Obstacles to Mental Health Providers Diagnosing Child Psychological Abuse
Can a clinician overcome these obstacles in order do diagnose Child Psychological Abuse V995.51
Counter transference from their own conflicts with their own parents. See Dr. Childress brilliant essay on counter transference.
Lack of extensive experience in each of family systems, attachment theory, personality disorders, and encapsulated delusions
The problem that this diagnosis is the most profoundly counter intuitive one in medicine, and one which the uninitiated almost always get exactly backwards
The natural human desire to quickly rush to the aid of a "victimized child" , not realizing what the child is a victim of
The natural human tendency towards common errors in clinical judgment
The tendency to fulfill the bystander role in a false narrative , when they see an apparently loving, caring, sensitive, protective parent acting in the ”all wonderful" parent role in a reenactment of their own childhood trauma from long ago
The natural human feeling of being threatened by the incomprehensibility of an ostensibly loving, caring, sensitive, protective, ”all wonderful" parent having psychological problems that are causing them to abuse their own children
The failure to hold psychological abuse as taboo despite its harms , as noted by the APA
See also "Reasons why people have a hard time understanding parental alienation."
Then here is Howie's Second Law of Parental Alienation:
The Alienator and Bystander will mutually find something wrong with the rejected parent
- The alienator’s psychological survival requires a delusional world where they are the all wonderful, protective parent
- It is too psychologically threatening for a bystander to say “this all wonderful parent is delusional” or “this wonderful parent is harming their child”
- The alienator will find something the bystander is willing to use to explain the rejection of the targeted parent and the bystander is motivated to allow it and to assist with it
