Category: Parential Alienation-Child Abuse

To the chosen parents, the parents who are chosen by the child to lead your families into solutions, your child and family need a written treatment plan based on an accurate diagnosis.
Diagnosis guides treatment. Always.
The concern is for possible child abuse (and possible IPV spousal abuse using the child as the weapon – that’s what this is all about, spousal emotional abuse of you, you know that, the ones who don’t see that this is all about spousal abuse are just stupid, i.e., ignorant + lazy).
The pathological parent will seek to drive this into the court system because they want to put you on trial for being a bad parent (spouse) who doesn’t deserve to have a child, and that you should have your child taken away from you.
You then have to defend yourself. You have to prove to the judge a negative, that you’re not “abusive” and that you “deserve” to have a child – at tremendous financial expense dragging out over years of litigation proving to a judge that you are not “abusive” and that you “deserve” to be a mom or a dad to your child.
You can’t let your ex- do that. You cannot let them drive this into the court system, when they try, you must bump it back out to healthcare to first get an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan from healthcare on the nature of the problem in the family and its solution.
Once you have an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan from healthcare – mental health care – ICD-10 F24, a shared persecutory delusion is a psychiatric (MD) disorder – then take that diagnosis and treatment plan back to the court for the judge’s consideration as to the remedy needed for the child and family.
Your ex- wants to drive this into the courts to put you on trial for being a bad parent/(spouse). You must drive this into healthcare first for an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan, and then take this back to the judge as evidence, and then the judge can decide about what to do based on all the evidence presented for the Court’s consideration.
Diagnosis guides treatment – always. The treatment for cancer is different than the treatment for diabetes. The concern is for a possible shared persecutory delusion – distorted thinking and perceptions of situations that come from their unresolved childhood trauma – ICD-10 F24.
That needs a proper assessment. If there is a shared persecutory delusion, then the DSM-5 diagnosis is V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse and V995.82 Spouse or Partner Abuse, Psychological.
When possible child abuse is a considered diagnosis, our diagnosis must be accurate 100% of the time. The consequences for the child of misdiagnosing child abuse are too severe and devastating. 
We need a proper risk assessment for possible child abuse that leads to an accurate diagnosis that can guide the development of an effective treatment plan, your Honor, then we can make informed decisions about what the remedy should be to the pending litigation, once we have a clear indication from healthcare regarding the nature of the problem and its solution.
When they drive this into the courts, bounce it back to healthcare for an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan, and this becomes the evidence that you take back to court for the judge’s consideration.
We need a proper risk assessment for possible child abuse – both directions, you and your ex- – we need a proper risk assessment for possible IPV emotional and spousal abuse of one parent by the other using the child as the weapon, we need a proper assessment for possible delusional thought disorder pathology in the family.
From the journal Family Court Review:
From Walters & Friedlander: “In some RRD families, a parent’s underlying encapsulated delusion about the other parent is at the root of the intractability (cf. Johnston & Campbell, 1988, p. 53ff; Childress, 2013). An encapsulated delusion is a fixed, circumscribed belief that persists over time and is not altered by evidence of the inaccuracy of the belief.”
References:Childress, C. A. (2013). Reconceptualizing parental alienation: Parental personality disorder and the trans-generational transmission of attachment trauma. https://drcachildress.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Reconceptualizing-Parental-Alienation-Parental-Persoonality-Disorder-an-the-Trans-generational-Transmission-of-Attachment-Trauma-Childress-2013.pdf
Walters, M. G., & Friedlander, S. (2016). When a child rejects a parent: Working with the intractable resist/refuse dynamic. Family Court Review, 54(3), 424–445. https://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12238
Interestingly, this is the article I submitted to the he American Journal of Family Therapy whose editors are the Gardnerian PAS advocates.  They rejected the submission for publication because it didn’t pay proper homage to Gardner and PAS. In fact, I never mention Gardner or PAS a single time.
There is no such thing as “parental alienation,” Gardner was simply unethical, ignorant, and a lazy diagnostician. He should never have proposed a “new pathology,” he had professional obligations to apply the “established scientific and professional knowledge of the discipline” as the bases for his professional judgments – first.
