I have been sanctioned by the forensic psychologists on the Oregon licensing board for practice in Oregon without a license because of a consultation report I wrote for the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute (Dorcy Pruter, CEO), a business organization in California (the state where I am licensed) regarding frequency counts for the three Diagnostic Indicators for the pathology in the family courts that I describe in my book Foundations (Childress, 2015).
This is the Oregon statute in question:
ORS 675.090(1)(a) exempts from licensing “[a] person who teaches psychology, conducts psychological research or provides consulting services to an organization or institution, provided that the person does not supervise direct psychological services and does not treat any behavioral, emotional or mental disorder of an individual.”
I provided consulting services to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a business organization in California, the state where I am licensed, regarding the data profile they generated from their content analysis and coding research that is based on my work. I did not supervise direct psychological services and I did not treat any behavioral, emotional or mental disorder of an individual.
I never met with anyone in Oregon. My entire opinion contained in my consultation report to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a business organization in California, the state where I am licensed, is based entirely on just three numbers:
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- Data Point 1: the frequency count in the data for Diagnostic Indicator 1 that I describe in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015); attachment suppression toward a normal-range parent.
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- Data Point 2: the frequency count in the data for Diagnostic Indicator 2 that I describe in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015); narcissistic personality traits displayed by the child, or phobia anxiety symptoms displayed by the child toward a parent.
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- Data Point 3: the frequency count in the data for Diagnostic Indicator 3 that I describe in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015); a persecutory delusion displayed by the child toward a normal-range parent.
As I describe in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015), when the three Diagnostic Indicators I identify are present in the child symptom display, there is ONLY one possible explanation, i.e., the allied parent is creating a shared pesecutory delusion in the child and false (factitious; artificially created) attachment pathology for the secondary gain to the narcissistic-borderline-dark personality parent of manipulating the court’s decisions regarding child custody, and to meet the parent’s own emotional and psychological needs.
My client was the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute. This is the letter provided by Ms. Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute in support of that position, i.e., that I was providing consultation to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute regarding data they generated for their client using their research protocol.
I was provided with only three numbers from the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute to rely on for my opinion, the frequency counts for each of the Diagnostic Indicators that I describe in my book, Foundations (2015) that were found from the content analysis research conducted by the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute using a research technique called “data coding” (“tagging”) of categories of interest in the documented data surrounding the court-involved family conflict.
I never met with anyone in Oregon. I provided consultation to a business organization in California, the state where I am licensed, regarding their content analysis research findings from the data surrounding the family, using a research methodology called “data coding” (“tagging”). Their research protocol is based on my work and recommendations that I make in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015).
If the three Diagnostic Indicators that I describe in my book Foundations (Childress, 2015) are present, there is only one possible explanation, a shared (induced) persecutory delusion and false (factitious) attachment pathology imposed on the child for secondary gain to the narcissistic-borderline-dark personality parent of manipulating the court’s decision regarding child custody, and to meet the pathological parent’s own emotional and psychological needs.
CCPI & the Custody Resolution Method Research
The Custody Resolution Method (CRM) is a research project developed and implemented by Dorcy Pruter, CEO of the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute. Ms. Pruter is a businesswoman and family coach with over a decade of experience working with parents and children in the family courts. Ms. Pruter saw a need and she filled the need.
The mental health people in the family courts (called “forensic” psychologists) are refusing to complete the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting (Childress, 2015) when parents ask them. The forensic psychology mental health people simply say “no”, and they will not tell parents whether or not the three Diagnostic Indicators described by Childress (2015) are present or absent in the child’s symptom display.
Personally, I find that astoundingly low professional practice – to refuse – refuse – to provide the parent with symptom information about their child. But that is exactly what happens, and it happens with such regularity from the forensic psychologists that Dorcy Pruter has developed their refusal to provide symptom information to parents into a business opportunity.
To obtain the symptom information the forensic psychologists are refusing to provide to parents – refusing – Ms. Pruter developed a research project to extract the symptom information from the documented data surrounding the court-involved family conflict. Ms. Pruter uses a research methodology called “content analysis” which relies on a research technique called “data coding” (“tagging”) that generates frequency counts for categories of interest in large data sets.
Ms. Pruter began by developing the software program needed for remote data coding by the data taggers she would hire to read all the documented data submitted to her, e.g., emails, texts, reports from professionals, court documents, etc., i.e., all the documented data that is generated surrounding the family conflict, and then the data taggers would code this data set into categories of interest, generating frequency counts for each category.
Once Ms. Pruter had developed the data coding software that allowed remote data taggers to code the family data into categories of interest with a linked documentation trail to each tag for each category, she then hired and trained the research staff of data coders and she began marketing her research program to families in court-involved custody conflict.
Ms. Pruter is a businesswoman and family coach. She was responding to the need for symptom information and the refusal of forensic psychologists to provide symptom information about the child to the parents. So to obtain this symptom information, Ms. Pruter created a research project (a content analysis of the documented data surrounding the family using the research technique of data coding) to address the need that developed when the forensic psychologists refused – refused – to provide parents with symptom information about their child.
In developing the research protocol of the categories to tag for, Ms. Pruter decided to tag for (code for) the frequency in the data of the three Diagnostic Indicators that I describe in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015), along with other categories of interest. As the Principle Investigator of the CRM content analysis research conducted through the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, Ms. Pruter can provide more information regarding her CRM research protocol, its development, and its implementation.
