Investigating & Litigating Cases of Child Psychological Maltreatment

This session explores the challenges of inconsistent definitions across legal and clinical contexts, examining frameworks from Michigan’s penal code, APSAC, and DSM-5. Participants will learn how psychological maltreatment attacks children’s fundamental needs for security, love, and guidance.

This session examines harmful family dynamics including enmeshment, parentification, adultification, and infantilization, along with specific maltreatment forms such as spurning, terrorizing, and isolation. Case studies illustrate how each subtype manifests and impacts child development.

Participants will explore how psychological maltreatment leads to childhood trauma and learn to recognize its developmental consequences. The session also addresses vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue experienced by professionals, along with strategies for self-care and boundary-setting.

A brief intermission allowing participants to refresh before continuing with the remaining program content. Use this time to reflect on concepts covered and prepare questions for upcoming sessions.

This session addresses the unique challenges courts face when adjudicating psychological maltreatment, including counterintuitive family dynamics and removal decisions. Participants will learn to differentiate protective gatekeeping from alienating behaviors in custody disputes.

Explore court reunification efforts and treatment considerations based on maltreatment severity and parental readiness to change. This session covers how accountability, understanding of harm, and remedial steps factor into intervention planning.

This session confronts common fallacies including beliefs that words hurt less than physical abuse and that abusive parents cannot love their children. Participants will learn bias mitigation strategies to ensure fair assessment and appropriate intervention in maltreatment cases.