Both championed and ridiculed, the term “parental alienation” has been bandied about since 1985, when Richard Gardner first coined the phrase, as a follow-up to his “Sex Abuse Legitimacy Scales.” Gardner was a psychiatrist who taught at Columbia University, and who frequently self-published via creative therapeutics.

Mental health professionals use the diagnostic statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-V) to make diagnoses; yet, the term “parental alienation” is not listed in the DSM-V. Why? For each disorder included in the DSM-V, a set of diagnostic criteria specifies the symptoms that must be present. In addition, other symptoms, disorders or conditions must be ruled out before a specific diagnosis is made. Advocates of the term “parental alienation” say it refers to an idea that if children exhibit certain behaviors or symptoms, those characteristics should somehow not be considered signs that the child was a victim of abuse. Instead, the very actions that were abusive are reframed, and cast against the person raising the alarm that the child has been a victim of abuse. Even with evidence indicating that there has been some type of child abuse, often a parent who raises an alarm is nonetheless accused of alienating the other parent’s affections from the children to the whistleblower’s detriment. The party that tries to alert the court often finds that voicing their concerns can be used against them in custody litigation.