A number of publications in professional journals in
the last few years have argued strongly against the idea of parental alienation
(PA)-- the belief that when a child of divorced
parents avoids contact with one parent, the reason is likely to be that the preferred
parent has “brainwashed” the child into this negative attitude. Journal articles
have pointed out that PA advocates have given no acceptable scientific evidence
to support their views, and in addition the treatments advised by PA proponents
may be not only ineffective but harmful.
Because of this
lack of supportive evidence, PA advocates were unable to get their claimed “syndrome”
listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published
by the American Psychiatric Association when a new edition was published in
2013. The goal of inclusion in DSM-5 was an important one for PA proponents
because this would be the key to payment for PA treatments by health insurance
companies, who require a DSM code diagnosis.
It seems as if PA advocates and practitioners of PA
treatments should recognize that they have been called out, but they are
continuing to fight, and the money and power associated with bringing the PA
concept into the courtroom are no doubt good enough reasons to do this. There are
two fronts on which PA-related conflicts are intense right now.
One area of conflict is the International
Classification of Diseases (ICD) produced by the Workd Health Organization. ICD
includes both mental and physical disease and provides codes as DSM does,
though DSM does this for mental illness only. The eleventh edition of ICD is in
preparation. ICD-11 will not include PA as a diagnosis—there is no argument
about that. There is, however, conflict over the proposed conclusion of PA as
an index term. That means that a person could look up PA in the ICD-11 index,
find it, and be directed to a page discussing child-parent relationship problems.
This is legitimately seen by opponents of PA beliefs as the camel’s nose under
the tent, with indexing of the term suggesting that there is a meaningful
concept there, possibly to be followed by a later acceptance of PA as an ICD
diagnosis. Comments have proliferated on the WHO website, with most of them
arguing that PA should be included. An interesting comment recently was a masterpiece
of irrelevant conclusion, arguing in favor of the inclusion of Craig Childress’s
views and comparing statements about the lack of evidence for PA to climate
science denial (apparently the fact that some denials are incorrect is taken as
proof that this, and maybe all, denials must also be incorrect). Interested
readers can find this material on the WHO website and can set up an account to
read it.
A second area of conflict for PA opponents and
proponents has to do with the demonstrated association between allegations of
PA against one parent and domestic violence or child abuse by the other parent.
It appears that women who charge their husbands with DV or abuse are more
likely to have it alleged that they, the women, are interfering with the fathers’
relationships with their children and thus causing PA. This has come to the
point where women may be afraid to state that they or their children have been
abused because this statement may be taken as evidence that they are “brainwashing”
the children and that they are irrationally hostile toward their husbands. In
family courts, these arguments may well result in court orders prohibiting a
mother to have contact with a child, making complete custody change to the
father, and sending the child to a parental alienation treatment at the mother’s
expense. Once these events have occurred, the possibility that the mother will
regain contact (much less custody) diminish in a number of ways that would be
familiar to Franz Kafka.
One belief behind this series of events is that family
courts are biased against men and therefore, in all fairness, and to right this
wrong, men’s claims and wishes should be given extra consideration. This idea appears
to be a myth, and thus any effort to put a judicial thumb on the father’s side
of the scale is going to create bias against mothers. The Guardian discusses
this issue here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2020/mar/05/family-courts-biased-men-dangerous-fallacy-abuse Biased
outcomes are undesirable in all cases, but they are actually
dangerous if they lead to custody of children being given to abusers.
The argument thus goes on, but it seems to me that only
the anti-PA side is paying any attention to the facts about outcomes.
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