Slowly, hope is building for children suffering from a form of psychological abuse known as “parental alienation” because of the growing awareness about parental alienation and its harm to children. One example is the relevant authors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) saying that parental alienation is in DSM-5.
From time to time, one may hear someone say, “Parental alienation is pure fantasy because it is not listed in the psychological diagnostic manual, DSM-5.” Then someone else may say, “It is in there, just not the exact words.”
Why does DSM-5 matter? According to Wikipedia, “In the United States, the DSM serves as a universal authority for psychiatric diagnoses.”
Parental Alienation Is Included in DSM-5
Now the microphone has been placed at the horse’s mouth. The people who wrote DSM-5 say that parental alienation is indeed included in DSM-5. And they end all further speculation by saying why they did not use the exact words “parental alienation.”
In a 2016 scientific paper, DSM authors Dr. Narrow and Dr. Wamboldt say that parental alienation may be diagnosed as Child Affected by Parental Alienation Distress (V61.29) if one is talking about the child. Parental alienation may be diagnosed as Child Psychological Abuse (V995.51) if one is talking about a parent alienating their child. This confirms that parental alienation is indeed in DSM-5.
The authors explain why they didn’t use the exact words “parental alienation.” They feared that an under-informed therapist might misdiagnose something as parental alienation when, in reality, there was physical abuse, sexual abuse, or exposure to domestic violence.
This contributes to the opposite problem, where countless children are being psychologically abused by parental alienation because many mental-health professionals are not aware of parental alienation, or they get fooled, because parental alienation is so counter-intuitive.
In their 2016 technical paper, the authors of DSM-5 also explain why parental alienation is so counter-intuitive and why so many people have a hard time understanding it: “It is remarkable that abused children frequently remain attached to their abusive parents, whom they might perceive as charming and charismatic. Through various mental processes, maltreated children persist in fearing, loving, hating, being dependent on, and longing for the love and acceptance of their abusive and neglectful mothers and fathers.”
13.4% of Parents Believe They’ve Been Alienated from at Least One Child
In a survey of 610 parents in North Carolina, Dr. Harman found that 13.4% of parents believe they have been alienated from at least one child, with half believing it is severe. The American Psychological Association issued a press release saying that child psychological abuse is the most prevalent form of abuse and that it is as harmful as sexual abuse, but remarkably, it is not taboo.
What should happen instead, is that alienated children should be declared to be a “special population” so they are diagnosed and treated by therapists having all the requisite backgrounds, including sexual abuse, physical abuse, domestic violence, personality disorders, family systems, and attachment theory. They can also utilize Dr. Childress’ rigorous criteria for severe parental alienation, which he refers to as pathogenic parenting. Otherwise, many therapists will continue to be fooled and become complicit in child abuse. Every child deserves a fully accurate assessment.
Besides DSM-5, there are other positive developments in general awareness about parental alienation:
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The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a clinical report in 2016 that tells doctors what to do about parental alienation.
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The American Psychological Association’s 2015 Handbook of Forensic Psychology provides useful information for custody evaluators on parental alienation.
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The American Psychological Association published a technical paper in 2016 by Dr. Richard Warshak that confirms that parental alienation is child abuse, calling it “psychologically abusive” and “emotional abuse.”
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The Massachusetts General Hospital published a book that notes that “withholding of interactions with other caregiver” is psychological abuse. This hospital is currently ranked number one for psychiatry.
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A 2009 position statement prepared for the Australian Psychological Society notes that “Parental alienation is defined as a child’s unreasonable rejection of one parent due to the influence of the other parent combined with the child’s own contributions (Kelly & Johnston, 2001). Early intervention (and usually this requires specialist intervention) in alienation and estrangement is advocated.”
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The US Department of Justice notes on its website that “damaging one’s relationship with his or her children” is “emotional abuse” and that “forcing isolation from family, friends” is “psychological abuse.”
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Mexico and Brazil have passed legislation specific to parental alienation.
Slowly, hope is building for children suffering from the psychological abuse known as parental alienation.
