Dr. Craig Childress: Attachment Based "Parental Alienation" (AB-PA)

This is a post by Dorcy Pruter to the Facebook group, the Alliance to Solve Parental Alienation.  It is so incredibly rich in wisdom that I want to emphasize her insights and counsel.

A preface; there are a set of brain cells called mirror neurons.   I recommend everyone watch this short PBS show on Mirror Neurons:

PBS: Mirror Neurons

The mirror neuron network is designed to read the intention of other people; what is motivating the other person.  One of the leading researchers in this domain is Daniel Stern:

From Stern: “Our nervous systems are constructed to be captured by the nervous systems of others.  Our intentions are modified or born in a shifting dialogue with the felt intentions of others.  Our feelings are shaped by the intentions, thoughts, and feelings of others.  And our thoughts are cocreated in dialogue, even when it is only with ourselves.  In short, our mental life is cocreated.”  (Stern, 2004, p. 76)

From Stern: “The discovery of mirror neurons has been crucial.  Mirror neurons provide possible neurobiological mechanisms for understanding the following phenomena: reading other people’s states of mind, especially intentions; resonating with another’s emotion; experiencing what someone else is experiencing; and capturing an observed action so that one can imitate it — in short, empathizing with another and establishing intersubjective contact.” (Stern, 2004; p. 78)

From Stern: “The perception of an attributable intention seems to have its own brain localization — a sort of intention-detecting center (Blakemore & Decety, 2001).  For example, the intention-detector brain center is activated if the action, in its context, seems to have an intention.  If the exact same movement is seen, in a different context where no intention can be attributed, the brain center will not activate.” (Stern, 2004; p. 80).

In my clinical psychology work with children and families, I typically describe to parents that the child’s brain is reading the parent’s intention, not just the parent’s behavior.  The most important thing about parenting is NOT what we do, it is the intention that is motivating our actions.  I then work with parents on developing and organizing their underlying intentions from which their actions flow.

This is Dorcy’s wisdom.  Targeted parents – and everyone – would be well served by a commitment to understanding Dorcy’s wisdom and counsel:

From Dorcy Pruter:

In some situations the supposedly targeted parent is the pathogenic parent.

Some cases we work on at the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute both parents are pathogenic. Those are the most difficult cases.

Kids love both of their parents and we have an obligation as a society and as humanity to stop judging, labeling and blaming and seek to educate and empower children with the skills they need to be in a healthy relationship with both parents.

When a child is being abused we must first protect the child, we then recover and restore the child to their authentic self, we then recover the pathogenic parents (adult abused children) to their authentic selves.

We don’t throw the parents out. We give them the support and teach them the skills they need to be better parents.

Empathy and compassion is unconditional love in action.

I encourage all parents to take a deep dive into their subconscious mind and discover why they are choosing the experiencing they have chosen as parents unconsciously. The solution to restoring relationships and really creating healthier relationships starts with you always. It is so easy to blame the other, focus on their pathology and faults, however this does not advance your family forward.

You take you wherever you go. It is not about blame it is about 100% responsibility 100% of the time. It is from this empowered place that you can recover your children and the special bond you have with them. Pathogenic parent or not.

Children love their parents, even their pathogenic parents. Once the bond is formed it is never broken. My mother is extremely pathogenic and yet I still love her and have always loved her. I have extreme compassion and empathy for her. I can see her unhealed child and she suffers. Instead of hating her, I love her. This is the same for all humans. Our ability to love unconditionally is how we come into the world. Most have forgotten because of the conditioning that starts early on because our parents are unconscious.

We don’t need more suffering – we need more empathy and compassion.

We love not because of how other people are or act, we love because of who we are.

One last thing, if you are stuck in your victim mindset, you will not be able to recover your children. You must resolve your suffering with compassion for self. It is from this transformational place of healing that you will attract your beloved children back to you.

We must all rise together and not allow each other to suffer with self-pity and blame. When you see someone suffering, don’t sympathize, this is very lower self this holds people stuck. Empathize, this encourages people to rise up, take responsibility and make a change.

I know the “system” is broken, and you are going to have to rise up out of the system and take your power back. It is the belief that keeps getting projected into the world that perpetuates it as truth.

When you change your thoughts, you change your feelings which changes your actions. From a new thought comes a new perspective comes a new action.

This is how it works. This is how it works for EVERYONE. This is how some people reunite and some don’t.

When our clients come to us they are suffering and when they listen and start implementing new thoughts and actions reunification happens.

The moment we go down the mindset path of victim, the system is broken, my ex is alienating, lawyers and judges are unfair, mental health professionals are incompetent and on and on we are telling the universe this is the truth for us and then the universe dishes up more of what you believe you deserve. This is how it works. I have seen it time and time again. The shift in the mindset and the shift in doing the inner work is what makes difference.

We chose to have children mostly from our lower self consciousness and it is now time to rise up and be the Higher Purpose Parents we are being called forward to be.

Authentically targeted parents are the chosen parents, they are the parents with the internal strength and gifts to shift all of humanity. They have forgotten and they are awakening now.

#togetherwerise #endallchildabuse #higherpurposeparents

Thank you Dorcy, for healing and correcting the dark energy of suffering and victimization.  We start by understanding and organizing our deeper intentions, finding our love, finding our power, healing ourselves.  Then, from this more steady place of light and love, we recover the children who are lost.

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

I have had an idea for a while now that I keep trying to push away, and it keeps coming back.  So, I’ve decided to roll it out and see where it leads.  Maybe somewhere, maybe nowhere.

I want to create a resource from the stories of grief and loss borne by so many targeted parents, your stories of love for your children, your stories about the failure of the mental health system, and your stories of the failed court system.  Your stories of pain.

I know these stories far too well, because I’ve heard these stories far too often.  While each story is unique, each story is also the same, over-and-over they replay in families, the loss of children to the pathology of a narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

I want to send your stories to the APA, to child custody evaluators, to media representatives, and to state legislators, so they can hear what I hear; the grief and loss, and the enduring family tragedy of “parental alienation” that occurs surrounding divorce.

To do this, I want to compile your stories into a book that can be sent to the APA, and to custody evaluators, and to state legislators.  I want to say,

“Look.  Look at this, hear these stories.  Look at the lost love, the grief, and the nightmare of the failed mental health system and the failed legal system response to the malignancy of the parental personality pathology surrounding divorce; a child’s love that becomes twisted by the pathology of a narcissistic/(borderline) parent into unrecognizable anger, hostility, and rejection.”

Targeted parents are experiencing a form of complex trauma called “traumatic grief.”

Wikipedia: Complex Trauma

 A therapeutic approach to processing trauma is through journaling about the experience.  Being able to form the trauma experience into the structure of an organized coherent narrative – forming and telling the story – helps to heal the trauma, it helps integrate the incomprehensibility of the trauma experience.  Putting the chaotic emotions of trauma into words helps bring psychological organization to the experience, which then assists in the processing of the complex trauma experience.

But no sooner do I have these thoughts for compiling a book of stories, than sanity grabs ahold of me and says,

“What are you doing?  Are you nuts?  You already have way too much on your plate.  You can’t take on editing a collection of stories from targeted parents regarding their grief and loss, and about the failures of the mental health system and legal system.”

“They’ll send you 10, 20, 30 pages of detailed stories.  You’ll never have time to read them.  The mere attempt to compile these stories would be overwhelming.”

But, in spite of this immensely sage wisdom from my sanity, I’ve come to the conclusion that your stories need to exist, your loss needs to be recognized, your love and heartbreak needs to be heard.

So, I’ve decided to start a book project of compiling stories from targeted parents.  I have absolutely no doubt that each parent can write a full book, each of you on your own, regarding the wild roller coaster ride of tragedy created from your experiences, and many have.  My goal, however, is different.  It is to bring these stories together into a single powerful voice, each story unique, and yet all of them the same.  I want to say with these stories, “Look.  See these people.  Listen to their heartbreak.”

