The Fracturing of an attachment bond

The Fracturing of an attachment bond

Psychologists, counselors, psychiatrists, school counselors... all mental health providers.

Are you listening, really listening?

Isn't the mental health community supposed to listen and protect clients from harm? Doesn't the job rely on education and research to advance the industry?

Then why is this industry failing miserably? The mental health community continues to ignore one of the main causes of an insidious life-long mental health issue happening to our children.

The mental health community almost rejoices in dealing with its symptoms.

This is a recipe for a life-long disaster for the patient. 

Mental health teaches us in focusing on a symptom or symptoms rather than dig a little deeper to figure out the root cause of these issues.

However, for many of you reading this article it is targeted directly at you.

Some will figure it out while others will be stuck in their own delusion. 'really'.

How many MHP’s have worked with any number of these symptoms in a child or young adult?

1.     Depression

2.     Anxiety

3.     Splitting

4.     Low self-esteem

5.     Borderline personality disorder

6.     Narcissistic personality disorder

7.     Suicidal ideation

8.     Unresolved grief

9.     Substance abuse

10. Alcoholism

11. Trauma

12. PTSD

13. Sleep disorders

14. Irrational fear

15. Relationship issues

16. Damaged critical thinking skills

17. Arrested psychological growth

Did you conclude that this is a stage of growth or an issue we need to address and go right into the standard college-taught or APA protocol for handling these symptoms? 

Did you honestly access the situation or just assume that you have seen this before and know the best procedure to diagnose this little growing mind and how to best handle these emotions?

What if I told you ALL these symptoms above can be caused by one thing? This is obviously not the one and only thing that can cause all these issues, but if you take the time and do a preliminary diagnostic check you may see that a large portion of these symptoms will be a directly caused by a single pathology called a shared persecutory delusion or encapsulated persecutory delusion.

Please think about this question for a second. How many mental health professionals understand the early, mid-level or severe stages of a shared persecutory delusion?

It is listed in the DSM-5 under V995.51

How many MHP can honestly explain it or fully understand how the symptoms develop? The symptoms listed above?

How many MHP have ever diagnosed a child with having been psychologically abused to the point of having a shared delusion?

How many MHP understand that this psychological child abuse is as harmful as sexual abuse or worse? (Joe Sponerozza Unseen Wounds, the APA)

Before you answer any of those questions, are you aware that psychological abuse is four times more prevalent than sexual abuse? (Reference Center for disease control, CDC) Have you diagnosed and reported a child with psychological/emotional abuse?

Here is where I would like to address every mental health professional.

Are you in this business to help people, or is this a paycheck? Are you in this profession to help people and address the cause of their issue or address the side effects like a game of wack-a-mole?

A shared persecutory delusion is one of the most insidious forms of child abuse. Many times, there will be some combination of borderline/narcissistic personality disorder who is doing the abuse and many will try to castrate your credentials or immediately switch therapists.

Please understand one thing: If they are willing to destroy their own child and commit domestic violence to erase and destroy a healthy relationship with a parent, you are merely just a speedbump in their plans.

As mental health professionals this puts a huge responsibility on your shoulders. Correctly diagnosing psychological child abuse is something that almost every MHP misses because they do not know how or what to look for.

There is a very simple checklist where any MHP can follow step by step to see if there is psychological abuse.

Most cases happen when there is a divorce or separation in the family structure. The combination of one parent doing their best to destroy the attachment bond with the other parent, the family structure changing, losing a parent, and the unresolved trauma and grief collide.

This creates a fracturing of a mind in where the child’s has to split to survive.

Once split there are loyalty conflicts, critical thinking skills disrupted due to being a regulatory object, a cross-generational coalition, and a host of other disorders that warps a child’s mental development. The continued psychological child abuse creates an encapsulated persecutory delusion and a mixed array of the symptoms listed above.

This does not happen with every child in a divorce.  But it happens to a surprisingly large number of children.

When a child is taught to hate and fear what was once a loving and caring parent (the closest attachment bond they have) where the child is now convinced they must erase that parent from their lives. Many children refuse to contact them in any fashion, this abuse leads to a 3-5 higher score on ACE tests.

Still, one of the saddest things is that for many of you who read this article and peruse the checklist, your heart will drop. Most will realize that you have already misdiagnosed children and sent them to a lifetime of emotional hell and psychological issues because you did not understand this prior to reading this article.

Please take this opportunity to be a better MHP.. 

The sooner this is correctly accessed and diagnosed in a child, the quicker the recovery. The longer it continues to fester, the worse that child/young adult will suffer. Many suffer a lifetime.