Initial findings are beginning to emerge from The Conscious Co-Parenting Institute research:
Greenham, Childress, Pruter (ResearchGate). Dark Personalities and Induced Delusional Disorder, Part III: Identifying the Pathogenic Parenting Underlying a Crisis in the Family and Domestic Violence Courts.
This research article reports on the data from 46 families involved in court-involved highly litigated custody conflict. All 46 families were found to have the three Diagnostic Indicators I describe in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015). In addition, Ms. Pruter also had her data taggers code for the presence of the 12 Associated Clinical Signs (ACS) that I also describe in my book, Foundations (2015). The research article from Greenham, Childress, and Pruter (in submission), is a report on the prevalence of the 12 ACS in the data surrounding 46 court-involved families.
Currently, the research being generated by Ms. Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute is the ONLY research of substance regarding the families who are actually in court-involved custody conflict. The vast majority of forensic psychology journal articles are merely opinion pieces, and what minimal research on court-involved custody conflict does exist is typically retrospective “studies” of imprecise diagnostic constructs with poor operational definitions.
The current research from the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute (Greenham, Childress, & Pruter, ResearchGate) relies on the documented data (emails, texts, professional reports, court documents, etc) from 46 court-involved families. The research being generated from the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute’s current archive of data surrounding highly litigated court-involved custody conflict is vastly superior to anything being produced by universities surrounding this court-involved pathology.
Most university researchers have to go out and collect the data. Ms. Pruter is not a university researcher, she is a businesswoman responding to a need. Ms. Pruter instead has parents coming to her to give her massive amounts of data surrounding their families – and her clients pay her to then conduct the content analysis and data coding with their data – to obtain the symptom information that the forensic psychologists are refusing – refusing – to provide to the parents.
The entire CRM content analysis research being conducted by the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute with court-involved families could be put out of business immediately if the involved mental health professionals simply completed the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting (Childress, 2015).
But the forensic psychologists refuse to provide the parents with symptom information about the child – they simply say no – so as a result, Ms. Pruter has developed a research project of content analysis and data coding of the documented data surrounding the family.
Consultation to CCPI on the CRM Data
Because the three Diagnostic Indicators tagged by the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute research are based on my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015), and my recommendations, Ms. Pruter (who is in California) came to me (I am licensed in California) to provide an opinion for the court regarding the meaning of the three Diagnostic Indicators and the frequency counts for them evidenced in the data surrounding the family.
If the three Diagnostic Indicators I describe in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015) are present then there is only one explanation – for everyone everywhere – a shared (induced) persecutory delusion and false attachment pathology is being imposed on the child for the secondary gain to the narcissistic-borderline-dark personality parent of manipulating the court’s decisions regarding child custody, and to meet the pathological parent’s own emotional and psychological needs – and a proper risk assessment for possible Child Psychological Abuse (DSM-5 V995.51) needs to be conducted to the appropriate differential diagnosis for each parent.
I can make that recommendation right now, before reviewing any data. I recommend that all mental health professionals routinely collect the child’s symptom data using the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting (Chidress, 2015), and if the three Diagnostic Indicators are present in the child’s symptoms, then the diagnosis is Child Psychological Abuse (V995.51). I even identify the diagnosis of Child Psychological Abuse on the Diagnostic Checklist itself.
That is my recommendation for all families in court-involved custody conflict.
My first decision regarding providing consultation to Ms. Pruter was whether the results of her research were sufficiently reliable and valid to rely on for a professional opinion. My professional judgment as a clinical psychologist with professional experience on major NIMH research was that the research methodology used by the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a content analysis of the data using a technique called “data coding” (“tagging”) is a standard and established research methodology that was competently carried out by the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute.
My next decision in providing consultation to Ms. Pruter regarding her research findings based on my work (Childress, 2015) was to establish a cutoff for the frequency count that would indicate the presence or absence of that particular Diagnostic Indicator. Based on my advanced understanding of the pathology and the nature of the symptoms comprising the three Diagnostic Indicators, I established the cutoff frequency counts for the three Diagnostic Indicators that would indicate that the symptom was “likely present” and “possibly present.”
It should be noted that all three Diagnostic Indicators are impossible symptoms with a prevalence in the general population of zero.
Children do not reject normal-range parents. Children do not develop a narcissistic personality disorder in childhood or a phobia toward a normal-range parent, and children do not develop a persecutory delusion toward a normal-range parent, so even one tag of a Diagnostic Indicator in the data would be unusual.
I set the criteria for “likely present” for Diagnostic Indicator 1 and Diagnostic Indicator 2 at five tags of these symptoms in the data set. If these symptoms are identified in five separate pieces of evidence, then that symptom is likely present based on the content analysis and data coding conducted by the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute. Since delusional thought disorders are also impossible symptoms toward a normal-range parent but are harder to identify in documented data (rather than a clinical interview), I set the cutoff for “likely present” for Diagnostic Indicator 3 as three tags of this symptom in the data indicating that this symptom is present.
To be clear – I recommend that this symptom information be collected by a mental health professional in appropriate clinical interviews, but if the involved forensic psychologists refuse to provide parents with the symptom information surrounding their child, then the only option available to parents to obtain this information (that identifies Child Psychological Abuse of their child) is through the CRM research available through the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute.
