IMDs proposed to capture complex individual and systemic interactions for new diagnostic framework.

What is it about?

For well over forty years practitioners in the field of behavioral health and other professionals in legal as well as medical settings have struggled to understand and identify complex interactions between people, families and institutions. In this article the term Interrelated Multidimensional Diagnosis (IMD) has been proposed to capture these phenomenon.

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Why is it important?

Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy, Factitious Disorder by Proxy, and Parental Alienation are a threat to the health and welfare as well as the best interests of children. Interrelated Multidimensional Diagnoses (IMDs), offer the prospect of a scientific way of identifying the pathological dynamic at the core of these phenomena through step-wise processes and proofs. According to the literature on these matters Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy and Factitious Disorder by Proxy are the most lethal phenomenon that Child Protective Services personnel encounter wherein approximately 7-8% of these children die and same number suffer permanent disabling injuries due to such abuses. In Parental Alienation, the literature speaks to how these children suffer attachment rifts and lose the basic capacity to trust. The natural consequences follow them into their adult lives and capacity to function. Practitioners, professionals and researchers have been in need of a different vantage point from which to view, and scientifically understand these phenomena in a fashion that breeds agreement and understanding to serve these children. It is proposed that the concept of an IMD offers this possibility by taking a systems perspective and noting that these diagnoses are not 'in' the adult or the child but the result of stresses and systemic interactions.