In the realm of fictional heroes, Doctor Van Helsing stands as the quintessential vampire hunter, a figure synonymous with courage, knowledge, and relentless pursuit of malevolent forces. But what if this archetype existed not in the gothic tales of Dracula, but in the stark reality of child abuse trauma? Imagine a modern-day Van Helsing, not wielding stakes and holy water against supernatural creatures, but armed with psychological expertise to combat the insidious “vampires” that prey on the souls of children. This is the persona of Professor van Helsing, a clinical psychologist specializing in trauma, who views certain forms of child abuse as nothing less than soul-devouring vampirism.
Professor van Helsing, as he identifies himself, doesn’t hunt mythical beasts in Transylvania. His battleground is the human psyche, and his adversaries are the pathogens of trauma that inflict profound damage on young lives. He posits three primary trauma pathogens: violence, neglect, and sexual abuse incest. While violence and neglect are monstrous in their own right, he identifies sexual abuse incest as the true “vampire”—a pathogen that, unlike the others, feeds directly on a child’s soul.
This “vampire” of sexual abuse incest is not driven by sexual desire, but by a sadistic hunger for gratification through the psychological violation and destruction of a child. It’s a manifestation of pure malevolence, thriving on the power to dominate and devastate. The impact of this pathogen extends far beyond the immediate victim, rippling through generations in ways that are only now becoming fully understood.
The generational transmission of the sexual abuse incest pathogen is a hidden epidemic, manifesting in what are often dismissed as “high-conflict” families. Professor van Helsing argues that these conflicts are frequently the echoes of abuse from previous generations. Deviant parenting practices, characterized by psychological violation and “psychological incest”—where one parent allies with the child against the other—become the vectors through which this pathogen is transmitted. The unresolved trauma of past abuse resurfaces in distorted family dynamics, perpetuating cycles of pain and suffering.
In contrast, the violence trauma pathogen, while terrifying, is likened to a “large and frightening monster with claws and teeth” rather than a soul-feeding vampire. Violence inflicts deep wounds, but it doesn’t inherently target the soul in the same insidious way as sexual abuse incest. For violence to reach the soul, it must first cause extensive damage on other levels of the child’s being. The generational ripple of the violence pathogen is evident in the juvenile justice system, where children exposed to violence are more likely to perpetuate violent behaviors. Violence begets violence, creating a visible and recognizable cycle.
Professor van Helsing expresses a particular disdain for the neglect pathogen, deeming it the most destructive of all. Unlike violence, which is overt and often elicits a response, neglect operates in the shadows, silently eroding a child’s foundation. He argues that the neglect pathogen is so devastating that it often precludes generational transmission because it fundamentally destroys the child’s capacity to parent effectively. This pathogen is tragically evident in cases of infant trauma stemming from drug-addicted mothers, the horrific conditions of Eastern European orphanages, and the lingering scars of historical atrocities like the Armenian genocide and Stalin’s regime, where starvation and deprivation served as potent vectors of neglect.
The unprocessed traumatic grief in regions like Russia, stemming from Stalin’s era, further exemplifies the enduring impact of the neglect pathogen. Professor van Helsing highlights the plight of children rescued from Romanian orphanages after the fall of the Soviet Union, many of whom faced severe developmental and emotional challenges due to profound neglect. He emphasizes the difficulty in treating the neglect pathogen and the heightened risk of vicarious trauma for therapists working with these cases. The damage inflicted by neglect is deep, insidious, and often leaves only narrow windows for recovery.
When children are rescued from abusive situations, society often breathes a collective sigh of relief. Media attention fades, Child Protective Services withdraws, and schools move on. But for the child, the journey to healing is just beginning. Professor van Helsing asks a crucial question: who do these traumatized children turn to for recovery once the initial crisis intervention subsides?
The answer, in his view, is to experts like himself and his team—professionals dedicated to the arduous process of trauma recovery. Children rescued from monsters and vampires are sent to his clinic, where he and his team work to extract the trauma, to help these young souls reclaim their stolen childhoods. He positions himself as the modern-day Van Helsing, the one who steps in when the immediate danger is past, to guide these children on the path to healing and recovery.
However, Professor van Helsing clarifies that his role extends beyond simply treating rescued children. He is not just a healer; he is a hunter. His mission is not merely to help those who have already been identified and rescued, but to actively seek out and find children who are still trapped in the clutches of their abusers, the “vampires” feeding on their souls in the shadows.
He poses a stark question: when a hunter is on the prowl, does he announce his presence, alerting his prey? The predatory violence of the sexual abuse incest “vampire” is often hidden, isolating its victims and silencing their cries for help. Professor van Helsing speaks of a hypothetical “precious little girl,” trapped somewhere, unable to speak, abandoned and forgotten. He challenges his audience: are they actively searching for this child, or are they waiting for her to somehow break free and report the abuse herself? He emphasizes the near impossibility of a child escaping the psychological control of such a “vampire” alone. To wait for disclosure is to abandon the child to her fate.
