The American Psychiatric Association is deciding whether to include parental alienation in the updated catalog of mental disorders. Parental alienation is a term used to describe how one parent can affect their child’s relationship with the other parent. The board agrees that this disorder exists, but is unsure if it should be classified as a mental health disorder. This debate has been ongoing since the 1980’s, feminist, and advocates for battered women consider “parental alienation” to be a useful tool for men to excuse abusive behavior. The other side of the argument, hope that the recognition of the disorder will lead to fairer divorce settlements and enable children of divorce to get the treatment they need to be able to reconcile with their estranged parent.
This article caught my attention, for years I have watched this process of parental alienation from the sidelines, and at times experienced it for myself. The syndrome does exist, and plays a horrible role in the lives it affects. In some cases, the parent brings on the parental alienation themselves, by making the child choose which parent to side with in unpleasant situations. The fact that the medical community has taken so many years to decide if this is a mental disorder, does surprise me. I do think that if it were as a mental disorder that it would help people to understand why it happens, and maybe, be able to help dislocate its place in our society.
You did a really good job of summarizing this article. It is very interesting that they are researching parenting alienation as a mental disorder. Me and my oldest son's father are not together anymore and it is very hard to get along with him sometimes, but I really don't want that to interfere with us being parents to our son. I believe he needs his mom and his dad in his life. I'm glad my son is only 3 so he doesn't know really what goes on, but I hope we both can get along for our son's sake and hope we never try to have our son chose sides.
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