Author: Dr Craig Childress

In a line of dominoes, the moment the first domino falls I know with absolute certainty that all the other dominoes will fall.

The moment the paradigm shifts with regard to how the pathology of “parental alienation” is defined in professional psychology – in fact, with the moment that Foundations was published in 2015 that activated Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code – I knew, with absolute certainty, that the solution to “parental alienation” – the last domino – would fall.

The only question that now remains is how long it will take.  This is in part dependent upon the collective efforts of targeted parents.  The key first domino that must fall is the paradigm shift.  As long as the Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model remains on the field as the dominant diagnostic paradigm that defines the pathology, the first domino of the paradigm shift is in the process of falling, but has not actively tipped the second domino – yet.

As long as professional psychology remains ignorant of AB-PA, that first domino is in the process of falling, but the second domino has yet to be toppled into activation by the paradigm shift.

The speed by which the solution arrives is also dependent upon the Gardnerian PAS “experts.” If they switch to the AB-PA diagnostic paradigm and begin actively and forcefully advocating for the AB-PA diagnostic paradigm, then the solution arrives more quickly.  If they remain on the field sowing confusion in professional psychology, then the shift in paradigms will take longer.

So far, the Garderian PAS “experts” have withheld their support, and so far they appear to be sowing confusion within professional psychology by co-opting constructs from AB-PA and inaccurately applying them to Gardnerian PAS as if these constructs are relevant when applied to Gardnerian PAS, when they are not.  This sows confusion within professional psychology which must then be overcome in enacting the paradigm shift, thus slowing the paradigm shift and slowing the falling of the first domino.

Setting up a chain of dominoes takes time and precision.  That’s what I’ve been doing over the past decade; setting up all the dominoes.  In 2015 with the publication of Foundations, I set the first domino in motion and it is currently falling.  It will – inevitably – tip the second domino, which will – inevitably – tip the third domino, and eventually all the dominoes will fall and we will have the solution to “parental alienation” for all families everywhere.

In this blog post I will describe the other dominoes that will inevitably fall, one after the other, to create the solution to “parental alienation.”  How long it takes for all the dominoes to fall is, to some extent, in your hands.  When targeted parents come together as a force for change, you have more power than you know.  But you must come together, you must act not only to solve this pathology for your family and for your children, but for all families and all children.  You must work together and fight for each other.

I am a catalyst.  I am your weapon.  I am not your warrior.  With Foundations I have given you power with professional psychology.  I have activated Standards 2.01a and 9.01a of the APA ethics code for you.  I have put all of the dominoes in a line and started the fall of the first domino.  But these are your children.  I am your weapon in your fight against the pathology, you are the warrior.  You must pick up the weapons I have forged for you in your fight against the pathology.  You are the warrior for your children. 

I admire you and I respect you for your love, and for your enduring heartbreak.  You are the chosen ones in this battle.  You are on the battlefield now so that no other parent, no other family, must ever endure the heartbreak and emotional trauma that you’ve endured.

Here are the next dominoes to fall…

Domino 2:  Assessment

Once the paradigm shifts, we can then require professional competence in assessment using Standard 9.01a of the APA ethics code.

Standard 9.01: Bases for Assessments
(a) Psychologists base the opinions contained in their recommendations, reports, and diagnostic or evaluative statements, including forensic testimony, on information and techniques sufficient to substantiate their findings.

The attachment system is the brain system governing all aspects of love and bonding throughout the lifespan, including grief and loss.  A child rejecting a parent is fundamentally an attachment-related pathology.

The attachment system never spontaneously dysfunctions.  The attachment system ONLY becomes dysfunctional in response to pathogenic parenting (patho=pathology; genic=genesis, creation).  Pathogenic parenting is the creation of significant psychopathology in the child through aberrant and distorted parenting practices.  Pathogenic parenting is an established construct in both developmental and clinical psychology and is most often used in reference to attachment-related pathologies, since the attachment system never spontaneously dysfunctions but ONLY becomes dysfunctional in response to pathogenic parenting.

Standard 9.01a of the APA ethics code requires that all psychologists base their diagnostic statements and forensic testimony on “information and techniques sufficient to substantiate their findings.”

If the psychologist has not even assessed for pathogenic parenting by an allied parent in a cross-generational coalition with the child against the other parent, then the diagnostic statements and forensic testimony of this psychologist CANNOT possibly be based on “information and techniques sufficient to substantiate their findings” and would therefore be in violation of Standard 9.01a of the APA ethics code.

Notice I never used the construct of “parental alienation.”  No tooth fairy mythical pathologies.

In ALL cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, ALL mental health professionals must assess for pathogenic parenting by an allied parent who is in a cross-generational coalition with the child against the other parent in order to base their diagnostic statements and forensic testimony on “information and techniques sufficient to substantiate their findings” in compliance with Standard 9.01a of the APA ethics code.

The easiest and most efficient way to assess for pathogenic parenting by an allied parent in a cross-generational coalition with the child against the other parent is to use the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting.

Notice the name of this instrument.  It is NOT an assessment of “parental alienation.”  It is a diagnostic checklist for pathogenic parenting.  This is NOT an accident.

We are NOT assessing for “parental alienation,” we are assessing for pathogenic parenting; for parenting that is so aberrant and distorted that it is creating significant psychopathology in the child.

In all cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, the assessing mental health professional can use the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting as an efficient means to document the child’s symptoms to remain compliant with Standard 9.01a of the APA ethics code. 

Notice that a Secondary Diagnostic Criterion for the attachment system suppression of diagnostic indicator 1 is that the parenting practices of the targeted-rejected parent are broadly normal-range.  In order to assess this component of pathogenic parenting, the assessing mental health professional should document their clinical judgement regarding the parenting practices of the targeted parent using the Parenting Practices Assessment Scale.

This creates a standardized assessment protocol of:

The Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting

Parenting Practices Rating Scale

All mental health professionals will then be speaking with a single voice to the Court.

As this second domino becomes integrated into a standard of practice for assessing attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, the 12 Associated Clinical Signs will become increasingly prominent diagnostic considerations.  They are not diagnostic indicators, but some of them are almost 100% diagnostic of the pathology.

As I discussed in my afternoon presentation in Dallas, diagnosis is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle.  While the puzzle Cats in the Garden will always have three specific pieces in three specific locations – and no other puzzle will have these three specific puzzle pieces in these specific locations – the puzzle is not Cats in the Garden because of these three pieces.  It’s the puzzle Cats in the Garden because when we put all of the puzzle pieces together they create a picture of three cats playing in the garden, with a watering can over here, and butterflies over the flowers.

The key diagnostic indicators are the three symptoms of pathogenic parenting by an allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  The 12 Associated Clinical Signs are all of the other puzzle pieces which form a picture of three cats playing in the garden, with a watering can over here, and butterflies above the flowers.

Domino 3: Diagnosis

Assessment leads to diagnosis.

Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant developmental pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 1), personality pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 2), and delusional-psychiatric pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 3) is a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

If anyone wants to argue that producing a delusional psychiatric pathology in the child is NOT psychological child abuse, they can try.  But I don’t see that as a credible argument, especially since the child’s encapsulated persecutory delusion is resulting in the loss for the child of an affectionally bonded relationship with a beloved and loving normal-range parent who is a vital component for the child’s healthy emotional and psychological development.

Compelling Professional Competence

Notice how we are compelling the assessment of pathogenic parenting by leveraging Standard 9.01a of the APA ethics code which was activated by the paradigm shift to AB-PA.  Mental health professionals don’t have a choice, they MUST do a competent assessment.

Then notice how the assessment and subsequent identification of the symptoms of pathogenic parenting by an allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent then compels that an accurate diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse be made. 

We are guiding all mental health professionals into professional competence that provides a single voice to the Court from all of professional psychology.

Domino 4: Treatment

Assessment leads to diagnosis, and diagnosis guides treatment.  This is a foundational principle of clinical psychology.

In all cases of child abuse, physical child abuse, sexual child abuse, and psychological child abuse, the professional standard of practice and “duty to protect” requires the protective separation of the child from the abusive parent.

When domino four falls, we will have all mental health professionals speaking with a single voice to the Court.  The pathology is AB-PA, the diagnosis is Child Psychological Abuse, and the treatment is a protective separation from the abusive parent.

Domino 5:  Child Protective Services

Whenever a mental health professional diagnoses child abuse, this activates a legally obligating professional “duty to protect” that requires the mental health professional take affirmative action to protect the child.  One such affirmative action that the mental health professional could take in order to discharge his or her “duty to protect” is to file a suspected child abuse report with Child Protective Services (CPS).

Once the paradigm shifts to an AB-PA diagnostic model, the CPS system will increasing be receiving suspected child abuse reports from mental health professionals with a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.

Initially, the CPS system won’t know what to do with these reports and they will not adequately investigate these reports nor will the CPS system appropriately address these child abuse reports from mental health professionals.  Eventually, however, the CPS system will become sufficiently annoyed by the continuing flow of these reports into the CPS system that they will seek to become more knowledgeable about AB-PA which is generating all of these reports of child psychological abuse from mental health professionals, and these CPS agencies will then seek additional training in AB-PA.

I would recommend to CPS that within each CPS agency, a select group of 3 to 5 social workers be identified as AB-PA specialists who are trained to a high-level of competence in the assessment and diagnosis of the AB-PA pathology.  Every referral from a mental health professional with a diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse should then be assigned to one of these AB-PA specialists within the CPS system for investigation.

The AB-PA specialist social worker in the CPS system can then efficiently apply the same diagnostic criteria of AB-PA (the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting) and will confirm the diagnosis made by the referring mental health professional.

Notice that the CPS system does not need to make the diagnosis. The CPS system is already receiving a referral from a mental health professional who has made a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse.  The CPS specialist in AB-PA simply needs to apply the diagnostic criteria and confirm the diagnosis of psychological child abuse already made by the mental health professional.

Once the CPS social worker confirms the diagnosis of child psychological abuse made by the mental health professional, then we have two independently made diagnoses of child psychological abuse, one of which is from CPS.

The CPS system can then initiate the child protection response of the child’s protective separation from the psychologically abusive pathogenic parent. 

The Court then receives a request from CPS for removal of the child based on two independently made confirmed diagnoses of child psychological abuse from the mental health system, and a request from CPS to place the child in the protective “kinship care” of the normal-range and affectionally available targeted parent.

The mental health system is then speaking to the Court in a single unified voice.  The pathology is AB-PA, the diagnosis is Child Psychological Abuse, and the treatment is a protective separation from the abusive parent.

When the Court receives a clear and consistent communication from the entire mental health system, then the Court can act with the decisive clarity necessary to solve the pathology.

When we eventually reach this stage of the solution, the targeted parent won’t have to prove “parental alienation” in Court because the entire pathology is being systematically handled within the mental health system. 

The moment an attachment related pathology surrounding divorce is identified by the Court or anywhere within the mental health system, a standard of practice Treatment-Focused Assessment is conducted using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting.

If the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA are present, then the mental health professional completes a Treatment-Focused Assessment Report for the Court if the assessment is Court-ordered, and the mental health professional files a suspected child abuse report with CPS with a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse in order to discharge the mental health professional’s “duty to protect.”

CPS then assigns this incoming child abuse report from a mental health professional that contains a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse to a trained AB-PA specialist social worker in the CPS system. This trained AB-PA specialist social worker then assesses for the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA, documenting the symptoms’ presence or absence using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting.

If CPS confirms the mental health professional’s diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse, then the CPS system initiates a child protection response of protectively separating the child from the psychologically abusive pathogenic parent and placing the child in the “kinship care” of the normal-range and loving targeted parent.

The targeted parent does not need to file a suspected child abuse report – that report is coming from the mental health professional who has done a standardized assessment of the family’s attachment-related pathology.

The targeted parent does not need to seek a protective separation – the request to the Court for a protective separation is coming from the CPS system.

Additional Dominoes

Sometimes a line of dominoes splits into two paths.  The solution to AB-PA has some of these split pathways into related solution pathways.

False Allegations of Child Abuse

Currently there is no negative consequence for filing a false allegation of child abuse into the CPS system, and often these false allegations have the “secondary gain” for the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent of terminating the targeted parent’s involvement with the child pending the outcome of the CPS investigation.

With the paradigm shift to AB-PA, however, a false allegation becomes a double-edged sword for the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  If a CPS investigator believes that the allegation of child abuse may be a case of AB-PA, then this CPS investigator can refer the case to the CPS specialist in AB-PA for additional investigation.  If the CPS specialist in AB-PA confirms child psychological abuse by the allied parent who filed the false allegation, based on the symptom indicators of AB-PA, then CPS may seek a protective separation of the child from the psychologically abusive allied parent who filed the false allegation of abuse.

This could potentially reduce the motivation of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent for filing false allegations of child abuse, since these false allegations might result in the child’s protective separation from the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

Contingent Visitation Schedule

In August of 2017, a 50-page booklet will become available through Amazon.com that describes a Strategic family systems intervention of a Contingent Visitation Schedule. 

While the standard of practice and “duty to protect” the child in all cases of child abuse requires the child’s protective separation from the abusive parent, in treating attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce a potential Strategic family systems intervention may be available to simultaneously resolve the family pathology while also protecting the child from the abusive pathogenic parenting of the allied parent. 

This Strategic family systems intervention involves a Contingent Visitation Schedule in which custody visitation time with the allied pathogenic parent is made contingent upon the child remaining symptom-free.

As long as the child remains symptom-free (as determined by daily/weekly ratings on the Parent-Child Relationship Rating Scale), then the standard Court-ordered visitation schedule is in effect.  For treatment-related purposes, a balanced 50-50% shared custody visitation schedule would provide the best treatment-related support. 

A successful symptom-free day is defined as ratings of 4 or higher on all three relationship scales of the Parent-Child Rating Scale, 1) Hostility to Affection, 2) Defiance to Cooperation, and 3) Withdrawn to Social. 

A successful symptom-free week is defined as five successful symptom-free days during a seven-day week period.  As long as the child has a successful symptom-free week with the targeted parent, then the Court-ordered visitation schedule is followed.

If, however, the child fails to have a successful symptom-free week with the targeted parent (less than five successful symptom-free days during a seven-day period), then the transfer to the pathogenic care of the allied parent is delayed pending resolution of the child’s increased symptoms.  Before the child is transferred to the custody care of the pathogenic allied parent, the child must evidence three consecutive successful days with the targeted parent.  Once the child exhibits three consecutive successful days with the targeted parent, then the normal Court-ordered custody visitation schedule is resumed. 

The Contingent Visitation Schedule is essentially a graduated protective separation from the psychologically abusive pathogenic parenting of the allied parent that is based on the child’s display of symptoms or absence of symptoms.  As long as the child remains symptom-free, then the standard Court-ordered visitation schedule is followed.  If the child becomes symptomatic, with the presumed cause being the pathogenic parenting coalition with the allied parent, then the child’s time with the allied pathogenic parent is reduced in order to reduce the pathogenic influence of the allied parent who is creating the child’s symptoms, and the child’s time with the targeted-rejected parent is increased to provide more treatment-related time with the targeted parent to restore the parent-child bond of shared affection that is being damaged by the pathogenic parenting of the allied psychologically abusive parent.

