Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

10 responses to “Boundary Holding in the Face of Rejection of Mothers by Their Children, (Alienation) Caused by Coercive Controlling Fathers”

1. Christine

   July 16, 2023 at 9:25 am

   Thank you very much for this article. I might send this to my adult children who have chosen their father’s side after the separation. We were together 35 years, married 34. I just could not live with him any longer. He had pulled every bit of energy out of me. It is only after the separation that I realized he is a narcissist and he had been manipulating me and our 4 children all this time. Physical violence was not an everyday thing but emotional violence and counter parenting so much more, manipulating the children against me from a very young age. When I was 59 a childhood sweetheart lost his partner, I went to console him and he consoled me. That’s when all hell broke loose. My adult children won’t talk to me because I should have gotten a divorce first before starting a new relationship. Life happens! Their father went astray many times but “Mum, he’s a man, that is different”. He has a pension of more than € 7000/month and I have the minimum pension. For 35 years I made sure to do all I could for him to get a good pension for us! The children now agree with their father, if I wanted that pension, I should have stayed with him. They don’t realize they are being manipulated. I had a narcissistic mother (still around) and he used everything I told him about her against me. At the time of the separation I was naive enough to think that we could sit around the table like adults, and split our belongings, for our good and that of our 4 children. Instead, he drove such a wig between all of us. I suffer from CPTSD in a big way but I am determined to get out of this.

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2. Gwen Shuttleworth

   July 16, 2023 at 1:59 pm

   Thank you for this article. As always you explain all of this so well. You have learned so much about this topic and do such a great job educating those of us that follow your work. You have many, many supporters in this very difficult and challenging environment. Thank you so much. From a mother that has been rejected by my four children for a very long time!!

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3. nicolerobbins92

   July 16, 2023 at 10:14 pm

   I have been recommended to your blog as I am currently dealing with this and I have no where to turn to. So far your blogs are have explained alot now ill continue to read to find answers. Thank you x

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4. Bob Rijs

   July 18, 2023 at 3:04 am

   Understanding Domestic Violence: Theories, Challenges, and Remedies Edited by Rafael Art. Javier and William G. Herron

   DYNAMICS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

   Our initial assumption is that all individuals have genetic and constitutional propensities for aggression. We base this view on both the material supporting innate aggression, and on the idea that if aggression needs a facilitating environment, as obstacles to overcome, expression requires a capacity for aggression. In essence, an action cannot be learned if there is no constitutional ability to perform it.

   However, we have limited ability to either assess or control genetic predispositions, but they usually require “triggers” for activation. These provide opportunities for observation and alteration once the stimuli are identified. This premise is in accord with the “dark side” metaphor representing an apparent prevalent tendency in humanity.

   Added to this are environmental forces that result in a tendency to engage in microaggressions (Sue, 2010), frequently common unconscious aggressive behavior toward others that is hostile, but not viewed as such by the aggressor. These have their basis in a culture of distrust regarding gender, race, and sexual orientation. The microaggressions have a strong possibility of remediation, but often lack recognition to the point of feeling factual, normal, and necessary.

   The underpinning is a distorted defensive structure in which the self is on permanent alert to the possibility of damage. The most likely culprits are the family, particularly designated caretakers, though the social, educational, and vocational environment are also possible contributors.

   In a family structure the potential abuser tends to have been developmentally stunted through abuse and neglect having a major impact on ego functions, particularly self-understanding and perception of the intentions of others. The interpersonal surroundings, starting at home, are hostile and other environments may also be that way, or perceived as such.

   Mastering this type of situation requires abnormal adaptation such as passive acceptance of unwarranted criticism. Doing this stifles both assertion and direct aggression against tormentors who are seen as more powerful, and often are that for some significant period of time.

   Chronicling the situation fostering this repressed cradle of anger is complex. Individuals have a differential reaction to seemingly equivalent deprivations due to a variety of intervening factors. These include constitutional components, as temperament and physical strength, as well as environmental possibilities, as social support from outside the family. These intervening possibilities also get differential usage.

   The result is the impossibility of identifying universal direct causality of psychopathology from child abuse. It is also not possible to have universal offsets to the effects of poor parenting and socioeconomic deprivation. At the same time, as noted in our earlier chapter, there are “markers” in the history of abusers, and a high-frequency marker is a history of damaged self-esteem.

