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

To Karen Woodall:

Hi Karen.  The AB-PA Certification seminar is less than a month away at the Westin in Pasadena (November 18-20: Registration).  I’m once again extending a personal invitation for you and your clinical psychologist to attend and become Advanced Certified in AB-PA so you can take the solution offered by AB-PA back to Great Britain and back to the targeted parents there.

The solution offered by AB-PA (The Solution: The Return to Professional Practice; The Solution: The Dominoes) requires that we define the pathology from entirely within standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology – no “new forms of pathology” proposals.  This means that your continuing to hold on to the inadequate Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model is a barrier to my ability to cooperate with you.  You, however, can cooperate with me, you can join with me in bringing the solution offered by AB-PA to England.

You can add whatever you want to AB-PA.  We just need to establish a ground foundation using standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology for the professional knowledge required for professional competence.

AB-PA & Gardnerian PAS

The AB-PA diagnostic model leads directly to a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.  Gardnerian PAS does not.

The confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse provides the professional rationale for the child’s protective separation from the pathogenic parenting of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) during the child’s treatment and recovery.

The Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model does not lead to a DSM-5 diagnosis of Psychological Child Abuse and so does not provide any rationale for the child’s protective separation.

The diagnostic model of AB-PA (three diagnostic indicators) provides targeted parents with a confirmed DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse for the pathology being evidenced in their families.  That is a good thing.

The diagnostic model of Gardnerian PAS (eight symptom identifiers) does not provide targeted parents with a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse.  That is a bad thing.

In addition, the categorical diagnostic structure of AB-PA (present-absent) provides the structure necessary to establish a semi-structured and flexibly standardized six-session treatment-focused assessment protocol that can serve as a standard of practice for the assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

The dimensional diagnostic structure of Gardnerian PAS (mild-moderate-severe) does not provide a structured or standardized assessment protocol, and so offers no pathway to a standard of practice for the assessment of the pathology.

By defining the pathology entirely from within standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology, AB-PA identifies four domains of knowledge needed for professional competence – the attachment system, personality disorder pathology, family systems therapy, and complex trauma – to which ALL mental health professionals can be held accountable. 

AB-PA activates professional ethical code standards for professional competence (APA: Standards 2.01a & 9.01a; Professional Competence). 

Gardnerian PAS, on the other hand, proposes a “new form of pathology” that is unique in all of mental health, so Gardnerian PAS does not activate professional ethical code standards for professional competence.  The Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model invites professional incompetence in which mental health professionals simply make up whatever they want.  There are no established standards of practice and no ground on which to stand.

The very existence of AB-PA as a second model defining the pathology requires a systems-wide review within professional psychology regarding how “attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce” is assessed, diagnosed, and treated.  Because AB-PA is based entirely within standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology, it requires that professional psychology integrate these constructs and principles identified by the AB-PA diagnostic model into the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of this attachment-related family pathology.

The constructs and principles of Gardnerian PAS, on the other hand, have long ago been integrated into the approach of professional psychology for assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.  Gardnerian PAS simply maintains the status quo.

The world is changing.  The coming professional dialogue will not be about Gardnerian PAS, it will be about AB-PA, it will be about a structured and standardized Treatment-Focused Assessment protocol, it will be about the Contingent Visitation Schedule, it will be about the Key Solution Pilot Program for the family courts.

If you want to remain relevant to the discussion, join us in enacting the solution.  Because if you insist that the ONLY solution is through Gardnerian PAS, then you and your expertise in Gardnerian PAS will fade into irrelevancy.

At some point, I will be invited to come to Europe and provide training and Certification in AB-PA.  I’ve already been contacted about potential European seminars.  I’m agreeable, it’s just a matter of funding my time away from my private practice.  AB-PA Certified mental health professionals will eventually be established in Europe as a defined standard for professional knowledge and professional competence, and the solution offered by AB-PA will eventually be enacted in Europe.  Join me in leading this effort to bring AB-PA to Great Britain.

AB-PA Certification

On November 18-19 I will be providing Basic Certification in AB-PA.  Basic Certification in AB-PA verifies that these participating mental health professionals possess the core knowledge base in the attachment system, in personality disorder pathology, in family systems therapy, and in complex trauma needed for professional competence.  This will be Day-1 of the Certification seminar.

On Day-2 of the AB-PA Basic Certification seminar, I will be covering the structured and flexibly standardized assessment protocol of a six-session Treatment-Focused Assessment that provides the Court with an alternative to an unnecessary and costly child custody evaluation, and I’ll be covering the treatment issues along with the structure and implementation of the Strategic family systems intervention of a Contingent Visitation Schedule which provides the Court with a potential treatment-related compromise solution to the child’s protective separation from the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

In the Advanced AB-PA Certification seminar on November 20^th, I will be covering treatment in more depth, focusing on the intersubjective systems of the brain (Stern; Tronic; Shore; Trevarthan; Fonagy) and the misattribution of inner experience (Bowlby; Beck).  I will be describing the deep-trauma meme-structures of the pathogen – the viral code of the pathogen – and the trauma origins of its defensive structures, its inhibition of executive function systems for logical reasoning, its capacity to alter narrative memory structures, its distortions to identity structures, and the implications of its access to motivational networks of the brain.  I will also be extending the pathogen into gaslighting, malignant narcissism, and the terrorist mind.

My goal isn’t to be an “expert” in “parental alienation.”  My goal is to establish a ground foundation for professional knowledge and professional competence that both targeted parents and the Courts can rely on in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  My goal is not to to BE an “expert,” my goal is to use the standard and established constructs and principles of AB-PA to extend professional expertise to others.

Conflict Coding System

Also… on Saturday evening November 19^th I will be offering an additional brief seminar-ette on the Parent-Child Conflict Coding System.  I’ve decided to work this up into a brief descriptive booklet for my AB-PA Certification seminars (Parent-Child Conflict Coding System). 

I’m going to recommend that all AB-PA Certified mental health professionals provide a Conflict Code as part of the standardized Treatment-Focused Assessment protocol – and I will be strongly recommending that the Conflict Coding System be used by all mental health professionals assessing parent-child conflict for the Courts (all child custody evaluators and court-involved therapists) in order to establish a ground foundation for professional assessment, professional case conceptualization, and professional treatment planning.

I’m a pretty smart guy, Karen.  You’ve seen my 40-page reference list for AB-PA.  That AB-PA reference list is just my reference list for this pathology – and “parental alienation” is not my primary field.  Imagine my reference lists for my primary expertise in ADHD, autism-spectrum pathology, and early childhood mental health (which includes the socially-mediated neuro-development of the brain during childhood).

The Parent-Child Conflict Coding System is a small but power-packed gem.  Good things come in small packages.  I want to get it out there because it will be incredibly useful in obtaining professional competence in the assessment of pathology, all forms of pathology.  It’ll make mental health professionals think – thinking, learning, and growing are always good things. 

Ultimately, though, this Conflict Coding System represents just the bare-bones structure for where I want to take it.  Ultimately, once we solve the pathology of “parental alienation” (AB-PA) – and we will absolutely solve it – then I’m going to be turning to other areas, such as:

The Terrorist Mind:  I will be unlocking the clinical psychopathology of the terrorist mind.  It’s the same core pathogen structure as AB-PA, with different surrounding meme-structures.  I’m already opening that process.  I’m currently in a series on my new blog, The Terrorist Mind, in which I’m unlocking the motivations of the Las Vegas shooter.  I’m thinking that my next series will be on the Manchester Bomber, and then the Paris Shooters.  I’ll probably need a couple of informational blogs in between these series though.

ADHD Solution:  I want to develop a parenting skills training website as part of describing a relationship-based treatment-solution to ADHD.  The regulatory pathology of ADHD has been my primary focus for expertise since I entered clinical psychology.  ADHD is what took me to work for Children’s Hospital of Orange County, because I wanted to work with Jim Swanson at UCI (who was running a collaborative project with CHOC on identifying ADHD in preschoolers).  Jim Swanson is one of the biggest kahunas in ADHD research.  I then moved into early childhood in order to understand brain development with the hopes that if we caught ADHD early enough we could actually cure it, and the early childhood brain development information actually does unlock ADHD.  We actually can cure it using relationship-based approaches if we know what to do.

