Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

Divided Minds: The Treatment of Children Who Reject a Parent After Divorce or Separation

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karenwoodall

The Family Separation Clinic has provided treatment in cases where children reject a parent after divorce and separation since 2009. In doing so we have gathered a significant case file of outcomes of our work which are focused upon the experience of the child at the heart of a family system which is unable to make the crossing from together to apart successfully. Working with families where a parent is pushed to the margins of a child’s life or cut out from it completely, the entry point is always the lack of capacity in the child to relate to two parents. Presenting as a problem of child ‘contact’ after divorce or separation, what we are really treating is the onset of primitive defences of denial, splitting and projection, caused by inter-personal control dynamics in the adult relationship, enmeshment and other attachment maladaptations.

Knowing what we are treating is an important factor in the successful intervention with a family where children are hyper aligned with one parent and rejecting of the other, which means that understanding what is happening to the child must be the starting point for any intervention. Whilst many therapists approach this problem as one of a child’s relationship with their parents, the true problem is the child’s relationship with their own developing sense of self. The problem facing the child is the defensive ego splitting or fragmentation which is induced in a child who is placed in a double bind by a parent, the impact of which is effectively described in the psychological literature (Bion, 1962; Ferenzi, 1913; Joseph 1987; Winnicott, 1945).

Understanding ego splitting and its aetiology is an essential part of therapeutic intervention with children who align with a parent and reject the other after divorce and separation. Understanding why some children are vulnerable to this and others are not, enables a focus upon the child at the heart of this family drama rather than a binary blame and shame approach in which one parent is always seen as the good parent and the other is always seen as bad. This binary splitting, which is seen in those who work from a parental perspective with the problem of a child’s rejection, keeps the focus of the therapist on parental behaviours, meaning that time is constantly spent trying to keep parents behaving well, which is a little like the circus trick of keeping plates spinning all the time. If a therapist focuses upon parental behaviours as the core problem in the scenario of a child’s alignment and rejection, then they will waste time either trying to fix the parent who is rejected or fix the parent to whom the child is aligned. In such circumstances, the problem of splitting, which originates in the child, remains untreated, explaining why, so many children who have been treated using a reunification camp strategy of removal from one parent and placement with the other, emerge on their 18th birthday with the binary split still present and their allegiance to a once influencing parent unchallenged.

The problem we are treating is not parental behaviour but the impact on the child which is the primitive defence of psychological splitting and all of its attendant symptoms. This primitive defence is signalled by the projection onto parents of good and bad and if untreated will continue on a trajectory in which the child maladapts their attachments to parents over time, including finding reasoning for rejection and alignment which can appear strange and without meaning. This is because psychological splitting is infantile in nature, it has returned the child to the paranoid/schizoid position described by Klein (1946) and it is preventing healthy onward development towards ambivalence.

When we treat the problem in the child we begin by understanding the pressure points around the child and as court involved psychotherapists, we ask for intervention which relieves the pressure on the child and in some circumstances, we seek protection for the child. We cannot avoid the need to make structural changes around the child who is in the psychologically split state of mind because to do so would be unethical in that we would be asking the child to change in circumstances where to do so would be to place them at further risk of harm. Structural change must therefore come first and only when that is in place, can therapeutic work to treat the underlying attachment maladaptations be undertaken.

Treating attachment maladaptations requires a parent in the rejected position to thoroughly understand the behaviour of alienated children in recovery. Like all children who have been abused, psychological splitting causes attachment behaviour which is difficult to understand. Children who have suffered threat of abandonment (if you love him I will leave you) or enmeshment (you must feel like me otherwise I cannot love you) or control strategies (if you love her I will hurt you like I hurt her), do not emerge from this in a straight line but show instead both a lack of awareness of healthy relating and a confusion over boundaries between themselves and adults. A therapist trying to treat a child in this situation, must first ensure that the parent in the rejected position is recovered from their own reactive splitting before they utilise the co-therapy model of intervention. Without the co-therapy model, where therapist and parent work together to enable the child to recover the integrated self, the child cannot fully re-integrate, this is because integration requires the confrontation with the split off part of self which is hidden in the unconscious mind of the child.

Successful work with alienated children recovers the whole child not part selves of the child. When full integration occurs, the child returns to the unconscious experience of childhood which was violated by the triangulation into the adult relationship. This is denoted by the child’s return to ambivalence in which the adult relationship is not of interest, this releases the child’s intra-psychic energy for healthy development over the lifetime.