And I also want to give each of you a chance to begin processing your complex trauma – the traumatic grieving created by the failed responses from the mental health system and legal system to the personality pathology of your ex-spouse that has emerged through your child following the divorce.

So, I have decided to request your stories – in a very structured format.  I don’t have time to read pages and pages of each story.  There are too many of you and it is too much.

Bringing organization and structure to your story is part of your brain’s way of making sense of it.  If your experience simply spews forth, it remains disorganized and unprocessed.  I am asking that you structure your stories in a very specific way, and then to send your story to me at an email address I’m going to provide.

The Structure

The STRUCTURE is to tell your story in 11 paragraphs. 

That’s all you get: 11 paragraphs total.  Your entire story in 11 paragraphs.

And here’s how these paragraphs are to be formed:

Paragraphs 1 & 2: Love and Light

In these opening two paragraphs (of 4 sentences each; that’s all you get, four sentences for each paragraph), I want you to describe the love and bonding with your children before the pathology emerged. 

I want you to tell me how wonderful your children are, how much you love them, and the deep love, joy, and bonding that you shared with your children before the tragedy.  Help me to see your beautiful and wonderful children.  Tell me how your son loves peanut butter and bananas and how your daughter was so proud when she scored her soccer goal.  Let me love your children with you.

These are the paragraphs of light and love that will then devolve through paragraphs 3 through 9 into the dark night of the alienation and loss.  There is a flow.  Each story is unique, and each is the same.

Two paragraphs of 4 sentences each for love and light, that’s all you get. 

This two-paragraph limitation is important, both for the processing of trauma and because that’s what the book needs, it’s not simply your story – it’s all of your stories together, each unique and yet each the same.  By each story remaining focused and structured, the love becomes accessible to the reader, the nightmare becomes accessible to the reader, and the tragedy of profound loss and grief becomes accessible to the reader.

Paragraphs 3 – 4 – 5: The Pathology’s Emergence

In three paragraphs of 4 sentences each, tell me about the pathology, how it emerged, how your beautiful children changed, how the pathology of your ex-spouse twisted your children into their anger, hostility, judgement, fearfulness, and rejection.

Tell me what happened to your children.  Tell me of their destruction.

Three paragraphs of 4 sentences each.  All of the pathology in only three paragraphs of 4 sentences each.

Paragraphs 6 & 7:  The Failed Mental Health System

Next, I want to learn about the failure of the mental health system, the failure by therapists and custody evaluators to identify the pathology and stop the pathology, and the collusion by mental health persons with enacting the pathology.

In two paragraphs of 4 sentences each, tell me about how the mental health system failed you, how no one listened, how no one saw, how no one made it stop.

Paragraphs 8 & 9: The Failed Legal System

In two paragraphs of 4 sentences each, tell me about the nightmare of the failed family courts, the financial bankruptcy created by the legal system, the endless delays, and the manipulation of the injustice system by your ex-spouse.  Tell me about the false allegations and imposed separation from your children, tell me about the unwarranted supervised visitation orders, tell me about the injustice system of the family courts.

Two paragraphs of 4 sentences each.  Hard, I know. But two paragraphs of 4 sentences each is all you get.

You can switch the order of Failed Mental Health and Failed Legal System if this order of presentation seems more appropriate to your family, but these two sections always follow the three paragraphs on the Emergence of Pathology.  You can also write less, but just not more than the structure I provide.

Paragraphs 10 & 11:  The Dark Night

In these final two paragraphs of 4 sentences each, share the dark night of your grief and loss.  Your love, your tears, your helplessness, and your grief.

Working with Structure

I understand that the limitations will be hard.  There is so much information, so much to understand in each of your stories.  How can you possibly describe the emergence of pathology in your children in only three paragraphs?  How can you possibly explain the injustice of false allegations and the nightmare of the legal system in only two paragraphs?

But that is the task.  Eleven paragraphs of 4 sentences each.

Here’s my suggestion.  Write six paragraphs on the Emergence of the Pathology.  Don’t send them.  Let them sit for a week.  Then go back and edit the six paragraphs down to four paragraphs.  Let it sit for a week, and then edit them down to three paragraphs.  This will help you in processing the trauma experience.  It will help bring psychological organization to the chaos of the trauma.

Each of your stories will be unique, and each story will be the same.  Your specific individual story may not find its way into the final product.  The universe will weave itself.  Yet your story is in all stories.

Over-and-over this pathology takes its own course in each family, and yet the stories all have the same core, the same pathology, the same failure of the mental health system and legal system.  The power is from bringing your stories together into a single voice that says, “Look.  See this.  We need to stop this.”

When you have your own unique story ready in 11 paragraphs of 4 sentences each, send your story to me at a special Gmail address just for this purpose:

            myalienationstory@gmail.com

I will read your stories.  If I receive enough stories, I will edit and compile them into a book of stories – all unique – yet all variants of the same story – told over-and-over again with new characters in new families.  Stories of your voice, your trauma, your helplessness, your grief and loss; abandoned by the mental health system, abandoned by the legal system.  Your stories.  In eleven paragraphs of 4 sentences each.

If this forms into a book of stories, then in my weaving of the presentation of your stories I will provide commentary on the pathology and the suffering it creates, bringing my professional voice to yours, amplifying and emphasizing your experience.

A book of stories may emerge, or it may not emerge.  This is all to the source of that which leads.  If a book of your stories emerges, what I then want to do is send this book to every Committee of the APA, to every licensing board, and to every state legislator’s office.  I want to say,

“Look.  Hear these parents.  See the sorrow, the tragedy, the pathology; over-and-over again and no one makes it stop.”

Your voices, your stories, together – all unique, and all the same.

That’s my idea that just won’t go away, a book of stories, your stories.  I have the email address to receive your stories (myalienationstory@gmail.com).  Eleven paragraphs of 4 sentences each:

Paragraphs 1-2:  Light and Love

Paragraphs 3-5:  The Pathology Emerges

Paragraphs 6-7:  The Failure of Mental Health

Paragraphs 8-9:  The Failure of the Courts

Paragraphs 10-11:  The Dark Night

If nothing emerges, then the universe did not want to bring a book of stories into existence.  Still, in writing your story, in struggling to fit your story into the structure I laid out, you will be journaling about your complex trauma, bringing “cognitive mediation” to an overwhelming emotional experience. This alone will be a good thing.

If you send me a STRUCTURED story of 11 paragraphs, I will read it.  If you send me an unstructured story or a story longer than 11 paragraphs, I will not read it.  I don’t have time.  I wish I had time, but I don’t have time.  There is too much work still to be done.  With your stories, if you choose to tell me your story, you need to help me.  Structured – 11 paragraphs.

Once you complete your 11 paragraphs and send your story to me, if you then want to write your book, that becomes a “you thing.”  Turn each section into a chapter.  Write your story to full measure.  Just don’t send it to me.  I don’t have time.  I wish I had time.  I don’t.  There’s still too much work to be done.

Eleven paragraphs.  That’s all I have time to read from each of you.  There are so many of you, each story unique, and each story a variant of the same story told over-and-over again because no one is making this stop.

We will make it stop.  We can’t stop what happened to you, but we can stop it from happening to other families, other parents, other children.  Your stories can help make it stop.

But 11 paragraphs of 4 sentences each is all you get to tell your story.

myalienationstory@gmail.com

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Psychologist, PSY 18857

The world is changing.  The solution to “parental alienation” is coming.

There is a saying in early childhood mental health that we need to give a toddler a new food 11 times before the toddler accepts it.  The first ten times, it’s too “new” – nope, won’t try it.  But on the eleventh time it’s no longer a “new” food and the toddler will give it a try.

That’s where we are right now.  We’re introducing a new food (AB-PA) to the “toddlers” of professional psychology and the family courts.