The Contingent Visitation Schedule can be used as a six-month Response-to-Intervention trial (RTI).  If the Contingent Visitation Schedule successfully resolves the child’s pathology during the six-month RTI, then a protective separation period is not required.  As long as the child remains symptom-free, then the standard Court-ordered custody visitation schedule is followed.

If, however, a six-month RTI with the Contingent Visitation Schedule is not successful in resolving the child’s attachment-related pathology, then a move into a 9-month protective separation period would be warranted as a standard of practice response to the DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse which, based on the results of the RTI with the Contingent Visitation Schedule, cannot otherwise be resolved without a protective separation of the child from the abusive pathogenic parent.

AB-PA Pilot Program for the Family Courts

I am current collaborating with Children4Tomorrow in Houston, Texas to establish a pilot program in the Houston family court system using AB-PA as the intervention model for attachment-related pathology in high-conflict divorce.  On October 20th I will be presenting a 4-hour seminar in Houston, hosted by Children4Tomorrow, on AB-PA and the family court pilot program proposal.

In August of 2017, a 50-page booklet will become available through Amazon.com describing the proposal for a family court pilot program for resolving attachment-related pathology in high-conflict divorce. 

The pilot program proposal for the family court system is to team an AB-PA Certified mental health professional with an AB-PA Knowledgeable amicus attorney.  At the first indication of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, the Court orders an assessment with an AB-PA Certified mental health professional using the six-session Treatment-Focused Assessment Protocol.  If the assessing AB-PA Certified mental health professional identifies the attachment-related pathology of AB-PA (using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting) then the Court will assemble a Key team of a new, treating AB-PA Certified mental health professional and an AB-PA Knowledgeable amicus attorney to stabilize the family’s functioning and to assume leadership in assisting the family in transitioning to a stable and healthy separated family structure.

The AB-PA Certified mental health professional would be trained in creating and managing a Contingent Visitation Schedule if this is ordered by the Court, and would be trained and capable of restoring the child’s normal-range attachment system through family therapy with the targeted parent if a protective separation is ordered by the Court.  The AB-PA Certified mental health professional would be responsible for managing the family’s conflict in coordination with the amicus attorney serving as the interface into the legal system.

The AB-PA pilot program proposal for the family courts includes an outcome evaluation research component integrated into the program’s structure, and if it is accepted as a pilot program model then it can serve as a high-conflict family intervention model for family courts in other jurisdictions.  If this pilot program proposal is adopted as an intervention model for high-conflict divorce in the family court system, then this approach can also potentially serve as an intervention model internationally for addressing attachment-related pathology in high-conflict divorce.

Comparison of Pathways to Solution

These four blogs describe the pathway to a solution offered by a paradigm shift to AB-PA:

The Solution: The Requirements

The Solution: AB-PA Meets the Requirements

The Solution: The Return to Professional Practice

The Solution:  The Dominoes

I have asked that by September 2, 2017 the Gardnerian PAS “experts” describe the pathway to solution that they envision using the Gardnerian PAS model so that we can put the two paths to solution side-by-side, compare them, and reach a reasoned decision on the path forward.

For three years I have been asking the Gardnerian PAS “experts” to describe the pathway to a solution that they envision using the Gardnerian PAS model and for three years the Gardnerian PAS “experts” have refused to describe the path to a solution that they envision using the Gardnerian PAS model, and at the same time they refuse to support the AB-PA diagnostic model

It is important to the solution offered by AB-PA that all mental health professionals be accountable to professional standards of practice for professional competence in attachment-related pathology, personality disorder pathology, and family systems pathology.  This includes the Gardernian PAS “experts.”

They are free to add to and expand on the core of AB-PA however they may want. But they are not exempt from professional standards of practice regarding real pathologies of the attachment system, personality disorders, and family systems.

I look forward to the response from the Gardnerian PAS “experts” describing the path to solution that they envision using the Gardnerian PAS model.   We can then place these two paths for a solution side-by-side and make a reasoned decision on our path forward.

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

In two previous blog posts (The Solution: The Requirements and The Solution: AB-PA Meets the Requirements) I describe how the diagnostic model of AB-PA will solve the pathology.

In this post I’m going to describe the paradigm shift that needs to occur to solve the pathology of “parental alienation.”

As a foundational premise, I want to highlight a post by Jason Hofer to my Facebook page that provides a spot-on accurate description of the solution offered through AB-PA.

Jason 100% sees it.

“AB-PA is not the solution. The PAS mindset is “one model to solve them all,” but that is not what AB-PA brings to the table.

The solution is the psychological knowledge behind AB-PA.  Attachment theory, family systems theory, personality disorders, all of it.  When a therapist has all of that knowledge they can use all of it to make whatever diagnosis is necessary, whether it leads to AB-PA or something else.

The usefulness of the knowledge behind AB-PA far, far outweighs the usefulness of AB-PA itself.  If you were to have a therapist study everything found in the reference section of “Foundations”, but not read “Foundations” itself, I guarantee they’ll be able to make the right diagnosis that child psychological abuse is taking place.  That’s the beauty of it.  The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.  The solution to PA is not AB-PA.  AB-PA points to the solution, but it is not the solution in-and-of itself.

The real solution is having therapists with a deep understanding of all of the psychological components that make up AB-PA.  Whether they *use* AB-PA itself or not doesn’t really matter.  All AB-PA provides is a well-thought out way to use all that knowledge to make a certain specific type of diagnosis.  So, AB-PA may not account for all the subtler cases, but the knowledge required to use AB-PA certainly does, and then some.”

When I read that from Jason, it floored me.  The clarity and complete accuracy of that is spot on.

So let that sink in for just a bit before I move to the path…

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The path to the solution is like a set of dominoes, as each one falls it tips over the next domino. 

Domino 1:  The Paradigm Shift

The first and most critical domino is the paradigm shift away from Gardnerian PAS over to AB-PA as the diagnostic model for the pathology.  As Jason points out, this is not actually a paradigm shift to AB-PA, it’s a paradigm shift back to the full richness of the entire field of professional psychology, its full literature and research base on all forms of pathology. 

When we’re dealing with a child rejecting a parent, we’re in the realm of the attachment system.  The attachment system is the brain system that governs all aspects of love and bonding throughout the lifespan, including grief and loss.  The attachment system is a primary motivational system of the brain.  It functions in characteristic ways, and it dysfunctions in characteristic ways.

Prior to entering private practice, I was the Clinical Director for an early childhood assessment and treatment center (ages 0-5) dealing primarily with children in the foster care system. Early childhood is the period when the attachment system actively acquires its “internal working models” regarding expectations for love and bonding, which are then applied throughout the lifespan.  With my specialty background in early childhood mental health, I know the attachment system.

What’s more, I worked with young children in the foster care system.  I’ve seen how all the various forms of trauma affect the attachment system, and I’ve worked with restoring the normal-range and healthy attachment system of children who’s attachment networks have been damaged by trauma from aberrant parental behavior – profound neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse.

You’ve seen what I’ve done relative to my work on uncovering the pathology of “parental alienation” (Dr. Childress Personal Reference List: AB-PA).  Prior to my work on “parental alienation,” I was working for decades with the regulatory pathology of ADHD and with the trauma-related pathologies in early childhood as my primary field.  If I’ve put in this amount of work on uncovering the core pathology of “parental alienation,” imagine what I know in these other domains. 

If you look at the very end of my AB-PA reference list, you’ll see a set of references for Neuro-Developmentally Supportive Psychotherapy.  Books like:

The First Idea: How Symbols, Language and Intelligence Evolved from our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans

In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind

Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are

Childhood Trauma, the Neurobiology of Adaptation, and “Use-Dependent” Development of the Brain: How “States” Become “Traits”

Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development

These are on my reference list for AB-PA.  These references for Neuro-Developmentally Supportive Psychotherapy are just the tip of the iceberg of core references that are in another set of references relative to another topic area.  I have them on my AB-PA reference list just in case I want to talk about something from the neuro-developmental research.

I love knowledge.  Knowledge feels good in the brain as the threads form into a rich tapestry of comprehension.

I’m not from the field of high-conflict divorce.  I come from ADHD and early childhood mental health.  In these fields, excellence and knowledge are expectations.  It was only after I left the position as Clinical Director and entered private practice that I ran across my first case of the pathology called “parental alienation” in high-conflict divorce, a targeted parent mom and her 10 year-old son.

In the very first session with the targeted parent mom and her son I immediately recognized the child’s inauthentic attachment system.  The brain doesn’t work like that; the attachment system doesn’t work like that.  The child is displaying an inauthentic brain.

Since I come from the world of childhood attachment trauma, I know what childhood trauma does to the attachment networks of the brain, I know what authentic attachment trauma looks like in the child’s symptom display.  This child’s attachment-related symptoms were clearly not the product of any form of trauma.  This child was presenting an inauthentic display of attachment behavior.  The brain does not work that way. 

As an aside: With a normal attachment system, “protest behavior” (angry-oppositional behavior) emerges from the neuro-developmental function of eliciting increased parental involvement (the baby cries to elicit – to obtain – the mother’s involvement).  But in the case of this child, the child’s “protest behavior” was seeking to end – to sever – parental involvement.  The child was rejecting the parent.  Children don’t reject parents.  Not even attachment-trauma kids who’ve been abused by their parents.  Bad parenting creates an “insecure attachment” that MORE strongly motivates the child to form an attachment bond to the bad parent.  Children don’t reject parents, even bad parents.  That’s not how the attachment system and protest behavior works.  That is not an authentic brain.

But then the question emerges, why is the child displaying an inauthentic attachment system relative to his mother?  The answer:  Because the child is being influenced and psychologically compelled by the father to adopt this attitude toward the child’s mother.  The child is displaying his father’s anger and rejection toward the other spouse, toward the mother.  The child’s presentation is not an authentic display of the child’s authentic attachment motivations towards his mother, it is an imposed display of rejection created by the father’s psychological control and manipulation of the child to meet the father’s needs for revenge and retaliation on the mother for divorcing him.

This immediately leads to an application of the standard and established constructs and principles from family systems therapy to the child’s symptom display.  This is likely a cross-generational coalition of the child with the father against the mother, with the father “diverting” his spousal anger toward the mother through the child.

In family systems therapy, the child draws power from the cross-generational coalition with one parent, and this power acquired from parental support elevates the child in the family hierarchy to a position above the targeted parent, leading to a very characteristic symptom of a cross-generational coalition called an “inverted family hierarchy.”  In normal and healthy family structures, parents occupy positions of executive leadership in the family hierarchy.  In normal and healthy families, parents judge children’s behavior as appropriate or inappropriate and deliver consequences, rewards and punishments, based on parental judgements of child behavior.

In an inverted hierarchy, the child becomes empowered by the coalition with the allied parent to an elevated position in the family hierarchy from which the child then judges the targeted parent, and it is the child who then delivers consequences to the parent, rewards and punishments, based on the child’s judgements of the parent’s behavior – an inverted hierarchy.

While the symptom of an inverted hierarchy involves parent-child conflict, the surrounding behavioral, communication, and relationship features of the parent-child conflict are very different from authentic oppositional-defiant parent-child conflict created by other sources, such as from problematic parenting.  So while a lay person might just see parent-child conflict, a knowledgeable and competent clinical psychologist will clearly see the surrounding symptom indicators of an inverted hierarchy as opposed to problematic parenting as the source cause of the parent-child conflict.

When the empowering coalition with the allied parent (that is creating the inverted hierarchy) is examined further, the allied parent feigns parental incompetence (“What can I do, this is between the child and the other parent”) and the allied parent offers displays of supportive understanding for the child’s position in the conflict with the other parent (“If the other parent were just nicer to the child this wouldn’t happen”).  This pattern of symptom features for the inverted hierarchy, feigning of selective parental incompetence by the supposedly “favored” parent and the allied parent’s tacit approval and support for the child’s conflict with the other parent, is the characteristic symptom set associated with the child’s “triangulation” into the spousal conflict through the formation of a “cross-generational” coalition with one parent against the other parent.

This is all standard family systems therapy – Bowen, Minuchin, Haley, and many others.

In addition, as I conducted my first session with the mother and child, what was particularly striking about the child’s symptom display was a profound absence of empathy from the child for his mother’s suffering, which allowed the child to say incredibly cruel things to his mother.  An absence of empathy?  There are only three pathologies that have an absence of empathy as a component – the sociopath (antisocial personality disorder), autism, and narcissistic personality pathology.  The child did not evidence symptoms of sociopathy, and the child was clearly not autistic or autistic-spectrum.  Narcissistic? 

The child evidenced a grandiose sense of entitlement in judging the mother’s adequacy as both a parent and as a person, and the child displayed an attitude of haughty and arrogant contempt for his mother.  Grandiosity, entitlement, absence of empathy, haughty and arrogant attitude.  Holy cow.  I’ve got a child displaying symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder.  This isn’t oppositional-defiant disorder pathology, this is narcissistic personality pathology 

How does a child acquire narcissistic personality pathology?  Answer: from the influence of a narcissistic parent.  It’s the father who has the narcissistic attitudes toward the mother – it’s his judgement of her inadequacy as a spouse, it’s his absence of empathy for her suffering caused by the child (she “deserves” it), it’s his attitude of entitlement that her role as his spouse was to meet his needs and she didn’t, and it’s the father’s attitude of haughty and arrogant contempt for the mother that the child is displaying.  The child is acquiring and displaying these attitudes toward his mother through the father’s psychological control and influence on the child in the cross-generational coalition against the mother.

That was Session 1.

Notice in none of this did I rely on a pathology called “parental alienation.”  This is all based entirely on the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

I then scheduled a session with the father to assess that component of the family system and check out the clinical hypotheses formed in my first session with the mother and child.  During the session with the father, he displayed all the associated behaviors consistent with the clinical hypotheses formed in the first session with the mother and child.  I had my confirmation of the child’s “triangulation” into the spousal conflict through the formation of a “cross-generational coalition” with a narcissistic/histrionic father against the mother in which the father’s spousal anger toward the mother for the divorce was being diverted through the child.

That was Session 2.

I then met with the child and mother again and began examining more fully the child’s belief systems that the mother was an inadequate parent who “deserved” his rejection.  In response to the child’s inappropriate judgements of the mother (that were acquired from the father’s hostile-negative judgements of the mother), I offered the child normalized and balanced interpretations of the parenting the child was receiving from the mother, to assess the child’s response to these clinical probes of alternate and disconfirming information.  The child, however, maintained his rigidly held fixed and false belief in his supposed victimization by his mother’s supposedly bad parenting (parenting that was fully normal-range parenting). 

A fixed and false belief that is maintained despite contrary evidence is a delusion.  For 15 years in my early career I rated the delusions of schizophrenic patients on a 7-point scale (the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale) from not-present to severe and I participated in annual reliability training in these symptom ratings through my role as a research associate on a longitudinal research project on schizophrenia at UCLA.  Fifteen years.  Weekly ratings.  Annual reliability training.  I know what a delusion looks like.  I know what the difference between a rating of a 3 or a 4 is.  I know what the difference between a rating of a 5 or 6 is.  I know what an encapsulated delusion looks like.  I know what non-bizarre and bizarre delusions look like, delusions of reference and somatic delusions.

A false belief in being victimized is a persecutory delusion.  A delusion that affects only one area of life is an encapsulated persecutory delusion.  The child was displaying an encapsulated persecutory delusion.

