Parental Alienation, DSM-5 , and ICD-11

Abstract

Reviews the book, Parental Alienation, DSM-5 and ICD-11 edited by William Bernet and Ralph Slovenko (2010). Most clinicians have wondered about how children deal with such dilemmas that are forcibly superimposed on their tender years. In such circumstances, it is not uncommon for children to align with one parent's viewpoint while rejecting outright the other, a phenomenon often referred to as parental alienation. This book, discusses this concept and the accompanying research, while making a fairly convincing argument to introduce this concept in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). The book defines parental alienation as when a child, usually one whose parents are engaged in a high conflict divorce, allies himself or herself strongly with one parent and rejects strongly the other parent without legitimate justification. This book is thorough and systematically covers all the reasons for inclusion of parental alienation syndrome (PAS) in DSM-5. It is important to note, however, that this book is not intended to be a comprehensive source for the deeper psychological discussion of PAS or the psychosocial ramifications of including it as a diagnosis in everyday psychiatric practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)