Child-Maltreatment-Research-L (CMRL) List Serve

Message ID: 10584

Date: 2019-12-10

Author:Taylor Scott

Subject:Re: "Medical Child Abuse" expose'

I am hearing a primary emphasis on parents reported physiological symptoms of the child. Is there a parallel here for mental health? E.g.: "a parent has a child who is not what they ordered up... it gets transformed into "there is something wrong with my child" PSYCHOLOGICALLY. This could be challenging to tease out when the parent is reporting behavioral symptoms and there's little way to reconcile differences in reported symptoms between child and parent. In particular I wonder about this parallel as it relates to intensive, restrictive psychiatric treatment, especially since such circumstances disproportionately affect foster and adopted youth. So can this same lens be applied to reported psychiatric symptoms? Taylor Scott, Ph.D. Research Assistant Professor Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center Pennsylvania State University On Sun, Dec 8, 2019 at 3:14 PM Bolen, Becky > wrote: This is a very thoughtful response along with the original paper Sent from my iPhone On Dec 7, 2019, at 10:05 PM, Eric G. Mart, Ph.D. > wrote: Lisa, Here's how I see the problem. There are a small percentage of cases that actually fit the classic MSBP profile. These are the ones that involve symptom induction and include things like smothering and poisoning. There are also a percentage where parents fabricate symptoms with serious consequences. In my experience, these are parents who are fully aware of what they're doing and are very dangerous to their children. However, the vast majority of cases involve parents, almost always mothers, who have a variety of issues which create what I have called problematic illness related behavior. In some cases, they are caught up with one of the controversial diagnoses such as persistent Lyme disease, autism, mitochondrial disorder, generally anything that is hard to pin down diagnostically. In some cases, they have simply been misled. I have testified that when I was writing my MSBP, I used to do most of my writing in the Borders café near my house. At one point I got up and went over to the psychology section and grabbed the first three books on autism that came to hand. Two of the three stated that mercury amalgam in fillings and vaccines caused autism. They were written by actual MDs who stated that they were aware of the controversy over this, but the research suggesting that these things did not cause autism were part of a conspiracy between the US government and big Pharma. So, what's a parent to think? In other cases, my unscientific take on what's going on is that a parent has a child who is not what they ordered up. However, bringing that thought into conscious awareness is unthinkable, and it gets transformed into "there is something wrong with my child physically and the doctors don't get it." This transforms them from a rejecting parent to a brave parent tenaciously advocating for their sick child and it solves a lot of problems for them. In still other cases I think were dealing with what I have referred to as hypochondriasis by proxy and in still others you have parents with delusional disorder. But the big problem is that when you lump all of these folks together, you make over anxious parents who might have some idiosyncratic beliefs about disease and medicine into MSBP incipient murderers. Further, when prosecutors bring the case and there really isn't that much evidence, they drag in the bogus MSBP behavioral profile to leverage their crap case by dirtying up the parent. Adding to this is that a number of authors (Rossler and Jenny come to mind) have come up with their own criteria which they label MCI, and have defined that type of abuse is basically anything they think it is. This has spread the net wider and lots of people have been caught up in it who didn't need to be. So, IMHO, yes the criteria need to be narrowed and a broader view of the different types of problematic illness related behavior on the part of parents needs to be developed. Regards, Eric G Mart, PhD, ABPP (Forensic) 230 Lafayette Rd. Building D, Unit 7 Portsmouth, NH 03801 Ph. 603/373-8801 Fax 603/373-0202 emart@comcast.net www.psychology-law.com Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Lisa Fontes Sent: Friday, December 6, 2019 10:22 AM To: Child Maltreatment Researcher List (CMRL) Cc: PsyLaw list Subject: Re: "Medical Child Abuse" expose' What do people think about this? Some of the most disturbing cases of child abuse that I have seen have involved medical child abuse. Do the criteria need to be narrowed? Would that be the best response? Are there representatives of ISPCAN or APSAC or other national child abuse organizations on this list who could inform us about what the official responses are to these important discussions? Are there researchers of medical child abuse on this list who could shed some light? Respectfully, Lisa Fontes, Ph.D. LFontes@umass.edu <6BF7137857AD42DABF41CDE04498EB33.png> From: "Kirk Witherspoon" > To: "PsyLaw list" > Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2019 7:08:07 PM Subject: "Medical Child Abuse" expose' "Medical Child Abuse" expose' attached. Excellent and worth a very careful read. Kirk Witherspoon, PhD Clinical & Forensic Psychologist - IL & IA Sex Offender Evaluator - IL 722 - 23rd Avenue Court Moline, IL 61265-4624 Tel. (309) 762-2922 Fax (309) 762-8394 kirkwitherspoon@mchsi.com <6BF7137857AD42DABF41CDE04498EB33.png>

