The pathogen plays short-term – now. It doesn’t plan.
Exposure to childhood trauma damages development in characteristic ways… it stunts the development of later-developing systems of the brain… whatever develops AFTER the trauma.
The brain system that develops last – so the brain system that is ALWAYS impacted – is the frontal-lobe executive function system for logical reasoning, foresight, and planning. These are the brain systems that emerge and develop in the age-range from 16 to 20 years old… late adolescence, early adulthood.
Younger adolescents live in a now-world of immediate experience. Mature planning and foresight have not yet developed. Beginning around age 16, the brain systems for mature logical reasoning and planning ahead come online and begin their maturational development, so by the age of 18 we say the adolescent has become an “adult” and is allowed to make adult decisions.
Now anyone over the age of 22 understands that at 18 the adolescent is barely capable of mature decision making, and also that an 18 year old is nevertheless an adult in certain important maturity ways. It’s that capacity for longer term planning and mature reasoning that has developed… sort of… hopefully.
These brain systems for mature reasoning and longer term foresight and planning are the brain system psychologists call the “executive function system,” and it’s primarily associated with the frontal areas of the brain. In clinical psychology, the term frontal lobe executive function systems refers to these mature reasoning and planning systems.
And it is these systems that are ALWAYS stunted in development by trauma. Childhood trauma affects all of the developing brain systems that come after, a ripple of the trauma. As the last-developing brain system, the executive function systems are always impaired by trauma.
A brain that contains the trauma pathogen will have impaired reasoning and impaired planning. That’s a symptom of the pathogen… an untreated-unresolved childhood trauma pathogen in the brain will evidence impaired reasoning.
Want an example? Are you familiar with this sequence:
N/(B) Parent: “I can’t force the child to go on visitations to the other parent.”
Normal Person: What if your child refused to go to school, or go to the dentist, could you make your child do those things?
Everyone sees the illogical statement of the pathogen, except the pathogen.
This is one of the symptom features of the pathogen that is evident in clinical interviews. A clinical psychologist knowledgeable of trauma can identify the trauma pathogen’s influence by these associated clinical symptoms of trauma… a failure of logical reasoning.
While logical reasoning is the easiest of the executive function systems to understand and identify, another impaired system is planning and foresight. Trauma impairs the capacity for planning. The pathogen acts on now – what is in its best interests now.
It is impulsive and says whatever it thinks it needs to say at this moment… which is often inconsistent with what it said prior. Other people see this as “lying” or as “gas-lighting.” It is a feature of saying things to meet the immediate needs of now, without organizing these statements into any sort of organized plan other than meeting the momentary needs of now.
That’s the failure in the planning system (the capacity for foresight) of executive function created by trauma. The pathogen can’t plan. It responds.
I plan. My frontal lobe executive function systems are fully operational. I reason, I plan. AB-PA is reasoned, and there is a plan.
For example, one of the most obvious things back in 2008 and 2010 – when I was planning – was that any “new” solution would need to pass the Daubert and Kelly-Frye challenges of the legal system for “new pathology.” So… no new solution. Everything about AB-PA has to be fully grounded and supported by the scientific evidence and established knowledge of professional psychology. Nothing new.
That’s what took me from 2010 to 2015, when I published Foundations… making sure each dot of AB-PA is backed up by the scientific research and professional literature. That’s my 40-page reference list for AB-PA that I’ve posted to my website. There is zero “new” about AB-PA (Bowlby-Minuchin-Beck-van der Kolk).
Because I have a functional frontal lobe. I plan.
The pathogen doesn’t. It can’t. The pathogen responds, and it attacks in the moment with the attack that seems most helpful at that moment – truth is not relevant to the pathogen, just the practicality of the sentence, defense, accusation, attack – does it advance the purpose of the moment, that’s all the pathogen cares about.
This characteristic about the pathogen of trauma is often referred to as the person being manipulative. Of note is that the characteristic of “Machiavellian manipulation” is one of the three character traits of the Dark Triad personality (narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellian manipulation).
Dark Triad Reference List:
http://www.drcachildress.org/asp/admin/getFile.asp?RID=175&TID=6&FN=pdf
Right now, the pathogen is playing the short-game against AB-PA… but I’m playing the long-game against the pathogen. What is 2020 going to look like? What about 2022, 2024…?
Is Gardernian PAS going to make a surprise comeback? No. That ship has sailed. We are returning to the standard and established knowledge of professional psychology.
Will forensic psychology be able to maintain their ignorance of standard and established knowledge year-after-year under relentless pressure from AB-PA (Bowlby-Minuchin-Beck-van der Kolk)? No. Established knowledge and professional competence will win that debate.
Dr. Childress plans. From 2008 to 2010 I simply studied the situation, reading and reading and reading. Learning what was going on over here in forensic psychology.
Based on this, I developed the plan to solution – a return to the established knowledge of professional psychology – which will both solve the pathology and, to which ALL mental health professionals can be held ACCOUNTABLE.
From 2010 to 2014 I worked out the structure and diagnosis of the pathology using the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology (attachment, family systems therapy, personality disorder, complex trauma).
Here is a diagram of the pathology:
Schematic Diagram of AB-PA Pathology
http://www.drcachildress.org/asp/admin/getFile.asp?RID=141&TID=6&FN=pdf
In 2015 I published Foundations, which serves as the fulcrum for leveraging a return to the standard and established constructs and principles of professional psychology. Since then, I have published the clinical psychology assessment protocol and a Strategic family systems intervention for the pathology (tools for the solution), and we are now starting to bring alternative assessments to the courts.
Legal system… do you honestly think I didn’t know from my 2008 review of PAS that any solution will need to pass Daubert and Kelly-Frye? Of course I knew that… from day one. AB-PA is Bowlby, Minuchin, Beck, van der Kolk. Nothing Childress. Not one bit.
The pathogen cannot see ahead, it responds. It cannot plan. I do. For those of you who can plan… plot the course. Where will we be in 2022 with the APA? Where will child custody evaluations stand in 2022? Will anybody be wanting them? Will there be any demand for $20,000 child custody evaluations? How will that impact the AFCC? Where will we be in 2025 with licensing boards? By 2025, I want to be re-training child protective services social workers.
When will the class action lawsuit come? It’s coming. When? Maybe if a solution comes quickly enough it can be averted… but if this drags out the chances for a class action lawsuit naming the AFCC and APA as defendants grows.
The pathogen plays a short-game. I play a long-game.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857
GreatCosmicMothersUnite 