You may be asking, ok, who drafted this article? Who does this person think they are to tell our industry anything? What school did he graduate from?

Those are great questions.

I am a published writer and investigative journalist, and I authored the book Victim: how the American Psychological Association kills parents, abuses children, and grows their base. I have spoken/emailed every APA president over the last six years. 

I am also a father who watched this devastating abuse happen to his children right before his eyes. I knew something was happening but had no clue what it was or what to look for (Most parents have no clue when this is occurring). I had no idea what splitting was, let alone how the look of splitting would appear on a child's face. After seeing my child at a football game, only years later did I realize what a split child looks like. What the disconnection behind those eyes really meant.

When a parent understands what has happened, a parent’s heart shatters, just as mine did. I had little experience with emotional issues throughout my life, so I had no idea what this was or why all three of my children and I were suffering so much. It took over eight years of investigation before I could put all the pieces together.

Please take the time to research what a shared persecutory delusion - psychological child abuse is.

How to:

·        identify it

·        diagnose it

·        Report it,

Psychological abuse is just as damaging if not more damaging as sexual abuse. (The APA)

If you do follow the checklist listed below you will be more advanced than 99% of the mental health community in general and you will actually help people heal. 

Please try and help your clients vs sending them on the road to what most likely will be life-long emotional issues, with a 3+ higher ACE score, a 12-times higher suicide rate, depression, anxiety, and loss of critical thinking skills. Splitting, tangled in a cross-generational coalition, and servitude as a regulatory object... with a high possibility of narcissistic and borderline personality disorders.

Alternatively, you can educate yourself with a few hours and help those that need it. 

What kind of therapist are you?

Heal your clients, love your clients, and continue your education.

References:

The American Psychological Association letter to the president about what happens when separating parents and children at the border. June 14, 2018 

Minuchin - Structural Family Therapy

Beck - Personality disorders

Bowen - Family Systems

The CDC percentages of child abuse

The United States Department of Justice definition of emotional domestic violence

Joe Sponerozza Unseen Wounds, 

Dr. Craig Childress (Checklist)

Van der Kolk

Tronic

My own experience with my own children.

Link to the checklist:

 Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting: Extended Version

C.A. Childress, Psy.D. (2015/2017)

All three of the diagnostic indicators must be present (either 2a OR 2b) for a clinical diagnosis of attachment-based “parental alienation.” Sub-threshold clinical presentations can be further evaluated using a “Response to Intervention” trial. 1. Attachment System Suppression

Present

Sub-Threshold

Absent

The child’s symptoms evidence a selective and targeted suppression of the normal-range functioning of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward one parent, the targeted-rejected parent, in which the child seeks to entirely terminate a relationship with this parent (i.e., a child-initiated cutoff in the child’s relationship with a normal-range and affectionally available parent).

☐

☐

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Secondary Criterion: Normal-Range Parenting:

yes

no

The parenting practices of the targeted-rejected parent are assessed to be broadly normal-range, with due consideration given to the wide spectrum of acceptable parenting that is typically displayed in normal-range families.

Normal-range parenting includes the legitimate exercise of parental prerogatives in establishing desired family values through parental expectations for desired child behavior and normal-range discipline practices.

☐

☐

2(a). Personality Disorder Traits

Present

Sub-Threshold

Absent

☐

☐

☐

The child’s symptoms evidence all five of the following narcissistic/(borderline) personality disorder features displayed toward the targeted-rejected parent.

Sub-Criterion Met

yes

no

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☐

Grandiosity: The child displays a grandiose perception of occupying an inappropriately elevated status in the family hierarchy that is above the targeted-rejected parent from which the child feels empowered to sit in judgment of the targeted-rejected parent as both a parent and as a person.

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☐

Absence of Empathy: The child displays a complete absence of empathy for the emotional pain being inflicted on the targeted-rejected parent by the child’s hostility and rejection of this parent.

☐

☐

Entitlement: The child displays an over-empowered sense of entitlement in which the child expects that his or her desires will be met by the targeted-rejected parent to the child’s satisfaction, and if the rejected parent fails to meet the child’s entitled expectations to the child’s satisfaction then the child feels entitled to enact a retaliatory punishment on the rejected parent for the child’s judgment of parental failures

☐

☐

Haughty and Arrogant Attitude: The child displays an attitude of haughty arrogance and contemptuous disdain for the targeted-rejected parent.

☐

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Splitting: The child evidences polarized extremes of attitude toward the parents, in which the supposedly “favored” parent is idealized as the all-good and nurturing parent while the rejected parent is entirely devalued as the all-bad and entirely inadequate parent.

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