I did not meet with anyone in Oregon. I provided consultation to Ms. Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute regarding the results of their content analysis and data coding of the documented data surrounding the family which is based on my work and recommendation.
Ms. Pruter sought my consultation specifically since the research is based on my work. I did not practice psychology in Oregon without a license. I provided consultation to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a business organization in California, I’m licensed in California, regarding the results of their research which they based on my work (Childress, 2015).
In all cases where the three Diagnostic Indicators are present in the child’s symptom display, the ONLY possible explanation is a shared (induced) persecutory delusion and false (factitious) attachment pathology imposed on the child by the pathogenic parenting of a narcissistic-borderline-dark personality parent for the secondary gain of manipulating the court’s decisions regarding child custody, and to meet the pathological parent’s own emotional and psychological needs.
Whenever there are any concerns about possible child abuse by anyone for any reason, a proper risk assessment for possible child abuse needs to be conducted and an accurate diagnosis returned.
The targeted parents involved in court involved family conflict express concerns for the possible psychological child abuse of their child by the allied parent who is creating a false (factitious) attachment pathology in the child for secondary gain to the pathological parent.
Simply based on this parental concern alone, the involved forensic psychologists should be conducting a proper risk assessment for the possible psychological abuse of the child that is of concern to a parent (DSM-5 V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse) pursuant to their duty to protect obligations.
But they refuse. When parents ask the involved forensic psychologists to conduct a risk assessment for possible Child Psychological Abuse (V995.51), the involved forensic psychologists refuse – they simply say no.
So the targeted parents have no option remaining other than to engage the services of Ms. Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute and pay her tens of thousands of dollars to conduct content analysis research using data coding of the documented data surrounding their family conflict
The parents would not need to seek the services of Ms. Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute research protocol if the involved mental health professional simply conducted a risk assessment for possible Child Psychological Abuse (V995.51) when requested, pursuant to their duty to protect obligation.
But they refuse. As did the involved forensic psychologist in this matter.
My CRM consultation report provided to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute regarding their research findings was used by the parent for only one purpose, to support a licensing board complaint against the involved forensic psychologist. That was the only use made of my CRM report. The parent did not introduce my report into the court proceedings (the child aged-out; turned 18).
The ONLY use made by the parent in this matter of my consultation report to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute was to submit my CRM consultation report to support a licensing board complaint the parent made against the involved forensic psychologist for failing in their duty to protect obligations.
The involved forensic psychologist refused – refused – the parent’s request to assess for possible child psychological abuse by the allied parent. The content analysis research from the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute identified the three Diagnostic Indicators I describe in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015), and my recommendation in all cases where there is any concern whatsoever by anyone for any reason about possible child abuse is that a proper risk assessment be conducted – but the involved forensic psychologist directly refused the request of the targeted parent to conduct a risk assessment for the child abuse concerns of the parent (necessitating the parent to turn to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute in an effort to document the child psychological abuse).
I did not practice in Oregon without a license. The forensic psychologists on the Oregon licensing board modified the laws governing their jurisdiction to extend their jurisdiction into California to retaliate against me specifically because my consultation report to Ms. Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a business organization in Calfornia, the state where I am licensed, regarding their research findings that are based on my work, resulted in a licensing board complaint made by the parent toward the involved forensic psychologist.
That was the only use made by the parent of my report. There was no injured party in Oregon. The targeted parent wanted the CRM consultation report from Dr. Childress to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, and since my report was never used in the custody conflict, the allied parent was entirely unaffected by my consultation report to Ms. Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute about their research findings.
Who filed the licensing board complaint alleging I was practicing in Oregon without a license by providing a consultation report to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute located in California, the state where I am licensed, about their research findings that are based on my work?
The ONLY injured party in Oregon was the involved forensic psychologist who refused – directly refused – to conduct a risk assessment for possible child psychological abuse (V995.51) when requested by the parent.
I did not practice in Oregon. The forensic psychologists in Oregon adjusted the laws regarding their jurisdiction to extend their jurisdiction INTO California to retaliate against me specifically because my CRM report resulted in an Oregon licensing board complaint against the involved Oregon forensic psychologist.
I am posting all the relevant information to allow everyone to decide for themselves. Was Dr. Childress practicing in Oregon without a license, or did the forensic psychologists adjust their laws regarding their jurisdiction to extend their jurisdiction into California to sanction me specifically in retaliation?
Here is the decision of the Oregon licensing board:
Oregon Licensing Board Administrative Judgment
Uncertainty and Professional Danger
Because of the after-the-fact adjustment of their laws regarding the jurisdictional authority of the Oregon licensing board, the Oregon licensing board has introduced uncertainty into who I am allowed and not allowed to consult with and the scope.
They have substantially redefined what it means to conduct an “evaluation”. Now, any opinion I render to an attorney regarding the data (information) the attorney provides to me can be considered an “evaluation” by me that requires that I be licensed in that state.
“But the laws say you can provide expert consultation to attorneys”.
The law said I could provide consultation to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a business organization in California. When the forensic psychologists on licensing boards can adjust their jurisdiction after-the-fact to retaliate specifically against me because my reports result in licensing board complaints against the involved forensic psychologists – it is too dangerous for me to provide future consultation and expert testimony to anyone involved in court-involved custody conflict.