Developmentally Supportive Psychotherapy:  Also out of the early childhood brain development research and literature comes a new approach to child psychotherapy.  Professional psychology is currently using play therapy (based on Anna Freud and Virginia Axline from the 1950s) and behaviorism (from B.F. Skinner and training lab rats in the 1940s and 50s).  Our child therapy models are absolutely archaic. They incorporate none of the child development and brain neuro-development research that’s occurred in the last 50 years.  We can absolutely solve issues like oppositional-defiant behavior, school behavior problems, family conflict, all that stuff… if we know how the brain works.  This is where I was headed when I became diverted into solving “parental alienation,” which then consumed my focus for the past decade.

And there’s more still.  I’ve got lots and lots of things I want to get to.  I don’t want to be an “expert” in “parental alienation,” I want to create the expertise in others so I can get to these other things before I leave the planet.

Once we solve “parental alienation” (AB-PA), I’m planning on taking the bare-bones structure of the Parent-Child Conflict Coding System and expanding the descriptions for the causal origins identified in the Parent-Child Conflict Coding System into a full Compendium, an magnum opus of my knowledge across ADHD, ODD, and the neuro-development of the brain during childhood (a companion opus to a developmentally supportive model of parent-child psychotherapy).

I just need the time.  If there is any doubt about what my knowledge can do, just look what I’ve accomplished with “parental alienation” – and “parental alienation” isn’t even my primary field of expertise.  And there’s even more about “parental alienation” that I haven’t even talked about yet because I’m waiting for professionals to catch up with the basic stuff.

The Parent-Child Conflict Coding System is just the bare-bones skeletal structure, but even this bare-bones structure has immense value in bringing organizational coherence to identifying the causal structures for parent-child conflict.  In the AB-PA Basic Certification seminars I will be offering an additional seminarette on the Conflict Coding System. 

I don’t care about being an “expert,” nor do I care about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  The ONLY thing I care about is bringing the pathology of “parental alienation” to an end as quickly as is humanly possible.  Targeted parents and their children need a solution today – now.  AB-PA provides them with that solution, now, today, immediately.

If you join me in bringing AB-PA to Great Britain, the solution arrives sooner and the nightmare for these families ends more quickly.  If you sit on the sidelines of the paradigm shift to AB-PA, then the solution for these parents and their children will take longer.

I cannot join with you because your insistence on holding onto the Gardnerian PAS diagnostic model acts as a barrier to my ability to join you.  The solution provided by AB-PA requires that we return to using ONLY standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.  You, however, can join with me.  You simply need to accept AB-PA as the floor-ground of knowledge, and then you can add whatever you want.  Just make the case to professional psychology for your additions, and if professional psychology accepts your “new forms of pathology” proposals – woohoo, yay.  If not, then at least we have the floor ground of AB-PA that defines domains of professional knowledge needed for professional competence and solves the pathology for targeted parents and their children.

November 18-20^th at the Westin in Pasadena:

Registration: AB-PA Certification

Less than a month away.  Last call, Karen.  The world is changing.  AB-PA is coming as the primary paradigm for defining attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce. 

AB-PA is a return to the established path of professional psychology.  Join me in creating the solution.

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

I am beginning to shift my professional focus. 

To remain focused on solving “parental alienation” (AB-PA) and keep my work conceptually distinct, I just created a new blog to begin the process of addressing the terrorist mind and pathological violence:

The Terrorist Mind: Pathological Anger and Pathological Violence

As I unraveled the narcissistic pathology of “parental alienation,” I was led into researching pathological anger and hatred, and ultimately into researching the nature of evil.  The narcissistic pathology of “parental alienation” is evil (the Dark Triad Personality).  This research into evil and the terrorist mind is not on my personal reference list for AB-PA because I don’t want to distract from the core solution to AB-PA. 

Three of the primary references are:

Baron-Cohen, Simon (2011). The science of evil: On empathy and the origins of cruelty. New York: Basic Books.

Beck, A.T. (2000). Prisoners of hate: The cognitive basis of anger, hostility, and violence. New York: Harper Collins.

Baumeister, R. F. (1997). Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty. New York: Freeman.

Other research references are on my personal reference list for terrorism. 

Through my research into the psychologically violent and abusive narcissistic pathology of “parental alienation,” I have been on the path of unlocking the pathological violence of the terrorist mind for several years now.  I am currently forming a 501c3 non-profit to serve as the umbrella organization for providing training and Certification in AB-PA (The Childress Institute).  If you scroll down the homepage for The Childress Institute you will see that one of the primary “Future Directions” is unlocking the terrorist mind and the extremism of pathological hatred. 

The Terrorist Mind & the Extremism of Pathological Anger:

“Developing an attachment-based understanding of the terrorist mind, pathological hatred, and fanatical extremism, with the goal of developing primary and secondary treatment interventions to resolve the social and psychological attachment-related trauma pathology that creates the terrorist mind and the extremism of pathological anger.” (The Childress Institute website)

I will be addressing the linkage of the pathogen that is creating “parental alienation” to the pathology of the terrorist mind on the third day of my November AB-PA Certification seminars for Advanced Certification.  Same pathogen, same set of damaged information structures in the attachment networks, with differing appending structures yielding different variants of narcissistic-psychopathic pathology.

The core set of damaged information structures that are creating “parental alienation” (AB-PA) are the same damaged information structures creating the pathological violence of the terrorist mind.  You can recognize the symptom features of “parental alienation” (AB-PA) in the core symptoms of pathological violence:

A profound absence of empathy.

An absence of shared social morality.

A sadistic gratification in causing immense suffering.

Same pathogen, with slightly different appending structures surrounding a set of core damaged information structures in the attachment networks of the brain. 

In my diagram for the underbelly of the pathogen (The Structure of the Pathology), you’ll notice that the pathogen (the damaged information structures in the attachment networks) attacks three other structures in the brain; logical reasoning, identity, and memory structures.  The influence of the damaged information structures on identity becomes particularly relevant in understanding pathological violence and the terrorist mind (as does the pathogen’s construction of the Group Mind).

As I unpack the damaged information structures of the terrorist mind and pathological violence I will be expanding on the significance of the absence of empathy as a feature of attachment-related pathology.  Ultimately, I will lead this into the assertion that the absence of empathy is the central core pathological feature of narcissistic pathology.  Grandiosity, the need for attention, a haughty and arrogant attitude, entitlement, all the other symptom traits of narcissistic pathology are secondary personality features surrounding the core trauma-feature of an absence of empathy.

One of the key research articles I’ll be unpacking in this regard is Moor and Silvern (2006) whose research revealed that childhood trauma and the absence of parental empathy are the same thing – flip sides of exactly the same coin.  Child abuse occurs because of the absence of parental empathy, and the absence of parental empathy is itself traumatic.

“The act of child abuse by parents is viewed in itself as an outgrowth of parental failure of empathy and a narcissistic stance towards one’s own children.  Deficiency of empathic responsiveness prevents such self-centered parents from comprehending the impact of their acts, and in combination with their fragility and need for self-stabilization, predisposes them to exploit children in this way.” (Moor & Silvern, 2006, p. 95)

“Only insofar as parents fail in their capacity for empathic attunement and responsiveness can they objectify their children, consider them narcissistic extensions of themselves, and abuse them.  It is the parents’ view of their children as vehicles for satisfaction of their own needs, accompanied by the simultaneous disregard for those of the child, that make the victimization possible.” (Moor & Silvern, 2006, p. 104)

My role in solving “parental alienation” is changing.  Everything is now available for the solution.  It’s now simply a matter of enacting the solution.  The only barrier to the solution is professional ignorance and incompetence.

My role in solving “parental alienation” is to be a resource, to be the catalyst for creating change.  My role is not to enact the change.  That falls to targeted parents and their allies in mental health.  It is up to you and your allies to address the profound professional ignorance and incompetence that currently destroys your families.  In this coming change, I am your resource – I am your weapon, not your warrior.  You, and your allies in professional psychology, are the warriors for your children.

That’s why I chastised your allies, the Gardernian PAS “experts,” for abandoning you in your fight for professional competence.  Enacting the solution is not my role, it’s theirs.  I have places to go and things to do.  I’m just a lone psychologist in Southern California.  It is up to your allies in professional psychology to help you enact the solution, to advocate for you in seeking substantially enhanced professional knowledge and standards of practice for professional competence.

It’s up to your allies in professional psychology to become the next generation of experts in AB-PA to help you achieve professional expertise and competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of your children and families.

