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 
Thank you for your work Karen.
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Profound. As your work progresses my own alienation is starting to emerge. Thank you Karen
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Dear Karen, Thank you so much for this. It truly gives us hope. We need former alienated children in the US to speak out as examples here to show the truth and combat the videos here where the residence transfer children spoke about being removed from their abusive parent who they wrongly believe loves them.
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Hi Karen
Good evidence is the effective antidote to ideological propaganda. However, It is awful to have to concede that some abusive parents do use allegations of Alienation to cover their tracks and we need to identify these situations. I have now seen too many examples. But it is also true that children have, are and will be harmed by abusing parents that alienate another parent.
Making sense of mindsets and thought process that defy logic is not easy! Unravelling the process can be challenging, disturbing, traumatic and the cause of deep anxiety.
The guilt experienced for having wrongfully punished a decent and loving parent leaves long lasting wounds which impact upon future relationships.
These parents – that apparently lack the capacity to empathise with the way these children feel – are the cause of far more harm than is oten stated. They truly are the most solipsistic beings. I liken them to the kind of parents that on a sinking ship would cheerfully take the first places with the children on the lifeboats only to throw the kids overboard to make space for a disco a little later.
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The Implicit Memory: Defensive script vs Supportive script
Defensive parents demoralize their spouses and children to the point that breaks their spirit so they don’t resist their demands, it is a trap of enslavement.
Children are under constant pressure from their parents because they are responsible for protecting the secret of the True-Self & False-Self which creates a hostile paradox behind closed doors.
Children are responsible for the parent’s behavior and so for their own safety,
Children are responsible for the parent’s (false) self-image to the outside world, they cannot tell anyone about the parent’s true self (their experience at home) because as long as the parent is ashamed and offended in front of the outside world, it is a daily punishment for the children it can easily continue for several months, so there is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Contact with the other parent (puts the false-self in danger) is also a self-fulfilling prophecy for the children.
The other parent cannot guarantee the safety of the children when they return home, because behind closed doors the parent will take out their dissatisfaction on the children, which continues from one contact moment (with the other parent) to the next contact moment interaction (with the other parent), so that morale is completely broken.
Children do not cut off contact with the other parent because they do not love the other parent or because children hate the other parent.
Contact with the other parent puts them in danger at home, so there is no other option left to guarantee their own safety by choosing to break all contact.
Children who cut off all contact with the other parent is to break the cycle of the self-fulfilling prophecy for their own safety.
So the biggest mystery of all; How in God’s name is it possible when people graduate from university that they cannot distinguish between altruism and sadism?
And that is an international problem in courts.
Demoralizing parent vs Supportive parent
(That’s very complex: People have been walking around in the meadow for 20 years but are unable to distinguish between a cow and a pig.)
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Wow. This is huge progress.
Congratulations on publishing these books & launching them in this way.
Your work and learnings have been invaluable to my partner & I as we manage the controlling nature of his children’s mother and the inability of the professionals to recognise it.
So thank you & please keep up your excellent work at FSC and know that thousands of affected children & rejected parents walk alongside you.
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I still have a relationship with my 23-year-old daughter. I stuck with the marriage because I knew my husband would pour every ounce of his energy into alienating me. I couldn’t lose her. I could not abandon her to that. She has in recent years said that she can see that her father’s relationship with me has been “toxic”. She is aware of so much. However, I do believe that her emotional mind set leans towards having only warm feelings towards her father and more hostile feelings towards me. He was always unfailingly kind and gentle, even when he was telling her that I was “out to destroy her happiness” by saying no; even though he bought her with endless expensive gifts and credit cards and let her use drugs, sometimes his drugs, during her teen years. he had one goal in mind: to make him her favorite, and he did that by buying her affections and telling her that I was out to destroy her.
As I mentioned, I am still in the picture. How can I interact with her in ways that help her see that I love her and that he was out to destroy our relationship? I want to try to undo as much of his destruction as possible without causing her to feel defensive for his sake.
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