“The sex abuse incest pathogen is abandonment,” he declares. The child is left to the feeding, with no one coming to rescue them, no one seeming to care. He suggests that this sense of abandonment resonates deeply because it is also “your pathogen too”—a societal failure to protect the most vulnerable.
Professor van Helsing reiterates his dual role: he operates a clinic for rescued children, but he also actively hunts for those still in danger. He doesn’t wait for rescue; he finds. He draws a powerful analogy to the Dracula narrative: imagine being a villager terrorized by an unseen vampire, your leaders powerless to protect you, conventional remedies failing. Then, a stranger arrives, an outsider with knowledge of vampires – Doctor Van Helsing.
This “vampire,” he explains, is exceptionally vicious and adept at hiding, feeding on the souls of its victims with impunity. Local authorities are baffled, offering ineffective solutions. But the arrival of Van Helsing, the outsider, marks a shift. Even if the vampire’s attacks don’t immediately cease, a subtle change occurs – “The fog is less dense. There’s more sun coming through… there seems to be more light reaching you.” This suggests that the presence of an expert, someone actively working to combat the unseen evil, brings a sense of hope and the promise of change, even before tangible results are evident.
When Van Helsing reveals his identity, he declares, “It’s not an accident I’m here… I’m hunting.” He explains that the “vampire” is not merely a local menace but “one of the supreme of the abuse pathogens… exceptionally vicious, and exceptionally good at hiding, at not being seen.”
His hunting strategy is proactive and preemptive. “When I locate that girl or boy, my child, trapped in the feeding of the vampire, I stalk and hunt. This is long before disclosure. She can’t disclose. She can’t talk. The vampire makes sure of that, it’s feeding on her, it must have its food.” The vampire isolates the child, silencing them through fear, intimidation, manipulation, and twisted forms of “love.” The child is seduced into surrender, not willingly, but through coercion and control. In this terrifying isolation, “There is no rescue coming. No one cares. The child is abandoned. The vampire has its food, and it feeds.”
Professor van Helsing’s mission is to change this narrative of abandonment. “I’m van Helsing. I hunt vampires. I don’t wait. I hunt.” His presence is deliberate, not accidental. He is there to “kill this thing here, this thing that is feeding on you and your children.” He emphasizes that a “top-tier trauma expert” doesn’t arrive by chance. Hunters are not noisy; they are quiet and strategic, stalking their prey until the moment to strike.
The hunter’s silence breaks “When it kills its prey.” Professor van Helsing’s prey is the “malevolent abuse from her father” trapping his “little girl.” He understands that “she hasn’t disclosed, she can’t disclose. She trapped, she’s isolated, she’s alone, without hope of rescue.” The child’s only hope lies in sending a hidden signal, a subtle cry for help that can reach someone who is actively looking. “Her signal has to be hidden, it can’t be obvious or the pathogen will see… and then it’s feeding becomes terrible.” Disclosure is too dangerous for the child while the “vampire” remains close and powerful. “It’s too dangerous for the child to disclose, that too hard. The child needs us to come.”
The child’s cries for help manifest as “symptoms” – behaviors that alert others that something is wrong. “A clinical psychologist is called by symptoms.” These symptoms, often dismissed or misdiagnosed, are, in Professor van Helsing’s view, the desperate screams of a captive child. “Most often the child has school symptoms, sometimes the child stops working entirely (extreme), sometimes my child becomes very angry and hostile (extreme). Sometimes the child becomes very depressed (extreme).” These extreme behaviors – anger, depression, self-harm, suicidal threats – are the signals he listens for, the moment he hears them, he is “there in an instant. Finding the vampire feeding on my child.”
Even when he finds the child, “my captive child,” the “pathogen in the malignant parent still has her, the monster, the vampire is still feeding on her soul. She’s not strong enough (yet) to tell us, she needs support.” Professor van Helsing sees his role as providing that support, “I’m van Helsing, I hunt vampires, I find ways of getting my child the support they need to tell us of their nightmare. I hear you, I’m coming. You are not alone, you are not abandoned. I’m coming.”
The process of rescue is not immediate. “When I first find my child, it might be six weeks before I can construct the support for my child to report.” This involves building a network of support, often starting with the non-abusive parent, a teacher, or another trusted adult. “Then, when the child finally has the support of strength needed to break free of the control, needed to tell us, to speak, I want to have everything in place to secure the forensic evidence.” His priority is to ensure that “vile monstrosity” never again has access to the child. “I need to make sure the forensic evidence of the child’s reporting is secured. And I want the child to tell us the story – once. We will make that little girl or that little boy do this only once, so we need to be ready for them.” Efficiency and minimizing further trauma are paramount. “I’m van Helsing. I hunt vampires.”