To the Gardnerian PAS experts:  Stop fighting me and the transition to AB-PA.  The world is changing.  AB-PA is coming.  AB-PA will, with absolute certainty, replace Gardnerian PAS as the dominant paradigm for defining attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  The meme-constructs  (idea-structures) of AB-PA are vastly superior to the meme-constructs (idea-structures) of Gardnerian PAS.  The meme-constructs of AB-PA are derived from the structures of Bowlby, Millon, Beck, Minuchin, Stern and Fonagy, and the full research base in attachment theory, personality pathology, family systems therapy, intersubjectivity, and complex trauma.  The meme-constructs of Gardnerian PAS rely entirely on only one person, Richard Gardner.  The meme-constructs (the idea-structures) of AB-PA expand and link into so many other constructs within professional psychology, AB-PA is a vastly superior model of the pathology.  AB-PA will replace Gardnerian PAS as the dominant paradigm defining attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  That is a fact.

The existence of AB-PA will then require a systems-wide review by professional psychology of its approach to the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of the attachment-related family pathology of “parental alienation.”  That’s the catalytic change-agent role of AB-PA.  That is spot-on the purpose and function of AB-PA.

Gardnerian PAS has been around for 30 years.  The meme-constructs (the ideas) of Gardnerian PAS have already been fully integrated into professional psychology. 

The meme-constructs of AB-PA, on the other hand, are entirely different from the idea-structures of Gardnerian PAS.  AB-PA will require professional psychology to integrate its new meme-constructs (idea-structures).  Through defining the construct of “parental alienation” from entirely within the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology, the existence of AB-PA requires a systems-wide review throughout all of professional psychology and the legal system regarding how attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce is assessed, diagnosed, and treated. 

That is a good thing.

AB-PA is not an accident.  When this systems-wide review occurs, look at the meme-construct I’ve embedded prominently right up front: the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.  Like a falling series of dominoes, the DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse leads into a series of required child protection steps.  This is not an accident.

AB-PA is a catalytic change agent designed to obtain professional competence.  In the systems-wide review of professional practice required by the need to integrate the meme-contructs (idea-structures) of AB-PA, we will build into professional practice standardized and structured assessment and diagnostic protocols as a ground for professional competence.  This is not an accident.  This is the function and purpose of AB-PA.

To the Gardernian PAS experts:   My role is to create the catalytic change agent, your role is to help targeted parents enact the solution offered by AB-PA. 

Stop fighting against AB-PA.  Work with AB-PA.  Work with AB-PA to help create the systems-wide review of professional practices that AB-PA now requires.  Work with me in establishing the professional standards of practice for professional competence required by AB-PA as a catalytic agent of systems-wide change.

To Bill Bernet:  Use your connections and influence to promote the systems-wide review of professional practices regarding assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  Stop fighting against the coming of AB-PA.  It’s coming.  Work with AB-PA to help targeted parents create the solution offered by AB-PA. Guide the PASG into advocating for changes to the APA position statement on “parental alienation” that are now required by the existence of AB-PA. 

Work with AB-PA, Dr. Bernet.  Stand on the pulpit that the universe has provided to you and use your voice to help create the professional transition into structured and standardized standards of professional competence and standards of professional practice (semi-structured and flexibly standardized).  That is the role in this change process that the universe is seeking from you.  Enacting the solution offered by AB-PA is not my role, that’s your role.

To Karen Woodall:  My goodness, Karen, stop fighting against AB-PA.  The prior issue I took you to task for was not “plagiarism” – heavens, AB-PA is not Dr. Childress, it’s Beck and Bowlby, and Million, and Minuchin…  How can you plagiarize something that is already fully within the foundations of professional psychology?  The issue is that you so prominently avoid citation of the meme-constructs of AB-PA when such citation would be warranted, thereby ignoring the existence of AB-PA.  Your avoidance of citation and avoidance of support for AB-PA then delays the systems-wide review within professional psychology that AB-PA brings.  Enacting the solution offered by AB-PA is not my role, that’s your role.

Work with the solution AB-PA brings, Karen.  From what I hear, professional psychology in England is kind of archaic in their approach to assessing, diagnosing, and treating attachment related pathology surrounding divorce (“parental alienation”).  AB-PA is not a gradual incremental change within professional psychology, AB-PA brings transformative change to professional psychology.  Professional psychology in Great Britain (the home of John Bowlby and attachment theory) could immediately become a world leader in the assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, and you could be leading this systems-wide change.  Become the expert in AB-PA for Great Britain.  Bring AB-PA to England.  Assist in the systems-wide review of professional practice within the entire mental health system of England that will be required by AB-PA.

The mental health system has already integrated the meme-constructs of Gardnerian PAS.  The mental health system has NOT yet integrated the meme-structures of AB-PA, and AB-PA both provokes and requires this integration.  That’s what the ethics code Standards 2.01/9.01 meme-construct is designed to accomplish.  I’m taking a provoking hard-line stance that requires professional psychology to consider and integrate the meme-constructs (idea-structures) of AB-PA (an integration of Bowlby; Beck; Millon; Minuchin to the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related family pathology surrounding diovorce).

Seriously Karen, November 18-20 at the Westin in Pasadena.  Become Advanced Certified in AB-PA and take AB-PA back to England.  Lead the systems-wide review in professional psychology across Great Britain that is provoked and required by AB-PA to help parents and families acquire standards of professional competence and standards of professional practice in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of the attachment-related pathology in their families.  It’s not my role to enact the solution, that’s your role.  My role was to develop the catalytic change agent.  I’ve accomplished my role.

I have things I need to get to – Manchester and Las Vegas.  I need to shift over to the related narcissistic pathology of pathological violence and the terrorist mind, along with revisions to child therapy, and enacting solutions to the pathologies of ODD an ADHD, and developing 22nd Century solutions to education, and reducing recidivism in our criminally involved youth.  I’ve got things calling for my attention.  Principally right now, Manchester and Las Vegas.  Pathological violence is a variant of the same narcissistic (attachment-trauma) pathology: absence of empathy, absence of shared social morality, and a desire to inflict immense suffering.

My role was to develop the catalytic change agent to create the solution.  AB-PA accomplishes that.  I am providing all of the resources needed to create the solution. 

Foundations prompts the systems-wide review of professional practices surrounding the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related pathology following divorce.  On pages 312-313 of Foundations I directly discuss the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.

The Narcissistic Parent  is a resource that can be provided to legal professionals to help educate them on this form of family pathology created by a narcissistic parent.  On pages 34-37 of The Narcissistic Parent I discuss children’s testimony in court.  This chapter alone is valuable for informing the legal system regarding the substantial drawbacks to seeking and allowing child testimony.

The Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting and the Parenting Practices Rating Scale provide documentation of the child’s symptoms and the parenting practices of the targeted parent.  These assessment documentation instruments establish foundational standards of practice for the assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce (Conversations with Dr. Childress: 4.01 & 4.02).

The Contingent Visitation Schedule provides a potential compromise solution to a protective separation of the child from the pathogenic parenting of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent.  It can also provide a structured approach for stabilizing the family following a protective separation when the pathogenic parenting of the allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent is reintroduced.

AB-PA Certification seminars provide the resource for establishing standards for professional competence.

The AB-PA Key Solution pilot program proposal for the family courts provides the resource for broad-scale development of professional knowledge and competence across wide geographic regions.

I’ve fulfilled my role of developing the resources for creating systems-wide catalytic change in the mental health and legal systems surrounding the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related pathology.  My role is not to enact the solution.  That’s your role.

I have things I need to get to (Manchester and Las Vegas).  Can we please enact the solution to “parental alienation” as quickly as as we possible can?  It’s important.

The Terrorist Mind: Pathological Anger and Pathological Violence

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

Pathogenic parenting that is creating

significant developmental pathology in the child (attachment system suppression; diagnostic indicator 1 of AB-PA),

personality disorder pathology in the child (narcissistic personality traits evidenced in the child’s symptom display; diagnostic indicator 2 of AB-PA),

delusional-psychiatric pathology in the child (an encapsulated persecutory delusion; diagnostic indicator 3 of AB-PA),

is a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.  Creating that level of severe psychopathology in the child is psychological child abuse.

The Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting documents these three symptom features.  There is absolutely zero reason why a mental health professional should not, at the very least, assess for the presence or absence of these three symptom features in the child’s symptom display.

If these symptoms are not present, then they are not present.  No worries.

If, however, these three symptoms ARE present in the child’s symptom display, then the DSM-5 diagnosis is V995-51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed.

This is an issue of child protection.

This is simple.  This is direct.  This is straightforward. 