As a direct consequence of the Oregon licensing board sanctions, I will need to leave the field of court-involved family conflict because of the very real danger of retaliation against me by the forensic psychologists who control all 50 state licensing boards.
When the laws can change after-the-fact, there is no professional certainty, and the pathology in the family courts, narcissistic-borderline-dark personality pathology in a parent, is highly vengeful and retaliatory. Without professional certainty about what is and is not allowed, there is no safety, and without safety, no clinical psychologists can work in the family courts.
Which, in my view, is exactly the intended purpose of the Oregon forensic psychologists in extending their jurisdictional authority into California to sanction specifically me. They want me to leave the family courts, and they have succeeded. The Oregon licensing board has made it too professionally dangerous for any clinical psychologists to be in the family courts – it is too dangerous to do something different than what the forensic psychologists do.
Corruption of the Licensing Boards by Forensic Psychology
I am a vocal and harsh critic of forensic psychologists and the practice of forensic custody evaluations. I have written multiple blogs describing the violations by forensic psychologists to multiple ethical Standards of the APA and professional standards of practice.
I am a whistleblower. The sanctions by the forensic psychologists on the Oregon licensing boards are retaliation. They want me to go away.
The pathology in the family courts is a shared persecutory delusion (Walters & Friedlander 2016).
From Walters & Friedlander: “In some RRD families [resist-refuse dynamic], a parent’s underlying encapsulated delusion about the other parent is at the root of the intractability (cf. Johnston & Campbell, 1988, p. 53ff; Childress, 2013). An encapsulated delusion is a fixed, circumscribed belief that persists over time and is not altered by evidence of the inaccuracy of the belief.” (Walters & Friedlander, 2016, p. 426)
From Walters & Friedlander: “When alienation is the predominant factor in the RRD [resist-refuse dynamic}, the theme of the favored parent’s fixed delusion often is that the rejected parent is sexually, physically, and/or emotionally abusing the child. The child may come to share the parent’s encapsulated delusion and to regard the beliefs as his/her own (cf. Childress, 2013).” (Walters & Friedlander, 2016, p. 426)
Walters, M. G., & Friedlander, S. (2016). When a child rejects a parent: Working with the intractable resist/refuse dynamic. Family Court Review, 54(3), 424–445.
Note that Walters & Friedlander cite Childress twice regarding delusional thought disorders, I am a clinical psychologist and I am being cited regarding clinical pathology, a shared persecutory delusion.
The pathology in the family courts is potentially a shared persecutory delusion (Walters & Friedlander, 2016), so all court-involved forensic psychologists need to be competent in the diagnostic assessment of delusional thought disorders, i.e., in a Mental Status Exam of thought and perception (Martin, 1990).
From Martin: “Thought and Perception. The inability to process information correctly is part of the definition of psychotic thinking. How the patient perceives and responds to stimuli is therefore a critical psychiatric assessment. Does the patient harbor realistic concerns, or are these concerns elevated to the level of irrational fear? Is the patient responding in exaggerated fashion to actual events, or is there no discernible basis in reality for the patient’s beliefs or behavior?”
From Martin: “Of all portions of the mental status examination, the evaluation of a potential thought disorder is one of the most difficult and requires considerable experience. The primary-care physician will frequently desire formal psychiatric consultation in patients exhibiting such disorders.”
Martin DC. The Mental Status Examination. In: Walker HK, Hall WD, Hurst JW, editors. Clinical Methods: The History, Physical, and Laboratory Examinations. 3rd edition. Boston: Butterworths; 1990. Chapter 207. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK320/
I have the considerable experience necessary for competence in conducting the Mental Status Exam of thought and perception from 12 years of annual training at a major NIMH research project on schizophrenia.
9/85 – 9/98 Research Associate
UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute
Principle Investigator: Keith Nuechterlein, Ph.D.
Area: Longitudinal study of initial-onset schizophrenia. Received annual training to research and clinical reliability in the rating of psychotic symptoms using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). Managed all aspects of data collection and data processing.
No forensic psychologists are competent in the diagnostic assessment of delusional thought disorders because the ONLY place to acquire competence in the diagnostic assessment of delusional thought disorders, and training in the administration of the Mental Status Exam of thought and perception, is working with schizophrenia.
The pathology in the family courts is a shared persecutory delusion (Walters & Friedlander, 2016) and they are aware of that. None of the forensic psychologists are competent in the diagnostic assessment (the identification) of delusional thought disorders. All forensic psychologist are in routine violation of Standard 2.01 Boundaries of Competence of the APA ethics code.
But they don’t care.
All forensic psychologist are in violation of Standard 2.03 Maintaining Competence of the APA ethics code.
But they don’t care.
All forensic psychologists are in violation of Standard 2.04 Bases for Scientific and Professional Judgments.
But they don’t care.
All forensic psychologists are in violation of Standard 9.01 Bases for Assessment of the APA ethics code.
But they don’t care.
All forensic custody evaluations are in violation of Principle D Justice for not providing equal access and equal quality in professional services.
But they don’t care.
Where are the licensing boards? Nowhere to be seen. Why is that?
