Category: Parential Alienation-Child Abuse

I want to make a recommendation to Dorcy Pruter.

Hi Dorcy, I want to talk to you personally so I thought I’d post it to my Public Facebook page, you’ll understand why.

I recommend you take the 4-day seminar from PESI by Bessel van der Kolk with an added bonus hour of Ed Tronick. Take if for Ed, you’ll love Bessel… but you’ll love Ed more.

You don’t actually need to know this stuff because you already do. I know you do because it’s the same thing you say and do. I just think you should have the scientific support available for what you say and do.

You’re not a psychologist, duh, so there’s no requirement… there will be for them though, the psychologists. I’m going to be looking for this seminar in my vitae reviews of forensic psychologists. You already know the material, but you should be aware of the scientific support you have in what you say, and for what you do.

To everyone else… What Dorcy Pruter tells you is accurate and correct. It’s backed up by the state-of-the-art scientific knowledge. I know. I’ve known van der Kolk and Tronick for decades.

I’m a trauma psychologist out of foster care. I had a sexy poster of Bessel hanging on my bedroom wall as a kid. I know this information and always have since I’ve been here in the court-involved family conflict.

Dorcy has too, she just hadn’t read the books, and she’s not a psychotherapist – thank god. But you see how I hold my professional colleagues to task for their knowledge and competence. Dorcy meets and exceeds my standards.

Ms. Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute have my full support. She’s not a psychologist, she’s is a businesswoman and family coach, successful at both. I am a clinical psychologist, we do different things. I am well familiar with the professional work of Dorcy Pruter, it is excellent. What she says is accurate and correct.

I have twice co-presented with her at professional organizations, at the AFCC national convention in 2017, and at the APA national convention in 2019. There’s a reason.

I have personally reviewed the Higher Purpose Parenting course curriculum and it has my full endorsement and support. No parenting skills you learn will work if you don’t use them. If you use the parenting skills taught in Higher Purpose Parenting, the skills will be successful. I consider the Higher Purpose Parenting curriculum to be the only trauma-informed parenting curriculum available.

I am familiar with the research methodology used in compiling data for the Custody Resolution Method. The qualitative research methodology used in the Custody Resolution Method, called “coding”, is a standard, reliable, and valid research methodology.

I have personally reviewed the protocol for the 4-day High Road workshop, and I have personally observed all four days of the workshop. I understand how it achieves its consistent and remarkable success. The High Road workshop is effective and gentle, the kids love the workshop and love Dorcy.

I have also received a client into my private practice from the High Road workshop for follow-up care. The High Road workshop obtained a full and complete recovery of the 15 year-old adolescent from three years of documented child psychological abuse – documented by three separate psychologists.

When the High Road workshop is available for the resolution of child psychological abuse, the High Road workshop is my first recommendation.

Ms. Pruter is a family and parenting coach of skill, accomplishment, and knowledge. When she entered the field of court-involved family conflict, she studied and learned about the pathology, her profession, and her craft in creating effective solutions. Her body of professional work is both remarkable and highly successful in solving the pathology surrounding court-involved child custody conflict.

Ms. Pruter is the most experienced professional working with court-involved child custody conflict. We all need support. Bessel van der Kolk and Ed Tronick provide Dorcy with all the support she needs. You need to take Bessel’s four-day course, Dorcy – for the support it provides.

I know trauma and child abuse. I know van der Kolk and Tronick and more. I know Kohut and self psychology, Dorcy doesn’t even know she’s a Kohutian, but she is. I know the work of Dorcy Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, Ms. Pruter’s work is excellent, everything she says is true and correct, and scientifically supported.

Dorcy is offering a Facebook group, the Chosen Parent Collective. My recommendation for parents is to join the Collective and acquire as much knowledge and wisdom from Dorcy as you can. Everything she says is accurate and correct.

I’d recommend that mental health professionals also listen to Ms. Pruter’s consultation. She’s not a mental health professional – thank goodness – everything she says is true and accurate. She is the most experienced professional working in the family court system in recovering children from complex trauma and child psychological abuse.

If Ms. Pruter is involved on any matter where I’m a consultant, I would consider Ms. Pruter part of my treatment team, the trauma recovery specialist on the team. We’d want a family systems therapist for the maintenance care and family therapy. I’d want Dorcy’s input and consultation throughout.

Bowlby – Minuchin – Beck – were the first three points on the line. I used them for the structure of Foundations. But van der Kolk and complex trauma, and Tronick and child development, are at the core of the pathology and its solution.

I will be opening them next, their information and their knowledge, and applying it. Parents don’t need to take this course… I’d recommend it for all humans. Knowledge is a good thing, especially knowledge about children.

So I’d recommend parents take this 4-day seminar from Bessel van der Kolk… and the bonus from Ed Tronick. Or obtain the same information in a more accessible form through Dorcy Pruter. We use different words for the same constructs, I like her words better.

Porges and the vagal nervous system, van der Kolk on complex trauma and child abuse, Tronick on connection and the dyadic state of consciousness in childhood and in all of us – this is not new information. It’s 20 years old.

I first became aware of Porges, van der Kolk, and Tronick, around 2004. I know this information, I’ve known it for the past 20 years. The problem is not that we don’t know what the pathology is and what to do about it… the problem is you don’t listen.

I’ll be awakening “forensic” psychology to their obligations under Standard 2.04 and 9.01, the Bases for Scientific and Professional Judgments and Bases for Assessment. This will extend into Standard 2.01 Boundaries of Competence that would be evidenced on their vitae.

In my review of a psychologist’s vitae, I will note the presence or absence of this 4-day training from Bessel van der Kolk through PESI as evidence of professional competence under Standard 2.03,

2.03 Maintaining Competence
Psychologists undertake ongoing efforts to develop and maintain their competence.

As we move into solutions, it is time to address another required ethical Standard of the American Psychological Association, Standard 2.03 Maintaining Competence.

Standard 2.04 – Standard 9.01 – Standard 2.01 – Standard 2.03 – mandatory for all psychologists. There are reasons for ethical standards of practice. There are avenues to redress grievances.

I’m an old guy like Bessel. We know the field. We know the barriers in professional ignorance, apathy, and sloth. It’s part of the pathology in our collective culture of child abuse.

You, the mental health people… are insane.

It needs to end. We will end it because it must end – we never abandon a single child to child abuse, not in my world, not where I come from. The world is changing – because we are changing it – because it needs to change.

This is child abuse. This is spousal abuse using the child as the weapon. It needs to stop. Now.

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