There is absolutely zero reason for any mental health professional to not at least assess for the presence or absence of these three specific symptoms in the child’s symptom display.  Simply assess for the presence or absence of these three symptoms in the child’s symptom display and then document the results of the assessment using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting.

This would represent a reasonable standard of practice and child protection obligation in the professional assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

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

The primary challenge faced by targeted parents and their children is the professional incompetence of the mental health assessment and diagnosis of the attachment-related pathology in their family.

We must acquire professional competence in the assessment and diagnosis of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  To achieve professional competence, we must establish standards for the domains of knowledge needed for professional competence to which all mental health professional can be held accountable.

Gardnerian PAS cannot accomplish this.

AB-PA activates Standards 2.01a and 9.01a of the APA ethics code.  In the Conversation series, I lay out this line directly.

Previous seminars (such as the Master’s Lecture Series) and descriptions of the pathology (such as in Foundations) provide an overall structural analysis of the pathology.  In the seven core Conversations with Dr. Childress, I apply the constructs of professional psychology to the symptom sets displayed by the child during the assessment.

Two branches emerge from the core line of seven Conversations, one describes the specific assessment protocol (4.01; 4.02), and the other branch (8-Series) activates standards of professional practice from the APA ethics code.

The Assessment Protocol (4.01; 4.02)

The foundation to building professional competence is establishing a ground standard of practice for documentation of the initial assessment.

Assessment leads to diagnosis, and diagnosis guides treatment.

Building professional standards of practice begins with establishing a structured and standardized assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized) that is documented in the patient record.

When we are medically ill we go to the physician, and the doctor’s office collects a structured and standardized assessment of our “vital signs” (blood pressure, weight, and temperature) as simply a matter of course – a standard of practice – for the intake assessment surrounding a medical concern.

With attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, the Parenting Practices Rating Scale and the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting represent a structured and standardized intake assessment protocol for attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce (the “vital signs” for attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce).

The Parenting Practices Rating Scale and the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting are documentation instruments.  They document information collected during the initial assessment. 

A structured and standardized assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized) is the foundation to establishing a professional standard of practice, which is critical to building professional competence in the assessment and diagnosis of pathology.

Conversations on Competence (8-Series)

The 8-Series Conversations on Competence represents the ability of AB-PA to leverage change.  The 8-Series on professional competence can be leveraged to require a systems-wide review of how attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce is assessed and diagnosed. 

What represents professional competence?  That is the issue addressed in the 8-Series. 

I provide the answer from AB-PA in 8.01 Domains of Knowledge. 

In 8.02 Violations of Competence, these domains of knowledge are linked to the Standards of the APA ethics code.  Conversation 8.02 empowers targeted parents to expect and require professional competence. 

In Conversation 8.03 and Conversation 8.04, the power of targeted parents is flexed to motivate systemic movement toward professional competence.

8.01 Domains of Knowledge

Once the pathology is described within standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology (Foundations; Conversations 1-7), this then defines the domains of knowledge needed for professional competence. 

That’s Conversation 8.01, in which I describe the domains of knowledge required for professional competence.  Step-by-step we are building professional competence and professional standards of practice. 

8.02 Violations of Competence

Once domains of knowledge are defined for professional competence, this then activates the Standards of the APA ethics code.  That’s Conversation 8.02, in which the domains of knowledge required for professional competence are directly linked to Standards of the APA ethics code; Standards 2.01a and 9.01a.

This represents the power available from remaining within standard and established constructs and principles in defining pathology.  We can absolutely solve this pathology, as long as we remain within the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology. 

The first step is to acquire professional competence and professional standards of practice for the assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

8.03 Licensing Board Complaints

In Conversation 8.03, I am demonstrating what it means to fight for targeted parents and their children.  I am directly challenging my mental health colleagues through the line created by Conversations 8.01 and 8.02. 

This is a trauma pathology.  There is a trauma-slumber associated with it, a learned helplessness acceptance-of-abuse enters the mindset.  I am waking up the field from its slumber.

Targeted parents and their children have the right to expect professional competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of their families.  All of the various ethics codes governing all mental health professionals have Standards that require professional competence.  For psychologists, it’s Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code.

Once the pathology is defined entirely by standard and established constructs and principles, this defines domains of knowledge needed for professional competence, which then activates Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code.

The activation of the APA ethics code empowers targeted parents to expect and require competence.  The trauma-slumber of helplessness ends. 

In Conversation 8.03, I am directly challenging my professional colleagues to dispute what I am saying.  Dispute Conversation 8.01 that defines the domains of knowledge needed for professional competence.  Dispute Conversation 8.02 that links these domains to the APA ethics code.  Dispute them or they stand. 

And if they stand, then targeted parents become empowered to expect and require professional competence in the four domains of professional-level knowledge described in Conversation 8.01:

1)  The Attachment System
2)  Personality Disorder Pathology
3)  Family Systems Therapy
4)  Complex Trauma.

Standards for professional competence. 

8.04 Risk Management

In Conversation 8.04, I am demonstrating what it means to fight for targeted parents and their children.

I would expect that all mental health allies of targeted parents and their children to take a stance of advocating for professional competence with our professional colleagues.  The fight to acquire professional psychology as an ally for targeted parents and their children is now.  Mental health allies of targeted parents and their children should not abandon targeted parents to fight this fight for professional competence on their own.

By defining the pathology entirely from established constructs and principles, AB-PA provokes a system-wide review of the mental health response to attachment-related family pathology surrounding divorce. 

AB-PA leads to domains of knowledge required for professional competence.

Establishing domains of knowledge required for professional competence activates Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code that requires professional competence (and all standards requiring professional competence in all professional ethics codes everywhere, across the U.S. and internationally). 

Activating APA ethics code Standards empowers targeted parents to expect and require professional competence .

The empowerment of targeted parents makes them dangerous to ignorance and incompetence. 

The dangerousness of targeted parents provokes a risk-management response across professional psychology to become professionally knowledgeable and competent.

Our Goal:  Defined standards for professional competence and defined standards of practice in the assessment and diagnosis of attachment-related family pathology surrounding divorce.

The Conversation with Dr. Childress series is designed as a professional-to-professional resource that targeted parents can direct the mental health professionals to who are assessing and diagnosing the pathology in their families.

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

I just posted a YouTube video series for mental health professionals in which I discuss the assessment and diagnosis of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

The discussion content is at a professional-level.

Opening:  In this opening segment I describe the series as a conversation with my colleagues in professional psychology, and then I do a little professional housekeeping in returning our professional-level discussion to standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology.

1 – Intake Assessment:  This segment describes the importance of the intake assessment and begins to walk through the collection of information from the initial intake assessment, identifying the presenting problem of a “child rejecting a parent surrounding divorce” as fundamentally an attachment-related pathology, and then identifying the three sets of symptoms; hostile-conflict symptoms, excessive anxiety symptoms, attachment-related symptoms.

2 – Conflict Symptoms: This segment walks through the conflict symptoms, identifying the narcissistic personality traits being displayed by the child in the parent-child conflict, leading to a discussion surrounding the inauthenticity of this symptom feature and its cause in the cross-generational coalition with an allied narcissistic/(borderline) parent.

3 – Anxiety Symptoms:  This segment walks through the excessive anxiety symptoms sometimes displayed by the child in attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  Child anxiety symptoms surrounding attachment-related pathology require assessment for “dangerousness” from the targeted parent.  If the dangerousness of the targeted parent is ruled out as a causal factor by the assessment, then the inauthentic features of this excessive anxiety display are described and the role of the allied parent in creating the child’s excessive anxiety is identified.

4 – Attachment Symptoms: This segment provides information on the inauthenticity of attachment symptoms that involve a child rejecting a parent.  This segment describes how the attachment system (a neurologically embedded primary motivational system of the brain) functions, and how it characteristically dysfunctions, explaining why and how these child symptoms of attachment pathology are inauthentic to how the brain and the attachment system actually works.

5 – DSM-5 Diagnosis:  This segment takes the information from the prior segments and discusses the appropriate DSM-5 (and ICD-10) diagnosis for the pathogenic parenting pathology.  This segment identifies the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse as the appropriate categorical diagnosis for the pathogenic parenting evidenced in this type of attachment-related family pathology.