The process that is creating the solution is all within the hands of the universe.  I can feel it on so many levels.  This is not about me.  I simply have a role to play.  My role is to be your resource.  But there are so many of us who each have our roles in bringing the attachment-related pathology of “parental alienation” to an end.  My role is as a resource. 

I’ve provided you with the professional words and constructs that empower you, and that lead professional psychology back onto the established path of professional practice.

Foundations 

I’ve provided you with a booklet that you can give to attorneys, minor’s counsels, and Guardians ad Litem, that explains the pathology of the narcissistic parent surrounding divorce.

The Narcissistic Parent

I’ve provided you with a booklet that describes a structured and standardized six-session assessment protocol that can – and should – be used in all cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  This is the assessment protocol that attorneys should seek from the Court.

The Assessment of Attachment-Related Pathology Surrounding Divorce

I’ve provided you with a booklet that describes a Strategic family systems intervention that the Court can order as a remedy when attachment-based “parental alienation” has been identified by the assessment.

The Contingent Visitation Schedule

I’ve provided you with a model for a family court system pilot program that will quickly and efficiently create expertise in professional psychology and knowledge of the pathology in the legal system across broad geographic jurisdictions, a pilot program model that is both flexible and completely replicable.

The Key to Solving High-Conflict Divorce in the Family Courts: Proposal for a Pilot Program in the Family Law Courts

I have provided you with online seminars that describe the pathology.

California Southern University, Master Lecture Series
Parental Alienation: An Attachment-Based Model (7/18/14)

California Sothern University, Master Lecture Series
Treatment of Attachment-Based Parental Alienation (11/21/14)

I have provided you with the diagnostic assessment instruments needed to identify the pathology and monitor the child’s symptoms.

Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting

Parenting Practices Rating Scale

Parent-Child Relationship Rating Scale

By returning us to standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology, I have activated ethical code Standards to be used in seeking professional competence.

APA Ethics Code Standard 2.01a:  Boundaries of Competence

APA Ethics Code Standard 9.01a:  Bases for Assessment

APA Ethics Code Standard 2.03:  Maintaining Competence

APA Ethics Code Standard 3.04: Avoiding Harm

Professional Competence

I have provided you with a booklet that can be given to mental health professionals which describes the pathology in professional language and reminds them of their ethical obligations for professional competence.

Professional Consultation

You have been provided with legislature testimony that is available online for reference.

Penn. Bipartisan House Children and Youth Committee: Dr. Childress

You have all the resources you need to solve the pathology. 

My role is simply to serve as a resource to you in solving this attachment-related family pathology.  I am not your warrior.  You are the warrior for your children.  I am your weapon.  I am your resource. That is my role.

I’ve accomplished my role.  I have provided you with all the resources you need to solve the pathology, and with the path back to established professional psychology and standards of practice.

The Solution:  The Return to Professional Practice

The Solution:  The Dominoes

This is a trauma pathology.  The attachment trauma is being passed on across generations.  In the current generation, the targeted parent is made to carry the trauma.  The targeted parent is experiencing a form of complex trauma called “traumatic grief.”

Wikipedia:  Complex Trauma

One of the consequences of this traumatic grief is a learned helplessness created by the traumatizing lack of support targeted parents receive from professional psychology and the family courts.  A psychological passivity is created in targeted parents by the traumatizing helplessness inflicted on them by the pathology of “parental alienation.”

Targeted parents must wake up, you must shake off the helplessness that has been forced upon you.  You are more powerful than you know.  But only if you come together and unite your voices in a call for change.  Alone you are powerless.   In 100 you reclaim your voice.  In 1,000 you reclaim your power.  In 10,000 you become an unstoppable force for change.  Become an unstoppable force for change. 

You have all the resources you need.

I am a lone psychologist in Southern California.  I am not your warrior.  I am your weapon.  You are the warrior.  This battle is for your children.  The time is now.  The battle is now.  The solution is at hand.

How long it takes to achieve the solution is up to you.

The pathogen seeks to keep you alone and isolated, fighting your own individual fights.  When you are kept alone and isolated, the pathogen has power.  You must come together and begin to fight for each other.  We cannot solve this in any one family until we solve this for ALL children and all families.

This fight is for each other.

The mental health system is broken.  The legal system is broken.  We must first fix the broken systems.  We start by fixing the broken mental health system, and then we leverage the mental health system to fix the broken legal system.  Step-by-step.

We fix the broken mental health system by banishing professional ignorance and incompetence and REQUIRING professional expertise.  We accomplish this by returning to the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology to which ALL mental health professionals can be held ACCOUNTABLE.

We then leverage Standards 2.01a and 9.01a of the APA ethics code to obtain professional competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of your children and families.

We establish a ground foundation for professional knowledge and expertise needed for a structured and standardized assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce .

Assessment leads to diagnosis, and diagnosis guides treatment.

Based on the ground foundational principles of professional psychology, we build a standard of practice for the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

I have fulfilled most of my role as your resource.  You have all the resources you need to solve this pathology.  My role as your resource will be shifting.  I am going to turn my attention now to writing for professional journal publication.  This method of change is slow, too slow, so I opted for a faster approach of providing you with all the resources you need first, and once this was accomplished to then turn back to writing for professional journals.

So that is my next focus, writing for professional journals. 

I will also be turning my full attention on recruiting the APA as your ally.  The APA is an excellent professional organization, they are simply asleep.  We need to rouse them from their slumber, awaken them to your pain.  Once they awaken, they will become your allies in solving your deep family tragedies.

I will continue to present seminars in AB-PA.  I am continuing to work with Children4Tomorrow in Houston, Texas to bring a pilot program to the Houston area family courts.

I am willing to speak to state legislature committees on the pathology of “parental alienation” and its solution, as I did recently in Pennsylvania.

I will continue to fulfill my role as your resource in returning professional psychology back to established professional practice, creating the needed professional expertise, and bringing the solution to high-conflict divorce to the family courts.

But I am am not your warrior, I am your weapon.  You are the warrior for your children.  You are more powerful than you know.   Become an unstoppable force for change.

My first recommendation…

Get The Narcissistic Parent, The Assessment of Attachment-Related Pathology, and the Contingent Visitation Schedule  into the hands of every family law attorney, Guardian ad Litem, parenting coordinator, and minor’s counsel.

We are presenting a new food to the toddler.

My second recommendation…

Get The Narcissistic Parent and the AB-PA Key Solution Pilot Program into the hands of your state legislators and congressional representatives, along with the link to my Pennsylvania testimony: Penn. Committee on Youth and Children.

In 2018 we will be turning our attention to the APA.  I will need your voices.  All of your voices.  Ten thousand voices, united in a single call for change, in a single call for professional competence, in a single call to end your suffering.

The APA is a good organization.  We will be respectful and kind.  And we will be relentless – until they are awake and until they take active steps to end your suffering.

I will need your voices to awaken the APA from its slumber.

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

I recently received an email request from a family law judge overseas who asked for input on resolving “parental alienation” in the family courts. I thought my email response to this question might be more broadly of interest, so I am providing it here as well.

What has traditionally been called “parental alienation” represents an attachment-related pathology.  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 following divorce is a problem in the love-and-bonding system of the brain — the attachment system.

The key to solving this attachment-related family pathology is to return to the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.  The problem faced by the family courts is that professional psychology is not providing the court with the necessary level of professional expertise needed to solve the pathology.  The focus of my work is to help professional psychology develop the professional expertise in four areas of professional knowledge needed to successfully resolve the pathology:

The Attachment System
Personality Disorder Pathology
Family Systems Pathology
Complex Trauma Pathology

I recently completed the first AB-PA Certification seminar here in Pasadena, California training mental health professionals in these four domains, and in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related family pathology.

So the first step is to return to standard and established professional constructs and principles in professional psychology. The next step is to establish a standard of practice for addressing attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  This begins with assessment.

