

Or a dad tells his child that their mom prefers her new family (and kids with a new partner) to them.Īccusations can be mild, or they can become incredibly severe. For example, perhaps mom tells her child that their dad doesn’t love them or want to see them. Parental alienation is when one parent discredits the other parent to a child or children the two share. That doesn’t mean the situation and its mental health effects don’t happen. So PAS isn’t really considered an official syndrome in the mental health or scientific fields, and it’s not something your child can be diagnosed with.

It stands to reason that it can affect mental health. And there’s no doubt that a damaged parent-child relationship can be a big problem. PAS also isn’t recognized as a mental health condition by the:īut the DSM-5 does have a code for “child affected by parental relationship distress,” which PAS would fall under.
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How do other experts in the field feel about this? First things first - there’s this large manual, called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5, since it’s currently in its 5th revision), that lists mental health conditions recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. The child psychologist who first coined the term parental alienation syndrome (PAS) in 1985, Richard Gardner, used it to describe behaviors in a child who is exposed to parental alienation (PA). What is this ‘syndrome’ - and is it real?