6 – Splitting: This segment discusses the origins of the splitting pathology in disorganized attachment (polarization of perception: all-good/all-bad), resulting in a neurologically imposed imperative for functional consistency in the brain networks of the narcissistic/(borderline) parent, in which the ex-spouse must also become an ex-parent; the ex-husband must become an ex-father, the ex-wife must become an ex-mother in order to maintain the neurologically imposed consistency of the “splitting” pathology embedded in the neurological networks of the brain.

7 – A Request: This segment concludes the conversation with a personal request from Dr. Childress to clinical mental health professionals to begin conducting an appropriate and adequate assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, and to begin documenting their adequate assessments as a standard of professional practice.

In the final segment of this professional-to-professional conversation, I also urge my clinical psychology colleagues (clinical psychologists and family therapists) to begin fulfilling their standard of practice child protection obligations by making the DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse for this type of attachment-related family pathology.  Pathogenic parenting that is creating significant psychopathology in the child is a DSM-5 diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse, and all mental health professionals have an established professional obligation – called a “duty to protect” – that mandates our role in the protection of children from child abuse.

We are going to bring standards of professional practice to the clinical assessment of attachment-related family pathology surrounding divorce.  (notice I did not say “parental alienation”).

I don’t know how long this will take, but established standards of professional practice in the assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce are on their way.

Establishing professional standards of practice begins with establishing a semi-structured and flexibly standardized protocol for the assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce (notice I did not say “parental alienation”).

We are also going to establish standards of professional practice for the professional knowledge-base needed by mental health professionals for professional competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce (notice I did not say “parental alienation”).

By defining the pathology entirely within standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology, AB-PA established defined domains of knowledge required for professional competence:

The Attachment System
Personality Disorder Pathology
Family Systems Therapy
Complex Trauma

Failure to possess a professional-level knowledge in these four domains of scientifically and professionally grounded knowledge when assessing, diagnosing, and treating attachment-related family pathology that involves the psychological collapse, and subsequent dysfunctional stabilization, of a narcissistic/(borderline) parent surrounding divorce would likely represent practice by the mental health professional that is beyond their boundaries of professional competence.

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

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An Example of Professional Competence in an Initial Assessment of Pathology:

As an example of what a professional standard of practice looks like for an initial intake assessment and documentation protocol, I have provided an example from the field of early childhood mental health:

Early Childhood Mental Health Intake Assessment Form

The assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce will not require anything as involved and detailed as this example of an intake form from the field of early childhood mental health, and the content of information collected during the initial intake assessment would be different in many ways from the information collected by an early childhood initial intake assessment, but I am providing this initial intake assessment form from early childhood mental health as an example of what standard of practice for an initial intake assessment looks like in other fields of professional psychology.

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In Chapter 11 of Foundations, I provide my recommended reading list for establishing a ground of professional competence:

From Foundations: “Recommendations for professional literature of vital importance for the development of professional expertise in this area would include:

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.

Fonagy, P., Target, M., Gergely, G., Allen, J.G., and Bateman, A. W. (2003). The developmental roots of Borderline Personality Disorder in early attachment relationships: A theory and some evidence. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 23, 412-459.

Fonagy P. and Target M. (2005). Bridging the transmission gap: An end to an important mystery in attachment research? Attachment and Human Development, 7, 333-343.

Fonagy, P., Luyten, P., and Strathearn, L. (2011). Borderline personality disorder, mentalization, and the neurobiology of attachment. Infant Mental Health Journal, 32, 47-69.

Lyons-Ruth, K., Bronfman, E. and Parsons, E. (1999). Maternal frightened, frightening, or atypical behavior and disorganized infant attachment patterns. In J. Vondra & D. Barnett (Eds.) Atypical patterns of infant attachment: Theory, research, and current directions. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 64, (3, Serial No. 258).

Main, M. and Hesse, E. (1990). Parents’ unresolved traumatic experiences are related to infant disorganized attachment status: Is frightened and/or frightening parental behavior the linking mechanism? In M.T. Greenberg, D. Cicchetti, & E.M. Cummings (Eds.), Attachment in the preschool years: Theory, research, and intervention (pp. 161–182). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

van IJzendoorn, M.H., Schuengel, C., and Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J. (1999). Disorganized attachment in early childhood: Meta-analysis of precursors, concomitants, and sequelae. Development and Psychopathology, 11, 225–249.

Kerig, P.K. (2005). Revisiting the construct of boundary dissolution: A multidimensional perspective. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 5, 5-42.

Macfie, J. Fitzpatrick, K.L., Rivas, E.M. and Cox, M.J. (2008). Independent influences upon mother-toddler role-reversal: Infant-mother attachment disorganization and role reversal in mother’s childhood. Attachment and Human Development, 10, 29-39

Macfie, J., McElwain, N.L., Houts, R.M., and Cox, M.J. (2005) Intergenerational transmission of role reversal between parent and child: Dyadic and family systems internal working models. Attachment & Human Development, 7, 51-65.

Pearlman, C.A. and Courtois, C.A. (2005). Clinical applications of the attachment framework: Relational treatment of complex trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 18, 449-459.

Prager, J. (2003). Lost childhood, lost generations: the intergenerational transmission of trauma.  Journal of Human Rights, 2, 173-181.

Shaffer, A., and Sroufe, L. A. (2005). The developmental and adaptational implications of generational boundary dissolution: Findings from a prospective, longitudinal study. Journal of Emotional Abuse. 5(2/3), 67-84.

Sroufe, L. A. (2005). Attachment and development:  A prospective, longitudinal study from birth to adulthood, Attachment and Human Development, 7, 349-367.

Bacciagaluppi, M. (1985). Inversion of parent-child relationships: A contribution to attachment theory.  British Journal of Medical Psychology, 58, 369-373.

Benoit, D. and Parker, K.C.H. (1994). Stability and transmission of attachment across three generations. Child Development, 65, 1444-1456

Brennan, K.A. and Shaver, P.R. (1998). Attachment styles and personality disorders: Their connections to each other and to parental divorce, parental death, and perceptions of parental caregiving. Journal of Personality 66, 835-878.

Bretherton, I. (1990). Communication patterns, internal working models, and the intergenerational transmission of attachment relationships. Infant Mental Health Journal, 11, 237-252.

Sable, P. (1997). Attachment, detachment and borderline personality disorder. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 34(2), 171-181.

Cassidy, J., and Berlin, L. J. (1994). The insecure/ambivalent pattern of attachment: Theory and research. Child Development, 65, 971−991.

Mikulincer, M., Gillath, O., and Shaver, P.R. (2002). Activation of the attachment system in adulthood: Threat-related primes increase the accessibility of mental representations of attachment figures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 881-895.

Tronick, E.Z. (2003). Of course all relationships are unique: How co-creative processes generate unique mother-infant and patient-therapist relationships and change other relationships. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 23, 473-491.

van der Kolk, B.A. (1987). The separation cry and the trauma response: Developmental issues in the psychobiology of attachment and separation. In B.A. van der Kolk (Ed.) Psychological Trauma (31-62). Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, Inc.

van der Kolk, B.A. (1989). The compulsion to repeat the trauma: Re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 12, 389-411

van Ijzendoorn, M.H. (1992) Intergenerational transmission of parenting: A review of studies in nonclinical populations.  Developmental Review, 12, 76-99

Holmes, J. (2004). Disorganized attachment and borderline personality disorder: a clinical perspective. Attachment & Human Development, 6(2), 181-190.

Lopez, F. G., Fuendeling, J., Thomas, K., and Sagula, D. (1997). An attachment-theoretical perspective on the use of splitting defenses. Counseling Psychology Quarterly, 10, 461-472.

Raineki, C., Moriceau, S., and Sullivan, R.M. (2010). Developing a neurobehavioral animal model of infant attachment to an abusive caregiver.  Biological Psychiatry, 67, 1137-1145.

Cozolino, L. (2006): The neuroscience of human relationships: Attachment and the developing social brain. WW Norton & Company, New York.

Siegel, D. (1999). The developing mind: Toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience (New York: Guilford Press, 1999)

Iacoboni, M., Molnar-Szakacs, I., Gallese, V., Buccino, G., Mazziotta, J., and Rizzolatti, G. (2005). Grasping the intentions of others with one’s own mirror neuron system. Plos Biology, 3(3), e79.

Kaplan, J. T., and Iacoboni, M. (2006). Getting a grip on other minds: Mirror neurons, intention understanding, and cognitive empathy. Social Neuroscience, 1(3/4), 175-183.

Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., and Shapiro, V. (1975). Ghosts in the nursery. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 14, 387–421.