While “constructing the rescue,” Professor van Helsing engages with the family under the guise of “therapy.” “I’m not really doing therapy, not when there’s a vampire feeding on my child. I’m hunting, I’m rescuing. But I don’t want the monstrosity to know it’s being hunted, I don’t want it to flee, or to increase its hiding, or its control of the child. I want the vampire, the foul malignancy of parent, to be relaxed as I stalk.” He meets with the entire family, individual parents, and the child, creating a facade of therapeutic intervention while strategically working to build support for disclosure.
His primary focus is the mother. “The mother is where I want to build support to the child to disclose. The mother knows. She’s just not protecting… she’s sacrificing.” He sees the mother as a potential ally, someone who often senses the abuse but is paralyzed by fear or manipulation. His sessions with the mother are carefully orchestrated to “unlock the mother as the child’s protector, to give my child an avenue, a resource, to support.” He must be cautious in his direct interactions with the child, “I cannot elicit, but I can be available for disclosure. But the child can’t speak. Not yet.” The child is still under the vampire’s control, “afraid, so afraid of the vampire – no one sees the vampire – no one sees my child’s fear.”
The sessions with the mother are crucial, designed to be concealed from the “pathogen’s sight, under the veil of ‘therapy.’” He explains, “My sessions with the mother look like family sessions, after all, I’m meeting with everyone. But this is where my focus of rescue is, with the mother.” He seeks to empower the mother to offer the child an “invitation… for the child’s disclosure,” knowing that such an invitation from a trusted parent will be readily received.
“This pathogen hides. I hide too, from the pathogen, when I need to… when I’m hunting.” But the time for hiding eventually ends. “I’m not hiding anymore. When the time comes, we act to rescue that little boy or girl from the malignancy of the pathogen. That’s when the pathogen of the father knows exactly who I am. I’m van Helsing, you’re a malignancy, and you’re going to jail – I hope for a very long time. Your feeding on this sweet precious child is done.” The abuser, believing he was participating in family therapy, is caught off guard. “He thought we were doing family therapy. He’s surprised. No, I’m hunting.”
Professor van Helsing acknowledges the connection to his real-world identity, “I know, it looks like I’m Dr. Childress, doesn’t it? I’ve been busy, haven’t I? We have AB-PA and Foundations and new solutions… shhh, I’m stalking.” He references his work on issues like Alienating Behaviors and Parental Alienation (AB-PA), suggesting that his “vampire hunting” metaphor is deeply intertwined with his professional endeavors.
Just as the fictional Van Helsing has his arsenal of weapons – stakes, crosses, holy water – Professor van Helsing employs psychological tools to combat these “vampires.” He alludes to “double-bind knots” and the “Escher paradox” as examples of these tools, particularly Diagnostic Indicator 3 of AB-PA. “Diagnostic Indicator 3, the persecutory delusion, is the trauma symptom. That’s the symptom that will have the pathogen diagnosing itself.”
He explains the Escher paradox – “you know, the hands drawing each other” – in the context of Diagnostic Indicator 3. When a “pathogen-brain” is asked to identify the trauma reenactment narrative within itself, a fascinating psychological phenomenon occurs. “Diagnostic Indicator 3 of AB-PA asks the pathogen-brain to diagnose the presence of the reenactment narrative. The psychological defenses of the pathogen brain will not allow recognition of the reenactment narrative. As this Escher loop cycles, the defenses against awareness and recognition will be amplified, until perception breaks from the pathogen’s domination, or the defenses collapse into dissociation and denial.”
This creates a feedback loop, where the very act of attempting to diagnose the pathology can either shatter the defenses, leading to self-awareness, or reinforce denial and dissociation. 
Escher Paradox Diagram: Hands Drawing Each Other Illustrating Diagnostic Indicator 3 in Trauma Pathology
“I wonder what will happen with the Escher paradox of Diagnostic Indicator 3? Let’s find out.” For Professor van Helsing, diagnosis itself becomes a weapon, “I hunt vampires. I found one. I’m going to put a stake through it’s heart. The stake is called… diagnosis. I’m van Helsing, I hunt. I rescue my little boy, I rescue my little girl. The feeding on them stops, and their nightmare ends.”
He concludes with a powerful and direct statement: “I’m van Helsing. I hunt the vampires of child abuse and trauma. You have one here. But then… you knew that already, didn’t you.” The message is clear: child abuse is a pervasive and destructive force, a “vampire” preying on the innocent. But there are those like Doctor Van Helsing, armed with knowledge and a relentless determination, who are actively hunting these monsters, working to rescue the children and end their nightmare.
Craig Childress, Psy.D. Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857