How does a 10 year-old child acquire an encapsulated persecutory delusion?  Answer: The same way the child acquired the narcissistic personality traits, through the psychological control and influence exercised on him by his father in the cross-generational coalition with his father against his mother.  It is the father who has the persecutory beliefs of victimization by the spouse/(mother) during their marriage.  She was a bad souse (translated into the child’s symptom of her being a bad mother) and she deserves to suffer for her badness.

And this attitude of the father toward the mother was on full display during my individual session with him.

This was Session 3.

This is called diagnosis.

The pathology everyone is calling “parental alienation” is not some “new form of pathology.”  If you’re a mental health professional, it’s only a “new form of pathology” if you’re ignorant regarding real forms of pathology.

Once the father realized that I wasn’t colluding with the child’s story of supposed victimization by the mother (probably from downloading the child for the content of the mother-son sessions), the father then manipulated minor’s counsel and the Court to have me removed from the case.  A little manipulation of the child and the child starts refusing to come to therapy with Dr. Childress because he doesn’t like Dr. Childress – I’m supposedly not “understanding” enough regarding the child’s victimization by his bad mother – and what can the father do?  He can’t “force” the child to come to therapy with Dr. Childress. 

A little collusion with the pathology from the minor’s counsel, and I’m off the case.  Off they go to look for a therapist who is more “understanding” for the child’s (delusional) beliefs in his victimization by his mother’s supposed badness as a parent (spouse).

I may not be meeting with that child anymore, but that doesn’t mean that child is not still my client.  I’m still working for that child.  That kid is “my kid” – and you don’t create that level of pathology in “my kid.”  All your kids are “my kids” – and destroying the lives of “my kids” is simply not okay.

That’s when I began to look into the broken legal system response.  I was doing a google search on Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (the creation of pathology in the child by a parent for “secondary gain”) and that’s when I first ran across the construct of “parental alienation.”  I then began my research on “parental alienation,” which led me into the history of controversy surrounding Gardner and his proposals regarding false allegations of abuse that tore professional psychology apart, creating divisions within professional psychology, including his extremely distasteful professional statements about children’s sexuality.

I looked at Gardner’s proposal for a “new form of pathology” – a new syndrome in psychology.  Oh my God – that’s a really bad model for a pathology. 

I teach graduate level courses in diagnosis and psychopathology.  If a student submitted a paper that proposed the PAS model of pathology I’d give it D grade.  Perhaps D-.  That’s an incredibly bad model for a “new form of pathology.” 

1.)  The diagnostic model is far-far too symptom-focused without sufficient foundational support in providing an explanatory framework for why the symptoms are present, for how they develop, and for the psychological-emotional ground which creates each of the symptoms.  The eight supposed symptoms are just reported without adequate explanation for their development.

2.)  The diagnostic model offers no explanatory linkages into established constructs and principles.  It is proposed as a pathology ex nihilo (out of nothing).

3.)  The new and unique symptoms that are completely made up symptoms for this supposedly “new form of pathology” are way too vague and way too arbitrary to be useful as diagnostic symptoms. 

4.)  Some of the proposed “new symptoms” are symptom features of other established forms of pathology (absence of ambivalence is “splitting” and lack of guilt is an absence of empathy, both symptoms are characteristic of narcissistic and borderline personality pathology), and some of the “new symptoms” are simply bizarre (the “independent thinker” symptom).

5.)  It proposes a dimensional diagnostic framework but with no criteria for definitions of mild, moderate, and severe forms along the continuum, any symptom can be present or absent, and there are no set number of symptoms for determining the different dimensional points along the continuum.  It is way-way too arbitrary to serve as a diagnostic model.

Gardnerian PAS is an extremely bad diagnostic model for a supposedly “new form of pathology.” 

What’s more, the pathology we’re dealing with is NOT a “new form of pathology.”  Gardner was simply a poor diagnostician.  Diagnosis is the application of standard and established constructs and principles to a set of symptoms.  This pathology is fully describable using standard and established constructs and principles from professional psychology.  There is absolutely zero need to propose a “new form of pathology”

But in proposing a supposedly “new form of pathology” that is unique in all of mental health, Gardner skipped the step of professional diagnosis.  He did not apply the profession rigor necessary to define the pathology using standard and established constructs and principles from professional psychology.  His approach to diagnosis was simply lazy and indolent.

Do the work.  This is clearly an attachment-related pathology.  The attachment system is the brain system governing all aspects of love and bonding across the lifespan, including grief and loss.  A child rejecting a parent is clearly an attachment-related pathology, not a “new form of pathology” unique in all of mental health.  Do the work

Splitting (lack of ambivalence) and an absence of empathy (lack of guilt) are characteristic symptoms of narcissistic and borderline personality pathology.  Do the work to unravel the links between attachment pathology and the development of narcissistic and borderline personality pathology.

An inverted hierarchy in which the child becomes empowered to judge a parent is a characteristic symptom feature of a cross-generational coalition with one parent against the other parent that is “triangulating” the child into the spousal conflict.  Do the work.

Attachment system suppression is a feature of “pathological mourning” – the disordered processing of sadness surrounding loss. 

Narcissistic and borderline personality pathology is associated with the disorganized incapacity to process the emotion of sadness surrounding loss. 

The triangulation of a child into the spousal conflict through the formation of a cross-generational coalition with one parent against the other parent occurs when the family cannot successfully adapt to a transition.  In the case of this attachment-related pathology of a child rejecting a parent surrounding divorce, the family is unable to successfully transition from an intact family structure to a separated family structure because of the aberrant and pathological processing of sadness by the narcissistic/(borderline) personality parent, who is then triangulating the child into the spousal conflict through the formation of a cross-generational coalition with the child to stabilize the collapsing personality structure of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, which is collapsing in response to the rejection and abandonment inherent to the divorce. 

Do the work.  Proposing a “new form of pathology” unique in all of mental health, which is supposedly identifiable by an equally new and unique set of symptoms that are simply made up out of thin air to be specific for this pathology alone, with no symptom associations to any other form of pathology in all of mental health, is diagnostically lazy and indolent.

Don’t be lazy.  Do the work. 

On my first ever encounter with the pathology I essentially unraveled the nature of the pathology in my first three sessions.

Session 1: Attachment pathology, an inauthentic attachment system display, narcissistic pathology, an inverted hierarchy suggesting a cross-generational coalition of the child and father against the mother.

Session 2: Confirmation of the personality disorder traits of the allied parent, the allied parent’s belief in his supposed “victimization” by the other spouse (the targeted parent) during the marriage, and confirmation of the symptom pattern for the cross-generational coalition of this parent with the child.

Session 3:  Assessed and confirmed the encapsulated persecutory delusion of the child.  When the child’s symptom is combined with the persecutory beliefs evidenced by the allied parent in Session 2, the diagnosis becomes a Shared Delusional Disorder (ICD-10: F24).

Fixing the Broken Systems

Why is the legal system response so broken? 

Because the mental health system response is broken.  The legal system is not receiving a clear communication from professional psychology regarding the nature of the pathology and the necessary steps for the resolution of the pathology.  Instead, the legal system is receiving a variety of mixed information from professional psychology (“parental alienation is a discredited form of pathology” – “the pathology in the family is only moderate parental alienation, we should try reunification therapy” – “both parents are contributing to the child’s conflict with the targeted parent” – “separating the child from the favored parent would be traumatic for the child”).

Why is the mental health system response broken?  Because professional psychology was led away from the path of fully established and real forms of pathology and into the world of “new forms of pathology” – new syndromes that are supposedly unique in all of mental health, with new made up symptoms.  The moment we leave the path of established professional psychology and enter the make-believe world of supposedly “new forms of pathology,” then everyone is allowed to just make stuff up.  If the Gardnerians can just make up their eight symptoms of a “new form of pathology,” then it becomes a free-for-all where everyone is allowed to just make up symptoms for this supposedly “new form of pathology.”  This INVITES rampant and unchecked professional ignorance and incompetence, which is exactly what we’re seeing.

Instead of becoming knowledgeable and competent in the attachment system, and personality disorder pathology, and family systems therapy so they can diagnose and confirm the pathology in the first three sessions, mental health professional are allowed to be ignorant and incompetent regarding real forms of pathology as long as they profess their competence in a make-believe form of pathology, “parental alienation.”

Notice, from the very first day I began writing about this – almost a decade ago – I have always put the term “parental alienation” in quotes.  That’s because I consider it to be a “make-believe” form of pathology – unicorns and mermaids.  That doesn’t mean that the pathology doesn’t exist.  Oh, it very much exists.  It’s just not a “new form of pathology” unique in all of mental health.

If any mental health professional thinks this is a “new form of pathology” – it’s not.  It’s only new to them because they are so incredibly ignorant regarding real forms of pathology.  There is no such thing as the tooth fairy.  Yes, there’s a quarter under your pillow.  Your mom put it there.  I know it’s sad to lose the fantasies of childhood, but it’s time to grow up now.  There is no such thing as the tooth fairy.  Sorry sweetie, it’s time to become a grown-up mental health professional.  Grown-up mental health professionals do the work.  No “new forms of pathology.”  No tooth fairies.

There is no such thing as “parental alienation.”  There is attachment-related pathology.  There is personality disorder pathology.  There is family systems pathology.  There are a lot of real forms of pathology.  But there is no such thing as the tooth fairy.  It’s time we expect a professional-level of knowledge and competence from all mental health professionals.

Because once we return to established constructs and principles of professional psychology, once we return to assessing, diagnosing, and treating real forms of pathology, we can then bring ALL of professional psychology into a single voice by leveraging Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code:

APA Standard 2.01: Boundaries of Competence
(a) Psychologists provide services, teach, and conduct research with populations and in areas only within the boundaries of their competence, based on their education, training, supervised experience, consultation, study, or professional experience.

Every ethics code for ALL mental health professionals everywhere, including internationally, have a Standard that requires – REQUIRES – professional competence (Professional Competence).

Once we return to defining the pathology from entirely within the standard and established constructs of professional psychology, then we immediately activate Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code, and all of the competence Standards in all of the other ethics codes – including internationally – that require professional competence.

Here is the leverage that AB-PA provides:

Competence in the Attachment System

Mental health professionals who are assessing, diagnosing, and treating attachment-related pathology need to be professionally knowledgeable and competent in the attachment system, what it is, how it functions, and how it characteristically dysfunctions.

Failure to possess professional-level knowledge regarding the attachment system when assessing, diagnosing, and treating attachment-related pathology would represent practice beyond the boundaries of professional competence in violation of professional standards of practice.

Competence in Personality Disorder Pathology

Mental health professionals who are assessing, diagnosing, and treating personality disorder related pathology as it is affecting family relationships need to be professionally knowledgeable and competent in personality disorder pathology, what it is, how it functions, and how it characteristically affects family relationships following divorce.

Failure to possess professional-level knowledge regarding personality disorder pathology when assessing, diagnosing, and treating personality disorder related pathology in the family would represent practice beyond the boundaries of professional competence in violation of professional standards of practice.

Competence in Family Systems Therapy

Mental health professionals who are assessing, diagnosing, and treating families need to be professionally knowledgeable and competent in the functioning of family systems and the principles of family systems therapy.

Failure to possess professional-level knowledge regarding the functioning of family systems and the principles of family systems therapy when assessing, diagnosing, and treating family pathology would represent practice beyond the boundaries of professional competence in violation of professional standards of practice.

Competence in Complex Trauma

Mental health professionals who are assessing, diagnosing, and treating the trans-generational transmission of complex trauma need to be professionally knowledgeable and competent in the nature of complex trauma, as expressed both individually and through family relationships.

Failure to possess professional-level knowledge regarding the trans-generational transmission and expression of complex trauma when assessing, diagnosing, and treating family pathology involving complex trauma would represent practice beyond the boundaries of professional competence in violation of professional standards of practice.

Once we return to the established constructs and principles of professional psychology to define the pathology, we immediately – today – right now – activate Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code for ALL psychologists everywhere, and we activate all of the other ethical codes for all of the other mental health professionals – everywhere, including England, Australia, the Netherlands, Poland, Mexico, South America, Asia; everywhere – that require professional competence.

The Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model for a supposedly “new form of pathology” does NOT activate these Standards requiring professional competence, because the Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model is proposing a diagnosis of unicorns and the tooth fairy – a new form of pathology unique in all of mental health.

In order to activate the ethical code Standards requiring professional competence that are in all of the ethics code for ALL mental health professions everywhere  – we MUST return to the path of professional psychology by defining the pathology entirely using the established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

The moment – the very moment – we do this, we immediately activate Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code and all of the other Standards for professional competence in all of the other ethics codes.

And the truth is, the moment Foundations was published in 2015, all of these Standards for professional competence were activated.

When I presented in Dallas, Slides 43–45 of my Keynote address also once again activated all of the Standards for professional competence in all of the ethics codes everywhere (Unpacking Dallas and Leaving Oz)

When I presented in Boston, Slides 62–65 of my presentation with Dorcy Pruter once again activated all of the Standards for professional competence in all of the ethics codes everywhere.

Truth is, all of the Standards in all of the ethics codes everywhere have already been activated for you by AB-PA.

And it is NOT your responsibility to educate mental health professionals, it is the obligation of mental health professionals to “undertake ongoing efforts” to maintain their competence:

APA Standard 2.03: Maintaining Competence
Psychologists undertake ongoing efforts to develop and maintain their competence.

If you have provided the psychologist with a copy of Foundations, you have activated Standard 2.03 of the APA ethics code.  If you have provided the psychologist with a copy of Professional Consultation, you have activated Standard 2.03 of the APA ethics code.  If you have provided the psychologist with material from my website describing the pathology (The Attachment-Related Pathology of “Parental Alienation”), you have activated Standard 2.03 of the APA ethics code.

All of this is possible – all of this is very much real – because AB-PA defines the pathology from entirely within the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

As Jason Hofer so accurately and incisively understands:

“AB-PA is not the solution… The solution is the psychological knowledge behind AB-PA.  Attachment theory, family systems theory, personality disorders, all of it.”

“If you were to have a therapist study everything found in the reference section of “Foundations”, but not read “Foundations” itself, I guarantee they’ll be able to make the right diagnosis that child psychological abuse is taking place.  That’s the beauty of it.  The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.”

AB-PA is entirely contained within my reference list (Dr. Childress Personal Reference List: AB-PA).  If anyone asks you for the peer-reviewed research for AB-PA, give them this reference list.

If they read the material in this reference list but never read anything about AB-PA, I guarantee that they will make the correct diagnosis of the pathology.

AB-PA isn’t Childress.  It’s Bowlby, and Millon, and Haley, and Beck, and Minchin, and Kernberg, and van der Kolk, and everyone in that reference list.  These are the people and this is the research base for AB-PA.

I’ve just brought this information into a single place (Foundations) in applying this information to the attachment-related pathology of a child rejecting a parent surrounding divorce.  My reference list is the peer-reviewed research for AB-PA.  The finger that points at the moon is not the moon.

To solve the pathology of “parental alienation” – all of professional psychology must speak to the Court in a single unified voice – “The pathology is AB-PA, the DSM-5 diagnosis is V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, and the professional standard of practice and the “duty to protect” requires the child’s protective separation from the abusive parent.”

For all of the variants of “parental alienation” that may be sub-threshold for AB-PA or that may involve other forms of pathology – we solve all of these in EXACTLY the same way that we solve AB-PA, through the application of the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology to the set of symptoms.