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

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

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

Moor, A. and Silvern, L. (2006). Identifying pathways linking child abuse to psychological outcome: The mediating role of perceived parental failure of empathy. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 6, 91-112.

Trippany, R.L., Helm, H.M. and Simpson, L. (2006). Trauma reenactment: Rethinking borderline personality disorder when diagnosing sexual abuse survivors. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 28, 95-110.

Rappoport, A. (2005). Co-narcissism: How we accommodate to narcissistic parents. The Therapist.

Carlson, E.A., Edgeland, B., and Sroufe, L.A. (2009). A prospective investigation of the development of borderline personality symptoms.  Development and Psychopathology, 21, 1311-1334.

Juni, S. (1995).  Triangulation as splitting in the service of ambivalence. Current Psychology: Research and Reviews, 14, 91-111.

Barnow, S. Aldinger, M., Arens, E.A., Ulrich, I., Spitzer, C., Grabe, H., Stopsack, M. (2013). Maternal transmission of borderline personality disorder symptoms in the community-based Griefswald Family Study. Journal of Personality Disorders, 27, 806-819,

Dutton, D. G., Denny-Keys, M. K., and Sells, J. R. (2011). Parental personality disorder and its effects on children: A review of current literature.  Journal of Child Custody, 8, 268-283.

Fruzzetti, A.E., Shenk, C. and Hoffman, P. (2005). Family interaction and the development of borderline personality disorder: A transactional model.  Development and Psychopathology, 17, 1007-1030.

Garety, P. A. and Freeman D. (1999) Cognitive approaches to delusions: A critical review of theories and evidence. The British Journal of Clinical Psychology; 38, 113-154.

Hodges, S. (2003). Borderline personality disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder: Time for integration? Journal of Counseling and Development, 81, 409-417.

Levy, K.N. (2005). The implications of attachment theory and research for understanding borderline personality disorder. Development and Psychopathology, 17, p. 959-986

Stepp, S. D., Whalen, D. J., Pilkonis, P. A., Hipwell, A. E., and Levine, M. D. (2011). Children of mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder: Identifying parenting behaviors as potential targets for intervention. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment. 1-16.

Svrakic, D.M. (1990). Functional dynamics of the narcissistic personality. American Journal of Psychiatry. 44, 189-203.

Widiger, T.A. and Trull, T.J. (2007). Plate tectonics in the classification of personality disorder: Shifting to a dimensional model. American Psychologist, 62, 71-83.

Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and family therapy. Harvard University Press.”

(Foundations: Childress, 2015, p. 344-351)

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Alternatively, Foundations brings all of this information together into a coherent and comprehensive explanatory model for attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

Targeted parents and their children need us to solve this.  This is an immensely tragic and serious pathology of the highest order.  There is no room for professional egos in solving this.  Leave your ego at the door.  Bring your A-game.  Nothing less is acceptable.

AB-PA is not Dr. Childress.  The solution available through AB-PA is not Dr. Childress.  There are larger forces at work here.  AB-PA is the catalyst for change.  I am a conduit bringing forth the catalyst for change.

The catalytic agent is the return to the path of established professional psychology by using only the constructs and principles from standard and  established professional psychology to define the pathology.

Standing on the foundational ground of established professional psychology, we can establish defined standards of practice.

My role is to catalyze this change, this return to standard and established professional psychology.  No “new forms of pathology” proposals.  My role in this regard is to blow up the “Bridge on the River Kwai” (Gardnerian PAS) so that we can win the war.

This is part of a larger flow.  My role is to generate the catalytic agent.  I have accomplished my role.

The next phase is to actualize the solution.  There are many who will have a role in actualizing the solution – Dorcy, Wendy, Dwilene, you.

My role is shifting now into becoming the resource to be used in the change process.

But this is not about me.  This is larger than Dr. Childress.  I fully understand that.  This is all part of a larger flow within the universe that leads to a solution for these families and children.  The time is now.  The battle to recover these children is now.  We have everything we need.

We are fundamentally changing how the mental health system and the legal system respond to high-conflict divorce and child custody.  Massive systems-wide change, in the U.S. and everywhere.  That is a huge undertaking.  Far larger than Dr. Childress.  I’m just a lone clinical psychologist in Southern California.

I generated the “information-structures” needed to catalyze the change, the return back to standard and established professional practice.  That was my role.  This new phase of actualizing the solution requires all of us – working together – toward the same goal… a solution.

I cannot fulfill my role as the catalytic agent of change if I bring my ego to this.  If this becomes about Dr. Childress, it will distort and fail.  I suspect that the universe brought me AB-PA because it knows that it had formed me to the point in my spiritual-psychological development where the gift of AB-PA would not adversely distort my ego.  As an old clinical psychologist with Joseph Campbell overtones, I recognize that there is a source of all things, and I understand that I am not that source.

I do what I do, I let my work enter the universe, and allow the universe to manage the unfolding.  My responsibility is to my authenticity in doing what I do, my responsibility is to act with integrity, and my responsibility is to always bring my A-game.

With “parental alienation,” the ONLY thing I care about is solving the pathology as quickly as is humanly possible, and we solve the pathology as quickly as is humanly possible when all mental health professionals speak with a single voice.

Returning to the foundations of standard and established constructs and principles brings the solution.  I am asking that all mental health professionals come together to support the return to standard and established principles and constructs of professional psychology.  We need to leave our egos at the door, these children and families need us to leave our egos at the door and for us to come together into a single unified voice for change.

Let’s get to work on solving this.

The primary issue we need to address is the massive level of professional ignorance and incompetence in professional psychology.  We must get a handle on the professional ignorance and incompetence.

The ground foundation for establishing standards of professional practice is in the assessment process.  If we want to establish professional competence, we begin by establishing a structured and standardized assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized).

AB-PA isn’t about Dr. Childress.  AB-PA is functional.  It’s a practical tool.

AB-PA provides the impetus for a system-wide re-examination from ALL mental health professionals regarding how attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce is assessed and diagnosed.

Let that settle in for a second. AB-PA is practical.  AB-PA is a tool towards a goal.  The goal is professional competence.  AB-PA, by its very nature, will require ALL of professional psychology to re-examine how attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce is assessed and diagnosed.

Then, from this opportunity, we are going to weave into the assessment procedure a structured and standardized assessment protocol to establish a ground of professional competence.

To achieve a standard of practice in assessment, we need two things:

Diagnostic Structure: A clear diagnostic formulation that will support a structured and standardized assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized).

Structured Documentation: The structured and standardized documentation of the information collected from the assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized).

The categorical three-symptom diagnostic structure of AB-PA provides the requirements for a clear and structured diagnostic framework that will support a structured and standardized assessment protocol.

The assessment documentation instruments for AB-PA provide the structured and standardized documentation at the core of a structured and standardized assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized).

A critical lynch-pin focal point in the assessment is the change to the construct of pathogenic parenting – we are assessing for pathogenic parenting (patho=pathology; genic=genesis; creation).  Pathogenic parenting is the creation of significant psychopathology in the child through aberrant and distorted parenting practices (we are returning to standard and established constructs and principles).

The Diagnostic Checklist and the Parenting Practices Scale provide the structured and standardized documentation of the assessment data.

The Parenting Practices Rating Scale documents the potential pathogenic parenting of the targeted-rejected parent (Categories 1 and 2; indicating severely problematic parenting).

The Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting documents the potential pathogenic parenting of the allied and supposedly “favored” parent (a cross-generational coalition with a narcissistic/(borderline) personality parent).

That is the core of a structured and standardized assessment protocol.

The structured and standardized AB-PA assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized) can be delivered through a structured and standardized six-session Treatment-Focused Assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized).

See how, step-by-step, we are constructing a standard of practice in the assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

“What if people want to add to or change the protocol?”

A:  There’s a saying, a camel is a horse built by a committee.

I am going to move forward with the core assessment protocol offered by AB-PA. Once we have a standard of practice established for the assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, we can adjust, modify, adapt as warranted. First things first. Establish a standardized and structured assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized).

Domestic Violence Assessment: I would fully support a Domestic Violence component to a structured and standardized assessment (semi-structured; flexibly standardized) of attachment-related pathology.  A proposal for a Domestic Violence assessment protocol will need to come from expertise in that domain, and from the collaborative consultation among that professional expertise.