I am a whistleblower on the ignorance, incompetence, and unethical practices within forensic psychology. The Oregon sanctions for practice in Oregon without a license represent retaliation against me by forensic psychologists on the Oregon licensing board for exposing the unethical practices within forensic psychology.
The New York Blue Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations voted 11 to 9 to entirely eliminate the practice of forensic custody evaluations in New York. I agree 100% with the New York Blue Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations.
From NY Blue Ribbon Commission:“Ultimately, the Commission members agree that some New York judges order forensic evaluations too frequently and often place undue reliance upon them. Judges order forensic evaluations to provide relevant information regarding the “best interest of the child(ren),” and some go far beyond an assessment of whether either party has a mental health condition that has affected their parental behavior. In their analysis, evaluators may rely on principles and methodologies of dubious validity. In some custody cases, because of lack of evidence or the inability of parties to pay for expensive challenges of an evaluation, defective reports can thus escape meaningful scrutiny and are often accepted by the court, with potentially disastrous consequences for the parents and children.”
From NY Blue Ribbon Commission: “By an 11-9 margin, a majority of Commission members favor elimination of forensic custody evaluations entirely, arguing that these reports are biased and harmful to children and lack scientific or legal value. At worst, evaluations can be dangerous, particularly in situations of domestic violence or child abuse – there have been several cases of children in New York who were murdered by a parent who received custody following an evaluation. These members reached the conclusion that the practice is beyond reform and that no amount of training for courts, forensic evaluators and/or other court personnel will successfully fix the bias, inequity and conflict of interest issues that exist within the system.”
I agree 100% with the findings of the NY Blue Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations, their findings are absolutely correct, and until the corrupting influence of forensic psychologists on state licensing boards is addressed and resolved, it will be too professionally dangerous for any clinical psychologist, including myself, to work in the family courts.
Forensic psychologists on the licensing boards will sanction clinical psychologists in the family courts simply because we don’t do what they do.
My work as an expert consultant and testifying expert witness in the family courts is the “meaningful scrutiny” of the “defective reports” produced by the forensic psychologists. I am the “meaningful scrutiny” because I am a clinical psychologist (not a forensic psychologist) and I have six directly relevant domains of professional expertise that are supported by my vitae: Dr. Childress Domains of Specialized Expertise
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- Delusional thought disorders
- Attachment pathology
- Family systems therapy
- Child abuse and complex trauma
- Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another
- Court-involved custody conflict
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I am also a qualified expert under Kayden’s Law because I meet the requirement of having direct clinical experience with child abuse. Now, because of the sanctions from the forensic psychologists on the Oregon licensing board and the uncertainty created, it has become too professionally dangerous to me to continue providing expert consultation and testimony to any attorneys in the U.S. regarding court-involved custody conflict.
“But the law says that you can provide consultation to attorneys regarding the data they provide to you for an opinion.”
The law said I could provide consultation to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a business organization in California, the state where I am licensed, regarding the information they provided to me, i.e., their data profiles resulting from their content analysis research that is based on my work.
The pathology in the family courts, narcissistic-borderline-dark personality pathology in the parent, is highly vengeful and retaliatory. When the rules governing professional practice in the family courts become malleable and uncertain, there is no longer any way to ensure my professional safety from retaliation. As a result of the uncertainty and professional danger I now face as a result of the Oregon licensing board sanctions, I will be leaving court-involved practice.
I did not practice in psychology in Oregon without a license. The forensic psychologists on the Oregon licensing board altered their jurisdiction laws to extend their jurisdiction into California specifically to sanction me in retaliation for my report that resulted in a licensing board complaint being filed against the involved forensic psychologist.
According to the grounds for their assertion that I conducted an “evaluation” of someone in Oregon, my book Foundations (Childress, 2015) would equally represent practice in Oregon without a license because I said nothing in my CRM consultation report to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute that I do not also say in my book.
Whenever the three Diagnostic Indicators I describe in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015) are found in the child’s symptom display, there is only one possible cause and a proper risk assessment for possible Child Psychological Abuse (DSM-5 V995.51) needs to be conducted to the appropriate differential diagnosis for each parent.
Apparently, the forensic psychologists on the Oregon licensing board never read my book.
Google ignorance: lack of knowledge or information
Structure of CRM Consultation Report
I have posted my CRM consultation report to Ms. Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute to my Consulting Website in the Attorney Resources section. Everyone can read the CRM consultation report to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a business organization in California, the state where I am licensed, and decide for themselves if I was practicing psychology in Oregon.
Because I was providing consultation to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute regarding the data profile generated by their content analysis research, I structured my consultation report to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute using the format of a research journal article:
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- Introduction (pages 1-4)
- Methods (pages 4-5)
- Results (pages 5-9)
- Discussion (pages 9-13)
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In the Introduction section I report on the background history of the relevant constructs. I describe the family court pathology to orient the reader to the upcoming research and data.
In the Methods section I describe the constructs of the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting which were tagged by the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute research.
In the Results section I report on the specific data found in the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute research, the criteria for determining the likely presence of each symptom and the frequency count for that symptom returned by the content analysis and data coding research of the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute.
In the Discussion section I engage a broader discussion of the potential implications of the research findings (n=1) from the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute research.
