Stats don’t lie-
70% of children who have been emotionally cut off
from a parent , experience severe depression ,
suicidal thoughts and self harm .
Abused children , whose legacy of fear has
been implanted , and clouded all .
Awaken to the Power of Change .
🌲in my feed on fb , there were at least 5
parents , sharing reunification joy this
Christmas morning 👍🏼😍🥳🥰
More than hope , I have faith in the best possible
outcome …
©️ Blessings & Peace
Doña Luna
The following post by Craig Childress , Psy.D.
Don’t walk away. You will also need to find your balance, your center. I cannot speak to your specific situation, but I can speak to the general patterns of the pathology.
Children love them moms, there is zero doubt on that, children love their dads, there is zero doubt of that.
Children in this pathology are receiving exceptionally bad parenting from a pathological parent – the pathology of the parent originates in their own unresolved childhood trauma, and it is activated by the divorce (rejection and abandonment by the spousal attachment figure).
The allied parent creates “sides” surrounding the divorce, and then subtly yet powerfully manipulates the children into taking “sides” surrounding the spousal conflict. The ultimate goal is to punish the ex-spouse for the failed marriage and divorce, using the child as the weapon.
The brutal IPV spousal abuse (Intimate Partner Violence; “domestic violence” emotional abuse) of the allied parent requires that the ex-wife become an ex-mother, that the ex-husband become an ex-father, a split in the family. This is a symptom of a type of neurological symptom of personality pathology, called “splitting.”
The family is transitioning from its prior intact family to a new separated family structure. There are two possible transitions, the first to a healthy separated family structure in which the child unites the two families through bonds with mom and bonds with dad.
The other transition is pathological, it is to a “cutoff” family structure – the emotional cutoff is a construct of family systems therapy described by Murray Bowen – there is a Bowen Center website with information about family systems constructs (triangles and emotional cutoff are most relevant, differentiation of self and multi-generational trauma are additional second level constructs for this pathology).
The allied parent creates a loyalty conflict for the children. Professional psychology should not allow that to happen, a family therapist should be able to manage the situation and keep the children out of the family conflict. However… the allied parent will not allow family systems therapy to be effective. They won’t consent to it, they won’t consent to a knowledgeable therapist and they won’t allow successful therapy to be successful. There are a variety of ways they will undermine therapy.
If the child has a fixed and false belief in supposed “victimization” by a normal-range parent, that represents a persecutory belief. The next diagnostic question is, does it represent a persecutory delusion? If the allied parent is creating a persectory delusion (called an “encapsulated” delusion because it affects only one area of functioning), then that would represent a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse.
Creating psychotic-delusional pathology in the child (a persecutory delusion toward a normal-range parent) is not okay. That is extremely bad parenting (called “pathogenic parenting” – creating pathology in the child through aberrant and distorted parenting practices),
That’s psychological child abuse. Creating delusional-psychotic pathology in the child in order to destroy the child’s bond to the other parent in order to use the child as a weapon of spousal abuse… is child psychological abuse.
In all cases of child abuse, we protectively separate the child from the abusive parent, recover the child’s healthy development that was damaged by the child abuse, we then restore the relationship with the formerly abusive parent with enough safeguards to ensure that the child abuse will not resume when contact is restored.
Currently, however, the mental health professionals surrounding these families are stunningly ignorant and incompetent – and entirely slothful, apathetic and lazy. They don’t care. They are exploiting these families financially, they solve nothing.
So parents are left alone and without solutions. Their family situations continue to deteriorate because there is no effective intervention from professional psychology… because all of foresnic psychology is abjectly ignorant and incompetent.
We’re looking to bring knowledge to solve pathology. Because the mental health people are so incredibly lazy and professionally slothful, we then have to begin by teaching parents what the pathology is, so that parents can do it on their own, without any help from professional psychology, and perhaps… educate… the mental health person who is treating their family about things that the mental health person should ALREADY know.
None of that is good. None of that should be happening. All of that is in multiple violation of Standards of the APA ethics code (2.04, 2.01a, 2.03, 9.01a, 3.04). They don’t care. The APA doesn’t care, licensing boards don’t care, the mental health people don’t care.
In addition, if parents try to educate their mental health professional, they risk a narcissistic injury toward their mental health professional (exposing their inadequacy) prompting retaliation – retaliation – from the mental health professional for trying to educate them.
It’s bad.
Do not walk away. The disorientation you are feeling is accurate and legitimate. You will need to find your center and your balance. Dorcy Pruter has solutions that can be helpful.
Show up, continue to show up. You must become an informed consumer. We are working on things on the mental health and legal solution side, for assessment and diagnosis, leading to effective treatment. Therapy should always be guided by a – written – treatment plan with specified goals, time frames for accomplishing those goals, interventions for achieving those goals, and outcome measures for measuring goal accomplishment.
This is standard of practice everywhere else in professional psychology, except here, except in this court-involved family confli pathology – forensic psychology. They do not use treatment plans, they do not diagnose pathology, it is a mess.
Moms are not expendable from the lives of their children, dads are not expendable from the lives of their children. You all are the moms, you all are the dads, your kids love you, no doubt, no worries on that. They are trapped, caught in the pathology of a parent who is struggling with the rejection and abandonment of divorce.
Moms and dads, you are the child’s authentic parents, the chosen parents, chosen by the child to lead the family into solutions following divorce, because the other parent is too fragile, they’re not a good parent. The child is caught, trapped. The child is looking to you.
If parents twirl in the abuse and trauma (parents are being abused and traumatized by this, it is IPV spousal abuse, a brutal form of emotional abuse using the child as the weapon), then the child has no one to rescue them. Parents should be receiving massive help from professional psychology – they are receiving no help from professional psychology – zero.
Continue to show up. Always show up.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857
GreatCosmicMothersUnite 