Opening the Gate to Recovery: Therapeutic Parenting and the Treatment of Alienated Children

Recovery can only take place within the context of relationship, it cannot occur in isolation.’

Herman, 1992, p333.

In our clinical practice with alienated children at the Family Separation Clinic, we have come to understand that the core problem which is experienced by children who align strongly with a parent after family separation, as a defensive split in which, what Winnicott (1965) called the ‘true self’, is protected from becoming overwhelmed, by the onset of a false self. In the trauma literature, this is recognised as a defensive response to a traumatic event which prevents the more severe forms of structural dissociation, for example, Bromberg, 2011; Fisher, 2017; Howell, 2020; Siegal, 1999 & Shaw, 2021.

Fisher (2017), describes defensive splits as self alienation in which the fragmented sense of self causes regressive behaviours and relational maladaptations with some dissociative features, which are all recognised as responses to trauma. In clinical work with children who become hyper aligned with a parent, these behaviours can be seen from the point at which the child is unable to relate to both parents in a separated family situation and it is our hypothosis, that the behaviours of the child said to be alienated, are in fact responses to parental behaviours which are frightening and/or unpredictable and which can be considered as signs that attachment relationships have become disorganised or disorientated.

Disorganised or disorientated attachment behaviours are well recognised as arising in early childhood, (Bowlby 1973; Duschinsky 2015, Fonagy, Gergely, & Target, 2008), with later onset recognised as arising due to traumatic experiences in relationships with caregivers who become frightening or unpredictable due to an event or events arising in childhood (Howell 2005, Liotti 1999a). In the case of family separation, clinical work demonstrates that the traumatic impact upon the child arises within the relationship with one parent who becomes idealised in circumstances where a parent exerts coercive control over the child, as well as unpredictable parental responses to the child’s signals of distress. This pattern of behaviours can therefore be considered to be attachment responses to situational factors, the most common of which is the child’s reactive responses to being exposed without amelioration, to unpredictable and/or frightening behaviours in a parent. This explains why, in circumstances where the child is freed from the coercion of a parent to whom the child is strongly aligned, rapid recovery from the behavioural pattern of disorganised attachment is often observed, returning only if the child is in close unsupervised proximity to the parent they have been aligned to.

In clinical work with children who show a hyper alignment with a parent who is idealised and who reject the other parent with disdain and contempt, close therapeutic observation demonstrates that these children present as mirroring the unpredictable emotional and psychological mindset of the parent to whom they are aligned. In such circumstances, children are often seen to be contemptuous of the parent being rejected, which denotes devaluation of the relationship as a defensive strategy. This presentation, in which the false self, described by Winnicott (1965) as a basic split in the personality, can be recognised clinically via the child’s increased solicitous responses to the unpredictable care giving of the aligned parent, which is accompanied by responses to the other parent which are fixed, rigid and rejecting.

Understanding what we are working with when we are working with these children, leads to predictable outcomes in treatment, which is why we have developed and adapted therapeutic parenting for alienated children, who we now recognise as experiencing situational attachment adaptations which fit the D-attachment category of disorganised/disorientated. D-attachment is a way of describing the manner in which a child displays the behaviours of ‘approach-avoidance’ toward a caregiver who is simoultaneously someone who the child depends upon for a sense of safety but who is also a source of threat and fear (Van Der Hart, Nijenhuis & Steele, 2006). In family separation, it is our hypothosis that the parental relational style which produces ‘alienated’ behaviours in a child, whilst not recognised as falling within the usual range of childhood abuse such as neglect or physical/sexual abuse, involves both controlling and /or dependency upon the child to the degree where the child’s own mental capacity is overwhelmed. The D-attachment behaviours which arise as the child’s capacity is overwhelmed by parental demands, create patterns of relational responses which can be recognised over time as distinct ‘parts’ of self, meaning that the child has entered into a fragmented state of mind in which defensive splits provide protection from full dissociation (Siegal, 1999, Fisher, 2017). This is the presentation seen in many children assisted by the Family Separation Clinic, for whom the classic signs of trauma are present in the form of a lack of coherent narrative about events occuring, which is accompanied by an inability to tolerate distress or regulate affect. Working alongside these children, it has become possible to document their emotional and psychological journey to recovery and through that, build a replicable treatment route which utilises the parent in the rejected position who is trained in therapeutic parenting skills which are adapted for this group of families.

Conditions for Treatment

The key factors in successful therapeutic treatment of disorganised or disorientated attachment in children who are hyper aligned and rejecting after divorce and separation are as follows –

1. Amelioration of power and control over the child

The child who is trapped in a coercive control situation where their behaviours are adapted to regulate a frightening caregiver, cannot and will not change their behaviours whilst the parent with power over them is not under third party control. What this means in social work terms is that a child protection approach must be utilised in which the parent with power over the child is subjected to scrutiny and control of their harmful behaviours. Just as in any other form of disorganised attachments caused by abusive behaviour, leaving a child in the care of the parent who is causing harm whilst expecting the child to change their behaviours is neither effective nor ethical. Third party intervention in the family so affected, may require statutory input (Local Authority/Child Protective Services) or the firm hand of the Judge in private law situations.