In 2013 I submitted this article to the American Journal of Family Therapy. When they rejected it for publication because it was insufficiently Gardnerian and PAS, I published it to my personal website and moved on.
I’m not here to educate anyone about anything. I’m here to document their lack of motivation to find solutions and their collusion with the child and spousal abuse in the family courts. They should already know, Standards 2.01 Boundaries of Competence, 2.03 Maintaining Competence, 2.04 Bases for Scientific and Profession Judgments, 9.01 Bases for Assessment. They’re just lazy and unmotivated, they don’t care.
Apparently in 2016, Walter’s and Friedlander came across my online published essay and referenced it for their article in the Family Law Review, the flagship journal of the AFCC. 
Too bad they couldn’t have referenced my article published in the American Journal of Family Therapy (it likely would have reached a much wider audience being published in a formal journal rather than online), but the Garnerian PAS experts didn’t think this article that was subsequently cited in the Family Court Review as an online essay, was of sufficient quality for publication in the American Journal of Family Therapy.
This article of mine could have been published in 2013, eight years ago, and could have been professionally cited for the past eight years. Now, in 2021, it emerges into relevance. We lost eight years because of Bill Bernet and the Gardnerian PAS “experts.” Fact. The past eight years of no movement on child abuse and spousal abuse in the family courts is on their decision to “freeze out” Dr. Childress. 
The Garnerian PAS “experts” (Bernet, Baker, Woodall, all the rest) made a decision to entirely ignore the work of Dr. Childress so no one would learn about it and they could remain “experts” in a mythical pathology (because they are “experts” in no real thing, it’s too much work). Apparently someone learned about it anyway, Walter’s and Friendlander, who cited my online essay about the shared persecutory delusion in their article in the Family Court Review.
That was in 2016. Five years later, have the forensic child custody evaluators started to routinely assess for a possible thought disorder in the family, a shared persecutory delusion (ICD-10 F24) and for possible Child Psychological Abuse?  No.
They don’t care about solving anything. They don’t care about what’s actually going on. No one wants to solve anything over here in the family courts, they just want to take your money. In 2017, I went directly to their national convention of the AFCC, directly to all the forensic psychologists, and brought Dorcy Pruter with me. We explained it all to them and its solution.
Did anything change?  No.  The forensic psychologists don’t want a soulution, they just want to exploit you and your family conflict to take your money. The exploitation of you over here is phenomenal.
I’ve only found one person here who knows what the pathology is an how to solve it. She’s a businesswoman and family coach,successful at both, and the best trauma recovery specialist I’ve ever worked with, I consider Ms. Pruter a professioal of equal standing, and most recently I had the pleasure of co-presenting with her to the American Psycholgoical Association data that proves – proves – the High Road workshop sucessfully recovers children from child psychological child abuse and complex trauma in a matter of days – days – the High Road ABA single-case clinical research data.
Your ex- will seek to drive this into the courts to put you on trial for being a bad parent/(spouse) who deserves to have your child taken away. They will want a “custody evaluation” where the ignorant forensic psychologist will be the “judge” of whether you deserve to have a child – based on whatever arbitrary criteria they make up – at $20,000 to $40,000 for the forensic custody evaluation… that provides NO diagnosis.
They don’t want to solve anything. They just want to take your money. Everyone does. Only one person solves it. Only one. Ms. Pruter at the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute. She has my full endorsement and support. It is wise to listen to wise counsel, Ms, Pruter offers wise counsel.
You want a written treatment plan – start there, not with the assessment. If you focus on the assessment, then you’ll need to focus next on the diagnosis, and next on the treatment plan. Instead focus on the treatment plan – treatment requires a diagnosis, and a diagnosis requires an assessment.
If you focus on obtaining a written treatment plan, then this will pull you through all three steps; assessment leads to diagnosis, and diagnosis guides treatment. Always.
Craig Childress, Psy.DClinical Psychologist, CA PSY 18857