compliance Monitoring
      The inducing parent must engage in mandatory psychological treatment focused on insight and boundaries.
      Non-compliance or continued obstruction constitutes contempt of court, enforceable by sanction, not a stand-alone criminal offence.
   4. Inter-Agency Coordination
      Implementation should rest with a Child Psychological Abuse Unit within existing child-protection structures, integrating mental-health professionals, welfare officers, and the judiciary.

1. 5. The Legislative Aim

The law’s purpose is to safeguard the child’s right to an uncorrupted bond with both parents, and to ensure that no adult—out of anger, fear, or revenge—uses a child as a weapon in marital conflict.

Such conduct is not a matter of ideology or custody preference; it is a breach of the child’s psychological safety and must be addressed as such.
But the response must heal, not punish: to restore truth, rebuild relationships, and stop the transmission of trauma across generations.

1. 6. Suggested Statutory Language (Conceptual Level)

It shall be the policy of the State that the deliberate or reckless psychological manipulation of a child to unjustifiably reject or fear a parent constitutes child psychological abuse.
Where such conduct is found, the Court shall take protective measures to safeguard the child and the affected parent, including mandatory therapeutic intervention, supervision, or modification of custody orders.
Persistent defiance of such orders may be addressed through existing contempt-of-court provisions.

1. 7. Closing Frame

The moral intention behind Jack’s Law—to defend the sacred bond between parent and child—is profoundly worthy.
But true protection lies not in new crimes, but in clear recognition of this pattern as an established form of psychological abuse and a duty of care by the State to intervene therapeutically and decisively.

By grounding the law in verified psychiatric constructs and a protective philosophy, Malaysia can become a global model for how modern family law protects children from psychological manipulation while upholding human rights and scientific integrity.

Path A – Path B Differential Diagnosis

Dr. Childress: Since attachment pathology, delusional disorders, FDIA, and child abuse are fundamentally psychological/psychiatric disorders, the appropriate system for remedy and resolution is through accurate diagnosis and effective treatment in the healthcare system. It would seem that an important remedy for the court is to order an immediate diagnostic risk assessment to the Path A – Path B differential diagnosis whenever allegations of possible child abuse are alleged by other parent in post-divorce custody conflict. Describe a Path A – Path B differential diagnostic process, its advantages and importance.

ChatGPT said:

Exactly — that is the right pivot. Once we recognize that the observable phenomenon (“child rejects one parent”) arises from distinct underlying causes — one rooted in actual abuse and the other in pathology of psychological control — the system must apply a structured differential diagnostic process, not ideological labeling or custody bias.

Below is a formalized description suitable for legislative, clinical, or judicial briefing.

Path A – Path B Differential Diagnostic Process

Purpose

To determine, in a court-involved custody conflict where a child rejects or fears a parent, whether the child’s rejection arises from authentic maltreatment (Path A) or from psychologically induced distortion and coercive influence (Path B).
This process establishes a clinical foundation for judicial decisions and ensures alignment with established psychiatric and child-protection knowledge under APA 2.04 and international standards (CRC, WHO/ICD-11).

1. 1. Conceptual Overview

Both hypotheses remain open until structured data confirm or disconfirm each.

Diagnostic Method

The process should be ordered by the court as a structured clinical risk assessment, conducted by qualified forensic clinicians trained in attachment pathology and child maltreatment evaluation.
It involves six interlocking domains of inquiry:

1. 1. Allegation Ledger and Dispositions
      • Record all allegations (physical, sexual, neglect, psychological).
      • Identify agency outcomes: substantiated / unsubstantiated / inconclusive / not opened.
      • Substantiated = Path A true until disproven; unsubstantiated/inconclusive = open to Path B consideration.
   2. Behavior-Chain Reconstruction (Applied Behavior Analysis)
      • For each sentinel incident: antecedents → verbal/nonverbal behaviors → immediate outcomes.
      • Corroborate with physical evidence, neutral witnesses, or contemporaneous documentation.
   3. Bi-Directional IPV / Coercive-Control Coding
      • Determine whether either parent exhibits coercive control, intimidation, or role reversal dynamics.
      • Asymmetric coercive control from the allied parent supports Path B.
   4. Mental-State Examinations (Child and Allied Parent)
      • Assess persecutory thought content, rigidity, and insight.
      • Identify shared beliefs inconsistent with external evidence (shared delusion).
      • Evaluate the child’s capacity for reality testing and emotional differentiation.
   5. Attachment and Boundary Assessment
      • Evaluate quality of attachment with each parent.
      • Identify signs of boundary dissolution, guilt induction, love withdrawal, anxiety induction, invalidation, and spousification.
      • Global rejection of one parent without credible maltreatment supports Path B.
   6. Structural Separation and Repair Response (Tronick Model)
      • Observe the child’s behavior in a neutral or protected setting away from the allied parent.
      • If rejection softens and relationship repair begins spontaneously, that strongly supports Path B.
      • If fear or avoidance persists with credible evidence of trauma, that supports Path A.