References:
- For the list of Dr. Childress’ diagnostic criteria, see http://www.drcachildress.org/asp/admin/getFile.asp?RID=108&TID=6&FN=pdf
- For information related to the statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, see https://sites.google.com/site/centralohiopa/american-academy-of-pediatrics-clinical-report-includes-parental-alienation
- For details on Dr. Harman’s study, see https://sites.google.com/site/centralohiopa/how-many-children-suffer-from-parental-alienation
- For details about the statement form the Australian Psychological Society, see https://sites.google.com/site/centralohiopa/parental-alienation-resources#australia
- For details about the 2016 technical paper published by the American Psychological Association, see https://sites.google.com/site/centralohiopa/the-apa-and-the-mental-health-child-abuse-scandal
- For details about the statements from the Department of Justice, see https://www.justice.gov/ovw/domestic-violence
- For details about legislation in Brazil, see http://warshak.com/blog/2010/11/04/taking-parental-alienation-seriously-brazils-new-law/
- For details about legislation in Mexico, see https://www.emmm.org.au/law-in-mexico.html
Easy law change to help reduce this child abuse. If “parental alienation” or pathological parenting is child abuse, then let’s make it so that a fit parent, can discreetly record this child abuse and present the recording to a mental health and/or legal professionals without getting thrown in jail and/or fined. It is still illegal to so record this type of abuse in various states without the consent of the abuser, who obviously will not likely give consent. As abusers work mostly when no one is looking, covert recording may be the only way to prove the child abuse, or at least clarify whether the parenting behavior falls into the category of this type of child abuse. Recordings should also minimize the dangerous collusive wrong diagnosis by therapist, that harm the children (and fit parents) further: It’s minimizes the wrong he said/she said determinations. States, in particular Florida, recently have provisions to allow covert recordings for other types of child abuse (sexual) as legal evidence. Now that we know better, we have to allow for this more prevalent and devastating abuse as well. Kids are getting hurt.
I legally recorded my Ex for 17 minutes in the act of PA and so far it is not doing the trick like you may have thought. The Arizona loophole is called “vicarious consent” where my son was on my phone and the law allows this recording because my phone had an app recording all my phone calls that I use for business. AND if there are Child Safety concerns you can record by “vicarious consent” with your child on the phone from your home. I was lucky to catch this recording but have yet to see it do me any good!
This is ridiculous. My ex-husband’s family fanatically hid the fact that he spent time in child psych wards as a child and was medicated throughout his teens. I married him and had children not knowing what he was. He threatened to kill me, held a gun to my head and tried to kill one of our sons by punching him in the chest to stop his heart. He was horrible to live with and when he had DETAILED plans on how he was going to kill another couple and DETAILED plans on how to kill his brother and his family, I reported him and had his weapons taken away. He retaliated by taking everything away from me and our children, he fought us on child support, filed false police reports and hardly ever (good thing) saw his kids. He has emotionally hurt them repeatedly and made them hysterical by constantly threatening suicide. What was I supposed to tell the kids? That he loved them and would never hurt them? No way. I told the kids that he was sick and dangerous. It was to save their lives. Either partner can be sociopathic and when you are dealing with this the sociopath doesn’t think he/she is lying so he/she doesn’t look like they are lying and the sane partner ends up looking like a nut. So yes, it is not okay to disparage a parent that fell in love with another but what about those of us that are trying to protect our children from a dangerous parent? Epilogue: With my blessing the kids, now all college educated adults, have tried to include their father in their lives but he ends up hurting them over and over. They are done and haven’t seen or heard from him in well over a year. Be VERY careful before charging a spouse with parental alienation. You may not know what you are REALLY dealing with.
I recommend the use of Dr. Childress’ Extended Diagnostic Checklist for help in identifying what is and isn’t severe, attachment-based parental alienation. The facts pattern presented above does not qualify under this checklist.
Childress has zero method for truly screening the good, bad and the ugly. He “diagnosis” kids/parents without ever directly interviewing, speaking or seeing them by means of a ridiculous checklist used by the paying client. It’s designed to always support the outcome of the payee. Garbage and quackery.
Are you sure you were not married to my ex?