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

Requirement 1:  We must first be able to protect the child before we can ask the child to reveal the child’s authenticity.  Treatment and resolution of the pathology requires a protective separation of the child from the psychological control and manipulation of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent during the treatment and recovery stabilization period.

Requirement 2:  A protective separation of the child from the manipulative psychological control of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent will require a Court order.  This means that the Court must be convinced that a protective separation is required to solve the pathology in the family.

Requirement 3:  Any solution that requires targeted parents to prove “parental alienation” in court is no solution at all.

Requirement 4:  Any solution to the pathology of “parental alienation” must be able to completely solve the pathology in less than six months from the time it first presents itself to a mental health professional.

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This is a challenging set of requirements, especially since the requirements are seemingly incompatible:

The First Conundrum:  To protect the child we need to get a protective separation (Requirement 1), to get a protective separation we need to convince the judge of the severity of pathology (Requirement 2), but if we require parents to prove parental alienation in Court, then that’s no solution at all (Requirement 3).

The Second Conundrum: We must be able to fully resolve the pathology in less than six months from the point that the pathology first presents to mental health.  Yet we need a Court order for a protective separation and the legal system doesn’t do anything in less than six months, and convincing the Court to order a protective separation at the first emergence of the pathology seems an impossible goal.

The key to solving these conundrums is in HOW we convince the Court to order a protective separation without having to prove parental alienation in the courtroom?

The Answer: Prove parental alienation through the mental health system and have the Court accept the findings and recommendations of the mental health system.

First fix the mental health system, then leverage the mental health system to fix the legal system.

Again, the key to solving this conundrum is to have the mental health system accurately diagnose the pathology on its first emergence, and then to have the Court accept the findings and recommendations of the mental health system.

Example:

If a patient has schizophrenia, we don’t make that diagnosis based on a Court trial.  A mental health professional makes the diagnosis, and the Court accepts the diagnosis.  The diagnosis of schizophrenia is so standardized that ALL mental health professionals will make exactly the same diagnosis when presented with the same set of symptoms. The entire field of professional psychology speaks to the Court in a single clear voice regarding schizophrenia, and the Court accepts the diagnosis and treatment recommendations of professional psychology.

Schizophrenia is a “categorical” diagnosis (present or absent) and the diagnostic indicators for the diagnosis of schizophrenia are sufficiently standardized so that ALL mental health professionals will make exactly the same diagnosis in response to a set of symptoms.

Because the diagnosis of schizophrenia is categorical (present or absent) and standardized (consistently identified by all mental health professionals), professional psychology speaks with a single clear voice, and the Court can rely on the diagnosis made by professional psychology. The Court does not need to have a trial and hear evidence seeking to make its own independent determination as to whether the person has schizophrenia.  The Court relies on the diagnosis from professional psychology.

The solution to meeting all four of the requirement for a solution to “parental alienation” requires the same approach – a categorical (present/absent) diagnostic framework of standardized diagnostic criteria.

THIS is the key, and THIS is our challenge:

We don’t need to convince the Court if we can convince ALL of professional psychology to give exactly the same communication to the Court.

Tall order… but do-able.  The AB-PA diagnostic model is strong enough to accomplish this.

We must bring ALL of professional psychology into a single voice.

The Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model cannot accomplish this for a variety of reasons, each one capable of disabling the Gardnerian PAS model’s ability to solve the pathology.  The three primary devastating features I want to highlight here (and there are plenty more) are:

1.)  The Gardnerian diagnostic model is a dimensional model (mild-moderate-severe forms of the pathology).  To solve the pathology we need a categorical diagnostic model (the pathology is either present or absent).

2.)  The reason we need a categorical model is because we want to use the diagnosis to obtain a protective separation (a yes/no categorical decision by the Court).  Since we need a categorical yes/no decision from the Court on the protective separation, we need to give the Court a categorical yes/no diagnosis of the pathology.

3.)  Since the Gardnerian PAS model proposes a “new form of pathology,” it does not lead to any established treatment.  Treatment of Gardnerian PAS remains purely a matter of conjecture for this supposedly “new form of pathology.”  When we seek a protective separation, we will face exceedingly stiff opposition from some elements of professional psychology who will argue that a protective separation from the “bonded relationship” with the “favored parent” would be “traumatic” for the child.

By separating itself from established pathologies and established professional constructs and principles as a supposedly “new form of pathology” unique in all of mental health, Gardnerian PAS has absolutely no rebuttal argument to the “separating the child from the favored parent is traumatic” argument.  It becomes just a back-and-forth argument of 5-year-olds,

It is too traumatic. – No it’s not. – Yes it is. – No it’s not. – Yes it is. – No it’s not. – Yes it is. – No it’s not. – Yes it is. –  Uhn-uhn. – Uh-huh. – Uhn-uhn. – Uh-huh.  (the judge): Stop it, you two………………… Uh-huh

The inability to successfully rebut the “separating the child from the favored parent is traumatic” argument will divide professional psychology into multiple divergent voices to the Court.  To achieve a solution that satisfies all four requirements for a solution, we MUST have a single united voice to the Court calling for the protective separation of the child.  The Gardnerian PAS model cannot give us that united single voice regarding the need for a protective separation.

The AB-PA diagnostic system CAN successfully rebut the “separating the child from the favored parent is traumatic” argument using the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

In all cases of child abuse, physical child abuse, sexual child abuse, and psychological child abuse, the standard of practice and “duty to protect” requires the child’s protective separation from the abusive parent.

There is it. That’s the ironclad rebuttal.  It’s made available by the DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Child Abuse, and the DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse is provided by the categorical AB-PA diagnostic indicators.

The Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model does not lead to a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse for a variety of reasons, the principle reasons are because it is a dimensional diagnosis (mild-moderate-severe) that uses a unique set of symptom identifiers that are not linked to any other pathology in all of mental health.

Because the Gardnerian PAS model proposes a “new form of pathology” unique in all of mental health, and uses a unique set of symptom identifiers developed for this specific pathology alone, the Gardnerian PAS symptoms do not allow us access to standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.  Who knows if these symptoms represent child abuse or not?   Some will say yes, some will say no.  (Yes it is – no it’s not – Uh-huh – Uhn-uhn)

One of the fatal problems the Gardnerians face with this is the question; At what point along a continuum of mild-moderate-severe does it become child abuse, and based on what criteria?

And if the Gardnerians try to claim that their PAS derivative models of the pathology represent a DSM-5 diagnosis of child abuse, you can betcha-by-golly that the voices of opposition (inspired by the pathogen) will savage that assertion:

“Oh my God!  The Gardnerian PAS crazies are now claiming that a loving and bonded relationship with the favored parent is ‘child abuse’ because the child can’t get along with an abusive parent.”

Can’t you just hear the other side (inspired by the pathogen) just rip into that proposal by the Gardnerians, that the child’s seemingly bonded relationship with the “favored parent” is child abuse by the “favored parent” because the child can’t get along with the other parent.  The pathogen will have a field day with that.

The Pathogen’s Allies:  “These PAS people are calling a child’s loving and bonded relationship with a parent child abuse.”

No way, no how will professional psychology accept that Gardnerian PAS is a DSM-5 diagnosis of child abuse.  Division, controversy, multiple voices from professional psychology to the Court.

The AB-PA diagnostic model, on the other hand, CAN successfully address this “separating the child is traumatic” claim by relying on standard and established symptoms of pathology that provide a linkage into other standard and established forms of pathology.

Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant developmental pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 1), personality disorder pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 2) and delusional-psychiatric pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 3) is a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

Diagnostic indicators 1 and 2 (attachment system suppression and personality disorder traits) are strong, but the real clincher is diagnostic indicator 3 – that’s the one that clearly pushes the diagnosis over the edge into Child Psychological Abuse.

If the “separating the child from the favored parent is traumatic” people want to argue that the pathology of AB-PA is NOT psychological child abuse, then they will have to argue that it is okay to create a delusional psychotic disorder in the child (diagnostic indicator 3).  That’s not a credible argument for them to make.

If a mental health professional diagnoses an encapsulated persecutory delusion in the child – created by the pathogenic parenting of the allied parent – that’s child psychological abuse.  It is not OK to produce delusional psychiatric pathology in the child, especially when that delusional psychiatric pathology results in the loss for a child of a bonded relationship with a normal-range and loving parent.

I am 100% ready for this.

The DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse is embedded into the very fabric of the full diagnostic formulation of the pathology (Foundations) on page 313, and I even put the DSM-5 diagnosis on page 2 of the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting.

I’m giving mental health professionals the “diagnostic backbone” to make the correct and accurate diagnosis of the pathology.

MH Professional:  “The child evidences the three diagnostic indicators of an attachment-based model of parental alienation, 1) attachment system suppression, 2) narcissistic personality traits, 3) an encapsulated persecutory delusion regarding the child’s supposed victimization by the normal-range parenting of the targeted-rejected parent.  According to Childress (2015), these three diagnostic indicators in the child’s symptom display warrant a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.”

They can cite me and rely on the full diagnostic workup of Foundations for the diagnosis – and it’s right there on page 2 of the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting.

I’m providing them with the diagnostic backbone to do the right thing.

The DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed then unlocks the protective separation by providing the professional rationale for the protective separation.

In all cases of child abuse, physical child abuse, sexual child abuse, and psychological child abuse, the standard of practice and “duty to protect” requires the child’s protective separation from the abusive parent.

This is not an accident.  This is not a coincidence.  AB-PA was developed to provide a solution that meets all four of the requirements for a solution.

In order to obtain the protective separation, all of professional psychology must be united into a single clear voice to the Court:

“The pathology in this family is a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse and the necessary treatment response is to protectively separate the child from the abusive parent.”

The Court can then rely on this single clear voice from all of mental health and can order the protective separation.

If the Court wants a second opinion, then the Court can refer the family to another mental health professional who will apply the same three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA and who will reach exactly the same categorical diagnosis (present/absent) of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse Confirmed.

If the Court wants a third, fourth, fifth opinion – however many it wants – then the Court can refer the family to another mental health professional who will apply the same three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA and reach exactly the same categorical diagnosis (present/absent) of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse Confirmed.

With the dimensional Gardnerian PAS diagnosis, one mental health professional says it “moderate parental alienation,” another mental health professional says “both parents are contributing” and that there’s some “alienation” and some “justified estrangement.”  One mental health professional says it’s severe alienation and needs a protective separation, another mental health professional says that there are signs of moderate “alienation” but that separating the child from the bonded relationship with the favored parent would be “traumatic.”

Multiple voices.  No clarity.  And… NO professional rationale for the protective separation.  “Let’s try reunification therapy.”

We need a diagnostic model of pathology that can bring all of professional psychology into a single clear voice. When all of mental health speaks with a single clear voice, the Court can act with the decisive clarity necessary to solve the pathology.

Diagnostic Standardization 

The diagnostic indicators for this “unifying model” must provide a standardized diagnostic format that can be reliably used by ALL mental health professionals, so that every mental health professional everywhere gives exactly the same diagnosis when presented with the same information.

The diagnostic framework must be categorical (present/absent) in order to provide the professional rationale for the categorical (yes/no) protective separation decision required of the Court.

1.)  The three diagnostic indicators are present in the child’s symptom display; the pathology is present (a categorical diagnosis).

2.)  The pathology represents a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed (a categorical diagnosis).

3.)  This confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse warrants a child protection response of the child’s protective separation from the abusive parent (a categorical decision).

This is incredibly important to understand – a dimensional diagnostic framework (mild-moderate-severe) will NEVER provide the necessary diagnostic clarity needed to unite ALL of professional psychology into a single clear voice to the Court.  Only a categorical diagnostic framework (present-absent) with clear symptom definitions (standardization) can unite ALL of professional psychology into a single voice to the Court.

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Requirement 1:  We must first be able to protect the child before we can ask the child to reveal the child’s authenticity.  Treatment and resolution of the pathology requires a protective separation of the child from the psychological control and manipulation of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent during treatment and recovery stabilization period.

The diagnostic model of AB-PA meets this requirement.  A DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed provides the professonal rationale for the protective separation.

Requirement 2:  A protective separation of the child from the manipulative psychological control of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent will require a Court order.  This means that the Court must be convinced that a protective separation is required to solve the pathology in the family.

The diagnostic model of AB-PA meets this requirement.  The Court can rely on a unified diagnostic approach that relies on standard and established constructs and principles and produces a single clear voice from all of professional psychology.

Requirement 3:  Any solution that requires targeted parents to prove “parental alienation” in court is no solution at all.

The diagnostic model of AB-PA meets this requirement.  The diagnosis of AB-PA is made by the mental health professional using standardized assessment procedures of the six-session Treatment-Focused Assessment Protocol and the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting, and the Court relies on the diagnosis made by professional psychology.

Requirement 4:  Any solution to the pathology of “parental alienation” must be able to completely solve the pathology in less than six months from the time it first presents itself to a mental health professional.

The diagnostic model of AB-PA meets this requirement.  On first emergence of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, a mental health assessment using the six-session Treatment-Focused Assessment Protocol and the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting can be ordered.  This will allow for early treatment and intervention that can prevent the pathology’s escalation, or an early child protection response to resolve the pathology as soon as it emerges.

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

The mental health system response to the attachment-related pathology of “parental alienation” is massively broken.

The legal system response to the attachment-related pathology of “parental alienation” is massively broken.

The solution requires that we must first protect the child.  We cannot ask the child to expose the child’s authentic love for the targeted parent when the child faces psychological retaliation from the narcissistic/(borderline) personality parent.  The child is doing what the child has to do in order to survive with the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  We must first be able to protect the child.

REQUIREMENT 1:  We must first be able to protect the child before we can ask the child to reveal the child’s authenticity.  This requires a protective separation of the child from the psychological control and manipulation of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent during the treatment and recovery stabilization.

From a purely psychotherapy perspective, we would generally need about a six to nine-month period of protective separation in order recover and stabilize the child’s normal-range and healthy development.

There are, however, non-psychotherapeutic approaches (the High Road protocol) that can gently and effectively restore the functioning of the child’s normal-range attachment system within a matter of days through a series of catalytic steps rather than psychotherapy.

However, the High Road protocol is expensive, and is therefore beyond the financial reach of many families.  In addition, the child’s recovery stabilization following the High Road protocol still requires a period of protective separation of three- to nine-months following the recovery of the child’s normal-range and healthy attachment system.

Recovering the authentic child requires a period of protective separation from the pathogenic, manipulative, psychologically controlling, and pathological parenting of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  Obtaining a protective separation requires a Court order regarding custody.

REQUIREMENT 2:  A protective separation of the child from the manipulative psychological control of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent will require a Court order.  This means that the Court must be convinced that a protective separation is required to solve the pathology in the family.

However, any solution that requires targeted parents to prove “parental alienation” to the Court is prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of targeted parents who simply cannot afford the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to prove “parental alienation” in Court.

In addition, it can take years to prove “parental alienation” in Court, during which time the child’s pathology becomes ever more severe and entrenched.

And even if the Court can be convinced that “parental alienation” is occurring, the Court may still not order a “protective separation,” either from the Court’s own judgement or because of input from ignorant and incompetent mental health persons that it would be “traumatic” for the child to be separated from the supposedly bonded relationship the child has with the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

Typically, this mental health input to the Court comes from the child’s individual therapist who has become an ally with the pathology, or from a child custody evaluator who recognizes the pathology but doesn’t know how to solve it.

