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There is no scientific consensus that "parental alienation" (or "parental alienation syndrome") is a valid, reliably diagnosable clinical condition; it is not recognized as a disorder in the DSM-5 or ICD-11, leading scholars dispute whether it has achieved construct validity, and its use in custody litigation — especially to rebut abuse allegations — is empirically associated with gendered, sometimes harmful outcomes. A child's resistance to a parent is better explained by multiple factors than by a single alienating-parent model.