Last night I was in Westminster to meet with MPs and policy makers, legal and mental health professionals and mothers and fathers to hear the experiences of two formerly alienated children who were removed from abusive parents to the care of their healthy parent in what is popularly known in the UK as Residence Transfer. The seminar was sponsored by Baroness Catherine Meyer, a long time advocate for children abused in childhood and was supported by the Family Separation Clinic.
This small seminar, which was by invitation only, is the first in a series of events both public and private which centre the voices of formerly alienated children who are now young adults in full recovery from the underlying attachment harms they suffered in childhood. The event was a first chance for those in attendance to hear from young people themselves about living with a parent whose mental health profile and/or uncontained hatred and anger towards the other parent, coerced and controlled every aspect of their lives.
Speaking powerfully about the isolation of living in what Child A called a ‘sealed echo chamber’ the lived experiences of these young people make for frightening and sobering listening. Child B, now into his mid twenties, spoke about the normalisation of a life lived encapsulated in his mother’s mindset, where professionals were the enemy against whom he must always ‘keep his guard up.’ The commonalities of experience between these two young people were extremely clear and yet each comes from a different part of the country and each has a very different cultural background, what they have in common is that they were both utterly dependent upon a parent who was determined to control their every experience of life, including their relationship with their other parent.
Emerging from this powerful sharing of lived experience are some clear messages that these young people want others to hear –
- Their experience is real, it is painful and it is deeply traumatising, it can take years to make sense of what has been done to them.
- Rejection of their relationship with the other parent is only part of the harm that these young people suffered, in many respects it is simply an outward manifestation of the coercive control they experience.
- Isolation, seclusion, silent grief and suffering is the core of this experience; this is what Child A calls a ‘very private experience’, with no-one to tell, the burden on the child is immense and the psychological suffering makes these children unwell.
- Denial of their experience by people who say that alienation of children is just something claimed by abusive fathers, is re-traumatising, it is harmful to young people who are making sense of what they have been through.
The seminar launches two new books by these young people, the first is a handbook for young people called ‘Choosing Yourself When Your Parents Separate.’ Written by Child A, this book is intended to help other young people who suffer in this situation. The second book by Child B, accompanies the book ‘Please Let Me See My Son’ by Thomas Moore and tells the story from the young person’s point of view to give a holistic picture of this family trauma.
As someone who has worked with well over a hundred severely alienated children, listening to Child B whose family I worked with fifteen or so years ago and Child A with whom I have worked more recently, was a deeply moving experience. Neither of these young people have rejected the parent who harmed them so badly but have sought to understand their actions and why they were not able to see the suffering they caused. Each young person has come to recognise that the parent who harmed them believed that the abuse they were inflicting upon them, was love. Both have grown to recognise what healthy love looks and feels like and both recognise and are grateful to have the parent they rejected for many years to show them that.
As we move forward into a new phase of work in which we will centre the lived experience of young people who have recovered from this form of child abuse, we will hold events which are open for the public to join so that these young people can tell the real stories of what is happening to children in divorce and separation. Their moving and eloquent presentations will be available soon to read and will form the core of a briefing which will be sent to all MPs and Peers.
Thank you to everyone who attended to hear these young people speak, your support for their lived experience is greatly appreciated.
Karen Woodall - Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer 
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