In this section I also include a discussion of the diagnostic limitations involved with archival data, and I clearly indicate multiple times throughout the report that the results from the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute research study (n=1) would require a clinical diagnostic assessment from the local-area mental health professionals to confirm or disconfirm the presence of the symptoms identified by the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute research.
From CRM Consultation Report to CCPI:
Diagnostic Limitation:
Symptoms and diagnostic interpretations, however, need to be confirmed by direct clinical interview. While frequency counts of symptoms in archival data can provide strong indicators of directions for addition direct clinical assessment, symptom identification and diagnosis can only be accomplished through direct clinical interview with all of the involved family members.
Archival data cannot make a diagnosis, only clinical interviews informed by data can make a diagnosis. In ADHD diagnosis, the DSM-5 diagnosis made by the mental health professional is often supported by data from behavior checklists. These checklists of child symptoms provide data that informs the clinical assessment and diagnosis. The symptoms identified by the CRM data profile are of serious professional concern and warrant confirmation through a trauma-informed clinical psychology assessment of the family.”
I did not conduct an evaluation of anyone in Oregon. I provided a consultation report to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a business organization in California, the state where I am licensed, regarding frequency counts of symptoms from their content analysis research project (n=1) of the data surrounding the family conflict.
The reason Ms. Pruter sought my specific consultation on the meaning of the frequency counts returned from her content analysis research using data coding is because she tagged the data for the Diagnostic Indicators (and 12 Associated Clinical Signs) that I developed and recommend be routinely collected in ALL cases of court-involved family conflict.
In the Discussion section, I briefly return to reporting on Results to describe the CRM data surrounding the 12 Associated Clinical Signs that were also tagged and reported to me by the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute in their CRM data profile.
I then conclude my report with informational Appendices.
I did not practice in Oregon without a license. The forensic psychologists changed the laws surrounding their jurisdictional authority to extend their authority into California to sanction me specifically because my CRM consultation report to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a business organization in California, the state where I am licensed, regarding the data profile produced by their content analysis and data coding research based on my work as described in my book, Foundations (Childress, 2015), resulted in a board complaint against the involved Oregon forensic psychologist.
Consequences of Oregon Sanctions
The Decision of the Oregon Appellate Court is posted to my website.
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- Oregon Appellate Court Decision
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Everyone can read the statute. Everyone can read my consultation report to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute regarding their content analysis and data coding research based on my work, and everyone can read the Oregon Appellate Court Decision.
Everyone can decide for themselves. Was Dr. Childress practicing psychology in Oregon, or did the forensic psychologists on the Oregon licensing board modify the laws regarding their jurisdictional authority to extend their jurisdiction into California to sanction me in retaliation for my exposing the unethical malpractice of Oregon forensic psychologists?
As a result of the sanctions delivered against me by the forensic psychologists on the Oregon licensing board and their grounds, it is no longer safe for me to continue to provide consultation or expert testimony to anyone in the family courts, including attorneys. When the laws can be adjusted after-the-fact to extend jurisdictional authority and distort my professional practice involvement, it becomes uncertain who I can and cannot consult with and the scope.
Without certainty, there can be no safety. I will therefore need to discontinue my consulting and expert testimony to all attorneys and parents in the U.S. to control the risk that the Oregon licensing board sanctions now impose.
“But the law allows you to provide expert consultation to attorneys regarding the information provided you by attorneys.”
The law also allowed me to provide expert consultation to the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, a business organization in California, the state where I am licensed, regarding the data profiles generated from their research study that is based on my work.
When there is uncertainty, there can be no safety.
It is deeply unfortunate that the only psychologist in the family courts who is competent in the diagnostic assessment of delusional thought disorders, attachment pathology, child abuse and complex trauma, Dr. Childress, must leave the family courts because of sanctions imposed by the forensic psychologists who control the licensing boards.
Until the corruption of the licensing boards by the forensic psychologists is cleansed and resolved, it will be too professionally dangerous for any clinical psychologists to work in the family courts, including me.
It is unclear how the Oregon licensing board’s actions protect anyone except the forensic psychologists from being held accountable for their unethical malpractice. Once the licensing boards are cleansed of the corrupting influence of forensic psychologists – cite to the NY Blue Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations – I may be able to return to court-involved consultation and expert testimony with attorneys.
Until such time, I will restrict my court-involved consultation and expert testimony to international clients in Canada, England, Australia, and other English-speaking countries, along with translated reports.
Now that the Oregon matter is resolved, I will proceed with obtaining my license in my current home state of Washington (along with becoming licensed in Oregon as well). My credentials are already pre-certified by the National Register of Healthcare Psychologists whose role is to assist in the portability of license across jurisdictions – the National Register is the closest thing currently available to a national license.
Once I am licensed in Washington state, I will shift my practice back to consultation on Early Childhood Mental Health, ADHD, autism, trauma, and parent-child conflict generally. It is deeply unfortunate that I must leave the family courts as an expert consultant and testifying expert witness, but it simply has become too professionally dangerous to remain as long as the forensic psychologists control the licensing boards.
My Parting Recommendations
1) Risk Assessments
The ONLY cause of severe attachment pathology displayed by a child (i.e., a child rejecting a parent) is child abuse by one parent or the other:
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- Either the targeted parent is abusing the child, thereby creating the child’s attachment pathology toward that parent,
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- Or the allied parent is psychologically abusing the child by creating a shared (induced) persecutory delusion and false (factious) attachment pathology in the child for secondary gain to the allied narcissistic-borderline-dark personality parent of manipulating the court’s decisions regarding child custody, and to meet the pathological parent’s own emotional and psychological needs.