The disorganized and imprecise approach in mental health surrounding how to diagnose and treat the pathology creates mixed messages to the Court on the need for a protective separation, and typically the Court is offered a mental health route of “reunification therapy” – a completely mythical and non-existent form of therapy.

There is no such thing as “reunification therapy.”  Nowhere in the professional literature is there any description of what reunification therapy is.  The construct of “reunification therapy” simply acts as a smokescreen cover for a snake-oil remedy that allows mental health persons to just make up stuff and to do whatever they want, all under the guise that they are doing “reunification therapy.”

If any mental health professional ever says that they do “reunification therapy,” ask them for a reference citation so that you can read up on “reunification therapy” and participate more fully in the therapeutic process – and then watch them sputter and spurt.  There is NOTHING in the professional literature that describes what “reunification therapy” is.  These ignorant and incompetent mental health persons are just going to make up what they’re doing from out of nothing, and they’ll present it as if their totally nonsensical “therapy” has value.  It doesn’t.  Snake oil.  Who knows what’s in it, and whatever’s in it, it’ll most likely kill ya.

Resolution of the child’s pathology requires a protective separation period.  Without a protective separation – unless we can first protect the child from the manipulative psychological control of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent – no form therapy will solve the pathology, including and especially a mythical form of therapy in which the therapist is just making stuff up (“reunification therapy”).

Typically, “reunification therapy” fails across three or four years of trying, and by that time the legal fight has lasted six or seven years – with no solution.

By now the pathology is firmly entrenched and the targeted parent has spent vast sums of money in the legal and mental health systems.  The financial cost often requires targeted parents to begin representing themselves in Court pro se, which then limits their access to the legal expertise that they would ultimately need to effectively prove “parental alienation” in Court.

If the targeted parent has not already become financially bankrupt by the legal system and incompetent mental health system, then a child custody evaluation is sometimes sought in the hopes that this will be able to prove “parental alienation” to the Court.

Child custody evaluations, however, are a financial racket pure and simple.  The evaluator spends hours-and-hours-and-hours of billable time collecting data, charging several hundred dollars an hour for time spent reading documents, interviewing people, scoring tests, going on home visits, all of the data gathering activities, and then the custody evaluator spends hours-and-hours-hours-and-hours of billable time writing a report, charging several hundred dollars an hour to report on the data that the evaluator collected.  Not to analyze the data, just simply to report on it.

But when it comes to the conclusions and recommendations of the custody evaluation – they just make it up.  Seriously, they just make it up.

Child custody evaluations apply – or more accurately, don’t apply – principles and constructs from professional psychology in completely haphazard, random, and idiosyncratic ways based on the biases and personal attitudes of the evaluator, and there is absolutely no inter-rater reliability to the conclusions and recommendations reached by the child custody evaluator, meaning that two different evaluators can reach entirely different conclusions and recommendations based on the same data.

A foundational principle of assessment is that if an assessment procedure is not reliable (does not give stable results), then the findings of the assessment procedure CANNOT possibly be valid (true).

If I administer an intelligence test to you this week and you get a score of 120 (brilliant person), and then next week I administer the same intelligence to you and you get a score of 80 (not so smart), then the results of my intelligence test assessment CANNOT possibly be a valid (true) indicator of your intelligence because it does not give reliable (stable) results.  One time is says you’re brilliant, the next time is says you’re cognitively impaired.

If an assessment procedure is not reliable (not stable in the results it gives), the findings of the assessment procedure CANNOT possibly be valid (true).

The appropriate reliability measure for child custody evaluations would be “inter-rater reliability” – two evaluators reach the same conclusions and recommendations based on the same data.

There is NO inter-rater reliability for child custody evaluations.  Two evaluators can reach totally different conclusions and recommendations based on the same exact information.  If there is no inter-rater reliability for the assessment procedure of child custody evaluations, then the conclusions and recommendations produced by child custody evaluations CANNOT possibly be valid.

It’s entirely a crap-shoot what you’re going to get.  Might as well have a monkey throwing darts at a dart board.  Just divide up the dartboard into different custody time-share schedules, and let the monkey have at it.  Lots less expensive and just as valid.

Child custody evaluations violate every professional standard of practice in the development of an assessment procedure – no operational definitions for the key constructs of “best interests of the child” or “parental capacity” – no inter-rater reliability for the conclusions and recommendations reached by the assessment procedure – no established construct validity, content validity, predictive validity, concurrent validity, or divergent validity to the conclusions and recommendations of child custody evaluations.

As a clinical psychologist, I shudder.  It’s a financial racket, pure and simple.  If there is any forensic psychologist who disagrees, there is a Comments section to the blog – cite for me a single research study on the inter-rater reliability for child custody evaluations – and cite for me a single research study demonstrating the construct validity, content validity, predictive validity, concurrent validity, or divergent validity for the conclusions and recommendations from child custody evaluations… <crickets>

Furthermore, there is no scientific or theoretical information in the professional literature that would provide a supported rationale for a differential decision regarding the “best interests of the child” (an undefined construct) relative to a 60-40%, 70-30%, 80-20%, 90-10% or 50-50% custody timeshare in any specific case.  There are simply too many highly complex variables.  There is absolutely zero information in the scientific and theoretical literature that would allow professional psychology to form a supported opinion on the “best interest” outcomes of differing time-share alternatives in any specific case.   It’s all just guesswork and personal bias.

As far as the conclusions and recommendations from child custody evaluations, they just make up whatever they want based on their own personal beliefs and inherent personal biases, they then apply some psychological constructs in entirely haphazard and idiosyncratic ways to justify whatever biased and idiosyncratic conclusion was reached, and they usually take a middle-of-the road risk-management response of recommending the status quo with the addition of “reunification therapy” and an admonishment to both parents that the degree of parental conflict is harming the child and that the parents need to co-parent better.

The child custody evaluation step, when the targeted parent can financially afford the $20,000 to $40,000 cost of the assessment (it’s a financial racket, pure and simple), usually occurs several years into the failed “reunification therapy” approach.  The typical recommendations from the child custody evaluation is to maintain the status quo of favored custody to the allied parent and another round of failed “reunification therapy.”  The custody evaluation will typically not identify the narcissistic or borderline personality pathology of the allied parent because custody evaluators are actually discouraged by the Standards of Practice for conducting these evaluations from identifying “labels” that could be prejudicial to the “labeled” parent’s opportunity to have custody.

Q:  But isn’t withholding clearly relevant information from the Court in order to “not prejudice” the narcissisic/(borderline) parent’s case for custody actually prejudicing the decision against the normal-range parent (kinda putting your finger on the scale a little bit by withholding relevant information from the Court)?

A:  Yes it is.  Go figure. The professional Standards of Practice guidelines actually seek to favor the pathological parent by withholding relevant information about the parent’s pathology from the Court.  The custody evaluator softens the degree of the narcissisic/(borderline) parent’s pathology so as to not “prejudice” their ability to obtain custody of the child.

On and on it goes, for years, with no solution and, in fact, with continuing deterioration of the family into the pathology.  By the time the children are in the 14-16 age range, the targeted parent is being completely rejected and the Court is now taking into consideration the expressed desires of the children.

In some cases, minor’s counsel is appointed for the child.  The appointment of minor’s counsel is essentially appointing legal counsel to represent the interests of the pathology.  So each parent is represented by counsel, and the pathology has it’s own separate legal counsel (minor’s counsel) representing the pathology.

In some cases, a Guardian ad Litem is appointed.  Much of the time, the GAL is little more than minor’s counsel – a representative for the pathology who colludes with enacting the pathology.

In maybe 5% of the cases of this pathology, the “parental alienation” is so over-the-top severe that everyone sees it and the Court orders a protective separation.  But these cases require that the stars align just right – the pathology has to be extreme – the targeted parent has to be able to financially afford the years of legal battle, possibly into the hundreds of thousands of dollars – and the judge needs to be insightful and capable.

When the stars align just right, the clouds part, and a protective separation of the child from the pathogenic parenting of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent is granted.

But even in these 5% of cases where a protective separation can be achieved, it has typically taken five years or more of legal battles and failed “reunification therapy” to get to that point – which is five years (or more) of lost parent-child bonding and lost childhood.

In addition, even if the protective separation is achieved, the pathology is typically highly entrenched by that point and the treatment response from therapists remains extremely problematic, since there is no treatment model for a “new form of pathology” that’s unique in all of mental health.  This means that there is no theoretically established foundation for what therapy of “parental alienation” entails, so that treating mental health professionals wind up just winging it – just making stuff up as they go.

The mental health system’s response to the pathology is massively broken.

The legal system’s response to the pathology is massively broken.

REQUIREMENT 3:  Any solution that requires targeted parents to prove “parental alienation” in court is no solution at all.

Proving “parental alienation” in court is way too expensive to serve as a solution route for the vast majority of families.  And it takes far too long, leading to lost years of parent-child-bonding, increased entrenchment and severity of the pathology, and lost years for the child of a normal-range childhood.

Years of lost childhood and lost parent-child bonding during the fleeting years of childhood can never be recovered.  A child is only 10 years old for a year, a child is only 12 years old for a year.  Once lost, these developmental periods are gone forever.  A later relationship can be established, but the years of childhood that are lost to family conflict, and the years of lost parent-child bonding, are lost forever.

REQUIREMENT 4:  Any solution to the pathology of “parental alienation” must be able to completely solve the pathology in less than six months from the time it first presents itself to a mental health professional.

Any solution to the pathology of “parental alienation” must meet these four requirements:

REQUIREMENT 1:  We must first be able to protect the child before we can ask the child to reveal the child’s authenticity.  This requires a protective separation of the child from the psychological control and manipulation of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent during the treatment and recovery stabilization.

REQUIREMENT 2:  A protective separation of the child from the manipulative psychological control of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent will require a Court order.  This means that the Court must be convinced that a protective separation is required to solve the pathology in the family.

REQUIREMENT 3:  Any solution that requires targeted parents to prove “parental alienation” in court is no solution at all.

REQUIREMENT 4:  Any solution to the pathology of “parental alienation” must be able to completely solve the pathology in less than six months from the time it first presents itself to a mental health professional.

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

Hey, APA… you do realize there’s an urgency here?

Every day – every single day – more and more families are being sacrificed to the pathology of a narcissistic/(borderline) parent. 

Every day – every single day – more and more loving and beloved targeted parents are witnessing their beloved children being “killed” by the pathology of their narcissistic/(borderline) personality ex-spouse.

And that’s exactly what this pathology is – the killing of children.  The authentic child of the targeted parent – the beloved and loving child – their authentic child – is being killed by the angry-vengeful pathology of a narcissistic/(borderline) personality parent.

The grief of the targeted parent as their beloved child is killed right before their eyes is profound and deep – enduring grief and suffering.

And day-after-day, more and more families are being sacrificed to the pathology – to the suffering.  Childhoods are stolen – and these lost childhoods are gone forever.  Once lost, childhood can never be reclaimed. 

Bonds of love between child and parent are being destroyed, and the years of childhood love and bonding to a beloved parent, once lost, can never be reclaimed.   Future restoration is possible – but the lost childhood is gone.

There is only a year of the child being 10.  There is only a year of the child being 12.  This time of childhood is fleeting, and once lost it is lost forever.

And with each passing day, more and more families are being sacrificed to this pathology while the APA stands by and does nothing – inert an impotent in protecting children.

Hey, APA… you do realize there’s an urgency here?

It’s been over half a year since you announced plans to form a “working group” to “study the research” and you still have not announced the working group membership.  That’s over half a year of lost childhoods – over half a year of profound parental suffering and grief from watching their beloved child be killed right in front of them – while the APA does nothing to stop it.

You do realize there’s a urgency here, don’t you?

And all you’re actually going to do is just appoint a “working group” to “study the research.”  You’re not actually going to do anything to stop the immense suffering of these families.

Really, APA?  You need to “study” the research on the attachment system?  You don’t already know the substantial research on the attachment system? 

You really need to “study” the research on narcissistic and borderline personality pathology?  You don’t already know the substantial research on narcissistic and borderline personality pathology? 

You really need to “study” the research on family system therapy?  You don’t already know the substantial research on family systems therapy?  Really?

Here, let me help.   For starters, I”d suggest:

Attachment System

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss. Vol. 1. Attachment. NY: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss: Vol. 2. Separation: Anxiety and anger. NY: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Loss: Sadness and depression. NY: Basic Books.

Ainsworth, M.D.S. (1989). Attachments beyond infancy. American Psychologist, 44, 709-716.

Personality Disorder Pathology

Beck, A.T., Freeman, A., Davis, D.D., & Associates (2004). Cognitive therapy of personality disorders. (2nd edition). New York: Guilford.

Kernberg, O.F. (1975). Borderline conditions and pathological narcissism.. New York: Aronson.

Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder.  New York, NY: Guilford

Millon. T. (2011). Disorders of personality: introducing a DSM/ICD spectrum from normal to abnormal. Hoboken: Wiley. 

Family Systems Therapy

Bowen, M. (1978). Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. New York: Jason Aronson.

Haley, J. (1977). Toward a theory of pathological systems. In P. Watzlawick & J. Weakland (Eds.), The interactional view (pp. 31-48). New York: Norton.

Minuchin. S. & Nichols, M.P. (1993). Family healing: Strategies for hope and understanding. New York: Touchstone.

Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and Family Therapy. Harvard University Press

Titelman, P. (2003). Emotional cutoff in Bowen family systems theory: An Overview.  In Emotional cutoff: Bowen family systems theory perspectives, P. Titelman (ed). New York: Haworth Press.

Start there.

You know what, let me make this a little easier.  Since we’ve already lost so much time that can never be recovered in the lives of these suffering children and families, let me give you my personal reference lists.

Dr. Childress Personal Reference List for AB-PA

This reference list contains some of the particularly relevant quotes from some of the sources for my ease of reference surrounding particular issues.

Dr. Childress Personal Reference List for Psychological Control

This is my reference list (extracted from the general AB-PA list) for just the construct of parental “psychological control” of the child.

Dr. Childress Personal Reference List for Dark Triad Personality

The parental personality pathology we’re dealing with is called the Dark Triad (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellian manipulation).  These are my references (extracted from the general AB-PA list) for the personality pathology of the Dark Triad, the “core of evil” (Book, Visser, and Volk, 2015).

There, that should help seed your review of the research literature.  Notice that NONE of the research I use to support AB-PA is research on “parental alienation.”  It’s all standard and established stuff.

But, APA, can you please get a move on – please… children and families are going through such immense and continual suffering of the highest order, and the level of professional ignorance and incompetence that these families must endure is so utterly profound and appalling.

All we need from you, APA, is a statement that the pathology exists – call it whatever you want – and a statement that these children and families represent a “special population” requiring specialized professional knowledge and expertise to competently assess, diagnose, and treat.

That’s not a major statement.  That’s simply upholding Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code.   It shouldn’t require exhaustive “study” to simply issue a statement upholding Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code.

If the hang up is about acknowledging that the pathology exists – and if it would help move things along – just refer to the existence of “attachment-related pathology and personality disorder pathology.”

Here, I’ll even write the statement for you if that helps move things along (because these families are suffering such immense grief and emotional trauma – day-after-day without end – there’s an urgency here).

Statement on High-Conflict Divorce: Attachment-related pathology and personality disorder pathology exists and can influence family relationships following divorce.  The inter-related family issues can be complex to diagnose and treat.  Children and families evidencing attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce represent a special population who warrant specialized professional knowledge and expertise to competently assess, diagnose, and treat, consistent with Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code.