Assessment

Assessment leads to diagnosis, and diagnosis guides treatment.

I have a booklet available on Amazon.com:

The Assessment of Attachment-Related Pathology Surrounding Divorce

This booklet describes a six-session assessment of attachment-related pathology.  I am recommending that in all cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, that courts order this six-session assessment protocol.

The trouble that courts will currently run into is locating a mental health professional who can conduct this structured and standardized assessment protocol.  I describe the assessment protocol in my booklet (The Assessment of Attachment-Related Pathology Surrounding Divorce), I have YouTube videos up that provide a professional-to-professional level description of the assessment process (Professional-to-Professional Conversation with Dr. Childress), and I directly train mental health professionals in this assessment protocol as part of my AB-PA Certification seminars.

This structured assessment protocol is built around two instruments, 1) the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting which documents the child symptoms resulting from pathogenic parenting by a narcissistic/(borderline) personality parent, and 2) the Parenting Practices Rating Scale that documents the possible problematic parenting of the targeted-rejected parent.  Both of these instruments are available on my website:

Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting

Parenting Practices Rating Scale

The issue of concern is called “pathogenic parenting” (patho=pathology; genic=genesis, creation).  Pathogenic parenting is the creation of significant psychopathology in the child through aberrant and distorted parenting practices.

The attachment system (the brain system for love-and-bonding) never spontaneously dysfunctions.  The attachment system ONLY becomes dysfunctional in response to pathogenic parenting.  So the assessment question becomes, which parent is creating the child’s attachment-related pathology.

Is it pathogenic parenting by an allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent who has formed a cross-generational coalition with the child against the other parent? (the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting)

Or is it pathogenic parenting by the targeted-rejected parent (child abuse) that is creating the child’s rejection of this parent? (the Parenting Practices Rating Scale).

We begin with assessment.

Assessment leads to diagnosis, and diagnosis guides treatment.

Intervention & Remedy

Now to address the intervention and remedy issues…

We first need to conduct a proper assessment of the attachment-related pathology to identify the source of pathogenic parenting. If the pathogenic parenting is coming from an allied narcissistic/(borderline) personality parent – as documented by the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting – then we move on to treatment.

The three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA (pathogenic parenting by an allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent) are:

1) Attachment system suppression

2) Narcissistic personality traits in the child’s symptom display

3) An encapsulated persecutory delusion in the child’s symptom display

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.

Assessment leads to diagnosis, and diagnosis guides treatment.

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 child’s protective separation from the abusive parent.

We then treat the emotional and psychological damage created in the child by the abusive parenting and we recover the normal-range and healthy development of the child.

Once we have recovered the normal-range and healthy development of the child, we then restore the child’s relationship with the formerly abusive parent with sufficient safeguards to ensure that the child abuse does not resume once the child’s relationship with the formerly abusive parent is restored.

This is the standard of practice for ALL cases of child abuse, physical child abuse, sexual child abuse, and psychological child abuse. Diagnosis guides treatment.

In cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, there MAY be a treatment-oriented approach that does not require a protective separation period. It is a Strategic family systems intervention designed to alter how the child’s induced symptoms confer power within the family. Strategic family systems therapy is one of two primary schools of family therapy (the other being Structural family systems therapy). The principle theorist of Strategic family system therapy is Jay Haley

Wikipedia: Jay Haley

Wikipedia: Strategic Family Systems Therapy

A possible Strategic family systems intervention for attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce is a Contingent Visitation Schedule that makes the child’s visitation with the abusive and pathogenic narcissistic/(borderline) parent contingent upon the child being symptom-free. If the psychologically abusive narcissistic/(borderline) parent creates significant symptoms in the child, then this parent’s time with the child is reduced and the child’s time with the targeted parent is increased. Once the child’s symptoms have been treated and the child’s normal-range and healthy development is restored (the child is symptom-free) then normal-range contact with the pathogenic parenting of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent is restored.

The child’s contact with the narcissistic/(borderline) parent is made contingent on the child remaining symptom-free. It’s like small-scale protective separation periods of a few days or weeks based on the emergence of documented child symptoms and their recovery.

The Contingent Visitation Schedule is a pre-defined and structured approach to potentially addressing the pathogenic parenting of the narcissistic/(borderline) personality parent. I describe the Contingent Visitation Schedule in a booklet available from Amazon.com:

Contingent Visitation Schedule

However, without the Contingent Visitation Schedule the standard-of-practice treatment would be a six to nine month protective separation period from the psychologically abusive parenting of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent based on a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse identified in the assessment phase.

A possible treatment alternative is a Strategic family systems intervention of the Contingent Visitation Schedule.

The Contingent Visitation Schedule will require an organizing family therapist to run and implement the Strategic family system intervention, and a current problem that the court is likely to run into is the absence of mental health professionals who are skilled in family systems therapy and who can run a Contingent Visitation Schedule intervention. I describe how to run a Contingent Visitation Schedule in my booklet, and as part of my three-day AB-PA Certification seminars I train mental health professionals in both the six-session assessment protocol for AB-PA (attachment-based “parental alienation”) and in structuring and running a Contingent Visitation Schedule.

My current efforts are directed toward training and Certification of mental health professionals in AB-PA, including how to conduct a six-session assessment protocol and run a Contingent Visitation Schedule. The goal is to provide the courts with the necessary level of professional expertise needed to solve the attachment-related family pathology of “parental alienation” (AB-PA). Until we achieve that goal, however, achieving the solution may remain challenging for the courts.

Pilot Program for the Family Courts:

I am currently working with an organization in Houston, Texas (Children4Tommorrow: Dwilene Lindsey) to create a pilot program for the courts for addressing all cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce. This involves teaming an AB-PA Certified mental health professional with an AB-PA knowledgeable amicus attorney. To establish this AB-PA Key Solution pilot program for the family court, I would conduct a two-day Certification seminar for 15 to 20 mental health professionals in the Houston area and then a one-day AB-PA seminar for 5 to 10 amicus attorneys tailored to explaining the pathology to legal professionals. This would provide the courts in the Houston area with the necessary level of professional knowledge and expertise needed to solve the attachment-related pathology of “parental alienation.”

Then, in all cases of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, the court would order a treatment-focused assessment by an AB-PA Certified mental health professional using the structured and standardized six-session assessment protocol. If the pathology of AB-PA is identified by the assessment (attachment-based “parental alienation”), then the court would team a new AB-PA Certified mental health professional with an AB-PA Knowledgeable amicus attorney. This team could then establish and monitor a Contingent Visitation Schedule and guide the family’s stabilization into a successful post-divorce separated family structure of cooperative co-parenting and shared bonds of affection between the child and both parents.

I describe this AB-PA Key Solution pilot program in a booklet available on Amazon.com:

The Key to Solving High Conflict Divorce in the Family Courts: Proposal for a Pilot Program in the Family Law Courts

Brief Intensive Interventions

There are models for brief-intensive interventions that are available that will quickly and gently restore the normal-range functioning of the child’s attachment system. The two primary brief-intensive interventions are:

Family Bridges: Richard Warshak
High Road to Family Reunification: Dorcy Pruter

My understanding is that they use similar approaches. I have not reviewed the Family Bridges protocol but I have reviewed and observed the High Road protocol of Dorcy Pruter, so I can speak directly to the High Road protocol.

The High Road protocol of Dorcy Pruter will gently and effectively restore the child’s normal-range attachment bonding motivations within a matter of days. I have provided the High Road protocol with my endorsement;

Dr. Childress Declaration Regarding the High Road Protocol

Ms. Pruter and I recently presented at the annual convention of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) in Boston where we described specifically how the High Road protocol achieves its success.