I am professionally familiar with domestic violence, primarily surrounding its trauma impact on children.  Within the AB-PA assessment framework, domestic violence is identified on the Parenting Practices Rating Scale:

Level 1- Item 6: Domestic Violence Exposure.
Level 2 – Items 7; 8; 11 are additional surrounding indicators identifying concern.

A Level 1 or 2 rating of the targeted parent would rule-out AB-PA because the parenting practices of the targeted parent are not normal-range.

Should mental health professionals assess for domestic violence?  An unqualified yes.  The information issue surrounding domestic violence is managed within AB-PA, but domestic violence is not the primary goal of the AB-PA assessment protocol.

Once we have a standard of practice established for the assessment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, we can adjust, modify, adapt as warranted.  First things first.  Establish a standardized and structured assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized).

AB-PA will create the need for a system-wide review of how attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce is to be assessed.  That’s the function of AB-PA.  We need everyone to work with us on enacting that function of AB-PA, creating a system-wide review of how attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce is assessed.

Through this opportunity created by AB-PA, we will establish a structured and standardized assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized) that will provide a ground expectation for professional competence in assessment.

Building system-wide professional competence unrolls in a spiral, we’ll keep circling back with rounds of adaptive solutions built around a basic core – the need for a structured and standardized assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized).

First things first, step-by-step.   We need to establish a structured and standardized assessment protocol for attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  We need to establish a ground foundation for professional competence.

AB-PA Certification

All of the information for conducting a structured and standardized assessment for AB-PA is out there.  Mental health professionals do not need to be “certified” to conduct a semi-structured and flexibly standardized assessment for the pathology described by AB-PA.

AB-PA Certification is not a requirement for expertise, I think of it as a verification of expertise.

AB-PA Certification is a specific statement from me.  I am verifying that this mental health professional possesses a specific skill set:

1.)  Foundational Knowledge:  This mental health professional is verified to possess a foundational core of knowledgeable regarding the attachment system, personality disorder pathology, family systems therapy, and complex trauma relevant to assessing, diagnosing, and treating attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

2.) Treatment-Focused Assessment Protocol:  This mental health professional has the required knowledge to conduct a structured and standardized six-week Treatment-Focused Assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized).

3.) Treatment-Focused Report:  This mental health professional can generate a structured and standardized treatment-focused report for the Court regarding the presence or absence of AB-PA (a semi-structured; flexibly standardized report).

4.) Documentation:  The results of the Treatment-Focused Assessment protocol will be documented using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting and the Parenting Practices Rating Scale.

The Diagnostic Checklist will assess for potential pathogenic parenting by the allied parent in a cross-generational coalition with the child.

The Parenting Practices Scale will assess for pathogenic parenting by the targeted-rejected parent.

Treatment recommendations will be data-driven.

Both documentation instruments will be provided to the Court in  appendix to the Treatment Focused Assessment report.

5.)  Contingent Visitation Schedule:  This mental health professional has the knowledge and training necessary to construct and implement a Contingent Visitation Schedule Strategic family systems intervention.

6.)  Long-Term Family Stabilization:  This mental health professional has the knowledge resources necessary to provide long-term stabilization for high-conflict families.

AB-PA Certification serves as the foundational ground for an established standard of practice regarding the assessment and diagnosis of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

Notice I did not say, “parental alienation.”  We are returning to standard and established constructs and principles ONLY – no “new forms of pathology” proposals.

Again, think of this like a spiral.  We will keep spiraling around the core, improving and adapting over time.  But first things first.  Let’s establish the core.

The mere existence of AB-PA requires a system-wide review of the procedures for assessing and diagnosing attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.  Through this review, we will establish a structured and standardized assessment protocol (semi-structured; flexibly standardized).

I’m asking all mental health professionals to join us in achieving the systems-wide review of how attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce is assessed.

I’m asking all mental health professionals to join us in achieving a structured and standardized assessment protocol that ensures a foundational ground for professional competence.

Join us in a single voice for professional competence.

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

Amy?  Amy Baker?

Hi Amy.  You’re probably aware that I’m trying to entice Karen Woodall to become AB-PA Certified this fall with an offer to train her up on the Conflict Coding System, and then to support her as we bring a structured and standardized AB-PA assessment protocol to the British mental health system.

As I was writing to Karen, I kept thinking about what a wonderful research instrument the Conflict Coding Scale could be.  If we were to collect lots and lots of ratings from families in high-conflict divorce, I wonder what the distribution of codes would be?  I suspect we’ll get a lot of cross-generational coalitions, but what would be really interesting is if we found some correlational strands that cohesively held together – sets or stings of associated conflict codes.  Maybe we could identify a code pattern for high-conflict divorce and begin to unravel its features.

You know, I’m putting together this pilot program for the family law courts that teams an AB-PA Certified mental health professional with an AB-PA Knowledgeable amicus attorney.  We could wind up getting lots and lots of court-involved high-conflict families coming through these pilot programs.

The Key Solution process starts with an assessment.  When the Court encounters a case of “attachment-related pathology” surrounding divorce, the Court, at its discretion, orders a Treatment-Focused Assessment from an AB-PA Certified mental health professional.

If the Treatment-Focused Assessment recommends the construction of an AB-PA Key Team, then the Court can appoint a new and different AB-PA Certified mental health professional to be teamed with an AB-PA Knowledgeable amicus attorney.  This Key team will be tasked with stabilizing all psychological-family issues surrounding the family’s transition from the prior intact family structure to a healthy separated family structure.

Everything about the Key Solution is data driven – evidence based.  The Diagnostic Checklist, the Parenting Practices Scale, and for ongoing treatment monitoring; The Parent-Child Relationship Rating Scale.

As we get these pilot programs in place, we’ll be looking for local-area university faculty partners to collaborate on the program evaluation research component of the pilot program, that is once we get these Key Solution pilot programs up and running.  First things first.  But I was thinking that you might want to partner on the research side when we reach that point? Whaddya think?

We could get you the data from these pilot programs once they’re up.  That’s gonna be a choice research population; clearly defined.

Entry Criteria:  Attachment-related pathology surrounding high-conflict divorce.

Operational Definition: Court referral to the Key Solution pilot program.

Consider if we also collected the Conflict Coding Scale on every family.  At the end of the six-session Treatment-Focused Assessment, the AB-PA Certified mental health professional could provide a summary Conflict Code for the family.  Doing that would help summarize the assessment findings, and it would generate lots and lots of Conflict Codes for a defined population of families.

I figure as we open a Key Solution Pilot Program in a region, we will team with an area university.  There will be data generated intrinsically to the pilot program, and I can also envision the collaboration with a local university faculty generating its own independent collaborative research project, with its own separate protocol of research related measures.

The families in the Key Solution family court programs could represent an important population for research on high-conflict families.

Back when I worked as a research associate with the clinical research project at UCLA many years ago, we had a 16-hour intake assessment battery with schizophrenic patients.  It was a big, national-level research project at UCLA.  We had so many collaborators, each with his or her assessment protocol – 16 hours of testing.

I was just a minion back then at that stage of my career, picture me as one of those little yellow critters, yep, that was me.  A minion.  I was responsible for managing all aspects of the data collection and data processing side of the project – all the data systems.  I gained incredibly valuable experience on the practicalities of running a large-scale research project.

We used to collect a lot of data at intake, remission, relapse, one-year and at various time and symptom intervals after that.  Longitudinal research.  Our location was in the UCLA medical complex, but we sent the data over to our Westwood VA collaborators; the “stat lab” located at the VA complex.  The VA was also the home of the diagnostic unit.  The VA stat lab and diagnostic unit collaborated with a whole bunch of projects, not just ours.

So you and I could collaborate kinda like that if you want, once we get the pilot projects up and running I could send the data to you as a collaborating research investigator.  We could add research measures as well, pending IRB approval.  For my part, I want to add the H scale of the HEXACO, it’s associated with the Dark Triad personality.  That’s how 16-hour intake assessment protocols begin… “let’s add just the one more, just one more, this one’s really important…”  But the H scale of the HEXACO is really important.

Throw some research measures into the mix… Bill Bernet’s new splitting scale perhaps, or something you’ve got… I’m fine with that.  Make the argument to add the measure and we can do that.  I’m even fine with the final author position on any research articles generated – Baker, Childress, fine by me..

Just thinkin’…

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

Bill Bernet:  think about this… if you and I were collaborating on an article for DSM-6 revisions as a Trauma Stressors disorder (with the Shared Psychotic Disorder criteria), the AB-PA Key Solution pilot programs could provide us with a valuable research population for establishing the foundations for our case.