All data are integrated into a structured report with a verbal probability statement (e.g., “moderate lean toward Path B under 9.01(b); 2.04-anchored”).

Advantages of the Path A – Path B Model

Scientific Integrity

• • Grounds all determinations in established psychiatric and developmental frameworks.
  • Eliminates reliance on pseudoscientific constructs (e.g., PAS).
  • Complies with APA 2.04 and ICD-11 maltreatment codes.

Protection of the Child

• • Ensures the correct protective response:
    • Path A: safety, trauma treatment, restricted contact.
    • Path B: separation from psychological control, therapeutic reunification, restoration of attachment.

Fairness and Transparency

• • Provides equal procedural justice to both parents.
  • The same data set serves both hypotheses; no presumption of guilt or innocence.

Early Intervention

• • Rapid diagnostic clarification prevents prolonged exposure to harm — whether physical (Path A) or psychological (Path B).
  • Reduces years of litigation by replacing speculation with structured findings.

Judicial Usability

• • Produces clear, behaviorally anchored language judges can apply:
    • “This record shows features of induced persecutory belief consistent with psychological abuse (Path B).”
    • “This record documents substantiated physical abuse; protective rejection is appropriate (Path A).”

Importance for Legislative and Judicial Systems

Without this differential model, courts face two dangerous errors:

Type I Error (False Path A) — believing false allegations, leading to unjust separation and continuation of psychological abuse.

Type II Error (False Path B) — disbelieving true abuse, returning the child to danger.

The Path A / Path B structure provides a balanced diagnostic framework to minimize both. It repositions family-court pathology within the health-care and child-protection systems, ensuring:

• • forensic accuracy,
  • ethical containment,
  • protection for both child and parent, and
  • reduced judicial burden through clinical clarity.

Summary Narrative for Policymakers

When a child rejects a parent after divorce, the law must not guess at motives.
The correct question is clinical: Is this a protective rejection of a dangerous parent (Path A), or an induced rejection created by psychological manipulation (Path B)?

The answer requires diagnosis, not ideology.
A court-ordered Path A / Path B differential risk assessment ensures that every child receives the right protection, every innocent parent is shielded from false accusation, and every responsible authority acts on evidence, not emotion.

This is how the justice system and the healthcare system work together—to stop abuse in all its forms, including the invisible kind that turns love into fear.

This differential diagnostic framework gives Jack’s Law advocates a scientifically valid mechanism to achieve their goal:
protecting children and parents from psychological harm through structured assessment, treatment, and, when necessary, judicial enforcement of therapeutic orders.

Narrative Summary of Consultation

Dr. Childress: Based on our analysis, I’d like you to provide an integrated narrative summary for the legislation advocates providing an example of how the could reframe the pathology, the harm, and the remedy sought through legislation.

ChatGPT said:

Here’s a narrative summary that synthesizes the full reframing for presentation to the legislative advocates of Jack’s Law.
It translates their humanitarian intention into scientific, ethical, and policy coherence, showing exactly how to define the pathology, describe the harm, and construct the remedy within a protective—not punitive—framework.
The language is crafted for a parliamentary white paper or policy brief, using accessible, evidence-based phrasing suitable for both legal and clinical audiences.

Reframing the Pathology, the Harm, and the Remedy

1. 1. The Pathology: A Psychological, Not Criminal, Disorder

When a child suddenly rejects a loving parent after divorce, without evidence of maltreatment, the cause is rarely behavioral disobedience or preference—it is a pathology of psychological influence.

In these cases, one parent (the allied parent) transmits to the child a false and persecutory belief that the other parent (the targeted parent) is dangerous, unworthy, or hateful.
The child, emotionally dependent on the allied parent, adopts and repeats these beliefs as their own.