   As a result we have a viable hypothesis that when the conditions for adaptation are not facilitating normal developmental growth, the subject of such conditions often feels compelled to seek alternatives. These are defensive maneuvers designed to satisfy the basic motivation of self-organization.

   People are always motivated by a type of narcissism, namely a personal perspective that may be healthy, pathological, or some mixture of the two (Herron, 1999). Narcissism is used here as a descriptive term devoid of moral or evaluative aspects.

   When one is abused the self-image is attacked and weakened. There is a loss of respect coming from both the abuser who disregards appropriate interpersonal boundaries, and from the abused, who is left with regret, guilt, and anger at not being able to maintain a self robust enough to avoid abuse.

   There is likely to be a mixture of feelings, an ambivalence about the cause of what is happening as well as what to do about the situation. Since abuse is coming from a person who is usually depicted as an object of love, both to be given and gotten from, it is usually difficult for the abused to have a firm sense of assigning blame.

   Moral masochism may pervade a pattern of abuse so that the abuse remains in the situation for some relatively lengthy duration. The time becomes necessary for the person to resolve a conflict as to whom the fault belongs.

   Another possibility is that the abused is a child or marital partner who lacks the resources to get out of the home. Then adaptation means blunting the attacks with what frequently turns out to be false hope of a reprieve.

   Displacement is also possible, with the abused expressing hostility toward others who can be victimized. Other possibilities are being emotionally rescued by understanding others who promote self-esteem, as a relative, teacher, or peers. Also, an abused person may have interests or abilities that are self-affirming as well as providing an emotional outlet, such as musical ability or athleticism.

   It is also possible that an understanding of irrational behavior and an ability to forgive its effects may take place through exposure to certain philosophical or moral concepts.

   Abusers often embrace their own view of righteousness through distorting religious concepts of justice, but in the process may involve their family in religion, inadvertently providing an opportunity for a differing view of a moral code.

   While all who are abused are left with the fact of having received such distorted care, some escape its more negative impact through various positive alternative adaptations, but many do not. The most damaged survivors are particularly limited in their ability to relate to others. Some of these people avoid relationships, and within this group some are aware of the reasons for their avoidance while others are not. Those who are aware are more likely to seek therapeutic help and make good use of it. They are motivated to get what they missed, so despite their adaptation anxieties, they can work in therapy to restore self-esteem and be able to express both love and aggression in constructive ways.

   This can also happen to those who are unaware of what is determining their isolation and potential for unwanted aggression. Unfortunately they are less likely to seek help, but through avoidance and rationalization they may not become involved in domestic violence.

   We are left with a rather large group of people, more males than females, who move into adulthood with a desire to relate, but without having learned effective relationship skills. Their models, previously their families, involved a hierarchy of status built on apparent strength that could, and would, be demonstrated through physical force if verbalization was not sufficient. Although not pleased with being the objects of violence, the process of identification nonetheless has its genesis in limited opportunities.

   Whether male or female, the parents are gender models for personal development. Thus it may be difficult to alter beliefs that although differing from other possibilities in the environment, are ingrained and more influential than suspected by those experiencing such family situations. The potential unconscious influence, given the degree of exposure, is very strong. Extensive damage happens, but those damaged may be both unaware of the impact and the need for appropriate remediation.

   Mentalization

   Abuse by love objects, particularly family members, engenders suspicion, anxiety, avoidance, anger, guilt, remorse, and self-doubt, among other disturbing affects. There is plenty of reality to support defensive positions, as paranoid, schizoid, depressed, resentful, any and all of them that are likely to disrupt interpersonal relations. A basic underlying defect is apparent in all of this which can be viewed structurally as a limitation in ego functioning as well as accompanying distortions of the superego and the expression of libido and aggression. Self-structure, attachment, and connection to others are all distorted, with one result being the misuse of aggression in domestic situations.

   This can occur through difficulty in developing an effective process of mentalization, which is a theory of the mind that explains to one person the intentions of another (Fonagy, Gergeley, Jurist, & Target, 2002). The mentalization system is part of the normal developmental process. It is implicit at about 18 months and explicit between four and six years (Josephs & McLeod, 2014). False beliefs that may develop include insistence on only one interpretation of behavior, denial of self-deception, anger at differing viewpoints, projection of anger in others, and justification of the “correct” view based on apparent objectivity. Such distortion of mentalization is aimed at diminishing or obliterating the appreciation of diverse perspectives.

