Proper Terms – whoo-hoo – they’re wonderfully helpful.
Look how wonderful switching to proper professional language can be – cross-generational coalition – emotional cutoff – enmeshment – inverted hierarchy.
They each give a different focus to the pathology, while the nonsense made-up construct of “parental alienation” is just one big blob of a thing. No precision.
Bad Parenting: cross-generational coalition.
The cross-generational coalition allows you to single out the bad parenting from everything else – apart from the child consequences in pathology and symptoms, the cross-generational coalition (a “perverse triangle”; Haley) refers just to what the pathological parent is doing by creating the alliance with the child against you.
Child Rejection: emotional cutoff
Using the professional construct of an emotional cutoff allows you to separate the effects on the child, the attachment pathology (emotional cutoff), from the bad parenting (cross-generational coalition). That’s helpful because now you can be more precise. Are you talking about the bad parenting of your ex- (forming a cross-generational coalition with the child against you), or are you talking about the effect on your child (the emotional cutoff and attachment pathology).
And they are both fully grounded professional constructs that are NOT “controversial” and are completely accepted – with lots of associated linkages to additional information about each family construct.
Judging You – inverted hierarchy
When a child is empowered by the cross-generational coalition with one parent against the other to judge the targeted parent as if the parent was the child and the child was the parent, that’s called an inverted hierarchy.
All those minor made-up grievances of the child… now become a symptom feature of the pathology of the ex-spouse (cross-generational coalition) rather than a serious attack on you.
When you use the proper language of family systems of an inverted hierarchy from the child’s cross-generational coalition with the allied parent, the nonsense attack on you now becomes the symptom of an inverted hierarchy – which is a symptom created by the cross-generational coalition.
They thought they were attacking you… no… they are displaying a symptom feature of the pathology.
Brainwashing – enmeshment
Don’t use “brainwashing” – use the construct of enmeshment, it’s called a “boundary violation” and is a totally established construct. The allied parent and child have an enmeshed psychological relationship created by the manipulative parenting of the pathological parent.
From Kerig: “Examination of the theoretical and empirical literatures suggests that there are four distinguishable dimensions to the phenomenon of boundary dissolution: role reversal, intrusiveness, enmeshment, and spousification.” (Kerig, 2005, p. 7)
From Kerig: “Enmeshment in one parent-child relationship is often counterbalanced by disengagement between the child and the other parent (Cowan & Cowan, 1990; Jacobvitz, Riggs, & Johnson, 1999).” (Kerig, 2005, p. 10)
From Minuchin: “Enmeshment and disengagement refer to a transactional style, or preference for a type of interaction, not to a qualitative difference between functional and dysfunctional… Operations at the extremes, however, indicate areas of possible pathology. A highly enmeshed subsystem of mother and children, for example, can exclude father, who becomes disengaged in the extreme.” (p. 55)
Do you get all those wonderful quotes and support from “parental alienation”? No. It’s just a big amorphous blob that solves nothing and locks you into “controversy” and conflict.
Don’t listen to the Fox and Cat, Pinocchio. Listen to the cricket, stay in school and use real knowledge to solve your problems.
Add psychological control to your use of descriptions. That’s another bad-parenting term that explains how the child is manipulated and… psychologically controlled… by the pathological parent.
Manipulation – psychological control
Stone, Buehler, and Barber: “The concept of triangles “describes the way any three people relate to each other and involve others in emotional issues between them” (Bowen, 1989, p. 306). In the anxiety-filled environment of conflict, a third person is triangulated, either temporarily or permanently, to ease the anxious feelings of the conflicting partners. By default, that third person is exposed to an anxiety-provoking and disturbing atmosphere. For example, a child might become the scapegoat or focus of attention, thereby transferring the tension from the marital dyad to the parent-child dyad. Unresolved tension in the marital relationship might spill over to the parent-child relationship through parents’ use of psychological control as a way of securing and maintaining a strong emotional alliance and level of support from the child. As a consequence, the triangulated youth might feel pressured or obliged to listen to or agree with one parents’ complaints against the other. The resulting enmeshment and cross-generational coalition would exemplify parents’ use of psychological control to coerce and maintain a parent-youth emotional alliance against the other parent (Haley, 1976; Minuchin, 1974).” (Stone, Buehler, & Barber, 2002, p. 86-87).
See? All there in one tidy quote from the research literature – not even the family court literature – outside – real knowledge applied to the pathology in the family court.
Do you get that with the blob-construct of “parental alienation”? Nope. You lose all of your power when you leave established knowledge… which is exactly what the pathogen wants.
The construct of “parental alienation” is bait – don’t take the bait. Use real knowledge… and you will force them to use real knowledge in return. If you talk about cross-generational coalitions and inverted hierarchies… they’ll have to respond using the same constructs in a coherent way.
You will be educating them by being more educated than them so they’ll have to catch up to the patient.
The patient should NEVER have to explain the pathology to the doctor. That should never happen. But it happens here. That gives you an indication of how bad the professionals are here in the family courts – they are ignorant like a rock – they are unethical – they are not competent to be doing what they’re doing.
It’s their job to protect your child and you from abuse, all forms of abuse. They are failing in their professional duty to protect obligations. We need to hold incompetence accountable. They need to stand-up and acquire the professional backbone to protect your child from child abuse.
That is all it takes. All that is required is for them to do their job. They are failing. They need to be held accountable for their failure… and they need to be successful in protecting your child from abuse.
You’re the protective parent. I know that and you know that. Protecting your children from child abuse is a serious-serious professional matter. All mental health professionals have duty to protect obligations.
There are three dangerous pathologies – suicide – homicide – abuse (child, spousal, elder). Whenever a mental health professional encounters any of the three dangerous pathologies… they have duty to protect obligations.
Risk Assessment Handout
https://drcachildress-consulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1-Handout-Risk-Assessment-3-22.pdf
You are more powerful than you know, but only if you claim your power.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, CA PSY 18857
All mental health professionals have duty to protect obligations.
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