GreatCosmicMothersUnite

This is the worst attachment pathology possible. Think about it, what’s worse that a complete severing of a child’s attachment bond to their mother or father.
That’s as bad as it gets. In terms of attachment, there is nothing worse than a complete severing of the child’s bond to a mother or father.
The attachment system is a primary motivational system of the brain. The attachment system governs all aspects of love and bonding throughout the lifespan, including grief and loss.
This is the worst attachment pathology possible in the love-and-bonding system of the brain – during childhood – during the period when the child’s attachment networks are forming their patterns for love-and-bonding throughout the lifespan.
Childhood is NOT the time we want to see the WORST attachment pathology possible in a child.
We need to fix it.
We need to repair and restore the damaged attachment bond. We need a treatment plan. A written treatment plan. Google mental health treatment plan and read the first two entries. That. One of those.
So standard of practice it returns on a simple google search – Goals, Interventions, Outcome Measures, Time-Frames for benchmark progress and goal accomplishment.
We need a written treatment plan. For that we need a diagnosis. The treatment for cancer is different than the treatment for diabetes; diagnosis guides treatment.
For a diagnosis, we need an assessment. That’s where it starts.
The other party will not want or allow an assessment, they’re called a “barrier to treatment.” Then we will need a court order for the assessment.
Either a court order for the assessment specifically, or a court order granting the targeted parent the sole right of informed consent for treatment (e.g., legal custody decision-making for mental health care).
Three steps; assessment leads to diagnosis, and diagnosis guides treatment. Think healthcare, same thing, mental health care. The framework is; assessment, diagnosis, treatment.
Then we add three words. One to each stepping stone.
We want an appropriate assessment, that leads to an accurate diagnosis, so we can develop an effective treatment plan.
Then, at each phase, at each step, we unpack each of those three words – appropriate, accurate, effective.
An appropriate assessment can be defined in two ways;
a trauma-informed clinical psychology assessment of the child’s attachment pathology.
a risk assessment for child psychological abuse.
You, as parents, don’t need to know any more than that. It’s up to the mental health professionals to figure it out from there. That’s their job.
Yet I will explain it to you so you’ll understand. Knowledge empowers you into an informed consumer of mental health services for you and for your child.
trauma-informed: this means the application of information sets from trauma, these are the shared persecutory delusion and personality pathology (of unresolved trauma origin).
clinical psychology: this means treatment not custody – child custody is forensic psychology – we don’t want that. We want treatment, we need a written treatment plan, we need to fix things, that’s clinical psychology.
child’s attachment pathology: this keeps the focus on the child’s symptoms and applies the information sets from attachment (along with the trauma sets).
On the risk assessment for child psychological abuse, that’s an assessment for a shared persecutory delusion; ICD-10 F24. Creating a persecutory delusion in a child that then destroys the child’s attachment bond to the other parent is child psychological abuse.
There are four diagnoses of child abuse in the Child Maltreatment section of the DSM-5 (the diagnostic system of the American Psychiatric Association); Child Physical Abuse (V995.54), Child Sexual Abuse (V995.53), Child Neglect (V995.52), Child Psychological Abuse (V995.51).
All of these child abuse diagnoses in the DSM-5 are equal in the severity of damage done to the child, they differ only in the type of damage done, not in the severity of the damage done to the child.
Psychological child abuse is devastating. It destroys the child from the inside-out.
The first word is appropriate – the second one is accurate – we want an appropriate assessment for psychological child abuse; i.e., for a shared persecutory delusion – a thought disorder pathology (in the allied parent).
The clinical assessment for a delusional pathology, a thought disorder, is called a Mental Status Exam of thought and perception.
Google Mental Status Exam and read the NCBI return, Chapter 207 of Clinical Methods. Scroll down to the section on Thought and Perception. See that? See how it says that’s the Mental Status Exam for thought disorders and delusions? That’s the “appropriate” risk assessment for child psychological abuse.
But you don’t have to know any of that (know it anyway), that’s their job – see those little letters after their name, that’s what those mean. It means they are the professional, which means they’re supposed to know what to do.
You hold on to a written treatment plan and don’t let go. For that you need a diagnosis. For that you need an assessment.
You need an appropriate assessment, that leads to an accurate diagnosis, so we can develop an effective written treatment plan.
We need to fix this. This is “anorexia” of the attachment system, the worst possible pathology in a primary motivational system of the brain, the love-and-bonding system. We need to fix it. We need at treatment plan, a written treatment plan.
With Goals, Interventions, Outcome Measures, and Time-Frames – google mental health treatment plan – that, one of those.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857