There.  Now was that so hard? 

I’m doing everything I can to make this easy for you, APA.  But you’ve got to make an effort.  Your impotence in responding to the immense pain and suffering of these parents as they are forced to watch – day after day – as their beloved children are being killed before their eyes, and your tolerance of the profound professional ignorance and incompetence surrounding the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of this pathology is sacrificing more and more families – with each passing day – to this terrible-terrible pathology.

Do something.  Make it stop.  Require professional competence in the attachment system, in personality disorder pathology, and in family systems constructs consistent with Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code.

That’s not a lot to ask.  So why is that so hard for you to do, to end the suffering of these parents and families?

Lost childhoods can never be recovered.

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

I’m going to expand on something Klara Gabanowicz wrote in a Comment to one of my blogs in which she proposed an analogy to math equations to explain the difference between Gardner’s model of “parental alienation” and Childress’ model of AB-PA.  Klara’s basic insight and her analogy to a math equation helps illuminate a basic feature of the difference between Gardner’s PAS model and AB-PA.

Klara indicated that she was so captivated by the analogy to a mathematical equation in comparing Gardner’s approach and my approach to defining the pathology that she was “walking in circles in my kitchen talking to myself.”  Don’t worry Klara, I know just how it gets when an idea captivates.

I initially began my response to Klara as a Reply to her Comment, but then I thought that both her analogy to a math equation and my response might be of broader general interest, so I’m turning it into a full blog post.

Kara’s basic analogy is that diagnosis is like a math equation – a “psychological equation,” if you will – with the individual “mathematical terms” of the equation being the symptom features and the psychological constructs of professional psychology.  I think that’s a pretty accurate analogy.

Gardner correctly recognized the existence of a pathology – a pattern of symptoms involving a child’s rejection of a normal-range parent following divorce.  The problem is that Gardner skipped the step of professional diagnosis.  The “psychological equation” he formed to define the pathology – the “Gardnerian Equation” – was too simplistic and fragile to be able to solve the pathology.

Diagnosis is the application of the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology to a set of symptoms – diagnosis is working out the “psychological equation” that defines the pathology.

Gardner skipped the step of diagnosis.  Instead, he proposed an entirely “new form of pathology” that he asserted was unique in all of mental health – the “Gardnerian Equation” for the pathology – that relied exclusively on entirely new and unique “mathematical terms” that were unlike any other pathology in all of mental health.

His 8 symptom identifiers were made up entirely by him and they were all unique symptoms in all of mental health, and his “psychological equation” relied almost exclusively on these symptoms.  He did not use any “mathematical terms” in his “psychological equation” (any constructs and principles) from any other form of established pathology.

As a result, the Gardnernian Equation for the pathology is extremely fragile and unstable, because it relies almost exclusively on symptom features and these symptom features are unique to the pathology – having no connection to any other pathology in all of mental health.  His “psychological equation” is over-reliant on a set of new and unique symptoms that Gardner simply made up to be specific to this form of pathology, without sufficient supporting constructs from professional psychology.

By over-relying on symptom features and not incorporating more substantial “mathematical terms” from standard and established psychological constructs and principles of professional psychology into his “psychological equation,” the “Gardnerian Equation” that he created to define the pathology is simply too weak and ill-formed to be able to solve the pathology.  When we try to use the Gardnerian “psychological equation” to solve the pathology, it breaks and fractures, and it is unable to solve the pathology.

Diagnosis involves the application of standard and established constructs and principles from professional psychology to a set of symptoms.  We just don’t go around making up “new forms of pathology” and calling that diagnosis.

Psychologist: “Your child has I Don’t Want to Eat Carrots Syndrome.  We can identify this pathology by a child’s rejection of carrots for weak and frivolous reasons.  A lack of ambivalence toward carrots.  The child uses borrowed reasons from other children for rejecting carrots (such as they taste bad).  The Independent Rejecter Phenomenon, which is when the child asserts it’s the child’s own independent beliefs that the child doesn’t like carrots.  The child also rejects other food on his or her plate that touches the carrots.

Psychologist: “You and your wife have Tuesday Evening Argument Syndrome.  We can identify this pathology by an argument between the two of you on Tuesday evenings for weak and frivolous reasons.  A lack of ambivalence in blaming each other for the argument.  The reasons for the argument are borrowed from past arguments.  The Independent Arguer Phenomenon in which you each assert that you actually independently believe your side of the argument is correct.  You argue with other people who take the same position as your spouse.

Coming up with unique new syndromes for each separate aspect of life is NOT diagnosis.  Diagnosis is the application of standard and established psychological principles and constructs to a set of symptoms.  Diagnosis using standard and established constructs and principles leads to a deeper understanding for the organizing core beneath the superficial features of symptom presentation.

Diagnosis is developing a “psychological equation” that defines the pathology within the organizing context of the established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

Was Gardner correct in identifying a pathology involving a child’s rejection of a normal-range parent surrounding divorce?  Yes.

He simply was a poor diagnostician.  He didn’t work out the “psychological equation” that defines the pathology.  Instead he proposed an entirely new form of pathology, an I Don’t Want to Eat Carrots Syndrome.

What I do in Foundations is diagnosis.  Foundations is a diagnostic workup of the pathology.

Foundations represents the “psychological equation” – all the psychological terms and constructs – that define the pathology.

The pathology called “parental alienation” represents a complex “psychological equation” of attachment-related constructs (pathological mourning and the trans-generational transmission of attachment trauma), family systems constructs (cross-generational coalition and an emotional cutoff), and personality disorder pathology (narcissistic/borderline personality traits and splitting).

The various structural diagrams I’ve produced to visually represent the pathology are essentially the “psychological equations” for the pathology.

Diagram of AB-PA Pathology

Schematic Diagram of  the Pathology

In proposing a “new form of pathology” – a “new syndrome” unique in all of mental health – Gardner essentially proposed a diagnosis of I Don’t Want to Eat Carrots Syndrome.

As a clinical psychologist, my analysis of Gardner’s “psychological equation” (the I Don’t Want to Eat Carrots Syndrome) is that it is incredibly simplistic and entirely inadequate to solve the complex attachment-related family pathology of “parental alienation.”  The “Gardnerian Equation” for the pathology is a really-really poor model for a pathology, and it is an extremely problematic “psychological equation” to define the pathology.

That’s why the “Gardnerian Equation” hasn’t been able to solve the pathology in 30 years, and – truth be told – the Gardnerian PAS “psychological equation” for defining the pathology is so poor it will NEVER be able to solve the pathology.

Solving the pathology requires a more conceptually anchored (rather than symptom anchored) “psychological equation” for defining the pathology.  That’s what I set about to do with an attachment-based model of “parental alienation” – AB-PA.

AB-PA is a “psychological equation” – a formal and complete diagnostic workup of the pathology – that provides the solid conceptual Foundations on which we can stand to solve the pathology.

When the three child symptoms of AB-PA (the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting) are entered into the AB-PA “equation” for defining the pathology (Foundations),  the “psychological equation” of AB-PA produces the solution – a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse that then provides the professional rationale for the protective separation of the child from the abusive parent.

Gardner’s “psychological equation” to define the pathology is too simplistic and ill-formed to be able to solve the pathology.

The “psychological equation” of AB-PA is strong enough and robust enough to solve the pathology.

What we now need to do is educate professional mental health that the AB-PA “psychological equation” for defining the pathology exists, and we must get professional psychology to begin using the AB-PA “psychological equation” for defining the pathology (the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA; the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting) in all cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

Attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce – notice I did not use the term “parental alienation.

Analogy Explanation:  The reason I’m switching the language to attachment-related pathology, pathogenic parenting, and cross-generational coalition, is because these are the “mathematical terms” used in the “psychological equation” of AB-PA to define “parental alienation.”

In the “psychological equation” of AB-PA there is no “mathematical term” for “parental alienation” as a construct.  If you try to input the term “parental alienation” into AB-PA, the term just falls on the floor and lays there.  In the “psychological equation” of AB-PA the “mathematical terms” are attachment-related pathology, pathogenic parenting, and cross-generational coalition.

There are also “mathematical terms” for narcissistic and borderline personality pathology, splitting, and a host of others.  But there is no “mathematical term” in the “psychological equation” itself for “parental alienation.”

So, yes Klara, your analogy is accurate – which is why it captivated you so strongly in your kitchen.  I know exactly what that feels like.

If it’s okay with you, when I talk about AB-PA using a “psychological equation” analogy I’d like to give you credit for the idea by citing this blog post as a joint authorship (Gabanowicz & Childress, 2017), because your idea is correct and I’ve expanded upon it here.  So if that works for you, you might get yourself into the professional literature on this.

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

References

Gabanowitcz, K. and Childress, C.A. (2017). The “Equation” of Parental Alienation. Retrieved from https://drcraigchildressblog.com/2017/07/31/the-equation-of-parental-alienation/

I’m a clinical psychologist.  I can explain to you in detail why this is the simple truth.  But a far more obvious explanation is this:

We are currently using the 8 Gardnerian PAS symptom identifiers (or random derivatives), and using the 8 Garnerian symptom identifiers to diagnose the pathology is producing EXACTLY the situation we have right now.

If you’re happy with the situation we have right now, fine… let’s continue using the Gardnerian 8 symptom identifiers to diagnose the pathology.

If you’re not happy with the way things are right now, then we need to change how we are diagnosing the pathology.

I’m a clinical psychologist.  Diagnosing pathology is what I do.  I absolutely 100% guarantee that the moment we start using the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA we will be able to get a DSM-5 diagnosis of the pathology as V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

I have already consulted with therapists who have used the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA and who have given the DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse.  This diagnostic solution is available right now – today.

But I think it’s pretty goll darn obvious to everyone that using the Gardnerian PAS 8 symptom identifiers produces a completely failed mental health system response to the pathology.

If we switch to using the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA (the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting), then this leads directly to a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant developmental pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 1), personality disorder pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 2), and delusional-psychiatric pathology in the child (diagnostic indicator 3) is a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

I am a clinical psychologist.  I do diagnosis of pathology.  Let me assure you, there is NO WAY that using the Gardnerian 8 symptom identifiers will EVER lead to a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse – EVER.  I can explain in detail why this is, but simply accept this:

If the Gardnerian 8 symptom identifiers COULD produce a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse, don’t you think the pathology in your family would have received this diagnosis by now?

Has anyone out there gotten a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse from a mental health professional using the Gardnerian 8 symptom identifiers?

Because the field of professional psychology is currently using the Gardnerian 8 symptom identifiers (or random derivatives) to diagnose the pathology, so the response you are currently receiving from the mental health system is EXACTLY what is created by using the Gardnerian 8 symptom identifiers.

That’s really-really important for everyone to understand. The Gardnerians are sowing confusion by acting as if the 8 symptom identifiers of Gardnerian PAS lead to a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse.  They don’t.

The Gardnerians are deceiving you by implying that “everyone agrees that parental alienation is child abuse.”  There is only one path to getting the DSM-5 diagnosis.  I’m a clinical psychologist.  Diagnosis of pathology is what I do.  There is NO WAY that the 8 symptom identifiers of Gardnerian PAS will EVER lead to a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse.  Ever.

If the Gardnerians are going to maintain that the 8 symptom identifiers lead to a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse (rather than to alternative diagnoses of “bad parenting” by the allied parent, or shared parenting problems, or claims of “justified estrangement”), then it is incumbent upon the Gardnerians to lay out this diagnostic claim at a professional-level of detail.

Because, for the life of me as a clinical psychologist, I can’t see it – and the current absence of this diagnosis is evidence that no one else sees it either since we are currently using the Gardnerian 8 symptom identifiers (or random derivatives) to diagnose the pathology and your family has not received the diagnosis of Child Psychological Child Abuse.

So if the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA lead directly to a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, and the Gardnerian 8 symptom identifiers don’t and never will, then why are the Gardnerian PAS advocates REFUSING to advocate that all mental health professionals begin using the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA?

The pathogen has three defensive structures:

1.)  Remain hidden;

2.)  Seek allies;

3.)  Attack threats of exposure with great viciousness.

I want to talk about the second defensive structure, seek allies.  There are several types of allies that the pathogen recruits.

Ignorant Activating Allies:  The most obvious allies that the pathogen enlists are the ignorant and incompetent mental health persons who actively collude the pathology because of their profound professional ignorance and incompetence.

The pathogen seeks ignorance, and turns ignorance into an ally.  That’s key to remember.

Pathological Activating Allies:  In some cases, these mental health allies move from being just plain ignorant and incompetent allies into being pathological allies who are vicariously working through their own childhood trauma histories through their collusion with the false trauma-narrative of the alienation: “abusive parent”/”victimized child”/”protective parent.”

In professional psychology, this is called the therapist’s own “counter-transference” (the patient has “transference” – the therapist has “counter-transference”; transferring childhood patterns to current relationships).  These mental health persons have been captivated in their interpretations of the current situation by the “schemas” of their own childhood trauma.

The trauma reenactment narrative of “abusive parent”/”victimized child”/”protective parent” is, psychologically, an incredibly captivating narrative – and it represents the psychological hook that’s used to capture and enlist the ally.

Flying Monkey Allies:  Another level of allies are the general “flying monkey” people, these are people like Jean Mercer and the various obsessed general population people who will glom onto a case and escalate the rhetoric with hyperbolic accusations that Gardner, or Childress, or Pruter are evil people seeking to return abused children to their abuser.

This group is similar to the pathological mental health allies in that both groups are working out their own childhood attachment trauma issues by self-adopting the role in the false trauma-reenactment narrative as the “protective ally.”  The degree of the inner pathology that’s driving them is evidenced in their obsessional fixation that entirely captivates these flying monkey allies of the pathogen.

The flying monkey allies are typically also the carriers for the pathogen’s third defensive process, attack threats of exposure with great viciousness.

Because the pathogen disables (inhibits) frontal lobe executive function logical reasoning systems of the brain, these flying monkey allies – and all of the pathogen’s allies – are stupid as sin.  But the flying monkey allies are also incredibly vicious in their attacks (such as the attack that Gardner was a “pedophile”).  They seek to destroy the person.  Incredibly vicious.

Because the pathogen is stupid as sin, the attacks emanating from the pathogen aren’t rational.  What the attacks lack in rational logic, however, they make up for in sheer number.  The attacks emanating from the pathogen are vented a wild barrage of hyperbolic and extreme accusations that are spewed forth in a rapid progression of false allegations, lies, and distortions.

The goal of the pathology is to put the target of the attack on the defensive in order to divert the focus of attention AWAY from the pathogen and thereby relieve the threat of exposure for the pathogen posed by the target.  A general rule of thumb for the pathogen is, “When threatened, create complete chaos.”

In addition to putting the target/threat on the defensive, the barrage of accusations is also a strategy to compensate for the pathogen’s inability to logically reason.  The pathogen – or more accurately the brain inhabited by the pathogenic structures in the attachment networks – cannot logically reason to be able to figure out what represents rational and reasoned attacks, so instead it throws out a thousand attacks, no matter how irrational, and then follows-up with whatever attacks appeared to gain traction.  It’s an interesting strategy for self-defense by a brain in which logical reasoning has been inhibited.

