Parental Alienation

What is Parental Alienation?

Parental alienation involves a concerted effort on the part of one parent to program and brainwash a child into disliking or hating the other parent for unjustified reasons. It is a term used by mental health and legal professionals to describe both a complex form of child psychological abuse (i.e., isolating, exploiting/corrupting, terrorizing) and a diagnostic label for identifying a pathologically disturbed parent-child relationship between an alienating parent and a child victim (Wygant, 2020).

CHILD PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUSE: Parental alienation meets the standard definitions for child psychological and emotional abuse including those of: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5) and The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) Handbook of Child Maltreatment Fourth Edition:
- The DSM-5 defines “child psychological abuse” as any "nonaccidental verbal or symbolic acts by a child’s parent or caregiver that result, or have reasonable potential to result, in significant psychological harm to the child."
- The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children defines “psychological maltreatment” as “a repeated pattern or extreme incident(s) of caretaker behavior that thwart the child’s basic psychological needs” for “safety,” “socialization,” and “emotional … support.”
DIAGNOSTIC LABEL: The DSM-5 (2013) has two diagnostic codes which can be used for identifying parental alienation:
- V61.20 (Z62.820) Parent-Child Relational Problem (PCRP) - This diagnostic code appears on page 715 of the DSM-5 and should be used in cases where a child presents with “unwarranted feelings of estrangement” toward a target parent the primary cause of which is the alienating parent's use of “excessive parental pressure” or “parental overprotection” or “hostility toward" the target parent or "scapegoating" of the target parent. Parent-Child Relational Problem or PCRP for short “is a billable/specific ICD-10-CM code that can be used to indicate a diagnosis for reimbursement purposes.” It is important to note that “unwarranted feelings of estrangement” due to “excessive parental pressure” are specific diagnostic indicators of parental alienation. See Wamboldt, Cordaro, and Clark (2015)
- V61.29 (Z62.898) Child Affected by Parental Relationship Distress (CAPRD) can be used to help mental health professionals identify, treat, and prevent parental alienation symptoms and its sequelae in cases where “the negative effects of parental relationship discord” involve a concerted effort by one parent to harm or destroy a child's relationship with the other parent. CAPRD is a billable/specific ICD-10-CM code that can be used to indicate a diagnosis for reimbursement purposes. It is important to note that when children are negatively affected by parental relationship distress “the reactions of the child may include the onset or exacerbation of psychological symptoms, somatic complaints, an internal loyalty conflict, and, in the extreme, parental alienation, leading to loss of a parent-child relationship.” Typically, “a child affected by parental relationship distress displays impaired functioning in behavioral, cognitive, affective, and / or physical domains. Examples of behavioral problems include oppositionality and the child’s reluctance or refusal to have a relationship with a parent without a good reason (parental alienation)" (Bernet, Wamboldt, & Narrow, 2016)