1.0 Classification

Is it a symptom, a severe abuse, disease, is it a diagnosis, is it a behavior, is it a legal term…. what is it?

Is it psychological maltreatment?

Established through research, Parental Alienation is a form of psychological maltreatment. And severe parental alienation therefore would be severe psychological maltreatment. 1

Is it a Syndrom?

They know that there are people in different countries who might use Parental Alienation as a diagnosis. In other words, they know that there are many people who are concerned about Parental Alienation. And they might actually use that in a record as a diagnosis. And so the ICD needs a way to recognize that. And if it is used in a record as a diagnosis, you go to their website, you enter “Parental Alienation” and up pops the diagnosis that they want you to use. 2

Parental Alienation is (as of 2015) not officially recognized as a syndrome by either the Canadian Psychological Association or the American Psychological Association. However these bodies do recognize parental alienation as a behavior which occurs in a variety of circumstances particularly in the process of separation and divorce. 3

Is it Child Abuse?

For a long time people have just talked about Parental Alienation as child abuse. It’s very harmful and damaging to the child. Parents who alienate their children are not only engaging in psychological abuse, but also even physical abuse, social isolation and other types of things to harm that child and keep them away from the other parent. But it does a lot of significant damage to that child and to their relationships with others. 4

Is it Domestic Violence?

Parental alienation is a form of indirect aggression. The true target of this aggression is the other parent, and children are their weapons. 5

So it’s also considered domestic violence, because the intent of the behavior is to harm the other parent and the relationship with the child. And so many behaviors that alienators do aren’t always involving the child. The child can be a weapon that’s used against them, but they will engage in many, many behaviors just to hurt the other parent. 4

Is it a Clinical Problem?

It’s a clinical problem. And in fact in many cases it’s a medical problem because of the types of delusional thinking and paranoid ideation and things like that. 6

  1. Amy BAKER, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2zNV1Jvc5I ↩
  2. William BERNET, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kjyvc2zVc6c ↩
  3. Theo BOERE, Carmen BARKLEY, Larry WATERMAN; Parental Alienation Documentary, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYV8GBrJv9k ↩
  4. Jennifer HARMAN, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vrs_hu1HSM ↩ ↩
  5. Jennifer HARMAN, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3YdldNXZnQ ↩
  6. Steven MILLER, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk675aYGHV4 ↩