I have no financial interests in either the Family Bridges program or the High Road protocol. My understanding is that they use similar approaches. The only differences from my perspective is that I have reviewed the specific protocol for the High Road workshop and I have personally observed it in operation. I therefore know exactly how it works and exactly how it achieves its success.

If a brief-intensive protocol is needed to gently and effectively restore the child’s attachment bonding motivations within a matter of days, these protocols exist. However, they still require a post-intervention protective separation period of between six to nine months from the psychologically abusive narcissistic/(borderline) parent to stabilize the child’s recovery before reintroducing the psychologically abusive parenting of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

When the child is reintroduced to the pathogenic parenting of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the child’s recovery can be further stabilized by the use of the Contingent Visitation Schedule at that time. The Contingent Visitation Schedule and the High Road protocol are both tools that are available to the Court. The key to the long-term stabilization of the family, however, lay in a significant improvement in the level of professional knowledge and expertise surrounding attachment-related pathology following divorce.

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

It’s time for Gardnerian PAS to die.

The solution to “parental alienation” is through a return to standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology: AB-PA.

Gardnerian PAS offers no solution whatsoever.

For three years – three years – I have repeatedly asked the self-proclaimed Gardnerian PAS “experts” to provide their path to a solution using the Gardnerian PAS model, most recently in August-September of this year.  Their response?… crickets.  Nothing.

The Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model offers no solution whatsoever.  They know it, and I know it.  Now everyone knows it.

So then why do the Gardernian PAS “experts” hold onto a failed diagnostic model of the pathology that offers NO solution whatsoever?

Because they don’t want a solution.

They are enabling allies of the pathogen whose role is to sow discord and division, thereby disabling the mental health response to the pathology.

Past History:  In sowing discord and division with establishment psychology for the past 30 years, the Gardnerian PAS “experts” have allowed the pathology of “parental alienation” to continue unsolved and unabated – for 30 years – and they have created a culture of ignorance and incompetence in professional psychology surrounding high-conflict divorce that invites the profound professional ignorance and incompetence we currently witness.

Current Behavior:  Now that AB-PA is leading us into a solution, the Gardnerian PAS “experts” are trying to hide AB-PA in confusion and obscurity so that professional psychology does not learn that AB-PA even exists to solve the pathology.  They seek to sow confusion by actively co-opting constructs from AB-PA without acknowledgement that these constructs emerge from AB-PA.  This is not about who gets “credit” for what (with AB-PA credit belongs to Bowlby, Minuchin, Beck,…) – it’s about sowing confusion by fusing the constructs of AB-PA onto PAS in order to hide the existence of AB-PA – as if AB-PA is nothing more than Gardnerian PAS.  It is a conscious and premeditated strategy to disable the solution available from AB-PA.

By not joining us in solving “parental alienation” through a return to standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology (AB-PA), they are now sowing discord and division within the mental health allies of targeted parents, creating two “camps” – the Gardnerian PAS “expert” camp and the Childress AB-PA “camp.”

The Gardernian PAS “experts” sow discord and division – that’s what they do.  First with establishment psychology, and now with AB-PA that seeks to reunite us with establishment psychology.  We can absolutely solve this attachment-related family pathology surrounding divorce ONCE we return to standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.  The Gardnerian PAS “experts” are fighting against a return to standard and established constructs and principles – they are fighting against the solution.

One approach to creating this discord and division is by falsely characterizing me as being some sort of “guru” – they use this term – rather than accurately characterizing my efforts as a call to return to the path of established professional constructs and principles – Bowlby, Millon, Minuchin, Beck…

The pathogen deals in falsehood.

In falsely characterizing my work with AB-PA by a personal attack on me as an alleged “guru,” they seek to discredit me and, by association, the truth of AB-PA (the established truth of standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology) by alleging that I have narcissistic designs.  They don’t attack the substance of AB-PA – because they can’t.  The substance of AB-PA is true.  So they attack me personally in an effort to discredit the truth of what I describe in AB-PA.

This is a classic attack strategy of the pathogen.

The pathogen launched a personal attack on Gardner by claiming he was a “pedophile.”  If Gardner was labeled a “pedophile” then the content of what he said would be discredited.  The personal attack on me by the Gardnerian PAS “experts” that I am some sort of “guru” (Karen Woodall’s “false prophet” characterization) is exactly the same approach, to attack AB-PA by leveling their attack against me personally using the false label of “guru.”  Same exact process.  I know this pathogen.  I see the pathogen clearly.

The truth is that Gardnerian PAS provides NO solution whatsoever.  They know it.  I know it.  Everyone knows it.  All they are doing is sowing discord and division in not joining with us in solving “parental alienation” through a return to the established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

There is absolutely NO rational argument against a return to standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology, but the Gardnerian PAS “experts” are tying themselves in knots of illogic and irrationality trying – desperately trying – to find a reason NOT to accept AB-PA.

Why?  Because they don’t want to solve this pathology.

The pathogen deals in falsehoods.  For the narcissistic personality, “Truth and reality are whatever I assert them to be.”

If they want to confabulate Gardnerian PAS with AB-PA, they simply assert that they are the same thing just using “different words,” ignoring the fact that words have meaning, so using “different words” results in different meanings.  Saying, “I like pie” is not the same as saying, “the sky is blue” just using “different words.”  Different words = different meaning.  Now Karen Woodall appears to be claiming that AB-PA is nothing new because she thought of it all years ago.  Whatever, Karen.

The Gardnerian PAS “experts” have alleged that it’s Dr. Childress who is being divergent in not “cooperating” with them by not accepting Gardnerian PAS.

The truth:  If I accept Gardnerian PAS then I accept no solution for targeted parents and their children, because Gardnerian PAS provides no solution.  They know it provides no solution.  I know it provides no solution.  They want me to accept no solution because then everything stays exactly as it is.

Look, if they simply tell us the path to a solution using the Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model, I’d be happy to join with them.  Woo hoo.  Yay.  But they don’t offer a solution because they can’t offer a solution.  Gardnerian PAS provides NO solution whatsoever.  They know it.  I know it.  We all know it.

They are even free to add whatever they want to the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology described in AB-PA.  They can add all the unicorns, and mermaids, and beautiful dancing pixies they want.  Fine by me.  But we MUST establish a baseline of professional competence – a ground foundation of professional knowledge and professional competence in the established constructs and principles of professional psychology (AB-PA).

I don’t care one whit for how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  The only thing I care about is solving the pathology of “parental alienation” as quickly as is humanly possible.  If the Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model with its 8 symptom features could solve this, I’d be joining them in a heartbeat.  It can’t.  And it never will.  30 years.  No solution.  Scoreboard.

I’m not the one who isn’t cooperating.  THEY aren’t cooperating.

I’m not the one insisting that AB-PA is the only solution, they are the ones who are rigidly INSISTING that only Gardnerian PAS is allowed to solve the pathology – knowing full well that Gardnerian PAS does not provide a solution.

The pathogen lies.  It deals in falsehoods.  It sows discord and division with its lies, mistruths, and false statements.

AB-PA provides a solution.  That is the truth.  Gardnerian PAS doesn’t.  That is the truth.  If the Gardnerian PAS “experts” disagree, then tell us the solution using Gardnerian PAS… nothing but crickets.  That is the truth.

The pathogen sows discord and division with lies.  In the discord, confusion, and division it sows, the pathogen just makes stuff up.  It can make a series of false statements in 10 seconds that then require three hours to respond to.  Chaos, discord, division.  Hallmarks of the pathogen.

Britian’s Children

Now, let me expose the pathogen in the Gardnerian PAS “experts” more fully.

Recently in England, an organization called Cafcass, who supposedly represents the “voice” of the children in divorce and child custody proceedings, has made a momentous admission, that they have been missing the identification of “parental alienation” in large numbers of the 125,000 cases they assess each year.

The Guardian Article on Cafcass

From the Guardian:  “Cafcass said it had recently realised parental alienation occured in significant numbers of the 125,000 cases it dealt with each year.”