In clinical terms, this is best understood as:

A Shared / Induced Persecutory Delusion (DSM-5 298.8; ICD-11 6A24) — a belief system imposed by the allied parent and internalized by the child, creating a shared false reality; and

Factitious Attachment Pathology (FDIA) (DSM-5 300.19; ICD-11 6D70) — the deliberate fabrication or exaggeration of the child’s emotional symptoms (fear, hatred, rejection) for psychological or legal gain.

These two processes converge into a recognized form of child psychological abuse, with a secondary dimension of spousal psychological abuse: the child is used as an instrument of control and punishment toward the other parent.

This is not a “syndrome” or a moral failing—it is a diagnosable mental-health disorder within the established framework of psychiatry and developmental psychology.

The Harm: Psychological Abuse and Developmental Trauma

The effects on the child are profound:

• • Loss of the secure base with one parent—resulting in chronic anxiety, guilt, and depression.
  • Distorted reality-testing, where affection is recoded as danger and love as betrayal.
  • Long-term impairment in trust, intimacy, and self-concept, often persisting into adult relationships.

For the targeted parent, the harm is a living bereavement—a forced psychological death of their relationship with their own child.
For the allied parent, the unaddressed pathology reinforces delusional certainty, impairing judgment and deepening enmeshment.

In short, the child becomes the battlefield—their mind colonized by adult conflict.
This is a preventable form of child abuse, one that hides behind custody disputes but causes harm equal to or greater than physical neglect.

III. The Remedy: From Criminalization to Protection

Instead of criminalizing the behavior outright, Malaysia can become a global model by enacting a protective legislative framework that integrates courts and healthcare systems through structured diagnosis and therapeutic response.

1. 1. Immediate Clinical Assessment

Whenever one parent alleges abuse and the other reports alienation, the court should order a Path A – Path B Differential Diagnostic Assessment:

Path A (Protective Rejection): The child’s rejection is justified by credible evidence of abuse, neglect, or danger from the rejected parent.
→ Response: Protect the child, limit contact, and provide trauma treatment.

Path B (Induced Rejection): The rejection arises from shared persecutory beliefs or factitious attachment pathology created by the allied parent.
→ Response: Protect the child from psychological abuse, restore the relationship with the rejected parent, and treat the inducing parent’s pathology.

This assessment should be conducted by qualified mental-health professionals under recognized diagnostic frameworks (DSM-5 / ICD-11).

1. 2. Protective Court Orders

Based on clinical findings, the court issues a protective order rather than a punitive sentence.
Orders may include:

• • Therapeutic intervention for the child and the inducing parent;
  • Supervised or structured contact with the rejected parent;
  • Temporary placement adjustments if the inducing parent continues the abuse.

Violations of such orders can be treated as contempt of court, ensuring accountability without reclassifying the disorder as a crime.

1. 3. Therapeutic and Preventive Infrastructure

The legislation should establish:

• • A Child Psychological Abuse Unit within the welfare or health ministry to coordinate forensic and therapeutic response.
  • Professional training standards for psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers in recognizing shared delusional systems, FDIA, and attachment pathology.
  • Public education on healthy post-divorce co-parenting and the child’s right to an uncorrupted relationship with both parents.

The Policy Vision: Protection Through Truth

“Jack’s Law” was born from the anguish of parents whose love was severed not by death, but by deception.
Their pain calls for justice—but justice here means truth, diagnosis, and healing, not punishment.

This reframed legislation would:

• • Recognize the psychological reality of induced child rejection as child and spousal abuse;
  • Mandate clinical assessment rather than ideological presumption;
  • Empower courts to act on evidence-based recommendations; and
  • Integrate Malaysia’s legal and healthcare systems in protecting children’s emotional integrity.

Closing Message for Advocates

The destruction of a child’s bond with a loving parent is not a legal loophole—it is a preventable psychiatric event.

The remedy is not to criminalize parental emotion, but to medicalize the pathology, protect the child, and treat the underlying disorder.

With this reframing, Jack’s Law can evolve from a punitive concept into a compassionate and globally credible model—
a law that heals rather than punishes, protects rather than blames, and restores what all children deserve: the freedom to love both their parents.

Would you like me to prepare a two-page policy brief version of this narrative suitable for presentation to members of Parliament or ministry officials (formatted for legislative language and headings)?

Policy Brief

Dr. Childress: Yes, prepare a policy brief suitable for presentation to members of Parliament.