  2. Restoration of Hierarchical Parenting Strategies

The child who is hyper aligned and regulating a frightening or unpredictable caregiver will experience themselves as omnipotent within the family system because they have been given inappropriate decision making power and will therefore anxiously and routinely, work to ensure that their control, is not removed from them. This means that a child will find ways of persuading people outside of the family system that their own ‘decisions’ must be upheld, this may include escalating allegations against the parent in the rejected position and/or, anyone who is trying to intervene. Helping a child to resolve the defensive behaviours which cause this, means shifting the child from the omnipotent position (also known as the paranoid/schizoid position in Object Relations Theory) to the ambivalent position in which the child relinquishes both the need to control the family system and the omnipotent behaviours which arise due to the anxiety of being in the wrong place at the wrong time in the family hierarchy. Working alongside healthy parents who were in the rejected position, via kinship care placement (which is also known as removal from abuse or residence transfer), provides a unique opportunity to restore hierarchical balance within the family system, which relieves children of the anxiety based need to regulate a frightening or unpredictable caregiver by aligning with or clinging to them.

   3. Recognition of the impact of abuse by the aligned parent

Whilst some researchers with a focus on women’s rights, suggest that mothers to whom a child is strongly aligned, are simply protecting their children from abusive fathers, (Katz, 2022), clinical investigation with adult/child dyads demonstrates that in the absence of evidence that a parent in the rejected position has been abusive towards a child, further investigation is necessary to determine whether any of the boundary violations seen in harmful parenting are present in the relationship with the parent to whom the child is aligned.

Boundary violations include parentification, in which children are meeting the needs of a caregiver, such dynamics being recognised as harmful to a child over time. (Jurkovic, 1977). In the current hostile environment surrounding this issue, where those upholding ideological constructs seek to influence family policy and practice, it is essential for social workers to recognise that what may look like a loving relationship, may in fact, harbour pathological behaviours such as parentification and/or enmeshment of children, both of which prevent healthy childhood development. Thinking the unthinkable, which in social work terms means recognising that mothers as well as fathers can and do seriously harm their children by triangulating them into adult issues, is an essential mindset for all practitioners working in this space. Understanding that the hyper alignment/idealisation of a parent is the red flag which signals a potential for disorganised attachment behaviours in the child, demands investigation and close observation of these parent/child dyads. Once again, the utilisation of social work concepts such as non accidental injury enquiry, ensures that the alienated child is understood through a child protection lens

Prioritising the Child as Client

Within families affected by a child’s hyper-alignment and rejection behaviour there are likely to be three victim positions, the child, the parent in the rejected position and the parent to whom the child is aligned. In real time however, the first priority client is the child because it is the child’s developmental self which is under threat in these circumstances. Therefore, any practitioner involved in such cases, must prioritise the release of the child from the coercive control dynamics and must, wherever possible, utilise the parent in the rejected position (second victim), to provide a kinship care route to healing. This is because the parent in the influencing/aligned position, is highly likely to pose a risk of harm to the child and because this parent is highly likely to have unresolved psychological and emotional difficulties of their own. Protecting the child is therefore a necessary first step to take before any therapeutic work takes place.

Working Therapeutically with Alienated Children

Self alienated children suffer ego splits which leads to a fragmented sense of self which in turn emerges as disorganised attachment behaviour in the recovery process. Parents in the rejected position, who have also likely suffered a form of splitting which we call ‘reactive’ at the Family Separation Clinic, (in that it is a reaction to the rejecting behaviour of the child), must therefore be supported to stabilise their internal sense of self prior to supporting their children in recovery. Children of all ages who have suffered from self alienation in divorce and separation, are unpredictable in their behaviours in the reconnection process unless one understands how disorganised/disorientated attachments present. Many parents in the rejected position report frightening encounters with self alienated children during the reconnection process, these may range from a young person arriving out of the blue only to disappear again, to the escalation or entrenchment of false memories or beliefs about the past. When the reconnection process is understood through the lens of disorganised attachments and the parent in the rejected position is in a stable psychological mindset with the skill set to co-regulate, predictable outcomes in the recovery process are seen.

The Family Separation Clinic has pioneered the use of adapted therapeutic parenting strategies for these children and their families and has made available several online courses to support parents in the rejected position to help their children to heal from the harm they have suffered from the onset of the alignment and rejection behaviour. Teaching parents to understand and utilise these skills, reframes the experience from that of hopelessness and helplessness to an empowered sense of purpose. Feedback between 2020 and the current day, has demonstrated that this approach meets the needs of self alienated children and their families and that therapeutically, this can be recognised as a gateway to recovery for children of all ages who have been harmed by divorce and separation. Further evaluation of this work is being undertaken and all parents in the rejected position are welcome to train with us via the courses available from the Family Separation Clinic.

For More Information and to book on one of our courses for parents and wider family members, please press here.

The Handbook of Therapeutic Parenting for Alienated Children and Families by Karen Woodall will be published in 2024.

References

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Fisher, J. (2017). Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors: Overcoming internal self-alienation. Routledge.

Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., & Target, M. (2008). Psychoanalytic constructs and attachment theory and research. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp. 783–810). The Guilford Press.

Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery. Basic Books/Hachette Book Group.

Howell, E. F. (2005). The dissociative mind. The Analytic Press/Taylor & Francis Group.

Howell, E. (2020). Trauma and dissociation informed psychotherapy: Relational healing and the therapeutic connection. W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.

Jurkovic, G. J. (1997). Lost childhoods: The plight of the parentified child. Brunner/Mazel.

Katz, E. (2022). Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives. Oxford University Press.

Liotti G (1999a). Disorganization of attachment as a model for the understanding of dissociative
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Shaw, D. (2021). Traumatic narcissism and recovery: Leaving the prison of shame and fear. Routledge.

Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are. Guilford Press.

van der Hart, O., Nijenhuis, E. R. S., & Steele, K. (2006). The haunted self: Structural dissociation and the treatment of chronic traumatization. W W Norton & Co.

Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development. International Universities Press.