   How does this come about? The self perceives threats to secure attachment and social standing (Fonagy et al., 2002) and defensively becomes angry. There is a repetitive circular process of distorted mentalization, anger, increased distortion, and increased anger (Josephs & McLeod, 2014). Empathy disappears in a preoccupation with being correct and others being wrong.

   Physical force is viewed as necessary to make one’s point, and it often matters little what the other really thinks or does. The other is perceived as being wrong and so must be punished in order to be put on the right path. A pattern of domestic violence begins through identification with a pathological theory of the mind (deficient mentalization) involving a false sense of reality (limited ego function) terminating in hostile aggression supported by superego distortion, e.g., “I hit you for your own good.”

   There is evidence that abused children opt out of attempting to reflect on the mental status of their abusers as a defense against the paradoxical loss of love they are experiencing (Fonagy & Target, 1995) and in so doing limit their mentalization. A developmental pattern of perceived abuse is actualized in the family situation, introjected, and subsequently carried forward when the abused has the opportunity to become the abuser. The theory of the mind that develops restricts intersubjectivity and the appreciation of different perspectives. A dominance hierarchy supported by the expression of anger is considered necessary for self-preservation.

   Anger in the domestic abuser appears to be an attempt to maintain or increase status in the family relationship. The need to do this seems to come from feeling downgraded and emotionally injured by the partner or other family members. The engendered feelings remind the abuser of similar prior relational experiences. Reactive anger crystallizes as justification for violence.

   “In enraged states the intentions of others are apprehended in terms of psychic equivalence and the teleologic stance as though the intentions of others are physical obstacles to be overcome with brute force rather than as motives to be understood through empathic identification” (Josephs & McLeod, 2014, p. 71).

   Tracing patterns of developmental disturbances suggests that children growing up in an atmosphere that they perceive as degrading and dismissive of their needs are likely to feel very angry about their situations. Given their relative lack of power to directly gain satisfaction they are prone to handle their anger defensively rather than by direct confrontation.

   The defensive avenues chosen, as repression, displacement, or denial, appear to depend on the possibilities offered by abusers, as “just keep your mouth shut.” The lack of potential mutuality results in a disruption and distortion in reflective functioning, the capacity to mentalize in a relational context (Slade, 2005).

   Reflective functioning is facilitated by parents mirroring infant affects, a process aiding the development of self-understanding and the ability to understand the mental states of others. Appropriate mentalizing is most likely to appear in an environment of secure attachment. In contrast, where there is abuse there is limited ability to differentiate emotions of others that could be due to adverse life experiences rather than personal distaste for another person. Such a lack of adequate functioning tends to lead to adverse relational experiences, as domestic violence.

   At the same time, it is necessary to keep in mind the broad scope of behavior included in parental neglect, namely the failure to care adequately for children’s physical needs and/or a lack of emotional responsiveness. Such neglect is child abuse, but its presence is not an automatic indicator of the neglected child’s potential development of maladaptive anger that will be displayed in domestic situations. Abuse has a variable impact depending on its intensity, frequency, and other qualities as well as how the behavior is perceived and the defensive possibilities open to and/or used by the victim.

   For example, some abused children have been found to possess reflective functioning that appeared to operate as a buffer against future psychopathology (Borrelli, Compare, Snevely, & Decio, 2015).

   Reflective functioning, mentalization, empathy, and intersubjectivity are often used interchangeably. The concepts are correlated and focus on the capacity to consider the other as well as the self as parts of an interpersonal field, with an aim of valuing cooperative behavior. Such capacities can also be distinguished in terms of specific definitions, developmental timetables, and motivational origins (Liljenfors & Lundh, 2015).

   For example, mentaliztion can be viewed along the four dimensions of cognitive-affective, implicit explicit, self-other, and internal-external (Fonagy & Bateman, 2012). Intersubjectivity involves both recognition of the experiences of others and sharing personal experiences with others (Brinck, 2008). These distinctions suggest that abuse may in one instance negatively affect one dimension, not another, or one capacity, not another, or all to a different extent. There is also the possibility of reparative work among dimensions resulting in a varying impact from childhood neglect.

   Our focus is not on the intricacies of mentalization, its correlates or components, but on the different probabilities limiting prediction from a concept as broad as child abuse. The perception of such abuse is not an automatic predictor of psychopathology such as domestic violence. The perception itself varies along its own dimensions of significance to the victim and these dimensions vary with genetic loads and biological capacities.

