In my fifteen years of Court based work with families affected by a child’s alignment and rejection behaviour in divorce and separation I have supported over a hundred families to recover their relationship with children who were being seriously abused by an influencing and harmful parent. In doing so I have utilised a wide range of interventions which are focused on utilising the attachment bond between child and parent to enable the child to recover an integrated sense of self after suffering attachment trauma due to triangulation into the parental relationship. Across the years I have come to understand that this triangulation, is one of the most pernicious aspects of harm that a child suffers during divorce or separation because it puts the child in the wrong place in the family hierarchy during a time when the child is vulnerable. This leads to the child developing disorganised attachments via psychological regression caused by situational pressures, the onset of which causes great harm to the child, especially when it is misinterpreted by the adults who are already in a place of dysregulation and low trust.

In my work with those families and the many others I have assisted outside of the Court process, I have also come to recognise that the parent in the rejected position has the power to help the child to recover their attachment relationships and move back into the right place in the family hierarchy. In doing this work with families, I have documented and recorded the ways in which children’s attachment trauma manifests in the here and now and how that is resolved when a parent can provide therapeutic parenting either in proximity to the child (via Court ordered removal from harm and placement into kinship care with the parent in the rejected position, or spontaneous reconnection) or at distance when the child is in what we call ‘phase two’ of the alienation journey (more about that in my forthcoming book which I will say more about soon).

Alienation is the term we use for what is happening to the child, who has become alienated or separated, from their whole sense of self through the onset of attachment maladaptations the core of which are based upon trauma defences such as splitting. Alienation of the self from the self, describes what we are working with as the core experience of the child and in doing this work, we are utilising the wide range of literature on relational trauma, psychological control, attachment and neuropsychology to deliver healing for the child. Our goal is to help the child recover their whole self and to live life unencumbered by adult issues. We know from reports of successful reconnections reported by parents, that therapeutic parenting, delivered by a healthy, healed and aware parent who was previously in the rejected position, is the road to recovery for this group of children.

Relational Trauma

One of the key elements we are working on in developing our Therapeutic Parenting for Alienated Children approach is the way in which many parents in the rejected position are vulnerable because of their own unhealed trauma in childhood. Growing up with trauma means that relationships present particular difficulties due to the lack of healthy and supportive internal relational templates. Put simply what this means is that if you were caused harm in your childhood, you may be vulnerable to others causing you harm in adulthood, particuarly in the realm of close relationships. If your parents triangulated you into their divorce for example, your internal relational template may make you vulnerable to being preyed upon by abusive partners. Healing your own internal relational template can liberate you from this trauma repetition and strengthen your capacity to provide a clear path home for your children, whose needs are almost always either overshadowed or overwhelmed by a parent who has control over them. This is far from the blame culture that so many parents in the rejected position experience, it is about attending to the internal needs of parents who are being harmed by being blamed and enabling the recovery of children who are captured in the mindset of an abusive parent, through the provision of therapeutic healing in safe parental care.

Childhood Relational Trauma

Using the extensive literature on trauma and children, it is possible to build pathways to reconnection and reintegration for children who enter this maladaptive state of mind after divorce and separation. Working with parents in the rejected position, to skill them to understand the process and protocols of this work brings significant and exciting results, both in the number of reconnections being reported AND the way in which children are seen to thrive in respose to a parent using therapeutic parenting.

Karen Woodall – February 2024

We call the problem we are working with in families where children are seen to be alienated, Childhood Relational Trauma, which is an umbrella term which centres the experience of the child. Relational Trauma is what we call what is happening in the family as a whole and in particular to the parent who is in the rejected position. The parent who the child is seen to be aligned to, especially in circumstances where there is contempt, disdain and empowerment of the child to feel and express that towards a parent, is recognised as the likely source of harm via behaviours which are likely to be trans-generational and trauma related. Protecting the child in there here and now by empowering healthy parents in the rejected position to understand and clear the trauma patterns which put them into a relationship with the harmful parent, so that they can learn and provide healthy therapeutic parenting to help alienated children to heal is what the Lighthouse Project is all about.

Therapeutic parenting for attachment disorganised children of divorce and separation is a reframing of the experience of being a parent in the rejected position away from being the ‘targeted’ parent to being the healthy parent with capacity for helping the alienated child to heal. Many parents have already undertaken our foundation course called Holding up a Healthy Mirror, which enables a shift away from binary thinking of right/wrong, itself a manifestation of primitive defences which are seen in people who lack emotional and psychological maturity, which is the world that parents in the rejected position often have to navigate due to being dragged into this way of thinking by a parent who controls the child. By moving beyond the right/wrong binary split, whilst always holding a stable position in relationship to what is healthy and what is not healthy parenting, we build the ego strength of the parent in the rejected position into what we have come to call ‘The Lighthouse Position’.

The Lighthouse Position

The Lighthouse Position is the term we use to describe a parent who has healthy boundaries, a wise understanding of why alienated children behave as they do and the skill to behave in the world in ways which resist the projections made by unhealthy parents. When the parent in the rejected position utilises the Lighthouse Position, it means regulating the self, being able to stand still and signal to the child that love and nurture is available whilst allowing the child to unravel the disorganised attachment behaviours which are displayed by contempt, omnipotence, rage and rejection. In achieving this position, parents are supported through our developing resources and growing community, to stand firm using strategies from Structural Therapy to set and maintain boundaries with aligned parents who are causing harm and children who are acting out that harm. From a place of disorganised chaos, understanding, healing, self growth and therapeutic parenting skills are developed. The signs from early evaluation of this work are positive and we continue to develop this approach and welcome all parents and wider family members who wish to step into a new way of thinking and working with this cruel and pernicious family attachment trauma, to join us.

Early Spring News – 2024

New! Spring Refresher – Saturday March 23rd 2024

Half Day Online Seminar With Karen Woodall

@ 16:00 – 20.00 UK Time (suitable for UK/Europe and USA/Canada Timezones)

(A version of this seminar will be recorded and will made available for watch on demand by those in Australia/NZ and Hong Kong Time Zones and anyone who cannot attend on the day).

Revitalise, refresh and renew your committment to becoming the Lighthouse for your children via your use of therapeutic parenting skills. Whether you are new to this way of thinking and being or are already on your journey with us, this spring refresher will help you to revisit principles of practice, brush up on your thinking and add in some new ways of thinking and working with this problem.

Your Lighthouse learning on this half day spring refresher will include –

Living in the Lighthouse Position – reframing the experience of being a parent in the rejected position from shame and blame to helping and healing.

Becoming the Transitional Character -Uncovering transgenerational trauma repetition to heal pathological patterns for your children and their children

Learning the Language of Parts – reframing your parenting to meet the needs of the alienated child

Understanding and upholding interpersonal boundaries – Challenging coercive control and Reclaiming Power and Potential in your Parenting

Relating your Experience – Reframing the Narrative of Relational Trauma in Divorce and Separation for the Outside World

Building Your Super Powers – Living with the Shield of Truth to Staying Free of Negative Projections

Cost £60

BOOK HERE

Listening Circles

Mon 26 Feb 2024 18:00 – 20:00 GMT

Recovery journeys of the alienated child and parent in the rejected position

Mon 11 Mar 2024 18:00 – 20:00 GMT

Writing to your alienated child

Cost for Listening Circles is £40 per session (buy a ticket, share with 2 friends and family)

BOOK HERE