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In ALL cases of court-involved custody conflict involving attachment pathology displayed by the child, a proper risk assessment for possible child abuse needs to be conducted to the appropriate differential diagnosis for each parent.
2) Symptom Documentation
We must bring the fighting surrounding these children to an end – that means the professional fighting. All psychologists should be applying the same information (the “established scientific and professional knowledge of the discipline”; Standard 2.04 Bases for Scientific and Professional Judgements), to reach the same conclusions and recommendations (accurate diagnoses).
To obtain clarity on the child’s symptoms, I recommend that the Diagnostic Checklist for Pathogenic Parenting and the Parenting Practices Rating Scale be used to document the child’s symptoms and the normal-range or abusive-range parenting for the targeted parent.
I recommend that this symptom information be routinely collected and reported for all cases of child attachment pathology surrounding court-involved custody conflict.
I also recommend that the Parent-Child Relationship Rating Scale be used as the Outcome Measure in a written treatment plan based on the diagnosis.
3) Elimination of Forensic Psychology in the Family Courts
Consistent with the findings of the NY Blue Ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations, I strongly recommend that the practice of forensic custody evaluations be eliminated from all courts nationally and internationally.
From NY Blue Ribbon Commission:v “By an 11-9 margin, a majority of Commission members favor elimination of forensic custody evaluations entirely, arguing that these reports are biased and harmful to children and lack scientific or legal value… These members reached the conclusion that the practice is beyond reform and that no amount of training for courts, forensic evaluators and/or other court personnel will successfully fix the bias, inequity and conflict of interest issues that exist within the system.”
Clinical psychology needs to return to court-involved practice, but it needs to be safe or clinical psychologists will not return (see Pilot Program recommendation). The segregation of an entire class of people, families involved in court-involved custody conflict, to a separate group of “special” psychologists assigned just to this class of people needs to end, and the families and pathology in the family courts needs to be re-integrated into clinical psychology.
All children, parents, and families, should receive the same high-quality services from all mental health professionals. The segregation of one class of people into required use of forensic psychologists needs to end, and clinical psychology needs to return to court-involved child custody conflict.
4) Pilot Program for the Family Courts
A Pilot Program for the Family Courts should be initiated with university involvement for evaluation research, with the goal of developing standardized diagnostic assessment and treatment protocols, along with a standardized and structured set of legal arguments and procedures to support a treatment-oriented solution to the attachment pathology in the family courts.
Once standardized diagnostic assessment and treatment protocols are developed, it will be safe for clinical psychologists (treatment not custody) to return to court-involved practice.
5) Balanced Judicial Curriculum
A balanced Judicial Curriculum for continuing education should be provided for judges that includes the following domains of professional knowledge:
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- Family systems constructs – triangulation – cross-generational coalition – inverted hierarchy – emotional cutoff – enmeshment.
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- Attachment pathology; symptoms of authentic and inauthentic attachment pathology
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- The symptoms of persecutory delusions from an unresolved trauma origin.
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- Narcissistic, borderline, and dark personalities (Dark Triad, Vulnerable Dark Triad, Dark Tetrad; virtuous-victim signaling and court manipulation
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Ok, E., Qian, Y., Strejcek, B., & Aquino, K. (2021). Signaling virtuous victimhood as indicators of Dark Triad personalities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(6), 1634–1661. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000329
Clemente, M., Padilla-Racero, D., & Espinosa, P. (2020). The Dark Triad and the Detection of Parental Judicial Manipulators. Development of a Judicial Manipulation Scale. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(8), 2843. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17082843
6) Ethical Standard 2.01 Boundaries of Competence
All court-involved psychologists should comply with Standard 2.01 Boundaries of Competence of the APA ethics code.
2.01 Boundaries of Competence
(a) Psychologists provide services, teach, and conduct research with populations and in areas only within the boundaries of their competence, based on their education, training, supervised experience, consultation, study, or professional experience.
The key domains of knowledge needed for professional competence based on education, training, and experience are:
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- Delusional thought disorders – DSM-5 & the American Psychiatric Association,
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- Attachment pathology in childhood – Bowlby & others,
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- Personality disorder pathology; narcissistic, borderline, and dark personalities (Dark Triad – Vulnerable Dark Triad – Dark Tetrad) – Beck & others,
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- Family systems constructs and principles – Minuchin & others,
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- Complex trauma and child abuse – van der Kolk & others
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- Child development research and the breach-and-repair sequence – Tronick & others
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7) Ethical Standard 2.04 Bases for Scientific and Professional Judgments
All court-involved psychologists should comply with Standard 2.04 Bases for Scientific and Professional Judgments of the APA ethics code.
2.04 Bases for Scientific and Professional Judgments
Psychologists’ work is based upon established scientific and professional knowledge of the discipline.