   A moral dimension is also involved. Once an act is defined as abuse it is also defined as bad, meaning the outcome is likely to be bad for the abused and indicative of “badness” in the abuser. Such badness is the “dark side,” the improper use of aggression. In turn there is a normative use of aggression, neither sadistic or masochistic, but the norm is complex. Struggle with an unknown intruder in your home, hit him hard with anything even if it kills him, and you are still within the norm because you feared he would kill you.

   Feel the same degree of anger at your small child, and express it verbally or physically, and you are bad. The norm does have a logic and most people follow it, even when frustrated. Not all though and given the often damaging consequences, we have to attempt to sift through the specifics to seek remedies. Treatment is good, prevention, better, but its accuracy rests on accepting the complexity of possible causality.

   Causal Pathways

   In a domestic situation the desired relationship is one in which both partners have developed their mentalization to a level of discerning, containing, and integrating personal feelings and beliefs with the feelings of the other person.

   This fosters collaborative relationships rather than hierarchical dominance.

   Domestic violence involves a failure to achieve this goal on the part of one of the partners. The result is tyrannical control through both emotional and physical force.

   In order for intersubjectivity to be operational the mentalization capacities of individuals attempting relationships needs to be nurtured. This means developmental sequences that emphasize understanding cognitive and emotional states of the self and others. Such understanding involves “psychic enrichment of preformed capacities,” as thoughts and affects by caretakers.

   Holding environments do tend to be imperfect so there has to be an acceptable degree of parental failure, but note needs to be taken of potential damage.

   It is possible to foster cognitive appreciation while neglecting the emotional component of ideation, as well as fostering affects over thoughts. Thus “different forms of psychopathology may be distinguished in terms of the inhibition, deactivation or simply dysfunction of one or both systems involved, leading to potential dissociation between both systems or difficulties in integrating cognitive and affective aspects of mentalization” (Fonagy, Bateman, & Luyten 2012, p. 30).

   An abuser with overdeveloped cognitive mentalization is attuned to the recognition of apparent false beliefs of another (false based on a mismatch with the abuser’s beliefs). Such recognition is congruent with a personal belief in the importance of correcting falsehoods. Force will be used if deemed necessary (in case the other person continues to hold the “false” belief”). The moral imperative is to make certain a partner “thinks right” to the point of “helping” the other forcibly.

   If affective mentalization is overdeveloped the intellectual belief used to justify force is replaced by a feeling of justification. In essence “it just feels right” to punish the other for not being synchronized with the punisher. The “right thing” is making sure the other thinks and acts correctly, namely the way that suits the abuser.

   It has been suggested that mentalization in an implicit form begins as an innate process. Implicit affective mentalization proceeding to explicit is seen as markedly influenced by caretakers (Liljenfors & Lundh, 2015). The capacity for mentalization could vary from the start. This bears consideration in understanding subsequent development.

   Significant psychopathology lies in the development of false representations of others, as well as of the self, based on a distorted organization of unconscious self and object representations. This organization is reliant on both the composition of the innate implicit mentalization and false representations from caregivers. The result can be a large supply of misinformation.

   Another issue is the relative balance of the internal–external dimension of mentalization. The former emphasizes mental processes of the self, while the external focuses on visible features and observable actions of others.

   In the first instance self-absorption makes it difficult to recognize the acceptable perspective of another who may often be viewed as an intruder, and in turn, dangerous.

   In the second case, the subject views the other as an apparent judge who is likely to disapprove and unsettle the subject. As such it is difficult to appreciate the possibility of acceptance despite differences.

   The dimensions noted do overlap so there is relative differentiation. Also, these are described in the categorical language accompanying and including mentalization. They can be described in other psychoanalytic language as well.

   For example they could be considered as ego functions (thought, perception), superego functions (correctness, accuracy) and id functions (desire, wish). Another possibility is viewing them as relational functions (the self as an agent in action with others).

   Mentalization language seems to add details to the understanding of self and object perceptions, and in turn facilitates the comprehension of the complex development of psychopathology. This is particularly true in regard to domestic violence where people lose their way in terms of appreciating and respecting others, turning supposed loved ones into enemies with an intent to destroy them.

   Revenge
   The path to becoming an abuser starts with narcissistic injury. We have described being abused in childhood by one or both parents as an example.

