Parental Alienation Syndrome: invention or reality?

This concept has long been controversial because of its legal implications.

Since the term parental alienation was first described by Richard Gardner in 1985, there have been many controversies and criticisms derived from this construct. The detractors of the concept have relied on different types of arguments to invalidate its existence in recent decades, which authors such as Suárez and Nodal (2017) have analyzed in a recent review with the aim of shedding some light on this complex phenomenon.

Thus. does the concept of Parental Alienation Syndrome have a basis? Let's take a look.

• Related article, "Parental divorce, how does it affect children?"

Parental Alienation Syndrome

Gardner's original definition of SAP referred to the "disturbance that usually appears in the context of a divorce, in which the child despises and criticizes one of his or her parents, when such negative evaluation is unjustified or exaggerated (in Vilalta Suárez, 2011)".

SAP implies that one parent perniciously influences the child to reject the other parent in those cases in which there is no evidence of any type of abuse by the alienated parent towards the child. Specifically, the following are included as defining signs of SAP (Vilalta Suárez, 2011):

• Existence of A denigration campaign.
• Frivolous or absurd rationalizations of the rejection of the parent.
• Lack of affective ambivalence towards parental figures.
• Appearance of the "independent thinker phenomenon", it is argued that the decision to reject is exclusive to the child.
• Automatic support for the "beloved" parent in any situation.
• Absence of guilt in the child for the expression of rejection.
• Appearance in the child's story of borrowed scenarios, which the child has not lived or cannot remember.
• The extension of the rejection to the family or environment of the rejected parent.

As referred to by the aforementioned authors, in the Practical Guide to Comprehensive Protection Measures against Gender Violence, prepared by a group of experts in the field and by the General Council of the Judiciary in 2016, the impossibility of validating the existence of SAP is alleged.

This categorization is based on the fact that such a psychological entity is not included in the current reference classification systems for mental disorders, such as the DSM-V. such as the DSM-V. This is especially relevant since this document becomes a fundamental guide in the field of forensic psychology and may in turn condition the conception that professionals in the area of clinical psychology have about the construct of SAP.

Critical analysis of the validation of SAP

In the work carried out by Suárez and Nodal (2017), different arguments are put forward that call into question the justifications offered by the detractors of SAP and the authors of the aforementioned Guide when it comes to invalidating its existence.

In the first place, it seems that the very nomenclature of SAP, defining it as a syndrome, has generated much debate as to whether it should be defined as a syndrome.The first is that the very nomenclature of SAP as a syndrome has generated much debate as to whether its conceptualization as a pathological phenomenon, a mental disorder or an illness, should be legitimized.

1. Pathologization of a relational phenomenon

According to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) a syndrome is defined by a set of signs and/or symptoms that based on their frequent concurrence may suggest a pathogenesis (DSM-IV-TR, 2014). While it is true that the "syndrome" element may be insufficiently scientifically justified in SAP, the existence of the situational phenomenon that parental alienation describes cannot be denied. that parental alienation describes. This can be considered independent of whether there is sufficient consensus to give it the nosology of a syndrome.

Related to the above, SAP has also not been included as such in any version of the DSM, although the debate on whether or not to include it was very present among the group of experts responsible for the official elaboration of the current manual.

2. The circular argument

In this sense, the authors of the paper argue that the fact that SAP was not finally included in the classification system, does not necessarily imply that its existence should be denied.. See the examples used as "battered woman syndrome" or homosexuality, which was defined as a mental disorder until 1973. Both justify the fact that, even if there is no specific diagnostic label for a psychological problem during a given period, it may still be relevant and of priority attention in clinical practice.

Thus, if SAP or PA (parental alienation) is finally contemplated in a future revision of the DSM, would this imply that only from that moment on could it be defined as a mental pathology and not before?

3. Alleged lack of interest from psychology

Another argument that Suárez and Nodal (2017) question refers to the belief that SAP has not been (and is not) the object of interest of the psychological scientific community. The text lists numerous papers that highlight precisely the opposite, although it is true that they also include meta-analysis studies that describe the difficulty of empirically validating SAP.. Therefore, it cannot be said that there is no interest in the scientific community in the clinical and forensic area in investigating and delimiting SAP (or AP) more objectively.

In addition to the above, it seems that in the field of jurisdiction, there are no rulings from the Supreme Court or the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights that intrinsically question the existence of SAP.

SAP and DSM-V

As discussed above, SAP is not recognized as a nosological entity in the DSM-V. However, in the section corresponding to "Problems that can be the object of clinical attention" it seems to contemplate an entity called "Parent-child relationship problems".

Considering its diagnostic criteria, this may be in line with what is defined in the SAP: problem with a psychological basis, related to family upbringing and causing functional impairment at behavioral, emotional and cognitive levels. Therefore, despite the fact that it is conceived as a relationship problem and not as a mental disorder, it seems that SAP or AP can be described in a way that enables its detection by means of specific defining indicators in real cases, the assessment on the need to require intervention at the psychological and/or forensic level and, finally, that allows in the future the continuation of research that will determine more accurately what implications SAP presents.

Bibliographical references:

• American Psychiatric Association, Kupfer, D. J., Regier, D. A., Arango Lopez, C., Ayuso-Mateos, J. L., Vieta Pascual, E., & Bagney Lifante, A. (2014). DSM-5: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Madrid [etc.]: Editorial Médica Panamericana.
• Escudero, Antonio, Aguilar, Lola, & Cruz, Julia de la. (2008). The logic of Gardner's Parental Alienation Syndrome (SAP): "threat therapy".Revista de la Asociación Española de Neuropsiquiatría,28(2), 285-307. Retrieved January 26, 2018, from http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0211-57352008000200004&lng=es&tlng=es.
• Suarez, R. J. V., & Nodal, M. W. (2017). On the Myth of Parental Alienation Syndrome (SAP) and the DSM-5. Papeles del psicólogo,38(3), 224-231.
• Vilalta Suárez, R. J. (2011). Description of Parental Alienation Syndrome in a forensic sample. Psicothema, 23(4).