These are the Activating Allies of the pathogen.  But there’s a second group of allies, the Enabling Allies of the pathology whose role is to remain hidden beneath the veil of concealment while acting to disable the mental health system’s response to the pathology.  As a clinical psychologist, uncovering this aspect of the pathology has been incredibly intriguing, leading to a variety of insights into attachment-related pathology and it’s spread among collateral receptive brain systems.

The Enabling Allies are a trickier group of allies because they operate beneath the pathogen’s veil of concealment – they remain hidden.  These allies aren’t as overtly obvious as the Activating Allies, but both groups of allies exhibit the same distinctive inhibition of frontal lobe executive function reasoning systems.

However, the Enabling Allies do not display the same attack motivations as the Activating Allies.  Instead, the Enabling Allies exhibit an inhibition of the attack response and a pronounced motivation to seek a stupor of shared-mind states that are marked by a distinctive inhibition of frontal lobe critical thinking.  The absence of the attack motivation and the propensity to develop a shared-mind cognitive stupor apparently allows these covert allies to remain hidden and unexposed beneath the pathogen’s veil of concealment, which allows them to then enact their role of deactivating the mental health response to the pathology.

Since the role of these Enabling Allies within the pathology’s social expression is to disable the mental health system’s response to the pathology, putting any solution in place will require that this function of these Enabling Allies of deactivating the mental health system’s response to the pathology must be interrupted, otherwise the pathogen will be successful in continuing to enact itself for another five years or longer, depending on how long the Enabling Allies of the pathogen are able to deactivate the mental health response to the pathology.

Because we will be striving to put into place the solution to “parental alienation” in the coming time period, I need to take steps to interrupt the ability of the pathogen’s Enabling Allies to continue disabling the mental health system’s response to the pathology.  To do this, I first need to expose the functioning of these Enabling Allies from beneath their veil of concealment.  The first defense of the pathogen is to remain hidden.

Known Pathology

Professional psychology has known exactly what this pathology is for 30 years.

It is abundantly clear to any rational mental health professional that a child’s rejection of a parent is a pathology of the attachment system.  The attachment system is the brain system that governs all aspects of love and bonding throughout the lifespan, including grief and loss.  A child rejecting a parent is clearly an attachment-related pathology.

That this truth has not been addressed in 30 years by the Gardnerian PAS “experts” represents an appalling absence of professional competence that speaks directly to their absence of motivation to actually solve the pathology.

Are the Gardnerian PAS “experts” really that stupid that they have not recognized in 30 years that a child’s rejection of a parent is fundamentally a pathology of the attachment system? (inhibition of frontal lobe executive function reasoning systems?)

Or are they simply that unmotivated to actually work out and solve the pathology?

Actually, it’s both; the inhibition of frontal lobe reasoning systems and the inhibition of motivation to solve the pathology.

In 1980 – 35 years ago – John Bowlby, the preeminent authority on the attachment system, identified that the “deactivation of attachment behavior” (such as a child rejecting a parent) was the result of “pathological mourning” (the pathological processing of sadness, grief, and loss).

Yet despite this completely available information, nowhere in the literature of Gardnerian PAS over the past 30 years has the linkage to “pathological mourning” ever been identified or examined.  This represents an appalling absence of basic professional competence in the assessment and diagnosis of a clearly attachment-related pathology, and it speaks directly to the absence of motivation in the Gardnerian PAS “experts” to actually solve the pathology.

I used to supervise interns and post-doctoral fellows.  If a trainee had brought me a case of a child rejecting a parent surrounding divorce, the first thing I would have done is instruct the trainee to read Bowlby’s three volumes on the attachment system, because a child rejecting a parent is clearly – clearly – an attachment-related pathology.  But the Gardnerian PAS “experts” never appeared to have done that.  In 30 years, they don’t appear to have cared enough to actually try and understand and diagnose the pathology.

That’s just profound professional sloth bordering on professional negligence.

Q:  Why were they so incredibly passive in trying to figure out the nature of the pathology?

A:  Gardnerian PAS.

These self-appointed “experts” in a supposedly “new form of pathology” were lulled into a professional slumber by the abject simplicity of the Gardnerian PAS model, which supposedly represented a “new form of pathology” that was entirely unique in all of mental health.  They didn’t undertake the proper – the proper – professional responsibility of responding to an attachment-related pathology by becoming knowledgeable and competent about the attachment system.

Shame on them.  The degree of professional indolence and sloth displayed by the Gardnerian PAS “experts” across 30 years while thousands and thousands of children and families were destroyed represents, in my mind, professional negligence.  I would NEVER have accepted such professional indolence and sloth from any mental health intern I supervised, and there is NO excuse from a licensed mental health professional for such indolence and sloth.

A child rejecting a parent is CLEARLY an attachment-related pathology.

The absolutely first thing for ANY mental health professional to do who is assessing, diagnosing, or treating an attachment-related pathology is to read Bowlby’s three volumes on the attachment system.  That’s just a basic-basic issue of professional competence.

Furthermore, in 1993 – 25 years ago – the renowned family systems therapist, Salvador Minuchin, in his book with Michael Nichols, Family Healing, provided a structural family diagram depicting the pathology that people have been calling “parental alienation.”  This structural family diagram depicts the child’s triangulation into the spousal conflict through the formation of a cross-generational coalition with the father against the mother.  Notice the breaks in the lines from the mother to the father and to the child.  That’s called an emotional cutoff, and this type of family pathology has been extensively described by the renowned family therapist Murray Bowen (Bowen, 1978; Titelman, 2003).

That break in the lines depicted in Munichin’s structural family diagram (the “emotional cutoff” in the child’s relationship with the mother) represents the child’s rejection of the parent that everyone is calling “parental alienation.”  The correct clinical psychology term for this pathology in family systems therapy is an “emotional cutoff.”  Same exact pathology.

Listen to Salvador Minuchin’s description of the consequences of a child’s cross-generational coalition with the mother against the father following the parents’ divorce:

“An inappropriately rigid cross-generational subsystem of mother and son versus father appears, and the boundary around this coalition of mother and son excludes the father.” (Minuchin, 1974, p. 61-62)

“The parents were divorced six months earlier and the father is now living alone… Two of the children who were very attached to their father, now refuse any contact with him.  The younger children visit their father but express great unhappiness with the situation.” (Minuchin, 1974, p. 101)

Isn’t that an exact description of the pathology people call “parental alienation” – following the parent’s divorce the children are rejecting one parent (the father in this case) because of a coalition of the children with their mother that “excludes the father.”  Look at the date; 1974.  Over forty years ago, and fully ten years before Gardner proposed his supposedly “new form of pathology” – his Parental Alienation Syndrome.

This is not some “new form of pathology.”  We know exactly what this is.  We just need to return to the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

And then there’s the personality pathology.  Gardner identified the “lack of ambivalence” displayed by the child as one of his 8 symptoms of this supposedly new form of pathology.  The symptom of a “lack of ambivalence” is called splitting in professional psychology, and is a highly indicative symptom – in fact it’s an exclusive symptom – of narcissistic and borderline personality pathology.  Why didn’t Gardner call it splitting?  Why didn’t he work out the narcissistic and borderline personality pathology component of the pathology?

This isn’t some sort of “new pathology,” Gardner and the other Gardnerian PAS “experts” are simply poor diagnosticians – in fact, really poor diagnosticians if they have to resort to creating an entirely “new form of pathology.”  Let that sink in for a moment.  These so-called “experts” are actually horrific diagnosticians, and yet they view themselves as some sort of “experts.”  Pretty low bar for “expertise” if you ask me.

Attachment pathology (pathological mourning), family systems pathology (cross-generational coalition and emotional cutoff), personality disorder pathology (narcissistic and borderline personality pathology).  Standard and fully established stuff just waiting for us to leave the wilderness of Gardnerian PAS and return to the path of established professional psychology.

Why did this wait 30 years?  Not one – not one – of the Gardnerian PAS experts in 30 years put in the professional effort to work this out.  Sloth.  It’s all been there for the entire time if anyone – if any one of them – had been sufficiently motivated to put in the effort to work it out.

Why did I work it out?  Because I am motivated to solve the pathology.

Why didn’t the Gardnerian PAS “experts” work it out?  Because they are NOT motivated to solve the pathology.

Simple as that.

But they write articles.  They provide testimony.  They advocate for PAS to be included in the DSM diagnostic system.  Surely they want to solve the pathology?

Writing professional articles as “experts” in a supposedly new form of pathology feeds their inflated narcissistic opinion of themselves as “experts.”  Providing “expert” witness testimony feeds their inflated narcissistic opinion of themselves as “experts.”  Advocating that PAS be included in the DSM diagnostic system feeds their inflated narcissistic opinion of themselves as “experts.”

They’re not fighting for you.  In fact, 30 years – no solution – they are completely impotent in “fighting” for you and your children.  And they did not lift a finger to understand and identify the pathology using standard and established constructs and principles that would have provided you and your children with an immediate solution.  Why?

Because they don’t want a solution.  They want to be “experts.”

They recently had a echo chamber conference in Prague and what did they come up with, all these “experts” in “parental alienation”?   That they’re “experts” in “parental alienation.” Seriously.  That’s their big news from their conference.  Narcissistic self-inflation.

In 30 years they did not do the professional work needed by targeted parents and their children.  Why not?   Because they don’t actually care about solving the pathology – they just want to satisfy their narcissistic ego-inflation as “experts” in a new form of pathology.

I am waking everyone up to these Enabling Allies of the pathology.   We are going to be solving this pathology for all children and all families, and the professional ignorance and incompetence of these Gardnerian PAS “experts” who are actively disabling the mental health system’s response to the pathology needs to stop.

They are false allies to targeted parents and to the children who have endured decades of professional incompetence and professional impotence because of their professional indolence and sloth.  They present a fair-face, but they are actually disabling the mental health system’s response to the pathogen.  They are false allies to you and your children.

By proposing and supporting a clearly – clearly – inadequate and flawed model of pathology – for 30 years – the Gardnerian PAS “experts” created and continue to create a schism in professional psychology that has disabled the professional response to the pathology in endless and needless debate and internecine professional conflict.

Rather than acting from the proper professional path of describing the attachment-related family pathology using the standard and established – fully available – constructs and principles of professional psychology, these ignorant and incompetent, abhorrently slothful and professionally negligent, Gardnerian PAS “experts” have inflexibly insisted – insisted – that establishment psychology submit to a clearly inadequate and massively flawed model of pathology.   And for 30 years, establishment psychology has consistently given them abundantly clear constructive feedback that the Gardnerian PAS model is simply too flawed as a model of pathology.

And it is.  It is an absolutely horrific model for a pathology.

Did the Gardnerian PAS “experts” ever take this constructive feedback and set about doing the work necessary to figure out what the attachment-related family pathology of a child rejecting a parent surrounding divorce actually represents?  No.

Instead they continued to inflexibly – obstinately – stubbornly – insist that establishment psychology must submit and accept a massively flawed model of pathology.   Stupid.

In doing so, they created a vacuum of professional competence.  Gardnerian PAS was NOT accepted, but no other model for the pathology was proposed.  Into this vacuum of ignorance and incompetence created by the Gardnerian PAS model flowed the massive professional ignorance and incompetence that currently inhabits every corner of the mental health response to the pathology.

The massive professional ignorance and incompetence in the mental health system’s response to this pathology is the DIRECT RESULT of Gardnerian PAS and the professional ignorance, sloth, and incompetence of the Gardnerian PAS “experts.”  They are the Enabling Allies of the pathogen.  They are the hidden allies of the pathogen who have acted across 30 years to disable the mental health system’s response to the pathology.

How did the pathogen captivate them?  By linking into their grandiose narcissistic ego-structures that desire to be regarded as “experts.”

Once the pathogen has them as allies – as Enabling Allies – the pathogen then shuts off their frontal lobe executive function critical thinking systems so they become intellectually slothful and lazy.  They like the Gardnerian PAS model because it’s simple.  Never mind that its a horrible model of pathology.  It’s simple. They can grasp it.  It doesn’t make these “experts” think too hard.

And through the motivational networks available from the attachment networks, the pathogen captivates their self-inflated narcissistic motivation to be “experts” while simultaneously inhibiting their motivation to actually solve the pathology.  For 30 years they write articles and hold conferences, they advocate and they pontificate – all because they are “experts” in this supposedly new form of pathology.  But do they actually solve the pathology.  No.

They are not motivated to solve the pathology – they are ONLY motivated to be “experts” in their mythical new form of pathology.

Look what I’ve done with AB-PA.  Why?  How?  Because I am motivated to solve the pathology, not simply be an “expert” in the pathology.

This solution has always – always – been available to the Gardnerian PAS “experts.”  From day one.  I’m not special; I just care.  My motivation is to solve the pathology.  Their motivation is to be an “expert.”

Bowlby is not new.  1980.  Over 35 years ago.

Minuchin is not new. 1974. Over 40 years ago.

The Gardnerian PAS “experts” have ALWAYS had the ability to solve the pathology – if they had simply wanted to.

They didn’t want to.

Instead, they have locked up the professional response to the pathology in controversy, endless debate, and profound professional ignorance and incompetence – all so they could fulfill their narcissistic self-inflated ego-desires to be “experts.”

Experts.  Ha.  Stupid as sin.

In terms of actually working to solve the pathology – they have been slothful, intellectually lazy, and entirely impotent in protecting you and your children from the scourge of this horrific pathology – for decades.

The Gardnerian PAS “experts” are the Enabling Allies of the pathogen.  They are hiding their ignorance and incompetence behind a false-face of being allies to targeted parents and their children – but they are abandoning – they are sacrificing – targeted parents and their children to the continuation of the pathology, all so that these Gardnerian PAS “experts” can remain narcissistically self-absorbed “experts” in their supposedly new form of pathology.

Their conferences are nothing more that self-congratulatory echo chambers for their own self-aggrandizement, and they will continue to try to lock up the professional response to the pathology in the endless and entirely unnecessary professional “controversy” surrounding their failed, massively flawed, and entirely inadequate model of pathology.

As Enabling Allies of the pathogen, the Gardnerian PAS “experts” will seek to continue to mire professional psychology in a general confusion regarding PAS and AB-PA in order to prevent clarity from emerging that will lead to a solution to “parental alienation.”  They will co-opt concepts of AB-PA and associate them with Garnerian PAS even though these concepts are NOT applicable to Gardnerian PAS, all to obfuscate and confuse.

What they seek is to mire the professional discussion surrounding AB-PA in confusion, and because of this AB-PA will be dismissed as simply being Gardnerian PAS and it will take us fully five additional years to undo the damage created by this Gardnerian induced confusion.

All the while, more and more families will be needlessly sacrificed to the pathology, awaiting a solution that is bogged down by the general confusion in professional psychology created by these Gardnerian PAS “experts.”

They have not fought for you.  There is no fight in them.  But by God, there is fight in me.  They are false allies who seek to continue disabling the mental health response to the pathology in order to satisfy their narcissistic self-inflation as “experts” in a mythical form of pathology.

They are now witnessing what “fighting” for targeted parents and their children looks like.

Ignorance from mental health persons will no longer be tolerated.  Professional sloth from mental health persons will no longer be tolerated.  Professional incompetence from mental health persons will no longer be tolerated.  Allies of the pathogen – both Activating Allies and Enabling Allies – will no longer be tolerated.

We will no longer stand by impotently while countless children and their beloved parents are sacrificed to this pathology.