From my relatively superficial understanding of Cafcass, I would agree with their self-assessment.  They have been horrible, and their previous assessments have been directly responsible for the destruction of countless numbers of families and childhoods – lost love and lost childhoods that were irrevocably damaged by the prior ignorant and incompetent assessments and reports produced by Cafcass.

But they have apparently become enlightened by knowledge.  This is outstandingly positive news.

They acknowledge that they have missed identifying prior cases of “parental alienation” and they are adopting a “groundbreaking” protocol of potentially removing children from the “alienating” parent if this parent does not stop alienating the child from the other parent.  Sounds like an extremely positive development to me.

A protective separation of the child in order to release the child from the psychological control and psychological manipulation of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent is an exceedingly positive step.  Cafcass will begin taking active steps to protect the child and protect the child’s loving bond to the normal-range parent.

This is outstandingly good news.  The solution is coming.  Change is coming.

Yet Karen Woodall – a staunch Gardnerian PAS “expert” in England – is AGAINST this change.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Karen Woodall opposes separating the child from the psychological manipulation and control of the “alienating” parent.

Karen Woodall argues AGAINST separating the child from the “alienating” parent because she is concerned that separating the child from the psychological manipulation and control of the “alienating” parent might damage the child’s relationship with that parent.

Here’s what Karen Woodall says about protectively separating the child from the pathological psychological control of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent:

From Karen Woodall:  “Treating parental alienation by forcing a child (who has already been forced into losing one parent to keep the other), to lose that parent in order to regain the other, is not the way that any responsible practitioner wishes to treat parental alienation.”

The Battle for Britain’s Alienated Children, 11/22/17 (emphasis added)

Seriously, Karen?  You are more concerned with protecting the child’s pathological relationship with the “alienating” parent than you are with protecting the child’s healthy relationship with the normal-range and loving parent.  Wow.

Notice the manipulative communication she uses in characterizing efforts to protect the child as somehow “forcing” the child to lose a relationship with the manipulative and psychologically controlling “alienating parent.”

No one is “forcing the child” into losing a relationship with a parent.  That is simply not true.  The pathogen lies.

Associated Clinical Sign 1 of the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting is the use of the  word “forced.”  I have described the origins of this symptom feature:

ACS 1: Use of the Word Forced

The use of the word “forced” is a manipulative communication strategy designed to dis-empower efforts to protect the child.  We are not “forcing” the child to lose a relationship with the narcissistic “alienating” parent – we are PROTECTING the child from the abusive psychological control and manipulation of the child by the “alienating” parent who seeks to destroy the child’s loving bond of shared affection with the other parent.

Every time we encounter this manipulative effort to dis-empower our efforts to protect the child by claiming we are “forcing the child,” we need to immediately correct this characterization with a more accurate and balanced description:

The child is not being “forced,” the child is being given the opportunity to have a loving bond of affection with both parents.

That is the truth.  Karen’s characterization is false.  It is manipulative.  It seeks to undermine and dis-empower efforts to protect the child from the psychological control and manipulation of the “alienating” parent.

When we begin treatment of the induced psychopathology created in the child by the pathogenic parenting of the allied and supposedly “favored” narcissistic “alienating” parent, we DON’T want to turn the child into a “psychological battleground” between the efforts of therapy to restore a normal-range and loving relationship with the targeted parent and the continuing efforts of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent to create and maintain the child’s psychopathology.

We must first protect the child from the psychopathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

Notice too, the second manipulative communication of Karen Woodall in characterizing professional efforts to protect the child as being “irresponsible” professional practice:

“…is not the way that any responsible practitioner wishes to treat parental alienation.”

I’ve got news for you Karen, I am a responsible practitioner and a protective separation of the child from the psychopathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) “alienating” parent is EXACTLY the treatment for “parental alienation.”  We must first protect the child from the manipulative psychological control of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  ONLY when we have first protected the child can we then ask the child to reveal their authentic love for the targeted parent.

We must first protect the child.  In doing so, we must protect the child’s healthy relationship with the normal-range targeted parent.

Once we have restored the child’s healthy and normal-range development, we can then stabilize the family’s transition into a successful separated family structure of shared bonds of affection between the child and both parents.

And Karen… anticipating your response – ANY parent who seeks to destroy the child’s relationship with the other parent following divorce is, by definition, narcissistic.  NO parent who has authentic empathy for the child would ever – ever – seek to destroy that child’s relationship with the other parent.

So, Karen, all your supposed “hybrid cases” of “parental alienation,” ALL of them involve a narcissistic allied parent to some degree.  ANY parent who seeks to destroy the child’s loving bonds of affection with the other parent following divorce is narcissistic – by definition; the absence of authentic empathy for the child involves placing the parent’s own emotional and psychological needs ahead of the child’s healthy development.

Argue with me if you want, Karen, but then look what you’re doing.  You are attempting to minimize the narcissistic pathology of the “alienating” parent in order to argue in FAVOR of keeping the child with the psychologically manipulative and controlling “alienating” parent at the expense of the child’s healthy relationship with the normal-range parent.  Do you really want to be on that side of the argument?

Karen, seriously… we protect the child from the psychological manipulation and psychological control of the narcissistic parent, we restore the child’s normal-range relationship with the targeted parent that has been damaged by the pathogenic parenting of the narcissistic “alienating” parent, and then we restore the child’s relationship with the pathological “alienating” parent with sufficient safeguards to ensure that the psychological abuse of the child does not resume once the pathology of this parent is reintroduced.

And you’re arguing AGAINST that.  Really, Karen?   You actually want to leave the child with the pathological “alienating” parent even though this parent is trying to destroy the child’s healthy bonds of affection with the targeted parent.  Wow.

I want everyone to just sort of let Karen Woodall’s position sink in.  She is arguing that “responsible” treatment is to leave the child with the alienating parent because we wouldn’t want to damage that relationship by removing the child from the manipulative psychological control of that parent.

Wow.

False Allies

Garderian PAS offers no solution whatsoever.

AB-PA provides an immediate solution through a return to standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

There is no rational reason to continue to hold onto a made-up diagnostic model of the pathology that sows discord and division between the mental health allies of targeted parents and establishment psychology.  We must reunite with establishment psychology to solve this pathology.

There is no rational reason to continue to hold onto a made-up diagnostic model that provides no solution and not join with and support a return to standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology that provides an immediate solution.

By continuing their non-cooperation with the solution available from a return to the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology, the Gardnerian PAS “experts” simply sow discord and confusion with no purpose, since the Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model offers NO SOLUTION whatsoever.

So then why do the Gardnerian PAS “experts” continue to hold onto a failed diagnostic model – and why do they seek to protect the child’s pathological relationship with the psychologically manipulative and controlling “alienating parent” at the expense of sacrificing the child’s healthy relationship with the loving and beloved targeted parent?

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

Extrapolate Karen Woodall’s proposed solution:

Karen Woodall is the bestest expert anywhere, and everyone should come to Karen Woodall’s clinic to be assessed… everyone.  She will then conduct this super-special assessment that only she can do, and then she’ll tell us about what this unique form of pathology is in this family, determined by her for each individual case based on her magnificent expertise in this “new form of pathology.”

Can the rest of clinical psychology solve this?  Absolutely not.  We all need the magnificence of her expertise for each individual case, since the standard and established constructs of professional psychology are insufficient to solve this unique “new form of pathology” without benefit of her magnificent “expertise.”

And she calls me a “guru.”  Uh, can I call projection on that?

The standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology can absolutely solve this pathology.  Bowlby, and Minuchin, and Haley, and Beck, and Millon,… The standard and established constructs and principles of clinical psychology are fully sufficient to solve this pathology.

