José Barros: “As for my vitae, if that matters to you, I’ve been a judge dealing with these cases for 9 years… I just deal with cases of domestic violence and child abuse everyday in my line of work for 9 years. Just today I had 3 of such IPV allegations cases to deal with.”
José Barros: “What I’ve said is that I’ve worked with 2 clinical psychologists in some cases where there was suspicion of pathogenic parenting, but that I can’t work with them in all such cases because those clinicians are not always available to work with the court. And they do not use Dr. Childress work because they don’t know it.”
This would be my advice to a judge in our legal system.
Your Honor, professional psychology is failing the Court – substantially failing. Professional psychology is failing the child and parent – and – professional psychology is failing in is obligation to the Court.
Because of that, judges are left making fateful decisions for the child without the proper or accurate mental health information regarding child abuse in the family.
The type of child abuse, psychological child abuse by a narcissistic-borderline-dark personality parent is subtle and immensely manipulative, Machiavellian levels of manipulation.
Do you know what a psychopath is? That’s a dangerously manipulative human. Add that to narcissistic personality pathology, the absence of empathy, the capacity for cruelty. To this toxic mix of pathology, add extreme manipulation… that’s the Dark Triad.
Add sadism for the Dark Tetrad. These personalities are the core of evil (Book et al.,
Book, A., Visser, B.A., and Volk, A.A. (2015). Unpacking ‘‘evil’’: Claiming the core of the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences 73 (2015) 29–38.
Book, A., Visser, B.A., Blais, J., Hosker-Field, A., and Methot-Jones, T. (2016). Unpacking more “evil”: What is at the core of the dark tetrad? Personality and Individual Differences, 90, 269-272.
They are in the family courts. If you don’t see them… it’s only because they’ve escaped your view.
Children don’t reject parents – ever. If a child is rejecting a parent… there’s child abuse by one parent or the other. If, as a judge, you are not making a decision about which parent is abusive, you are participating in the child abuse by not protecting the child.
Leaving the child with an abusive parent allows the abuse to continue – that’s true of physical abuse – sexual abuse – neglect abuse – and psychological abuse. If you don’t protect the child, the child will be abused.
Protect the child from which parent? That’s the decision in every case of severe attachment pathology displayed by the child – which parent is placed on restricted access, which parent is abusing the child?
One of them is. That is the ONLY cause of severe attachment pathology. If you, as a judge, do not separate the child from one parent, the abusive parent, then you allow the child abuse to continue to the destruction of the child’s life.
All cases – 100% of the time when there is severe attachment pathology displayed by the child – one parent or the other is abusing the child because that’s the only thing that causes severe attachment pathology.
Which parent is the only diagnostic question.
Judges are not trained to identify (diagnose) pathology of this depth and nature – psychopathic – narcissistic – borderline – sadistic – is not proven at trial, it’s revealed in a proper clinical diagnostic assessment.
The pathology in the family courts is my world – psychology – trauma psychology and child abuse. The courts are not getting the proper information from professional psychology.
Who should diagnose the child abuse? All psychologists who work with the pathology.
There are three dangerous pathologies, suicide, homicide, and abuse (child, spousal, elder). Whenever a mental health professional encounters a dangerous pathology (suicide, homicide, abuse) duty to protect obligations require – require – that the mental health professional (all of them) conduct a proper risk assessment for the nature of the danger (suicide, homicide, abuse) or ensure that a proper risk assessment is conducted.
They all have that obligation – each and every one. If you are not getting a clear diagnosis of child abuse by one parent or the other, the doctors, the mental health professionals, are failing in their duty to protect obligations to the child – and they are failing in their professional obligations to the Court to inform the Court when there is child abuse present,
Because they are ignorant – incompetent – lazy – and unethical.
They are ignorant of knowledge they need to know to be competent. It’s not my job to teach them, it’s their job to already know. The knowledge I’m talking about is from the 1960s – Applied Behavioral Analysis, behavior-chains, stimulus control – from the 1970s – family systems, cross-generational coalition, emotional cutoff – from the 1980s – attachment, breach-and-repair.
They are lazy. If they don’t know as much as Dr. Childress, why not? Are they just lazy? Must be, or don’t they think they need to know any knowledge for what they do?
Is that acceptable to you, your Honor? Are lazy, ignorant, incompetent psychologists acceptable to you? It’s not to me. This is child abuse. They need to know what they’re doing… or they need to go work somewhere else.
That’s the standard I was trained to at Children’s Hospital. That’s the standard I train my interns and post-docs to. Competence means to know everything – everything – about the pathology and then read journals to stay current.
Is that too much to expect? No.
When possible child abuse is a considered diagnosis – which is it when a child rejects a parent – our diagnosis needs to be accurate 100% of the time. The consequences for the child of misdiagnosing child abuse are too severe.