We are going to fight for your children.  We are going to bring this pathology to an end.

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

Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Loss: Sadness and depression. NY: Basic Books.

Bowen, M. (1978). Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. New York: Jason Aronson.

Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and Family Therapy. Harvard University Press.

Minuchin. S. & Nichols, M.P. (1993). Family healing: Strategies for hope and understanding. New York: Touchstone.

Titelman, P. (2003). Emotional cutoff in Bowen family systems theory: An Overview.  In Emotional cutoff: Bowen family systems theory perspectives, P. Tetelman (ed). New York: Haworth Press.

Karen Woodall, stop trying to co-opt my work and present it as your own.

In your most recent blog (Taken at the Flood) you state:

Dr Childress’s recent blog called The Structure of the Pathology, I sat down with my mouth open, because in this blog is the description of exactly that which I discussed at the first meeting of the European Association of Parental Alienation Practitioners in Prague.

Karen Woodall, stop trying to co-opt my work and present it as if it was your own.  Within exactly the same sentence that you reference my work you claim it as your own.

Cite for me where you structurally linked the family systems pathology to the personality disorder pathology to the attachment system pathology.

Cite for me where you described the structural underbelly of the pathogen and the three defensive structures, and the inhibition of the executive function system, the identity system, and the memory system.

Karen Woodall, stop trying to co-opt MY work and present it as if it was your own.

It is professionally unseemly, it is professionally inappropriate, and it is professionally disrespectful to try to co-opt the work of another as if it was your own.  Stop it.

I don’t care what you spoke about in Prague, it is not “exactly” like what I presented in my blog.  I am outraged that you would try to co-opt my work as if it was your own.

Just because you present a pretty picture of objects on desk does not mean that you have worked out the structure of the pathogen.  My work is not “exactly” what you may have spoken about it Prague.  Stop trying to co-opt my work and present it as if it was your own.

This is analogous to what Dr. Bernet initially tried to do in his Old Wine in Old Skins commentary on Foundations and AB-PA, by claiming that AB-PA was nothing new, just the same old stuff everybody was talking about.

Dr. Bernet’s assertion was complete and utter nonsense.  An attachment-based model of “parental alieantion” (AB-PA) as put forth in Foundations is not simply Gardnernian PAS using “a new set of terms.”  Words convey meaning.  New “terms” create new meaning.  The “new terms” of AB-PA do NOT convey the same meaning as the old terms used in Gardnerian PAS.  Words having meaning.

You and Dr. Bernet want to pretend that AB-PA doesn’t exist, that it’s “nothing new” – because you are desperately trying to hold on to your status as “experts” in a mythical “new form of pathology” called “parental alienation.”

I, on the other hand, am trying to take us back to the path of established professional psychology – established professional constructs and principles – real and actual forms of psychological pathology.  NO “new forms of pathology” unique in all of mental health that require an equally new and unique set of symptom identifiers developed uniquely and specifially for this supposedly new form of pathology.

No.  The pathology we are dealing with is a manifestation of standard and fully established forms of pathology that are extensively and fully described in the professional literature.  It’s NOT a “new form of pathology.”  No.

We must return to the path of established professional psychology.  No mythical “new forms of pathology.”  ONLY – ONLY – real and established – actual forms of pathology that are fully defined and fully accepted within professional psychology.

AB-PA accomplishes this.  AB-PA defines the attachment-related family pathology people are calling “parental alienation” entirely – entirely – from within the standard and established forms of pathology in professional psychology, without having to rely on a wild proposal for the existence of some entirely new form of pathology that is unique in all of mental health.

There is no such thing as “parental alienation.”  It is a mythical form of pathology; unicorns and mermaids.

There is attachment-related pathology.

There is personality disorder pathology.

There is family systems pathology.

There are a lot of real pathologies.  But there is no such thing as a new and entirely unique form of pathology called “parental alienation.”  The pathology people are calling “parental alienation” is a manifestation of standard and fully established forms of existing pathology.  The term “parental alienation” is a popular culture term used to describe an attachment-related clinical pathology (called pathogenic parenting and pathological mourning in the professional literature).

Being an “Expert”

But the moment we return to the path of professionally established constructs and principles, the moment we stop proposing an entirely “new form of pathology,” then you and Dr. Bernet and all the other Gardnerian PAS “experts” cease to be “experts,” because you are only experts in unicorns and mermaids.  You need to hold on to mythical forms of new pathology – to the existence of unicorns and mermaids – because then you can hold on to your status as an “expert.”

Don’t believe me?  Answer me this one simple question… what is the path to a solution using Gardnerian PAS?  Lay it out for us.  Tell us, what is the path to a solution that you envision using Gardnerian PAS?

I’ve described, in detail, the path to a solution using AB-PA on multiple occasions (Ex: Dominoes Part 1: Paradigm Shift; Dominoes Falling: The Sequence)

I’m asking you a really simple and direct question.  Tell us the path to a solution using a Gardnerian PAS model.  Targeted parents deserve an answer to this question.  What is the path you propose to a solution using a Gardnerian PAS model?

Because if you have NO solution, if Gardnerian PAS offers NO solution except 30 more years of the same, then why are you still holding on to it?  AB-PA offers an immediate solution the moment the paradigm shifts.

So please – please – answer me that simple-simple question, what is the path to a solution that you envision using Gardnerian PAS?  Lay it out for us.

Because if you don’t answer that question yet you continue to hold on to Gardnerian PAS as a model for the pathology, then I’m going to call you out as being a false ally who only wants to remain an “expert” rather than achieve an actual solution.

It’s a simple question.  We have a right to know.  What is the solution you envision using a Gardnerian PAS model?  Lay it out for us.

As a clinical psychologist, I notice little things about a person’s self-expression.  Sometimes these little things tell us a lot.

I’m struck by the difference in the sub-headings for my blog and yours.

The sub-heading on my blog reads: Attachment-Based Parental Alienation (AB-PA).  A Scientifically Based Model of “Parental Alienation”

I’d call your attention to several things about this sub-heading.  First, I emphasize the model for the pathology.  Second, I reference establishing a scientifically based foundation for the model.  Third, I put the term “Parental Alienation” in quotes because it is not a real form of pathology – the term “parental alienation” is a term used in the popular culture to refer to an attachment-related pathology (called pathological mourning; Bowlby, 1980).

Now let’s look at the sub-heading for your blog. It reads: Parental Alienation Expert.

Hmmm.  Note the difference.  To a clinical psychologist, your sub-heading seems to suggest an ego-investment in being an “expert” – it’s all about you – you’re an “expert.”

But then that will create a problem when we return to standard and established professional constructs and principles to define and diagnose the pathology.  The moment we return to the standard and established constructs of professional psychology, the moment we leave the realm of mythical “new forms of pathology” – you’ll cease to be an “expert.”  Uh oh.

That’s the problem – the dilemma – you face.  The path to the solution requires a return to the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.  But in returning to the path of established professional psychology, you’ll cease to be an “expert.”  What are you going to do?  That is the question you face.

Do you want to directly face that question? Here is your dilemma in a nutshell:

Q:  Describe the path to a solution that you envision using a Gardnerian PAS model.

That answer – or lack of answer – to THAT question is at the heart of your dilemma.

What are you going to do?  Remain an “expert” or enact the solution?

AB-PA gives an immediate DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.  But only if you use the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA, and the three diagnostic indicators are only available to you if you switch to an AB-PA model of the pathology.  The 8 Gardnerian PAS symptoms do not lead to a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse.  You know it, and I know it.

What are you going to do?  Remain an “expert” or enact the solution?

Actually, you don’t have a choice.  Because the solution is coming, it’s already underway, and your “expertise” in unicorns and mermaids is going to become irrelevant.  You and the other Gardnerian PAS experts are currently living in a echo chamber of self-aggrandizement – “we’re experts” – “let’s define what experts are, and we’ll be them.”

What will happen when you cease to be an “expert”?  What will happen when mental health professionals all across Great Britain and Europe are accurately diagnosing the attachment-related pathology using an AB-PA model as being a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.  What happens to “parental alienation” experts when the pathology is solved?

I can totally understand why you and the other Gardnerian PAS “experts” want to hold on to the mythical “new form of pathology” – you’ve been “experts” in this mythical new form of pathology for so long it’s become a part of the very fabric of your professional identity.  I imagine it’s very disorienting to watch your “expertise” in this “new form of pathology” disappear as we return to the standard and established path of professional psychology, and as we achieve the solution – all done, solved – to the attachment-related pathology that you’re calling “parental alienation.”

But while you seek to be an “expert” in unicorns and mermaids, I am an expert in real forms of pathology.

You know what being an expert in real forms of pathology is called? — it’s called being a clinical psychologist.  That’s it.  I’m just a clinical psychologist.

And being a clinical psychologist means that I an an expert in real forms of psychopathology, from autism to ADHD, from attachment-related pathology to personality pathology.  That’s what being a clinical psychologist means.

Real Pathology

So if you want to believe in unicorns and mermaids so that you can be an “expert” in unicorns and mermaids, that’s up to you.  The rest of us are going to be experts in real forms of pathology, attachment-related pathology, personality pathology, family systems pathology.

But even if you’re an “expert” in unicorns and mermaids, that still does NOT release you – and all of the other Gardnerian PAS “experts” – from your professional obligation – your professional obligation – to ALSO know, assess, diagnose, and treat actual real forms of pathology.

If you are assessing, diagnosing, and treating attachment-related pathology without a professional-level of knowledge regarding the functioning and characteristic dysfunctioning of the attachment system, then you are practicing beyond the boundaries of professional competence with REAL forms of pathology.

If you are assessing, diagnosing, and treating personality disorder pathology without a professional-level of knowledge regarding the origins, functioning, and characteristic dysfunctioning of personality disorder pathology as expressed within the family, then you are practicing beyond the boundaries of professional competence with REAL forms of pathology.

If you are assessing, diagnosing, and treating family pathology without a professional-level of knowledge regarding the fundamental constructs and principles of family systems and family system therapy, then you are practicing beyond the boundaries of professional competence with REAL forms of pathology.

That means that you must – as a real mental health professional – assess for and document the symptoms associated with these real forms of pathology.

The easiest way to do this for attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce (notice I did not use the term “parental alienation”: I’m talking about real forms of pathology) is to use the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting.  If the three diagnostic indicators are present, the DSM-5 diagnosis is V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

Easy-peasy.

Documenting the presence of the 12 Associated Clinical Signs is also recommended as confirming data.

If you are NOT using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting in your standard assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, why not?

Why aren’t you using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting that can immediately give you a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed?

You can still go ahead and be an “expert” in unicorns and mermaids too, if you want.  Personally, being a clinical psychologist is enough for me; an expert in real forms of pathology – from autism to ADHD, from attachment-related pathology to personality disorder pathology.  But if it’s important for you to also be an “expert” in unicorns and mermaids, whatever floats your boat.

But you must ALSO be competent in real forms of pathology as well.  That is your professional obligation.

Origins of “Protective Separation”

While I’m here, Karen, I would appreciate the professional courtesy of your providing me with professional citation when you use the construct of a “protective separation.”  I am the one who introduced that construct into the professional dialogue. It’s considered professionally courteous and respectful to acknowledge the contributions of other mental health professionals.

Let me explain the origin of the term “protective separation” – my conscious and intentional decision to introduce that construct into the meme-space (Dawkins, 1989) of the professional discussion.

In my initial analysis of the various meme-structures of the pathogen, a central core meme-structure is the effort by the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent to adopt and then conspicuously display the false trauma reenactment role as the “protective parent.”

When I set about constructing the anti-pathogen meme-structure, I formulated the linkage of the pathology (pathogenic parenting) to a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.  I then formulated the link from a formal DSM diagnosis of child abuse to the treatment-related response of separating the child from the abusive parent.

But as I selected my words, I intentionally added the word “protective” to the word “separation” to actively challenge the false meme-structure being propagated by the pathogen that it was the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent who was “protecting the child.”  No.  We are the ones protecting the child.  We are going to fight for that role of protecting the child.

WE are the ones protecting the child.  That’s what the meme-structure of the “protective separation” is specifically – and intentionally – designed to address.

I also knew, from my analyses of the pathogen’s meme-structures as they are propagated within its allies, that the counter meme-structure that the pathogen would offer is that separating the child from the supposedly “favored” parent would be “traumatic” for the child.  By adding the word “protective” to the construct of a protective separation, I was introducing a meme-structure to counter the “traumatic” argument that would be offered by the pathogen – it is NOT “traumatic”  to “protect” a child from child abuse.

Notice too in all my writings I have added the word “supposedly” to the phrase “favored parent” – and will often put the word “favored” in quotes – thereby creating the phrase: supposedly “favored” parent.  We are even going to fight the pathogen’s meme-structure that the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent is the “favored” parent.  No.  That relationship is actually an insecure attachment.  The secure attachment is to the targeted parent.

So, while the meme-structure of the “supposedly ‘favored’ parent” is somewhat cumbersome, I’m not going to give an inch to the pathogen.  We are going to fight every single pathogenic construct.

So in creating and introducing the meme-structure of “protective separation,” I had two fully conscious and fully intentional clinical psychology reasons for adding the word protective to the construct of separation, and you’ll see this term from the very start of all my writings five or six years ago.

If you don’t think I know exactly what I’m doing, you’re wrong.

So when you use the term “protective separation,” Karen, you are referencing a construct that I specifically developed and that I intentionally introduced into the meme-space (Dawkins, 1989) of the professional discussion.  When you use the term “protective separation” I would appreciate the common professional courtesy and display of professional respect of citing me as the originator for this construct, rather than ignoring my contribution and co-opting the construct without proper citation as if you were the orginator of it.

The professional reference citation I would prefer would be to Foundations.  So when you use the term, at least the first time in each document, the citation to me as the originator for the construct would look like this:

“…words-words-words protective separation (Childress, 2015) words-words-words…”

With a citation to Foundations in your References:

Childress, C.A. (2015). An Attachment-Based Model of Parental Alienation: Foundations. Claremont, CA: Oaksong Press.

Or you can simply eschew from adding the word protective to the construct of separation, and simply refer to the child’s separation from the allied parent, in which case you won’t need to cite me as a the originator for the construct of a “protective separation.”

That’s called professional courtesy and respect.

If you choose not to reference me as the originator for the construct of a “protective separation,” as you have been doing up to this point, and you instead try to co-opt my work as if it was original to you, there’s nothing I can do about that.  But it’s considered a matter of professional courtesy and respect to cite the originator for ideas and constructs (for example, my citation of Dawkins relative to the construct of memes).

Structure of the Pathogen

But for you to claim that my work on defining and describing the structure of the pathogen is “exactly” what you’ve already done goes way-way too far. It is outrageous and insulting.

Cite for me where you structurally linked the family systems pathology to the personality disorder pathology to the attachment system pathology.

Cite for me where you described the structural underbelly of the pathogen and the three defensive structures, and the inhibition of the executive function system, the identity system, and the memory system.

Stop trying to co-opt my work and pass my ideas and my work off as your own.  It is outrageous and insulting.

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

Dawkins, R. (1989). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

I just learned of the passing of Dr. Douglas Darnall.  He is a strong and valued voice for children and families in their fight against the pathology of “parental alienation.”

My prayers are with Doug as he travels home, and are with his family who mourn his loss.

May peace and love be with you.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Psychologist, PSY 18857