No kidding! This stuff is absurd
please like and share on you tube
we need to raise awareness of Parental Alienation (PA)
https://youtu.be/fZWXAQJHLog
fb pages: strugglingwithseverepas and targeted parent speaks out
This is a joke. Everyone knows that “parental alienation” was a theory developed by Dr Richard Gardner as a theory to cover up abuse. Many abusers have now morphed it into their own version of “child abuse” as a means to cover up abuse or change custody by falsely reporting so called parental alienation. The tactics used by people in this industry to “treat” kids ironically involves isolating the children from all friends and family with their alleged “targeted parent” Do’t let the sly, cunning words of a profiteering person in the industry make you think their is anything good about they are trying to change. Many proponents of PA put kids right in the middle of huge court drama forcing them to suffer. Just read this Washington Post article for more info. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/a-divorced-father-his-estranged-kids-and-a-controversial-program-to-bring-them-together/2017/05/09/b50ac6f6-204c-11e7-ad74-3a742a6e93a7_story.html
Let’s assume you are right. Yes, there certainly is child abuse. What should you do in those circumstances? Obviously this is a child protection issue, so the child should be removed from the abuser. You have no trouble accepting this course of action. In many cases this is exactly the right thing to do. However, knowing that this is the system is showing a red cloth to a bull for the more sophisticated, severe, and chronic abuser who ops to abuse by having the other parent removed by using false domestic violence accusations as fear-mongering. There are no penalties for making false claims. No penalties for perjury. Plenty of legal aid to get divorce and child support. If you are prepared to believe that domestic abuse happens at all, you would have to at least envisage that false DV accusations happen too. The fact that your comment 100% denies this possibility strongly suggests an extreme bias on your part. Moreover, the tactic of putting the kid(s) in a pivotal ‘choice’ dilemma in court is NEVER what an alienated parent would ask for, that tactic is PRECISELY what an alienating and aligned parent pushes for.
Everyone! Please sign the petition below, asking the APA to reform the mental health response to “parental alianation”!
https://www.change.org/p/the-american-psychological-association-ending-parental-alienation-pathology-for-all-children-everywhere
This is very far from being a joke. Everyone knows that the theory developed by Dr Richard Gardner describes a real phenomenon, but they also know that such a theory is open to dangerous misapplication. Naturally enough, anybody accused of domestic abuse could use this theory to defend themselves, even if they were in fact perpetrators of heinous abuse. This is why the theory is alarming. However, given the power of a DV application, whether true or false, to secure an income and have a no longer wanted partner (and co-parent) conveniently removed from the life of the child, the system is really a red rag to a bull (or cow). One indication of a possible abuser is an inability to even acknowledge alternative possibilities. Another indication is gross distortions as in your claim that ‘…proponents of PA put kids right in the middle of huge court drama…’. They don’t. The people who do do that are the alienating parents, almost always the ones who want more than 50% of the parenting time and money. Alienated parents are fighting to be not eliminated from parenting (not just the time), they are very willing to positively co-parent. Doesn’t sound like you are?
Okay to manipulate or to distort A child’s thinking on a rational reality. Is most definitely a abuse. That’s teaching a child. That wrong is right and right is wrong. It’s like telling a kid that It’s right the truth. But then turn around and tell him stop tattle telling that’s wrong. You’re bad. And if a parent has narcissistic personality disorder. And they Are aiding and abetting a child That has committed a wrong Act undermining proper Parental Guidance undermining the rational parent teaching the child a irrational reality They can cause your child to grow up with narcissistic personality disorder thinking they’re always right when they are indeed wrong. Saying that this is a joke. Probably means whoever said that. Has narcissistic personality disorder. Because it’s saying to alienate a child from reality is a joke or Okay you’re saying that it’s okay. To take a kid and manipulate them to believe wrong is right right is wrong. If you take a kid in the middle of nowhere And raise them to believe murder was okay. That is a joke That is false and not real. I’m sorry to tell you. But that is alienating a child from reality it can traumatize them for the rest of their life having Blind Faith And whatever they feel fit is, right. So yes, if a parent has narcissistic personality disorder and undermines another parents rational parents will guidance Aiding and abetting the child when they commit a wrong Act. That child will favor the parent defending them Rebellion against And become combative against and dislike and starts hate the rational parent proper Parental Guidance