My diagnosis is always correct – 100% of the time. Do you know why? Because misdiagnosis hurts people… a lot. I was trained as a pediatric psychologist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, I worked as a pediatric psychologist on the medical treatment teams. That’s the standard of the medical doctors at Children’s Hospital – their diagnosis is accurate 100% of the time. That’s the standard I was trained to.
If I don’t know, I say “I don’t know” then I identify the information I need to know to know, and I obtain that information so I know.
When possible child abuse is a considered diagnosis, our diagnosis has to be accurate 100% of the time. My diagnosis is accurate 100% of the time because that’s what my child needs – so that’s what my child receives.
I’m not an expert, your Honor, not where I come from. I’m basic competence. I’m the floor, not the ceiling. If they don’t known as much as Dr. Childress, why not?
They’re just lazy.
Don’t try to teach a pig to sing, it just frustrates you and annoys the pig.
All psychologists have required – mandatory – ethical obligations to be competent (Standard 2.01) and to apply the established scientific and professional knowledge as the bases for their judgments (Standard 2.04) and they don’t care – they are unethical – lazy – ignorant – and incompetent.
Those psychologists that appear in your court – all of them – are lazy, unethical, ignorant, and incompetent. Is that acceptable to you, your Honor? It’s not acceptable to me.
I review their reports. That’s my consulting practice now. I make my living off of their ignorance, incompetence, and unethical practice. Where are the licensing boards? Nowhere to be seen. Why is that?
I may be reviewing the reports you receive from the psychologists in a matter. I will be applying the scientifically established knowledge of professional psychology to the information I review – I don’t have an “opinion” I apply knowledge.
I don’t have any “new theory” – I apply knowledge – attachment (Bowlby & others) – family systems (Minuchin & others) – personality disorders (Beck & others) – complex trauma and child abuse (van der Kolk & others) – child development (Tronick & others) – DSM-5 diagnostic systems (American Psychiatric Association).
I’m a clinical psychologist. I apply knowledge, I don’t create it. I’m not an expert, I’m basic competence. I’m not the ceiling, I’m the floor.
If they don’t know as much as Dr. Childress, why not?
2.03 Maintaining Competence
Psychologists undertake ongoing efforts to develop and maintain their competence.
It’s not my job to teach them, it’s their job to already know. It’s my job to hold them accountable… because my children need competence.
This is child abuse by one parent or the other. Which parent is the only question. They have duty to protect obligations. They are failing the child, failing the parent, and failing the Court.
I’ll be going after their licenses for their unethical and negligent malpractice, I document it in each line-by-line review I conduct on their reports. They report the symptom data, I apply the established knowledge – that reveals.
It’s not my job to teach them, it’s my job to get competent professionals for the Court. The failure is in psychology, in my people. This is my pathology, I’m a trauma psychologist out of foster care, this is the trans-generational transmission of trauma from the parent to the child, mediated by the personality pathology of the parent, the remnant of their unresolved trauma.
In all cases of severe attachment pathology surrounding child custody conflict, the diagnosis is child abuse – that’s the only thing that causes severe attachment pathology, the only question is… which parent?
Targeted Parent Abusive: Either the targeted parent is abusing the child, thereby creating the child’s attachment pathology to that parent (a 2-person attribution of causality).
Allied Parent Abusive: Or the allied parent is psychologically abusing the child (DSM-5 V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse) by creating a shared (induced) persecutory delusion and false (factitious; artificially created) attachment pathology in the child for the secondary gain of manipulating the Court’s decisions regarding child custody, and for meeting the pathological parent’s own emotional and psychological needs (a 3-person attribution of causality)
In all cases of severe attachment pathology surrounding custody conflict, a proper risk assessment needs to be conducted to the appropriate differential diagnosis for each parent.
I have no “new theory” – I apply knowledge, I don’t create it. They have obligations to the child, to the parent, to the Court. They are failing.
We need to not fail. The problem is us, professional psychology. Standards need to return. This is child abuse, we have duty to protect obligations. Competence is required, it’s not optional – Standard 2.01, Standard 2.04, Standard 2.03.
Your Honor, in every case of severe attachment pathology, if you are not protecting the child from one parent or the other… you are not protecting the child and the child is being abused.
If you do protect the child… and you’re wrong in identifying which parent, then you are not protecting the child and the child is being abused.
Your decision is immense. You need an accurate diagnosis returned from a proper risk assessment – by the psychologists – that’s our job. We are currently failing.
I’m working on that. My children need it and I have a duty to protect them… so I do.
If you’re a psychologist in the family courts, you need to be the best there is. This is child abuse. Know where you are. Know your obligations.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, CA PSY 18857
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