Is parental alienation a mental health disorder?
New York The American Psychiatric Association has a hot potato on its hands as it updates its catalog of mental disorders — whether to include parental alienation, a disputed term conveying how a child’s relationship with one estranged parent can be poisoned by the other. There’s broad agreement that this sometimes occurs, usually triggered by a divorce and child-custody dispute. But there’s bitter debate over whether the phenomenon should be formally classified as a mental health syndrome — a question now before the psychiatric association as it prepares the first complete revision since 1994 of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. “We’re gotten an enormous amount of mail — more than any other issue,” said Dr. Darrel Regier, vice chair of the task force drafting the manual. “The passions on both sides of this are exceptional.” On one side of the debate, which has raged since the 1980s, are feminists, advocates for battered women and others who consider “parental
