I’ll have lots and lots to say and tell you, but this is the most true thing I can tell you, the universe has this in hand.
We are in a time period of change for this pathology. The other time of failure had to occur, not for as long as it did, and at that severity, but for a variety of reasons that period needed to occur in preparation for this time of solution. I can explain over a beer once we’re done. People had to learn some things, and some things needed to be put on display, to be exposed.
But that time of failure has run it’s far-too-long course, and change is moving through the trees. Do you hear those winds. I do too.
This isn’t about me or Dorcy, or even you. The universe is moving toward solution; each of us have our roles. Act with integrity, act with kindness. Speak the truth clearly. Do the right thing.
That’s pretty much my recommendation for everything. My role is to bring professional knowledge from psychology and huffy-puffy finger wagging at my professional colleagues, Dorcy’s is to… dang, to bring infinity stones to a knife fight.
My point is that I never predicted what she was to bring, and she didn’t create me or AB-PA. Each of us has our role in solution and we may not necessarily see connections right away. And I’m just a single lone psychologist in Southern California, what can I do? I don’t know, let’s find out. You’re just a single lone parent, what can you do? I don’t know, let’s find out.
First thing, the more you find your united voice as the chosen parents to lead the change and recovery of your children, the more power you achieve to do just that. Then, goal one, let’s not accept this abuse and trauma. So that’s going to stop. Goal two, we need the DSM-5 diagnosis of psychological abuse for your children. Goal three, we want written treatment plans. One, two, three our first goals appear pretty clear.
One of my favorite formative books was Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars. It’s pretty interesting to read Julius Caesar describing battle stuff. I think in military campaign terms. Because I’m a bit of a primary source material nut, I recently reviewed the US military’s principles of war; number 1 is Objective.
Objective – Direct every military operation toward a clearly defined, decisive and attainable objective. The ultimate military purpose of war is the destruction of the enemy’s ability to fight and will to fight.
Sentence one describes one form of focus on objective. Sentence two is a second form of focus on objective. What’s most striking is serous no-nonsense. Objective.
If you can find the larger flow for this, the one beyond you, you’ll feel the forces of change rising and it might help. Also what this brings is a deeper understanding that all of this is part of something more. I know your suffering has been immense. I’m so sorry. It should never have happened. I also feel the universe moving, bringing things, shifting things, and if the universe is moving then there is a larger stream of meaning.
Larger meanings are above my pay grade, I’m just a clinical psychologist, but I feel I’m being used in a role. I don’t need to do anything but my role, act with integrity and kindness, speak the truth with clarity, and the universe will work its ways toward solution.
I’ll also carry your stern voice of anger for you to the powers that be. I have a psychology doctorate degree and they can’t hurt me as much as they can hurt you in retaliation. Let me carry the stern and angry voice. You be kind, relentless and kind, at the same time.
The pathogen wants to paint you as angry and aggressive – of course the child doesn’t want to be with you, see how you’re so angry and aggressive.
Don’t let it do that. There are ways to be assertive and gentle at the same time. Think Gandhi, think Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. Statements of truth made with clarity. Direct and strong, kind, not angry.
Anger will draw anger. Let me be your lightening rod on that, let me carry your angry voice of protest. I have a doctorate degree and am a peer colleague to them, there’s less that they can do to hurt me. They are holding you and your child hostage within the family law and forensic psychology system, you cannot afford to provoke the anger of your evaluators or treatment providers, they will retaliate. They shouldn’t, but the do and they will.
You be kind.
We will discuss parent advocacy skills from school-involved psychology as we move forward. The parent-psychology team has a lot of experience with parent advocacy over there in school-involved ADHD world and autism, and we can begin bringing some of that advocacy structure over here. The website I used back in the day was
Wrightslaw
Start by reading the Letter to a Stranger handout.
Letter to a Stranger
https://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles/Letter_to_Stranger.html
There’s a role over in educational advocacy of the educational advocate hired by the parent to work with the school system through the IEP and follow-up appeal processes. They’re wonderful and get great services for the kids, especially learning disabilities, they’re expensive but get things done.
We might need a role like that over here, of psychologists acting as consultants to parents, not doing therapy, just as consultants for you in interacting with all the other (problematic) psychology people who are currently inept and clueless.
Hopefully it won’t take that long to get a solution and we won’t need that level of advocacy support. One of the terms describing the military objective was decisive. That’s within my objective. I’d like to get this solved as fast as we possibly can. Today would be good, and I’m entirely serious on that. We can absolutely solve this today, now. It’s just a matter of proper diagnosis.
We want a DSM-5 diagnosis and a written treatment plan. Jeeze Louise how hard can that be? Apparently pretty hard over here in forensic psychology.
The standards of practice in forensic psychology are substantially below those of clinical psychology and may be actionable. I wish it wasn’t true. We need to establish baseline standards of practice. We are going to do that by using the standards of practice from clinical psychology.
We want a DSM-5 diagnosis in all cases, and a written treatment plan in all cases. That’s standard of practice in clinical psychology. Look to the school IEP as a model for what a written treatment plan should look like. Short and long term goals, specified interventions, defined measurable outcomes, and time frames for goal accomplishment. All standard IEP treatment plan stuff, standard of practice.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857
GreatCosmicMothersUnite 