The established scientific and professional knowledge of the discipline required for application are:
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- Attachment – Bowlby and others
- Family systems therapy – Bowen and others
- Personality disorders – Millon and others
- Complex trauma – van der Kolk and others
- Child development – Tronick and others
- Self psychology – Kohut and others
- DSM-5 diagnostic system – American Psychiatric Association
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8) Duty to Protect
All court-involved psychologists should fulfill their duty to protect obligations for the child and for the parent. If there are any concerns about possible child abuse or spousal abuse from anyone for any reason, a proper risk assessment should be conducted to the appropriate diagnostic possibilities for each parent.
9) Psychology’s Return to Treatment
Professional psychology needs to return to a treatment-oriented approach and all doctors should refrain from making custody recommendations.
Rights: In the absence of child abuse, parents have the right to parent according to their cultural values, their personal values, and their religious values.
Involvement: In the absence of child abuse, each parent should have as much time and involvement with the child as possible.
Avoiding Harm: In the absence of child abuse, to restrict either parent’s time and involvement with the child will damage the child’s attachment bond to that parent, thereby harming the child and harming that parent.
Doctors should do no harm. Custody decisions are for the Court. The role of doctors is to assess, diagnose, and treat pathology.
Is there child abuse? The ONLY cause of severe attachment pathology is child abuse by one parent or the other. In all cases of severe attachment pathology (a child rejecting a parent), a proper risk assessment needs to be conducted to the appropriate differential diagnosis for each parent.
Doctors need to return to their role of diagnosis and treatment and should stop being mini-judges making custody determinations. This will free the judges from being required to make the diagnosis of the pathology in the family, allowing judges to return to their role of using all the evidence before them to establish the custody schedule between the parents.
Everything became problematic when the doctors left their role as doctors and started making custody decisions. Doctors need to go back to being doctors, allowing the judges to go back to being judges. Everyone needs to return to their proper roles.
10) Treatment Plans
A child rejecting a parent is the worst possible attachment pathology, a pathology in a primary motivational system of the brain for love and bonding. The attachment system is developing its patterns for love and bonding during childhood that will then guide all future love and bonding throughout the lifespan.
From Bowlby: “No variables, it is held, have more far-reaching effects on personality development than have a child’s experiences within his family: for, starting during the first months of his relations with his mother figure, and extending through the years of childhood and adolescence in his relations with both parents, he builds up working models of how attachment figures are likely to behave towards him in any of a variety of situations; and on those models are based all his expectations, and therefore all his plans for the rest of his life.” (Bowlby, 1973, p. 369).
The cause of the child’s severe attachment pathology toward a parent (child abuse by one parent or the other) needs to be accurately identified (diagnosed) and placed on a written treatment plan to resolve the problem (to resolve the pathology).
The written treatment plan should have Goals identified in measurable ways, specified Interventions for each Goal, estimated Timeframes for Goal accomplishment, and Outcome Measures to monitor treatment progress.
I recommend adapting Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan) for the pathology in the family courts. The additional integration of Solution-Focused Therapy (SFT; Berg, de Shazer), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT; Johnson), and family systems therapy (Minuchin, Bowen, Haley, Madanes) is also recommended.
11) Research Gap in the Family Courts
Compared to other pathologies, there is a substantial research gap involving the pathology in the family courts. This problem needs to be corrected in order to provide solid scientifically grounded recommendations for solving the pathology in the family courts.
Greenham & Childress (ResearchGate). Dark Personalities and Induced Delusional Disorder, Part II: The Research Gap Underlying a Crisis in the Family and Domestic Violence Courts
The research project developed as a business enterprise by Ms. Pruter offers a golden opportunity to begin correcting the gap in research on the pathology involved in court-involved custody conflict.
Through her Custody Resolution Method, Ms. Pruter has developed a deep and broad reservoir of archival data that is available for analysis by collaborating university investigators. All that is required to obtain access to the archival data of the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute’s CRM research is a Memorandum of Understanding with Ms. Pruter and IRB approval from the university for the study.
Ms. Pruter’s CRM research currently tags for the three Diagnostic Indicators identified by me in my book, Foundations (2015). This was to address the need created by forensic psychologists withholding symptom information from parents. But Ms. Pruter and the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute can readily re-tag the data to any categories of interest to the university PI, all that’s needed is grant funding from the PI to pay the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute data taggers and overhead for the project.
Ms. Pruter has the archival data already collected. All she needs is university investigator collaboration for the analysis to whatever research hypotheses are of interest.
I recommend that university researchers and mental health treatment providers begin more actively consulting with Ms. Pruter.
Good Luck
It is deeply unfortunate that I must leave court-involved consultation for attorneys in the U.S. and from my role providing expert testimony regarding the information that I’m asked to review, but the sanctions from the forensic psychologists in Oregon and their justification now exposes me to too much danger.
As long as the forensic psychologists control the licensing boards, it is simply too dangerous for me to work in the family courts. I am a harsh and public critic of forensic psychology and they will retaliate against me for exposing their incompetent and unethical malpractice.
No clinical psychologists will work in the family courts as long as the forensic psychologists control the licensing boards. It is too professionally dangerous.
I am still able to provide consultation to mental health professionals (except in Oregon – Oregon is completely dark to me), and I am still able to provide consultation and expert testimony internationally. Once I am licensed in Washington state, I will be returning to Early Childhood Mental Health and I’ll provide consultation on ADHD, autism, and general parent-child conflict.
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, CA PSY 18857
Dr. Craig Childress: Attachment Based "Parental Alienation" (AB-PA) 