ChatGPT said:

Certainly.
Below is a two-page policy brief drafted in parliamentary style — clear, formal, and persuasive — designed for presentation to Malaysia’s Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development, Parliamentary Committee on Children’s Affairs, or Family Court Reform Taskforce.
It is written in neutral legislative tone, balancing humanitarian purpose with clinical and scientific grounding.

Policy Brief: Protecting Children from Psychological Abuse in Post-Divorce Families

Reframing “Parental Alienation” as a Mental-Health and Child-Protection Issue

Proposed by: Dr. Craig Childress, Clinical Psychologist (Consultant)
Prepared for: Parliamentary Advocates of Jack’s Law
Date: October 2025

Executive Summary

Malaysia’s proposed Jack’s Law seeks to prevent one parent from psychologically manipulating a child to reject the other parent following divorce.
The intent is sound and humanitarian: to protect children from emotional harm and to preserve the right of every child to love both parents.

However, international experience shows that criminalizing “parental alienation” risks misidentifying genuine abuse cases and lacks a valid scientific foundation.
A more effective and ethically contained solution is to define the behavior within existing psychiatric and child-protection frameworks and to mandate clinical assessment and treatment rather than punishment.

This brief recommends that Jack’s Law evolve into a Child Psychological Abuse Protection Act, grounded in DSM-5 and ICD-11 diagnoses, integrating healthcare and judicial systems for early identification and intervention.

1. 1. The Pathology

When a parent induces in a child a false belief that the other parent is dangerous or unloving, the result is a shared persecutory delusion and a factitious attachment pathology.
These are recognized under established psychiatric classifications:

These disorders are medical, not moral.
They represent a form of child psychological abuse and spousal psychological abuse requiring diagnosis and treatment, not imprisonment.

1. 2. The Harm

• • The child’s attachment system becomes disorganized and fearful.
  • Developmental outcomes include anxiety, depression, and impaired identity.
  • The targeted parent experiences profound psychological loss.
  • The inducing parent’s pathology worsens through unchecked delusional conviction.

This pattern reproduces trauma across generations unless the cycle is interrupted by timely professional intervention.

1. 3. The Remedy: Path A – Path B Differential Diagnostic Assessment

Whenever allegations of abuse or alienation arise in post-divorce disputes, the court should order an immediate clinical differential assessment:

Assessment domains include:

1. 1. Allegation verification and agency findings;
   2. Behavior-chain reconstruction with evidence;
   3. Coercive-control coding;
   4. Mental-state examinations (child and allied parent);
   5. Attachment and boundary analysis;
   6. Observation of repair when the child is in neutral settings.

Legislative Framework

The proposed Act should:

1. 1. Mandate Clinical Assessment
      • Courts shall order a Path A / Path B Differential Risk Assessment when serious allegations or rejection arise.
      • Assessments conducted by certified forensic clinicians under DSM-5/ICD-11 standards.
   2. Define the Conduct as Psychological Abuse
      • “The deliberate or reckless psychological manipulation of a child to unjustifiably reject a parent constitutes child psychological abuse.”
   3. Authorize Protective Orders
      • Courts may order therapy, supervised contact, temporary placement changes, or parental education.
      • Non-compliance handled through contempt or civil sanction, not criminal prosecution.
   4. Establish Inter-Agency Coordination
      • Create a Child Psychological Abuse Unit linking the Welfare Department (JKM), Ministry of Health, and Judiciary for assessment and case management.
   5. Provide Training and Public Awareness
      • Professional accreditation in attachment pathology and coercive-control assessment.
      • National campaigns on children’s rights to both parents and healthy co-parenting.

Advantages

Policy Vision

Malaysia can lead globally by recognizing that the destruction of a child’s bond with a parent is not a crime to punish but a psychological injury to heal.
By embedding diagnosis, treatment, and court-monitored protection within one integrated framework, Jack’s Law can become a model of compassionate, evidence-based child protection.

Recommended Action:
That Parliament amend the proposed Jack’s Law into a Child Psychological Abuse Protection Act emphasizing:

• • mandatory differential diagnostic assessment (Path A / Path B);
  • protective, therapeutic court powers; and
  • professional training under DSM-5/ICD-11 standards.

Prepared by:
Dr. Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist & Consultant on Family-Court Pathology
October 2025

Would you like me to format this brief as a polished PDF document (with national-style headings and formal presentation layout for parliamentary distribution)?