I am hearing a primary emphasis on parents reported physiological symptoms of the child. Is there a parallel here for mental health? E.g.: "a parent has a child who is not what they ordered up... it gets transformed into "there is something wrong with my child" PSYCHOLOGICALLY. This could be challenging to tease out when the parent is reporting behavioral symptoms and there's little way to reconcile differences in reported symptoms between child and parent. In particular I wonder about this parallel as it relates to intensive, restrictive psychiatric treatment, especially since such circumstances disproportionately affect foster and adopted youth. So can this same lens be applied to reported psychiatric symptoms? Taylor Scott, Ph.D. Research Assistant Professor Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center Pennsylvania State University On Sun, Dec 8, 2019 at 3:14 PM Bolen, Becky > wrote: This is a very thoughtful response along with the original paper Sent from my iPhone On Dec 7, 2019, at 10:05 PM, Eric G. Mart, Ph.D. > wrote: Lisa, Here's how I see the problem. There are a small percentage of cases that actually fit the classic MSBP profile. These are the ones that involve symptom induction and include things like smothering and poisoning. There are also a percentage where parents fabricate symptoms with serious consequences. In my experience, these are parents who are fully aware of what they're doing and are very dangerous to their children. However, the vast majority of cases involve parents, almost always mothers, who have a variety of issues which create what I have called problematic illness related behavior. In some cases, they are caught up with one of the controversial diagnoses such as persistent Lyme disease, autism, mitochondrial disorder, generally anything that is hard to pin down diagnostically. In some cases, they have simply been misled. I have testified that when I was writing my MSBP, I used to do most of my writing in the Borders café near my house. At one point I got up and went over to the psychology section and grabbed the first three books on autism that came to hand. Two of the three stated that mercury amalgam in fillings and vaccines caused autism. They were written by actual MDs who stated that they were aware of the controversy over this, but the research suggesting that these things did not cause autism were part of a conspiracy between the US government and big Pharma. So, what's a parent to think? In other cases, my unscientific take on what's going on is that a parent has a child who is not what they ordered up. However, bringing that thought into conscious awareness is unthinkable, and it gets transformed into "there is something wrong with my child physically and the doctors don't get it." This transforms them from a rejecting parent to a brave parent tenaciously advocating for their sick child and it solves a lot of problems for them. In still other cases I think were dealing with what I have referred to as hypochondriasis by proxy and in still others you have parents with delusional disorder. But the big problem is that when you lump all of these folks together, you make over anxious parents who might have some idiosyncratic beliefs about disease and medicine into MSBP incipient murderers. Further, when prosecutors bring the case and there really isn't that much evidence, they drag in the bogus MSBP behavioral profile to leverage their crap case by dirtying up the parent. Adding to this is that a number of authors (Rossler and Jenny come to mind) have come up with their own criteria which they label MCI, and have defined that type of abuse is basically anything they think it is. This has spread the net wider and lots of people have been caught up in it who didn't need to be. So, IMHO, yes the criteria need to be narrowed and a broader view of the different types of problematic illness related behavior on the part of parents needs to be developed. Regards, Eric G Mart, PhD, ABPP (Forensic) 230 Lafayette Rd. Building D, Unit 7 Portsmouth, NH 03801 Ph. 603/373-8801 Fax 603/373-0202 emartcomcast.net www.psychology-law.com Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Lisa Fontes Sent: Friday, December 6, 2019 10:22 AM To: Child Maltreatment Researcher List (CMRL) Cc: PsyLaw list Subject: Re: "Medical Child Abuse" expose' What do people think about this? Some of the most disturbing cases of child abuse that I have seen have involved medical child abuse. Do the criteria need to be narrowed? Would that be the best response? Are there representatives of ISPCAN or APSAC or other national child abuse organizations on this list who could inform us about what the official responses are to these important discussions? Are there researchers of medical child abuse on this list who could shed some light? Respectfully, Lisa Fontes, Ph.D. LFontesumass.edu <6BF7137857AD42DABF41CDE04498EB33.png> From: "Kirk Witherspoon" > To: "PsyLaw list" > Sent: Thursday, December 5, 2019 7:08:07 PM Subject: "Medical Child Abuse" expose' "Medical Child Abuse" expose' attached. Excellent and worth a very careful read. Kirk Witherspoon, PhD Clinical & Forensic Psychologist - IL & IA Sex Offender Evaluator - IL 722 - 23rd Avenue Court Moline, IL 61265-4624 Tel. (309) 762-2922 Fax (309) 762-8394 kirkwitherspoonmchsi.com <6BF7137857AD42DABF41CDE04498EB33.png>