   However, childhood abuse does not automatically result in becoming an abuser or developing significant psychopathology, though it is a likely source. The narcissistic injury is such that due to reparative ineffectiveness it is not healed, and often instead it is reinforced as a negative self-representation.

   Rosen (2007) notes the probability of a cumulative accretion through the psychosexual stages. In essence, it is likely to get worse, with the probability of the victim becoming either a primarily sadistic or masochistic character.

   Within the frame of domestic violence the dynamics of the sadistic abuser have drawn the most interest. Such a person has suffered narcissistic injury that diminishes their sense of self. They are in a painful state of shame that feels unbearable and must be defended against by a fixation on getting even for the injury. The result is a vengeful obsession that obscures their shame. Splitting offers a way to avoid a state of mind that seems unbearable.

   The shame of living within a diminished self is replaced with empowering rage at the offender with projective identification used to relocate the shame.

   The shamed victim becomes endowed with the power of rage at the offender and seeks revenge (LaFarge, 2006; Lansky, 2007; Rosen, 2007).

   The focus of revenge research had not been on domestic violence, although Lansky mentions it as an example of overt vengefulness, and the dynamics fit the profile of many domestic abusers.

   The emphasis on narcissistic injury is particularly appropriate. LaFarge sees narcissistic injury as “meaning-disrupting” with revenge as the perceived way to restore both the story of personal meaning and an audience for the story.

   There are fantasies of the imaginer and the imagined that often have been formed through parent-child relationships that initiated the narcissistic injuries. She states “The fantasy of a sadistic imaginer and its mirror image, the fantasy of revenge, are fundamental ways that we represent and manage pain and rage that are felt to intrude on the representations of a continuous self and a benevolent imagining other” (p. 473).

   This explanation can be applied to domestic violence. The abuser has experienced narcissistic injury, namely a damaged sense of individual meaning, and seeks revenge as restoration that includes being valued by the other person. Narcissism, shame, and rage are all involved. LaFarge also notes the relative difficulty of ameliorating vengefulness and illustrates that with a clinical example that emphasizes the repetitive pull to the fantasy of revenge.

   Lansky emphasizes the shame that is involved in narcissistic injury. The injured person defends against shame by splitting off a revenge linkage to the offender from customary obligations to the social order. Treatment attempts to restore the connection to shame, the resolution of splitting, and a type of self-forgiveness involving a modification of the ego ideal. Lansky also acknowledges the difficulty of working this out successfully and demonstrates the problem with clinical material.

   Rosen adds a relational component, the connection to the “exciting/rejecting object.” The reference is to the mother, both needed and resented, loved and hated, the incipient source and target of ambivalence that can involve an array of differentiated resolutions. He postulates that “the disappointments and betrayals of exciting/rejecting form the nexus of a revenge orientation made stronger with each compulsive repetition . . . with persons who . . . stand as displaced surrogates for the original participants in the primary drama” (p. 608).

   The depiction of the revenge state of mind could also be described as a failure in mentalization. This view has been used by Josephs and McLeod (2014) in conceptualizing and treating anger management problems. In domestic violence the inability and unwillingness to see the viewpoint of the other is used by one partner as a justification for violence.

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5. kamoots

   July 18, 2023 at 1:51 pm

   While this article addressed the issue of Mothers, many fathers experiences this also…

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   1. karenwoodall

      July 18, 2023 at 4:28 pm

      which is why I said I would write for fathers next week……

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      1. kamoots

         July 18, 2023 at 6:50 pm

         Karen,

         I am so sorry, I didn’t see that part of your writing. Thank you for all your hard work in Supporting us by your research and study on the topic of Parental Alienation.

         Kam..

         FAITH is when you Praise God in the Storm, You trust HIM in the Valley and You Follow Him In The Dark. https://youtu.be/8CQ9amtIOTY

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      2. karenwoodall

         July 19, 2023 at 8:00 am

         no worries Kam. K

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6. Sharon Stuart

   July 18, 2023 at 6:35 pm

   Is there a way to have a session with you about this? I have been alienated from my daughter for over 4 1/2 years, after a decade of being taken to court by her father. Lies, manipulation, and I still retained 50-50. He chose to go outside of the court system when she was 14 1/2 and I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. It’s my hope just to be able to see her again. Is there anything you could do to help me with this?

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   1. karenwoodall

      July 19, 2023 at 8:00 am

      sharon if you email appts@familyseparationclinic.co.uk our administrator Chloe will sort out an appointment for you. Kind Regards karen

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