The diagnostic model of AB-PA exposes both the pathogen and its allies from beneath their veil of concealment.  AB-PA represents a threat to the pathogen, and the pathogen has called its allies to attack and disable the solution offered by AB-PA by creating discord and division.  Lo and behold, it’s the Gardernian PAS “experts” who have answered the pathogen’s call.  They cannot attack the substance of AB-PA because AB-PA is a true and accurate description of the pathology.  So they instead try a variety of other strategies in an effort to nullify the solution available from AB-PA:

From Karen Woodall:  “Treating parental alienation by forcing a child (who has already been forced into losing one parent to keep the other), to lose that parent in order to regain the other, is not the way that any responsible practitioner wishes to treat parental alienation.”

Karen Woodall is arguing against a protective separation and in favor of keeping the child with the psychologically manipulative and controlling “alienating parent” because she wants to protect the (pathological) relationship with the “alienating parent” even at the expense of the child’s healthy relationship with the targeted parent.

Let that sink in.

There are those who are made uncomfortable by the conflict between Dr. Childress and Karen Woodall, believing that allies of targeted parents should work together toward solving the pathology.  I couldn’t agree more, allies should work together.  The self-proclaimed “experts” in Gardnerian PAS, however, are not our allies, and they are beginning to expose themselves.

Karen Woodall is openly advocating that we sacrifice the child’s healthy relationship with the targeted parent in order to protect the child’s pathological relationship with the “alienating” parent, and to support this assertion she makes false and manipulative characterizations of efforts to protect the child as “forcing” the child to lose a relationship with the “alienating” parent in a convoluted effort to justify her alliance with the pathology of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

We never abandon a child to a psychologically abusive parent.

Is “parental alienation” psychological child abuse, Karen?  If so, then why are you abandoning the child to the psychologically abusive “alienating” parent?

You are either advocating that we leave the child with a psychologically abusive parent – or you are saying that “parental alienation” is not child abuse.  Which is it Karen?

I’m sorry if this inter-professional conflict makes people uncomfortable.

I know the pathogen.  I see the pathogen.  And I know the allies of the pathogen.  I will fight for the children, always.  We must first protect the child.

I am a strong advocate that protectively separating the child from the manipulative psychological control and pathogenic parenting of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent is the proper course of action in response to “parental alienation.”

Karen Woodall advocates that we leave the child with the “alienating” parent because she would rather protect the child’s relationship with the psychologically controlling narcissistic parent than protect the child’s healthy relationship with the targeted parent.

I will fight for the children, always.  Even if it makes people uncomfortable.  We must first protect the child.

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

The renowned family therapist, Salvador Minuchin, has passed today.

Salvador Minuchin, a Pioneer of Family Therapy, Dies at 96

A brilliant man.  My clinical work as a family therapist is strongly influenced by Minuchin.  I had the benefit of hearing him lecture at a conference, and the statement of his that resonated with me most is when he said, “A child cannot be as powerful as an adult unless he’s standing on someone’s shoulders” – speaking about the cross-generational coalition.

The second important influence on my work from Salvador Minuchin is his recognition that a dysfunctional system is stable WITH the symptom present.  In order to create change, we must first disrupt the stability of the dysfunctional system.  Then, as the system begins to re-stabilize from the disruption we intentionally create as the family therapist, we can remove the symptom and help the system reorganize into a healthier set of relationships.

This is at the core of my work in bringing change to the dysfunctional mental health and legal systems surrounding the pathology of “parental alienation.”

The broken mental health and legal systems are stable and resistant to change.  Everything I am doing is with the goal of first disrupting the stability of the dysfunctional systems – AB-PA, at its core, has this as its purpose, the disruption of the dysfunctional system.  AB-PA is challenging the APA from its slumber, AB-PA is challenging the ignorance of therapists out of their incompetence, AB-PA is  challenging the status quo of child custody evaluations, AB-PA is challenging the complacency of Gardnerian PAS “experts.”

Through AB-PA, I am disrupting the stability of the dysfunctional systems.  This is by design and is directly the result of Salvador Minunchin’s influence on my work. He is a guiding force in my work to solve “parental alienation,” from start to finish.

In 1993, in his book Family Healing with Michael Nichols, Salvador Minuchin provided a structural family diagram for the pathology of “parental alienation” – called a “cross-generational coalition” in family systems therapy.

AB-PA is not Childress. It’s Minuchin.

He lives in me, and his life ripples through my healing with families.  Bless you dear man.  You live in every family therapist, and your influence to heal children and families continues.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist – and family therapist – PSY 18857

I recently responded with three posts to a Comment in my Facebook group, the Alliance to Solve Parental Alienation.  I think what I discuss in the posts to the Alliance are important enough that I want to provide this commentary to by blog as well.

Facebook Comment Post 1

Professional psychology became split by Gardner’s proposal of a “new form of pathology” and by several subsequent poorly conceived positions by Gardner that polarized professional psychology.

Gardner’s proposal that children’s allegations of abuse could be discounted if there was “parental alienation” present provoked the domestic violence and child abuse protection advocates into becoming adversaries of the construct of “parental alienation,” and then he made distasteful comments about children’s sexuality that further activated opposition to his proposal for a “new form of pathology.”

The Shadow Side of PAS

You can still see the echos of turning the domestic violence protection advocates into our adversaries in the official position of the APA on Parental Alienation Syndrome

APA: Statement on Parental Alienation Syndrome

Furthermore, not only did Gardner create a schism in establishment professional psychology, his proposal for a supposedly “new form of pathology” gave away all of the power because it placed targeted parents and their mental health allies in a position of having to prove the existence of a “new form of pathology.”

Immediately, the opponents of PAS stated – accurately – that there was no scientific basis to PAS, and that it was a “discredited” unacceptable proposal. This also created a mindset in targeted parents and their mental health allies that they had to prove “parental alienation” exists as a construct and have it “accepted” by professional psychology.

Gradually, the construct of “parental alienation” was grudging accepted by most individual mental health professionals, but the overall construct of Parental Alienation Syndrome proposed by Gardner continued to be rejected. This creates the fertile breeding ground for professional ignorance and incompetence in which mental health professionals just start making up their own subjective and idiosyncratic definitions of what constitutes “parental alienation.”

In addition, by proposing that “parental alienation” represents a “new form of pathology” unique in all of mental health, requiring a unique new set of symptoms unlike any other symptoms for any other pathology in all of mental health, the Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model does not provide a professionally anchored description for what the pathology is. It’s this unique new thing – with no anchoring professional-level explanation for what it is or how it works.

Gardner skipped the step of professional diagnosis. Diagnosis is the application of standard and established constructs and principles to a set of symptoms. Instead of applying the rigor of professional standards of practice for diagnosis, Gardner too quickly abandoned professional practice by proposing a “new form of pathology unique in all of mental health.”

By leaving the path of established professional psychology, Gardner led everyone into the wilderness, and targeted parents and their mental health allies have been struggling ever since.

In developing the solution to “parental alienation” I spent about a year back in 2008-2009 simply analyzing the nature of the problem and laying out the course needed for the solution. I then set about correcting the step skipped by Gardner – diagnosis – in order to return us to the path of established professional psychology.

By returning to the path of established professional psychology we define the pathology from entirely within standard and established constructs and principles, which then defines domains of knowledge needed for professional competence. We leave the wilderness of “new forms of pathology unique in all of mental health” and return to the solid foundation of established constructs and principles.

Gardnerian PAS as a supposedly new form of pathology unique in all of mental health is a theory that needs to be proven.

AB-PA is the application of standard and fully established constructs and principles – constructs and principles already amply proven in the scientific research and professional literature – to a set of symptoms. This is called diagnosis. AB-PA is NOT a theory, it is diagnosis.

AB-PA goes back and corrects the step skipped by Gardner – diagnosis. By correcting this step, AB-PA leads us out of the wilderness of “new and unique forms of pathology” and returns us to the path of established professional psychology.

