23External causes of morbidity or mortality Maltreatment
PJ22
category
Psychological maltreatment
Definition Non-accidental verbal or symbolic acts that result in significant psychological harm. The category is applied to the victim of the maltreatment, not the perpetrator.
Also indexed as
Psychological maltreatment mental cruelty
International Classification of Diseases, Eleventh Revision (ICD-11), World Health Organization (WHO) 2019/2021, https://icd.who.int/browse11. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 3.0 IGO (CC BY-ND 3.0 IGO).
Release 2026-01.
View this entity in the official WHO ICD-11 browser .
This page reproduces WHO classification content for reference. It is not
medical advice and must not be used to diagnose or treat. For coding
decisions, consult the official release and your national coding guidelines.
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