Parental alienation is in The DSM-5-TR. It is in The DSM in the only way that matters – by descriptions of the dysfunctional family dynamics that occur in this family phenomenon.

Also of note, the DSM is not a clinical textbook. It is merely a manual that is primary used for insurance billing purposes. The DSM is erroneously held up by alienation deniers as the definitive textbook of psychiatric conditions.

Here you will discover the multiple ways in which the family dynamics occurring in parental alienation are in the DSM.

Table of Contents

Attacking the Signifier Does Not Discredit the Signified

The arguments proffered by alienation deniers that attack the label of “parental alienation” are calculated, self-serving, and dangerous efforts to deceive. A key example of the deception is to erroneously equate the “signified” with the “signifier” and then attack the “signifier.” The “signifier” and the “signified” are not the same.

Conflating the signifier with the signified is an example of the “straw man fallacy.” A distorted version of the argument is presented, and then that distortion of the original is attacked.

The “signifier” is a theoretical concept- a symbol, label, or sign that denotes something. What a signifier denotes is the “signified” – something that is concrete or observable – such an object, behavior, phenomenon, etc.

Labels (signifiers) change over time while the phenomenon denoted (the signified) remains the same.

Consider, for example, the mental health disorder labeled “post-traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD). This disorder was born out of the experiences of Civil War soldiers who had become traumatized on the battlefield.

This disorder, however, was not labeled PTSD until 100+ years later, when it was accepted into the into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1980.

Before acceptance into the DSM labeled “PTSD”, it had gone by various prior signifiers. These various signifiers were “homesickness” “nostalgia,” “battle fatigue,” “soldier’s heart,” “irritable heart,” and more.

The label (or signifier) history of the phenomenon of parental alienation (the signified) is analogous to the history of PTSD labels (or signifiers). For more than 200 years, the phenomenon of parental alienation has been recognized in both psychotherapy and jurisprudence – by various other signifiers.

The relationship between the signifier and signified is an arbitrary relationship: there is no logical connection between them. Signifiers merely serve to establish a common terminology for identification purposes.

The phenomenon now labeled parental alienation could be changed to “meatballs and spaghetti” as long as that label becomes a commonly accepted signifier for the phenomenon of parental alienation.

Note that alienation deniers fail to provide a definition of parental alienation as it is defined in the scientific or clinical literature.

Failing to provide the definition of what one is attacking speaks to the lack evidence for one’s attack. It is easy to criticize what one does not define with generally recognized terminology. This is intentional.

FURTHER READING: Understanding Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Alienation, and the DSM-5

Scientific Acceptance of Parental Alienation in the Psychiatric & Scientific Communities

Far more credible and illustrious of clinical conditions than the DSM is Kaplan Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry. In this textbook, parental alienation is cited under the category of “child psychological abuse.”

In fact, the DSM is not a clinical textbook. It is merely a manual used for insurance billing purposes.

The fallacious claim by alienation deniers that the DSM-5 task force rejected the concept of PA is emphatically denied by two child psychiatrists who had contributed to the family relational section of the DSM-5.

These contributors, Marianne Wamboldt, MD, and William Narrow, MD, affirmed the psychiatric community’s acceptance of parental alienation in their 2017 article published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

This peer-reviewed article entitled, “Child Affected by Parental Relationship Distress” (CAPRD), was co-authored by my colleague, child psychiatrist, William Bernet, and affirmed that parental alienation, by this signifier, to be an example of CAPRD.

Consider what these child psychiatrists stated in this article:

“When the DSM-5 was in development, there was a proposal to include parental alienation disorder as a new diagnosis. In response, members of the DSM-5 Task Force never said that they doubted the reality or the importance of parental alienation. However, they concluded that parental alienation did not meet the standard definition of a mental disorder, that is, “the requirement that a disorder exists as an internal condition residing within an individual”. Task Force members said that parental alienation should be considered an example of a relational problem because it involves a disturbance in the child’s relationship with one or both parents.

Children who experience parental alienation almost always fulfill the definition for CAPRD; that is, the child is affected by conflict between the parents, with the result of forming an enmeshed relationship with one parent and rejecting a relationship with the other parent. Depending on the focus of clinical attention, other DSM-5 conditions may be assigned in cases of parental alienation. If the focus of clinical attention is on the impaired relationship between the child and the target parent, the term “paren-child relational problem” may be used. If the focus of clinical attention is on the parent who caused the child’s parental alienation through manipulation and indoctrination, the term “child psychological abuse” may be used.” (p. 575)

FURTHER READING: Child Affected by Parental Relationship Distress (CAPRD)

These three family relational problems are cited in Kaplan and Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry – the basic textbook of psychiatry. Parental alienation – by that signifier -is listed here under the section entitled “child psychological abuse.”

Further Reading: Kaplan and Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook on Psychiatry

I have only scratched the surface of parental alienation’s recognition in the scientific and psychiatric communities. Please refer to the reference list for some additional – but hardly all – of these references.