By NOT proposing a “new form of pathology,” but instead defining the pathology entirely from within standard and established constructs and principles, AB-PA provides a compromise solution to end the schism in professional psychology; establishment psychology does not need to accept a “new form of pathology unique in all of mental health,” and we have the pathology of “parental alienation” formally defined and acknowledged by all of mental health, with formal standards of practice for its assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.

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

Facebook Comment Post 2

Let me introduce a secret that I know but haven’t disclosed yet, I’m operating at about five to ten years ahead of what is currently taking place in this solution to “parental alienation.” That’s why I’m beginning to shift my focus over to unlocking the terrorist mind:

The Terrorist Mind

AB-PA is already solved. It is simply a matter of how long it takes for the solution to be enacted.

I’ll be describing this to the Advanced AB-PA Certification mental health professionals attending Day 3 the Pasadena seminars, so that they too will begin operating about 5 years ahead of the current situation.

The Basic AB-PA Certification seminar on November 18-19 will train to expertise in activating the current “information-structures” of the solution, the professional knowledge base, the assessment and diagnosis protocol, and the beginning treatment protocol.

The Advanced AB-PA Certification seminar on November 20 will train to expertise in the next phase – the opening of intersubjectivity (Stern, Fonagy, Shore, Tronick, Trevarthan) which will fully open the treatment component of the solution, and in the actual “meme-structures” – the information structures; the underlying “code structures” – for both the pathogen and the solution.

The solution offered by AB-PA operates on many-many levels. On Day 3 of the AB-PA Certification seminar, I’ll be explaining the “meme-structure” of the pathogen, the origins and maintenance of the professional schism, and the fullness of the solution. I’m really looking forward to this portion of the seminar. It would take me a book to explain what I did with AB-PA and how AB-PA is working to create the solution – AB-PA will, with 100% certainty, create the solution. It’s simply a matter of how long it takes the meme-structures of AB-PA to propagate through the mental health system.

If the meme-structures of AB-PA propagate fast enough, then I’ll still be around to help support the solution’s development into its full completeness. If not, then it will be to the next generation of mental health professionals to fully activate the complete solution that will be emerging into the attachment system field, the personality disorder field, and the complex trauma field.

The AB-PA Advanced Certified mental health professionals will be trained to a high level of expertise, and will also be operating at about 5 years ahead of the current situation. They will be the ones who will be leading professional psychology into the emerging solutions provided by AB-PA. These emerging solutions will not only be about “parental alienation” in high-conflict divorce, but will extend significantly into both attachment research and attachment trauma pathology (complex trauma).

Currently, the field of “parental alienation” in high-conflict divorce is a little known and little attended to backwater in professional psychology. In about 5 years it will explode front-and-center into the professional fields of attachment research, personality disorder pathology, and complex trauma. In about 10 years, implications growing out of AB-PA will be central in both research and in solving a variety of attachment-related issues affecting the mental health of our society.

My shelf life is limited. By the time these expansions of the implications take place I’ll be gone or preparing to leave the planet. It will be for the next generation to activate these information structures. Leadership in the next generation will be from the AB-PA Advanced Certified mental health professionals. If I don’t leave the planet abruptly (I’ve already had one stroke), then I figure I have about 10 years to teach and train the next generation of expertise. If it takes about 5 years to ramp-up this training, that means I have about 5 years of fully active training and teaching before I pass the baton to the next generation of expertise.

The current phase of the solution we are enacting is to eliminate the profound professional ignorance and incompetence in professional psychology that has been allowed to fester under the Gardnerian PAS paradigm. That’s why I had to excoriate the remaining Gardnerian PAS “experts” back in August and September. Think of it as cauterizing the remaining open wound in professional psychology that continued to act as a source for professional ignorance and incompetence.

The phases that will be emerging next will be to leverage AB-PA into the necessary systems changes within the family law courts, and also to open up more fully the treatment-related domains of the solution.

The phases that follow the family court and treatment solutions will be to extend AB-PA into the fields of attachment theory, personality disorder pathology, and complex trauma.

My personal focus will be shifting to the viral code-structure of the Terrorist Mind (same core structure as AB-PA, different surrounding meme-structures), and to other domains that I wanted to get to before I became involved in “parental alienation.”

My shelf-life is limited. There are things I want to get to before I leave.

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

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The best way for me to explain how AB-PA works is simply to create the solution with it. As the solution manifests, people will gradually see how it’s working in creating the solution and they’ll start to go, “Ooooooh, I see. I get it.”

The phase we’re in right now is clearing out the professional ignorance and incompetence in professional psychology that 30 years of Gardnerian PAS has allowed to fester and grow unchecked. This is through AB-PA’s meme-structures that define domains of professional knowledge needed for professional competence, which then activates Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code, which then empowers targeted parents to file licensing board complaints based on these domains of competence. Using the Standards of the APA ethics code, we will expel professional ignorance and incompetence.

This current phase of building professional expertise is supported by my Certification seminars, by establishing standards of practice for “assessment of attachment related pathology surrounding divorce,” and by the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA that define the pathology (present-absent) in all cases.

Assessment of Attachment-Related Pathology

We are currently in the process of establishing a ground foundation for professional competence, and then ultimately expertise, in required knowledge, in assessment, and in diagnosis (and later, in treatment, although I’m already opening the treatment door with the Contingent Visitation Schedule).

Contingent Visitation Schedule

The next phase will be to leverage the professional expertise we establish in professional psychology to create the systems change needed in the family court system. I’ve recently opened the meme-structures (information structures) for this solution with the AB-PA Key Solution Pilot Program for the Family Courts.

AB-PA Key Solution

These resources all represent complex “meme-structures” (information structures) that will solve the problems in the mental health system and legal systems. Through the AB-PA Certification seminars I will be creating the professional expertise needed to actualize this solution.

The solution is already here. It’s just a matter of how long it takes for the meme-structures of the solution to propagate through the mental health and legal systems.

Richard Dawkins: Meme Structures

In the Basic AB-PA Certification seminars on November 18-19 I will be training to expertise in activating the basic meme-structures of the solution; the knowledge base, the assessment and diagnosis protocol, and the treatment protocol (the Contingent Visitation Schedule and the ability to work in collaboration with High-Road augmented recovery).

In the Advanced AB-PA Certification seminar on November 20 I will be training to expertise in the next set of meme structures that open magnificent doors of understanding; intersubjectivity (Stern, Fonagy, Shore, Trevarthan; Tronick) and the meme-structures themselves (the code structures of the pathology and of the solution).

Seeing the “meme-structures” is like seeing the code in the movie The Matrix. Once the underlying meme-structure code is recognized, everything become clear, both the pathology and it solution.

The solution is already in place. Sufficient “meme-structures” (information structures) to create the solution are already in the “meme-scape.” It is just a matter of how long it takes for these meme-structures to propagate through the mental health and legal systems.

If you think of the pathology as a “computer virus” in the love-and-bonding “software programs” of the brain (the attachment system) that is crashing the child’s attachment system, then AB-PA represents the “anti-viral” program that:

1.)  Identifies the “computer virus” by its code structure (the three diagnostic indicators of AB-PA);

2.)  Quarantines the child’s love-and-bonding “software programs” from the active source of the “computer virus” (the protective separation);

3.)  Restores the normal-range “code structure” and functioning of the child’s love-and-bonding “software programs” (the child’s healthy attachment bonding to the targeted parent);

4.)  Installs “anti-viral software” in the child’s love-and-bonding programs to prevent reinfection by the “computer virus” contained in the love-and-bonding system of the previously allied parent (stabilization of the child’s recovery);

The child is then reintroduced to the source of the “computer virus,” (the personality disordered parent) with monitoring to ensure that the child’s love-and-bonding “software programs” do not become “reinfected” by the “computer virus” in the love-and-bonding “software” (the attachment/personality disorder pathology) of the formerly allied parent.

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