I should tell you about treatment this Sunday over coffee. I’ll bet you all want to know how to fix things.
You can’t.
We cannot ask the child to reveal their authenticity until we can first protect the child from the withering psychological retaliation that is sure to follow from the pathological narcissistic-borderline-dark personalty parent.
We must first protect the child.
In all cases of child abuse, we must first protect the child. That’s called a “Safety Plan” and it precedes a Treatment Plan for all dangerous pathologies – suicide, homicide, abuse (child, spousal, elder).
The child has a problem. How does the child love both parents and receive the love of both? I’m most concerned about the child feeling loved by the parent, I want the child to feel loved by mom and by dad – both.
The pathological parent is forcing the child to choose sides in the spousal conflict. If the child tries to remain neutral… they’re on a “side” in the mind of the pathological parent – if the child does NOT reject the targeted parent, the child is on that parent’s “side” in the mind of the pathological parent.
The pathological parent is narcissistic; that’s an absence of empathy, the capacity for cruelty. The pathological parent is borderline; that’s a role-reversal feeding off the child.
They are Dark Triad, Vulnerable Dark Triad, and Dark Tetrad. That’s narcissistic, psychopathic, borderline, sadistic, and extremely manipulative.
These are highly toxic, highly malevolent, and highly manipulative humans. It’s important to understand the pathology – It’s important to understand the problem.
The pathological parent psychologically groomed and seduced the child into a cross-generational coalition. We must extract the child from the pathological relationship with the pathological parent.
We must first be able to protect the child from child psychological abuse by a pathological parent – a narcissistic-borderline-dark personality parent.
How do you fix things? We start by protecting the child. Then what?
I should talk about then what. You’ll want court-adapted DBT. You won’t find that, clinical psychology is not in the family courts yet. You need the support of the mental health professionals – but there is none.
So… then what?
Those seem like pretty substantial barriers – we must first protect the child – you’ll need mental health support and there is none.
So… what do you do?
I should talk about that this Sunday over coffee – So? What do you do?
As the healthier parent, are there things you can do to help stabilize your child? How do you respond to the crazy false allegations, to the anger, to the supposed fear?
I should talk about that. I’ll bet you’d like to know more about what you can do in response to the child. But I don’t want to make it seem like there’s actual things you can do – this is child abuse, we must first be able to protect the child before we can ask the child to reveal their authenticity.
If I tell you ways to expose your child’s authenticity into re-bonding, then I’m only opening the child to increased child abuse by the pathological parent. You’ll be happier… at the expense of your child. You don’t want that.
So, what can you do?
You need professional support from professional psychology – they are the ones who should identify the pathology of child abuse and they are the ones who should fix it, i.e., treatment. But there is no support from professional psychology currently available. You are struggling within broken systems.
Forensic psychology is incompetent. Clinical psychology has abandoned you. The mental health system surrounding you is massively broken. That’s a problem.
You want to get OUT of the legal system as much as possible – this is NOT about custody, it’s about pathology, attachment pathology. You need a treatment plan to fix it. Move the issue into healthcare not the courts.
Then we generate a treatment plan – for that we need a diagnosis. We will need the mental health sector to diagnose the child abuse. They have duty to protect obligations, and the differential diagnosis for severe attachment pathology is child abuse by one parent or the other.
A child rejecting a parent is child abuse by one parent or the other, the only question is… which parent?
But what do you do in the meantime? How do you unravel the Gordian Knot you face? You can’t. We should talk about solutions to your situation with a knot that can’t be unraveled.
What do you as a parent do to solve the situation with your child when you’re with your child? We should talk about that.
Sunday 8:00am Pacific: Coffee w/ Dr. Childress 8:00 on Facebook Live.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, CA PSY 18857
GreatCosmicMothersUnite 