Family Separation Clinic News

The Clinic is engaged in changing the narrative around alienated children and their families through the delivery of practical support to families, the family courts, social services and other family support services. To support that we are currently engaged in the following projects –

The Handbook of Therapeutic Parenting in Divorce and Separation by Karen Woodall will be available soon. This is the key text for parents who wish to help their children to heal from attachment maladaptations after divorce and separation.

The Clinical Handbook for Pracitioners wishing to work successfully with alienated children and their families by Nick Woodall and Karen Woodall will be available soon. This is the key text for practitioners seeking an approach to recovery for children which is grounded in psychological literature.

The Family Separation Clinic is currently engaged in pathfinder partnerships with Local Authorities in three countries, embedding social work focused practice in cases where children are psychological and emotionally harmed in divorce and separation.

Parent resources, including Holding up a Healthy Mirror to watch on demand are in development.

Practitioners resources to support practice with families using the psychological literature combined with established psychotherapeutic skill-sets are in development.

Therapeutic Parenting Intensives will be held in California, USA (January 2024, South East England UK, Summer 2024, Australia 2025. (More information from karen@karenwoodall.blog)

Instructing in Court The Clinic can only be instructed in the High Court of England and Wales, Republic of Ireland and Hong Kong. Unfortunately we do not have any capacity for any instructions until late 2024.

We are also engaged in several other projects which are focused upon the experiences of children in residence transfer in the UK and the experience of trauma in childhood.

References

Bion, W. (1962b) Learning from Experience. London: Heinemann.

Ferenczi, S. (1913) ‘Stages in the development of a sense of reality’, in First Contributions to the Theory and Technique of Psycho-Analysis. London: Hogarth Press (1952), pp. 213-239.

Joseph, B. (1987) ‘Projective identification – some clinical aspects’, in J. Sandler (ed.) Projection, Identification, Projective Identification. Madison, CT: International Universities Press, pp. 65-76.

Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 27, 99–110.

Winnicott, D.W. (1945) ‘Primitive emotional development’. International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 26: 137-142.

6 responses to “Divided Minds: The Treatment of Children Who Reject a Parent After Divorce or Separation”

  1. LeilaC

    Karen, I really appreciate your work! Your articles are so informative and to the point. When will “The Handbook of Therapeutic Parenting in Divorce and Separation” be available?

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    1. karenwoodall

      I am hoping by the autumn Leila, I am working hard on it at the moment x

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  2. Pauline

    This is fabulous thank you.
    Just as an aside, thinking out aloud and hoping it will be helpful, do you know that Otto Rank, a young man whom Freud was very close and once considered his ‘“intellectual son”(he was 18 when he joined the original psychoanalytical society, wrote the first psychoanalytical PhD, under Freud’s supervision, was completely alienated by Freud when he learned that Rank supposedly undermined his Opedal Complex Theory with his thesis “The Trauma of Birth”. Freuds colleagues, (all high ranking and old Victorians like Freud himself) were jealous of Rank’s close position to Freud. The reason I write to you Karen is to inform you that in my research Rank’s work which was highly attuned to Frenczi and Klein’s early theories of trauma, attachment and intersubjectivity didn’t go unnoticed. It was taken up by a group of pioneering social workers who adopted ‘functional theory’. Most of these functional social workers like Bertha Renelds were discredited for their pioneering work with women and people of colour. I might be completely wrong but with increasing understanding of neuroscience and psychology I see the reemergence of Rank’s theories and coaching replacing‘therapy’ . I hope I am right because as a rejected parent I see the need for coaching for myself and I am looking forward to doing your course which you keep on saying will be online by the end of the year.

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    1. karenwoodall

      thank you for directing me to this resource Pauline, I will look this up, I am always learning about what is really happening to these children.

      Yes I keep on saying HUAHM will be online and I promise it will. We are working on bringing to life a whole new raft of resources all at the same time and it is a tough ask but we are doing it. I hope you will be able to watch HUAHM on demand in the Autumn months.