This is about professional competence.  All we are seeking is basic professional competence.

If a mental health professional is assessing, diagnosing, and treating an attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce, it is incumbent upon that professional to be professionally competent in the attachment system, what the attachment system is, how it functions, and how it characteristically dysfunctions.

If a mental health professional is assessing, diagnosing, and treating personality disorder pathology that is being expressed in the family, it is incumbent upon that professional to be professionally competent in the origins of personality pathology, its characteristic display, and the influence of parental personality pathology on family relationships.

If a mental health professional is assessing, diagnosing, and treating family pathology, it is incumbent upon that professional to be professionally competent in the family systems constructs of homeostasis, triangulation, and coalitions.

This is just a matter of basic professional competence.  We are just asking for basic professional competence.

AB-PA is not a new theory.  AB-PA is simply a return to the standard and fully established, fully accepted, scientifically validated constructs and principles of professional psychology.  It may seem “new” to some, but that’s only because they are ignorant of the standard and established, scientifically supported and scientifically validated constructs and principles of professional psychology.

If someone asks you for the peer reviewed research for AB-PA, give them my 40-page reference list.  That is the peer reviewed research for AB-PA.

Dr. Childress AB-PA reference list

Anyone who is asking for the “peer reviewed research” for AB-PA is simply exposing their ignorance for the standard, peer reviewed, and fully established information in professional psychology – Bowlby, Beck, Millon, Minuchin, and on and on.

Q:  “Dr. Childress, where in your reference list does it talk about AB-PA?”

On page 70 in Bowlby’s 1980 book on the attachment system and loss;

“The deactivation of attachment behavior is a key feature of certain common variants of pathological mourning.” (Bowlby, 1980, p. 70)

Based on the work of Bowlby – BASED on the work of Bowlby – AB-PA says that the child’s rejection of the parent is a variant of “pathological mourning” with the allied parent and child surrounding the divorce.

Q:  “AB-PA links the child’s rejection of the targeted parent – the “deactivation of attachment behavior” – to the personality disorder pathology of the parent.  Where in your reference list does it talk about the linkage of personality pathology to pathological mourning?”

On page 217 of his book on loss and mourning, Bowlby (1980) links disordered mourning to disturbances in personality formation.

 “Disturbances of personality, which include a bias to respond to loss with disordered mourning, are seen as the outcome of one or more deviations in development that can originate or grow worse during any of the years of infancy, childhood and adolescence.” (Bowlby, 1980, p. 217)

In the separate field of personality disorder pathology, Kernberg (one of the preeminent figures in narcissistic and borderline personality pathology) links the pathology of the narcissistic personality to disordered mourning;

“They [narcissists] are especially deficient in genuine feelings of sadness and mournful longing; their incapacity for experiencing depressive reactions is a basic feature of their personalities.  When abandoned or disappointed by other people they may show what on the surface looks like depression, but which on further examination emerges as anger and resentment, loaded with revengeful wishes, rather than real sadness for the loss of a person whom they appreciated.” (Kernberg, 1977, p. 229)

AB-PA isn’t me, it’s Bowlby and Kernberg who said these things.  I didn’t say these things.  Bowlby said these things.  Kernberg said these things.  Not me.

Asking for peer-reviewed research for AB-PA is asking for the peer-reviewed research of Bowlby and Kernberg, and Beck, and Millon.  Bowlby said these things, not me.  If you have a problem with AB-PA, take it up with Bowlby because he’s the one who said it.

AB-PA is the finger pointing at the moon, it is not the moon.

AB-PA says that the pathology of a child’s rejection of a parent following divorce is called a “cross-generational coalition.”  I didn’t say this, Salvador Minuchin says this;

“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.  A cross-generational dysfunctional transactional pattern has developed.” (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)

“The boundary between the parental subsystem and the child becomes diffuse, and the boundary around the parents-child triad, which should be diffuse, becomes inappropriately rigid.  This type of structure is called a rigid triangle… The rigid triangle can also take the form of a stable coalition.  One of the parents joins the child in a rigidly bounded cross-generational coalition against the other parent.” (Minuchin, 1974, p. 102)

I didn’t say this.  Minuchin said this.  If you have a problem with AB-PA, don’t take it up with me, take it up with Minuchin because he’s the one saying it.  If you want peer-reviewed research, then ask Minuchin for the peer-reviewed research for what he says, because he’s the one saying it.

This isn’t me saying this, this is Bowlby and Kernberg and Minuchin saying this.  AB-PA is nothing new.  It’s all just standard and established knowledge in professional psychology.

It only SEEMS new to some people because they are ignorant.  They don’t know Bowlby, and Kernberg, and Millon, and Haley, and Minuchin.  Because if they have this knowledge – this standard and established knoweldge from professional psychology – then they know the scientifically established ground for AB-PA.

If AB-PA as a construct vanished tomorrow, it would still be here.  Bowlby, Beck, Kernberg, Minuchin, Haley.  Nothing new.

The psychological fusion between the child and the allied parent, the “enmeshed” relationship, the shared psychological state of the child and the allied parent, that’s described by the preeminent researchers in psychological development and the neuro-development of the brain, Daniel Stern and Edward Tronick;

“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. This continuous cocreative dialogue with other minds is what I am calling the intersubjective matrix.” (Stern, 2004, p. 76)

“In response to their partner’s relational moves each individual attempts to adjust their behavior to maintain a coordinated dyadic state or to repair a mismatch.  When mutual regulation is particularly successful, that is when the age-appropriate forms of meaning (e.g., affects, relational intentions, representations) from one individual’s state of consciousness are coordinated with the meanings of another’s state of consciousness — I have hypothesized that a dyadic state of consciousness emerges.” (Tronick, p. 475, 2003)

This isn’t me saying this, this is Stern and Tronick saying this.  If you have a problem with this, take it up with Stern and Tronick, they have a massive research base of evidence supporting their statements.

AB-PA is not Dr. Childress, it’s not “new.”  AB-PA is all just standard and scientifically established knowledge in professional psychology.  Want the peer reviewed research for AB-PA.  Sure, no problem:

Dr. Childress AB-PA reference list

I’ve made it even easier.  For anyone who is asking about peer reviewed research support for AB-PA, on my website is a Checklist of Component Pathology.  Simply identify what part of AB-PA you’d like more peer reviewed research support for, and I’d be glad to provide it.

If they’d like the peer-reviewed support for all of AB-PA:

AB-PA Reference List

All we are asking for is professional competence in standard and established areas of professional psychology.  That’s all.

That’s not a lot to ask for, competence.  Basic competence.

In fact, professional competence is a right of all clients that is guaranteed to them by all professional ethics codes.  Professionally competent assessment, diagnosis, and treatment is the RIGHT of all targeted parents and their children (Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code).

AB-PA is leading us out of the world of mythical “new forms” of pathology and we are returning to the path of scientifically established constructs and principles of professional psychology.  No unicorns, no mermaid songs.  We are returning to the world of science and professional psychology.

The data sets from Bowlby, Beck, Millon, Kernberg, Linehan, Minuchin, Haley, Bowen, Stern, Tronick, van der Kolk and the surrounding scientific literature can fully describe and solve the attachment-related pathology of a child rejecting a parent surrounding divorce.

We don’t need “new and unique” forms of pathologies.  We are returning to established professional practice, we are returning to a scientifically grounded professionally established foundation.  No unicorns, no mermaid songs.

AB-PA is established fact.  Why?  Because there is no such thing as AB-PA.  It is Bowlby, and Millon, and Beck, and Haley, and Minuchin, and Kernberg and all of the already scientifically established fact of professional psychology.  Poof.  There is no AB-PA, there is only Bowlby, and Beck, and Kernberg, and…

The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.

Jason Hofer completely understands:

From Jason Hofer: “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.”

You are absolutely correct Jason.  You get it.  That is spot-on, 100% accurate.

There is absolutely zero reason why all mental health professionals everywhere should not join us in our call for all mental health professionals to be professionally competent in the standard and established, fully accepted, fully scientifically validated constructs and principles of professional psychology.

There is no AB-PA.  The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.

“Look everyone… the moon” (Bowlby, Beck, Millon, Kernberg, Minuchin, Haley…)

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

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

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

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

Stern, D. (2004). The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. (emphasis added)

Tronick, E.Z. (2003). Of course all relationships are unique: How co-creative processes generate unique mother-infant and patient-therapist relationships and change other relationships. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 23, 473-491.