by Dr Craig Childress
The Petition to the APA received 10,000 signatures on its first day. You breath, and your power pulses. You are more powerful than you know. Come together into a single voice.
I will begin my work on formal submission of the Petition to the APA. In the meantime, continue recruiting allies. We want to find all of your allies in this battle. And toward that end I have something for you to do – find and bring your allies.
We want to leverage the Petition to the APA to call forth current allies and educate future allies. I want you to continue to recruit signatures to the Petition, each signature represents a voice, an ally. But let’s also identify your organizational allies, beginning with all state psychological associations.
We are going to identify your current allies and begin recruiting your future allies by asking these organizational entities to formally endorse the Petition to the APA.
The remedies sought by the Petition to the APA are entirely reasonable. The Petition is simply asking the APA to provide statements affirming the Standards of its own ethics code. This is an entirely reasonable request.
Supporting professional knowledge and professional competence is something every professional organization should be able to endorse.
So then, let’s ask all professional organizations to please formally endorse the Petition to the APA. Let’s identify your current allies, voices who will stand with you.
But even if they don’t endorse, simply reading the Petition to the APA will educate them. That is a very good thing. We are recruiting them as your future allies. The world is changing.
Start with your state’s psychological organization (such as the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the New York Psychological Association, the Oregon Psychological Association, the North Carolina Psychological Association…)
I want you to ask all of your state psychological organizations to formally endorse the Petition to the APA. Master’s level psychological organizations as well. Every mental health organization, ask them to formally endorse the Petition to the APA.
Internationally, I would ask the same. Ask your national and regional psychological organizations in your country to formally endorse the Petition to the APA. (the British Psychological Association, the Australian Psychological Association, the Canadian Psychological Association, the Nederlands Instituut van Psychologen, the Polish Psychologists’ Association…). Ask them to endorse the Petition to the APA.
We are identifying your current allies and bringing their voices to yours, and we are educating your future allies. This is all good.
And let’s not stop at the mental health system. Let’s seek the endorsement of legal organizations as well. Let’s ask all of your state bar associations to endorse the Petition to the APA. Will any of them endorse the Petition? I don’t know. Let’s find out.
How about law schools and graduate psychology programs at universities… would any of them formally endorse the Petition to the APA? I don’t know. I do know that they won’t endorse the Petition if they’re not asked.
What about all of your state licensing boards? I doubt that they’ll take an official position on the Petition to the APA, but they will at least know about the issues. Statement of Concern 4 speaks directly to licensing boards. We are not only calling for current allies, we are educating future allies.
What about your state legislators… will they introduce legislation to endorse the Petition to the APA? Maybe not, but at least its an opportunity to educate the office of your state legislator about the trauma to families and the unchecked professional ignorance and incompetence. Ask for a formal statement from the office of the representative endorsing the Petition to the APA.
What about the media? Do you think journalists and the media might be interested in the story of the Petition to the APA?
Parents seeking professional competence from a broken mental health system. Family’s destroyed by rampant and unchecked professional ignorance and incompetence in professional psychology.
Parents calling out to the APA for relief, calling for the APA to affirm its support for their own professional standards guaranteeing parents their foundational right to professional knowledge and professional competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of their children and families.
Do you think the media might be interested in that story? I don’t know. Let’s ask.
The Petition to the APA is on Change.org. A pdf copy of the Petition to the APA is on my website, right at the top of the Parental Alienation section. In seeking formal endorsements from organizations, you can link your request to the Petition directly or you can send a pdf of the Petition as part of your request.
I’d suggest writing a cover letter saying something like:
The lives of children and families experiencing attachment-related family pathology surrounding divorce are being destroyed by professional ignorance and incompetence.
A Petition to the American Psychological Association signed by over X0,000 is gathering voices of support for the APA to affirm its Standards guaranteeing parents the right to professional competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of their children and families (Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code).
I am requesting that the xyz organization also add its voice to this call for professional competence by formally endorsing the Petition to the APA regarding standards of professional competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.
You will find a copy of the Petition to the APA attached.
Thank you for your consideration of this request that xyz organization provide a statement of support endorsing the Petition to the APA.
Emails to organizations may be one approach. I think postal mail is always more powerful. Even if they don’t formally endorse the Petition, or even if their endorsement takes ages to work its way through their endorsement process, these organizations become educated by simply reading the Petition. The knowledge will percolate, embed itself, and they will become our future allies.
Every professional quote in the Petition is a seed of knowledge planted in the mind of the reading mental health professional. In the fertile soil of an authentic professional mind, each seed of knowledge will grow. And just look how many seeds of knowledge the Petition contains, each quote is a seed.
All of Article 3 is a valuable seed of knowledge for licensing boards, with Statement of Concern 4 amplifying the message to licensing boards.
Articles 1 and 2 provide an unraveling of the pathology for legal professionals and CPS social workers, familiarizing them with the vocabulary and concepts; a cross-generational coalition, pathogenic parenting, pathological mourning by a narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the psychological control of the child.
Education requires repeated exposure to familiarize the construct and begin to embed and anchor the information. Each source of information, the Petition and the booklets – The Narcissistic Parent, the Assessment of Attachment-Related Pathology, the Contingent Visitation Schedule – provides a repetition and slightly varied extension of the information. Through each source of information the knowledge becomes increasingly anchored and reinforced.
It’s time for all of your allies to join us on the battlefield. The time is now. The battle to recover your children, all of your children, is now. Let’s identify your current allies and bring them to the field to join us, and let’s begin to recruit your future allies.
For individuals, ask every person you know to sign the petition. For organizations, ask every organization you can identify to endorse the petition.
Professional psychology associations. Professional legal associations. All licensing boards (CPS agencies?). Media outlets. Your extended family. Your friends. Identify all of your allies and bring them to the field, and begin to recruit your future allies.
Organizations won’t endorse the Petition if they’re not asked. No harm in asking:
“Please endorse… attached is the Petition to the APA. Thank you.”
Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857