Family Law

Psychiatrists to Determine If Parental Alienation is a Disorder

By guest-writer

We all know someone who was raised by divorced parents who didn?t get along with each other; in fact, many of us had that as a reality for our childhood. Now, there is a bitter debate among the American Psychiatric Association about whether parental alienation should be classified as an official disorder.

Parental alienation occurs when a child?s relationship with one estranged parent is poisoned by the other parent. According to the Associated Press, there is a generally agreement that this does occur, and is usually triggered during the child-custody dispute of a divorce.

But experts disagree on whether or not to officially classify this as a disease.

Dr. Darrel Regier, vice chair of the task force which is drafting the manual says that they have, ?gotten an enormous amount of mail ? more than any other issue. The passions on both sides of this are exceptional.?

Feminists are the driving side which would rather not have parental alienation as a disorder. This is because, as advocates for battered women, they feel if this is categorized as a syndrome, abusive men could use it to deflect attention from their abusive behavior.

Essentially, it would allow men who, based on their actions, would be disliked by their children, to claim that it is the woman?s fault.
Joan Meier, a professor at the George Washington University Law School and expert on domestic violence and child custody says that parental alienation ?is a fabricated notion ? there?s no science to support it.?

Many oppose this view point, however. The people who want this categorized as a disorder say that ?recognition of parental alienation in the psychiatrists? manual would lead to fairer outcomes in family courts and enable more children of divorce to get treatment so they could reconcile with an estranged parent.?

Parental alienation has begun to enter the legal realm as well. It is often used when a male is attempting to gain custody of a child when the child is reluctant to go with him. This was put in the public eye during the infamous divorce between Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.

During the divorce, Baldwin received sharp criticism from feminist groups for citing parental alienation syndrome as the course of his estrangement with his daughter.

It is a difficult legal maneuver to succeed with. Since the disorder isn?t currently recognized, it is difficult to prove that it is happening. Furthermore, it is a new concept to court rooms, so the weight to assign to it, and how to establish that the wife caused the poisoning is very difficult.

As the debate unfolds, the ramifications for the legal as well as psychiatric circle will be flushed out.

Full post as published by The Divorce Blog on October 11, 2010 (boomark / email).