FURTHER READING: Assessing Parental Alienation Through the Scientific Method

PA is Examples of DSM-5-TR Relational Problems

Child Psychological Abuse
Child Affected by Parental Relationship Distress (CAPRD)
Parent-Child Relational Problem
Domestic Violence
Domestic Violence by Proxy
Child or Adolescent Antisocial Behavior
Delusional Disorder
Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another

1. Child Psychological Abuse by the Alienating Parent Who:

Undermines the child’s psychological need for the alienated parent.
Sanctions and encourages the child’s antisocial treatment of the alienated parent.
Berates and terrorizes the child to compel loyalty.
Makes the child complicit in breaking the law by violating the alienated parent’s court-ordered parenting time.
Manipulates the child to make false child abuse and child sexual abuse against the alienated parent.
Compromises the child’s cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal skills and maturity.
Uses the child to fulfill that parent’s emotional needs and desires.
Uses the child to spy on and lie to the alienated parent for purposes that benefit the alienating parent.
Disrupts and severs the child’s relationships with the entire extended family of the alienated parent.
And more.

FURTHER READING: Parental Alienation and Child Psychological Abuse in The DSM-5

2. Child Affected by Parental Relationship Distress (CAPRD) When the Alienating Parent:

Triangles the child into parental conflicts.
Requires the child’s allegiance and loyalty.
Enmeshes the child in efforts to conquer and defeat the alienated parent.
Exploits the child to be used as a spy against the alienated parent.
Uses the child as a mouthpiece/puppet to express the alienating parent’s wishes, desires, and opinions.
Sides with the alienating parent in custody, financial, marital, and legal matters.
Manipulate the child to testify against the alienated parent.
Uses the child to pass messages to the alienated parent.
And more.

3. Parent-Child Relational Problem

Child’s pathological enmeshment with the alienating parent.
Child’s harmful, dysfunctional detachment from the alienated parent.
Child’s maltreatment and disengagement from alienated parent when there is any contact.
Child’s over-empowerment in relation to both parents.
Child’s denigration and humiliation of the alienated parent.
Child’s false accusations of child abuse against the alienated parent.

FURTHER READING: Parental Alienation – Proven Truth or Myth?

4. Domestic Violence of the Child by the Alienating Parent

The alienating parent must employ excessive, cruel coercive control and manipulation of the child to force the child to override the instinct for survival to have and need a parent and thereby reject the alienated parent.

Domestic violence occurs because the alienating parent must employ excessive, cruel coercive control of the child to rob the child of the child’s own feelings, opinions, and wishes regarding the alienated parent and to substitute the alienating parent’s feelings, wishes, and beliefs.

Numerous behaviors occurring in alienation meet the criteria of domestic violence of the child by the alienating parent.

5. Domestic Violence by Proxy

Domestic violence by proxy occurs because of the alienating parent’s encouragement and sanction of the child’s emotional maltreatment and physical assault of the alienated parent and defiance of the alienating parent’s supervision.

Many behaviors occurring in the alienation dynamic meet the criteria of domestic violence by proxy (as when the alienating parent encourages and sanctions the child’s emotional maltreatment and physical assault of the alienated parent.

6. Child or Adolescent Antisocial Behavior

As reflected in alienated children’s emotional and physical maltreatment and assault of the alienated parent and extended family.

These behaviors, coached and permitted by the alienating parent, are particularly harmful to the child because the seed is being planted for the development of an antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Once it becomes characterological, generally some time in adolescences, it is virtually irreversible.

It must be noted that, when defying, maltreating, and emotionally abusing a parent is normalized and encouraged, the child transfers these antisocial behaviors to all authority figures and in all settings.

7. Delusional Disorder

This occurs as a consequence of the child’s pathological enmeshment with the alienating parent resulting in the child feeling compelled to introject the alienating parent’s highly distorted—if not delusional—views of the alienated parent and of the family history.

8. Factitious Disorder Imposed on Another

This occurs because alienating parents coerce their children to make threats of suicide or to claim other severe psychiatric symptoms as a means to avoid contact with the alienated parent, who is blamed for having caused the child’s symptoms.

Some professionals have incomprehensively accepted this prima facia claim that the alienated parent is the cause of the child’s symptoms—even when there had been no contact with the child for many years.

Conclusion

The phenomenon of parental alienation – that is, the family dynamics occurring in it – are recognized and known in the psychiatric community. The phenomenon labelled parental alienation has been found to be a profound form of child psychological abuse.

The mental health and judicial communities need to take immediate action to prevent the perpetuation of the child abusive family phenomenon known as “parental alienation.” These communities need to stop dancing to the tune of, and asking how high to jump by, abusive alienating parents, self-aggrandizing child exploiters, and reporters seeking sensationalism.

Alienated children are being immeasurably harmed by these bad actors, who are distracting the Courts’ attention from the child abuse being committed by alienating parents.

References

Kaplan and Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook on Psychiatry Accepts Parental Alienation

Recurrent Misinformation About Parental Alienation

No Support for Discrimination Against Mothers in Alienation Court Cases

Current Misinformation Regarding Parental Alienation Theory

Turning Points for Families Evaluation

The Reality of Parental Alienation: Response to Clemente et. al

Parental Alienation, DSM-5, and ICD-11: Response to Critics

Developmental Psychology and the Scientific Status of Parental Alienation

Parental Alienation is in the DSM-5-TR: But Not the Actual Words

Parental Alienation References

Parental Alienation: Everything You Wanted to Know

Rejecting the Rejection of Parental Alienation: Comment on Mercer

Response to Houchin et. al in JAAPL

The Child’s Attorney, the Alienated Child and Diminished Capacity

The Illusionary Correlation Between Parental Alienation and other Forms of Family Violence

Manifestations of an Alienated Child as Seen by an Expert

Critique of the Critics of Parental Alienation

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Parental Alienation is in the DSM-5-TR