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  3. Bob Rijs

    Self-Esteem and Positive Psychology
    Research, Theory, and Practice Christopher J. Mruk, PhD Fourth Edition

    4. Major Self-Esteem Theories and Programs 127

    In addition, excessive avoidance leads to chronic defensiveness, which creates its own burden: In turning away from the truth, we are trapped by it because now we must manage both the conflict and the false solution we offer it. Ultimately, habitual avoidance results in a phenomenon the authors call “impression management,” which means having to maintain a facade as well as continuing to avoid the threat that gave rise to it. This stance toward the world and others requires a massive expenditure of perceptual, psychological, interpersonal, and behavioral energies.

    The more we choose avoiding over coping, the more likely serious distortions and unrealistic behaviors are to occur. If impression management continues long enough, then low self-esteem develops and with it comes an increased sensitivity to threats or even the possibility of threats.

    Eventually, this self-fulfilling prophecy leads to more serious difficulties, including the development of abnormal or pathological behavior.

    Of course, the healthy way to deal with conflict is to cope, and coping works the same way: Conflicts arise, we respond, and sooner or later these patterns also become self-fulfilling. The difference is that these dynamics are based on facing the problem honestly, tolerating discomfort and uncertainty while doing so, taking psychological risks associated with being
    open to one’s shortcomings, and, above all, taking responsibility for one’s actions. Either way, Bednar et al. make it clear that most of us eventually tend in one direction more than the other and the patterns become set.

    From this position, changing self-esteem must be based on the laws governing feedback, circularity, and self-regulation. The authors point out, for instance, that to survive, complex systems can never really be completely closed; they must always maintain the ability to adapt to changes in the environment because change is an environmental fact. Hence, new
    kinds of feedback can affect old patterns so that significant changes may occur. It is even possible for new homeostatic balance to be reached. In this case, the most effective way to increase self-esteem is quite clear: Stop avoiding conflicts and begin to face them. If this new and positive information is entered into the self-esteem frequently or powerfully enough (feedback), then the system ought to respond (circularity). Such an adjustment (self-regulation) would change the self-fulfilling nature to a more virtuous cycle of higher self-esteem instead of the vicious one associated with lower self-esteem.

    HERE’S A SIMPLE ATTEMPT TO FURTHER THE PHILOSOPHY OF THIS SITUATION AND HOW THE CONTACT, EDUCATION, BOND, AND HOME SITUATION IS BETWEEN PARENT AND CHILD!

    The compulsion to structurally maintain the fantasy world.

    This is a good example of self-denial, because, from an inner conflict, one reacts impulsively with a survival mechanism that distorts reality, when the person is addressed to that distorted reality again causes inner conflict, reacts impulsively again with a survival mechanism, whereby again the reality is distorted.

    The person has no support for reality, so the person has problems with everyone with a healthy reality check, where communicating about communication is not valued, feedback is an insult, criticism is a crime, inner experiences of others are incriminating, authentic feelings and emotions are not tolerated, social-emotional support should not be expected.

    People are forced to go along with that paradox where all social personal boundaries, civil rights, authentic feelings and emotions, the inner world of experience, own perception, own opinion, and mutual reciprocity have no right to exist!

    And at the same time the greatest fear of not being considered full.

    Self-destructiveness & Toxic Hostile Environment.

    To maintain this delusional fantasy world with their offspring is only possible,
    when everybody with a healthy sense of reality testing can’t ever interact with the child,
    because the inner world and experiences of the child (began to pose a threat to the parent when the reality is exposed at school or through friends on the street) should never become a topic of conversation, nor is it for the child allowed to solve the untenable situation the child is in, so any form of social-emotional support towards the child is actually a source of danger for the parent’s experience.

    Subsequently, any bond of trust that a child forms with another is viewed by the parent’s perception as a direct threat. So every person in a child’s life is the trigger for inner conflict with the parent who takes it out on the child on autopilot.

    That is a (demoralizing) conditioning process.

    Subsequently, any form of contact with the child will cause inner conflicts in the child, (because when the parent at home notices this bond will trigger an inner conflict, where the parent impulsively punishes the child and demoralize the child to having close friends for their own safety) so the conflict at home is also avoided or spared.

    Not only is the parent in a pertinent state of continuous inner conflict, but it just takes time for the child in this suffocating relationship to also be in a pertinent state of inner conflict.

    And the biggest question:

    Why does the child reject the other parent in this (loveless) situation?

    Because the other parent is aggressive, hostile, and dangerous?

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  4. Divided Minds: The Treatment of Children Who Reject a Parent After Divorce or Separation – Het Verloren Kind

    […] Date: 6 Jul 2023Author: karenwoodall […]

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