I’m planning on answering all your questions.
I think the first question I’ll answer is a question you haven’t asked but you have, “Doctor Childress, what do I do?”
The answer depends on some things, but I can start at the beginning and then move through those things one-by-one as I answer the follow-up questions you didn’t ask either, but you have.
“Doctor Childress, I’m just arriving in the family courts, what do I do?”
Well first, do first things first. You have a problem. You need to fix your problem. For that you’ll need a treatment plan – and – in all of healthcare, diagnosis guides treatment.
Your first plan is to get a plan to fix the problem. For that you’ll need an accurate diagnosis for what the problem is.
Once you’re properly oriented to your situation and have a plan, then do the next thing. You’ll need to develop a plan towards the goal you want to achieve, then move relentlessly in executing your plan towards that goal.
The pathogen is pattern. See the patterns, expect the patterns, predict it, plan for it, when it moves be ready for its movement, and respond with your planned response when it does its predictable things.
“Doctor Childress, how do I prove to a judge what’s going on?”
Judges don’t diagnose pathology, doctors do. You need a proper mental health assessment of the problem that leads to an accurate diagnosis. This is not a legal problem, it’s a mental health problem (pathology) that’s in the family courts.
You want to convince the judge of the need to identify the problem before we develop a remedy to fix it.
“Doctor Childress, how do I get a proper mental health assessment of my family problem?”
To begin with, do NOT get a forensic custody evaluation, they are pointless, expensive, and solve nothing. If you do get a forensic custody evaluation, you are likely to be bringing it to me for a second opinion review, so anticipate you will have a surcharge-of-me to correct the problematic issues that arise.
You want a clinical diagnostic assessment to the potential differential diagnosis involved that returns an accurate diagnosis, so an effective treatment plan can be developed to solve the problem in your family.
I can anticipate some of your initial questions. I can answer some of your initial questions, which will then go to my YouTube channel to answer all the questions that are arriving.
You parents keep arriving with exactly the same variants of the problem (pathology). It’s a pattern, you can plan for the patterns of the pathology.
Each day, there are newly divorcing families who are entering the family courts… some with this pathology. These parents are disoriented. They expected a divorce, not this.
They have questions. I should answer their questions – and – step-by-step I’ll eventually reach where you are and will answer your spot-on question that you haven’t asked.
The pathology is pattern. That allows us to develop a plan for the pattern.
Pattern 1: the pathogen wants to drive this into the legal system to make it as hard as possible for you to see your child, and to put you on “trial” for being a bad parent/(spouse).
Response 1: Don’t let it do that. Move this into the healthcare system to make it about treatment not custody. Change the ground your fighting this on. Change systems for the solution.
Once we clearly understand what the problem is, THEN we can decide on custody schedules, once we have an accurate diagnosis for the cause of the pathology (problem) in the family.
Don’t move to remedy before you have a verdict, don’t move into treatment before you have a diagnosis. Calm your anxiety, move step-by-step.
I should start answering your un-asked always-asked questions, “Dr. Childress, what do I do?”
Develop a plan, then start at the beginning and execute your plan. You want a written treatment plan to fix the problem, that’s your initial plan, to get one of those.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, CA PSY 18857
GreatCosmicMothersUnite 