When the Moon is in the seventh house,

and Jupiter aligns with Mars. Then peace will

guide the planets,

and love will steer the stars.

–The Fifth Dimension (1969)

2016 is the year that parental alienation (as we know it) will end. It’s only January and already, the traditional framework of parental alienation is disappearing and a new era is emerging. Almost everyday I find another piece to the puzzle that brings us one step closer to ending this nightmare. We are light years away from that dark place were there was no hope that people or systems would ever understand and care enough to change.

Up until now, it’s probably a good thing that we didn’t know how complex and damaging the problem is. If we had, most of us might have given up in the face of such comprehensive adversity. What we were unaware of is that many other people have been also been working on aspects of our problem under different names. It is now becoming clear that any one domain couldn’t possibly have discovered the multifaceted aspects of parental alienation. And indeed what we call parental alienation is just one aspect of a bigger problem. This is why we have struggled trying to explain or get others to understand our crisis. This is also why individual approaches to resolving the issue have failed.

The attachment-based model of parental alienation1 is the only model that identifies the multifaceted interaction of the clinical psychological definition of parental alienation, but even that does not account for the impact of the longstanding social injustices of custody allocations, parenting and gender role biases that have as much or maybe more of an impact on the problem. Make no mistake about it, parental alienation is a huge, huge problem, possibly our county’s number 1 public health problem and the solution is just as big, but not insurmountable.

There is nothing that is insurmountable for targeted parents because we have the one thing we need to overcome this worldwide assault on our children, our families and our country. We have the GOLD bullet; the most valuable possession in the world. It’s called attachment.

Attachment is the most powerful force on earth.

Attachment is the enduring emotional bond between a healthy parent and his or her children and it is our superpower. It exists with no boundaries in time or space. Nothing can destroy it. Nothing can stop it. It is how David beat Goliath. It is how we can be immersed in intolerable pain, but not be debilitated by it. It is how we endure being stripped of our personal and civil rights and still step forward. Attachment is how targeted parents can work full time jobs, plus put in 20-30+ hours a week preparing for court, mediation, and still fight for the good of the order. In addition, targeted parents spend every moment thinking, working, praying, sharing, and caring for our children, whether we have contact or not. We are either crazy, or invincible and know that I’m not crazy.

Last week I received an email from the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services; Division of Legal Services and Compliance. Among other things it said,

The Marriage and Family Therapist Section screening panel will review and evaluate your complaint at their November 30th meeting and the Social Worker Section screening panel will review and evaluate your complaint at their December 16 meeting. Each screening panel will evaluate all the treatment that your therapist provided and if the treatment fell below the minimal standard of care, then they can discipline that therapist.

That’s all I needed to hear! If either panel decides to discipline this therapist that will be the least of his concerns! I’m going shopping for a malpractice lawyer!

Before I filed my licensing board complaint, actually long before my family ever saw this therapist, I had checked him out pretty carefully. I looked up his credentials and I had a good idea of what the standards of practice were for Marriage and Family Therapists in Wisconsin. Then, I talked to him directly, explained my situation and my concerns and asked him if he thought he could help. I even discussed his previous experience with my personal therapist.

This therapist had had government contracts for providing intensive family interventions with the most troubled families in the inner city. He told me that he subscribed toBowen’s family systems theory, and was a master at working with people who had narcissistic personality disorders. I was pretty confident that I had found the best therapist in the area for our Family Court ordered intervention. I couldn’t wait!

It had taken 4 years to get my ex-husband to participate in this intervention. He had never followed one family court order and masterfully sabotaged countless orders for therapy between my children and me. However, by this time we were in criminal court, and that is an entirely different ball game. The Judge ruled that my ex-husband had a choice of participating in this intervention or going to jail. When my-ex-husband “swore on a stack of bibles” that he would make reconnecting my children and I his top priority, both the Judge and I knew he was lying. I knew that he would get my children to burn me at the stake to get him off the hook. They did. I didn’t.

This intensive family intervention was my very last chance to do something that would make a difference in my kids’ lives, and I had the probation officer alerted that I would call her if he didn’t show up.

He did show up, flanked by a child on each side. The intervention was more like a homecoming game for my ex-husband and I was the “away” team. I’ve posted my complaint here, but you really had to be there to believe it.

I don't know if I will ever stop being

surprised by the bizarre events

that accompany a person with

narcissistic personality disorder.

I have to give credit to Dr. Craig Childress for my back up plan; filing a licensing board complaint. I’ve never done anything like this before, but I felt confident.

It helped that I understood the seriousness of this pathology and how the therapist would have to assess for it. It helped that I knew that there must be substantiated evidence and a diagnosis. It helped that I knew that every therapist has to have a written treatment plan clearly indicating how the techniques to be used should resolve the problem and eliminate the symptoms (in a reasonable amount of time). It helped that I knew that the therapist was supposed to have shared this with us and it helped that I knew the standards of practice that this therapist could be held accountable for.

It really helped that I knew these things before we started the intervention, because I was able to immediately recognize which standards of practice were missing.

Knowledge is our weapon against all of the atrocities that come against us. The Alliance is dedicated to providing you with the best, objective, accurate, and helpful knowledge to assist you in stopping child psychological abuse by narcissistic/borderline parents. It's taking some time to get it out to the website, and we are in the process of "trying out" some things, but we are making good progress. If you're looking for some information that you can't find, contact me here, I'll see what I can do.

Kay