INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING PARENTAL ALIENATION
AND ICD-11
William
Bernet, M.D. – April 4, 2017
GENERAL INFORMATION
The International
Classification of Diseases is published by the World Health Organization
(WHO). The current edition is called
ICD-10, which is being revised and will become ICD-11. WHO says that ICD-11 will be published in
2018. The revision process has gone on
for several years, but it seems that only now have they started to draft the
text for topics such as relationship problems and child maltreatment.
If you want to participate in the development of ICD-11,
the first step is to register with ICD-11 Beta Draft. You can Google that phrase and you’ll get to
their home page, which is: http://apps.who.int/classifications/icd11/browse/f/en. There is a button on the upper right hand
corner for “Register,” so you go there and fill out their forms. After you are registered, you can go to the
various parts of their large website that may interest you.
Within the ICD-11 Beta Draft website you will be able to
make a comment about something already in their system or simply indicate that
you agree or disagree with a previous comment.
GENERAL NAVIGATION
On the ICD-11 Beta Draft website, the
outline of the entire ICD-11 is on the left hand side of the page. Information that relates to parental
alienation is NOT under the heading, “Mental, behavioural, and
neurodevelopmental disorders,” although you might want to look under that
heading to see what is there.
Information that relates to parental alienation is toward
the bottom of the list under the heading, “Factors influencing health status or
contact with health services.” (That
section is similar to the part of DSM-5 called “Other Conditions That May Be a
Focus of Clinical Attention.”)
Under “Factors
influencing health status or contact with health services” there is a
subheading called “Factors influencing health status.” Expand that file.
There are
17 items under “Factors influencing health status,” including “Factors
associated with relationships.”
Expand the
file for “Factors associated with relationships” and you will find “Factors
associated with interpersonal relationships in childhood.”
Expand
that file and you will finally find “Caregiver-child relationship problem.” (That is comparable to the DSM-5 term,
“parent-child relational problem.”) If
you explore under “Caregiver-child relationship problem,” you will eventually
see both “parental alienation” and “parental estrangement.” If you are registered and logged in, each of
those terms has a small orange marker.
Click on the markers and you will see that I have already added proposals
to include the definitions of parental alienation and parental estrangement.
NOTE: You can skip all the steps described here by
simply using the Beta Draft search function.
If you search for “parental alienation,” you will immediately go to the
page for “Caregiver-child relationship problem.”
MAKING COMMENTS AND ENDORSEMENTS
You can navigate within the Beta Draft even
if you are not registered with ICD-11.
If you are not registered and logged in, you can see “parental
alienation” and “parental estrangement” under “Caregiver-child relationship
problem.” However, unless you are
registered and logged in, you cannot see the definitions that I have proposed
and you cannot add your own comments.
If you do register and log in, you can make
comments. In particular, you can AGREE
(or DISAGREE) with the definitions that I have already posted. Also, you can add your own COMMENT. Make sure you hit SUBMIT or SEND YOUR COMMENT
after you enter something.
If you have questions about any of this, you can contact
me at
