The restoration of health, for rejected parents, begins with an understanding of what has happened internally and how that has become entangled with the child’s own splitting reactions. When parents are able to map this splitting across the family system, their own reactive splitting can integrate and they can begin the work of developing the healthy mirror needed by the child.
Parents who have healed reactive splitting can then learn to apply the skills of therapeutic parenting. This is an approach to parenting children who are suffering from attachment disorder due to being emotionally and psychologically harmed. Alienated children with therapeutic parents are shown, in evaluation, to be able to recover quickly from the underlying harms which have caused their rejecting behaviours.
This is a bi monthly drop in group which can be attended regularly or just as a one-off. The circles will be facilitated by psychotherapist Karen Woodall. Each session will focus on a particular element of therapeutic parenting for children with attachment difficulties due to divorce and separation and will comprise of 45 minute input and then an hour and 15 minutes of group discussion. Participants can attend to listen and learn and to share and receive knowledge. The basic requirement is simply curiosity about helping alienated children.
Writing to Your Alienated Child
For several generations around the world, children’s relationships in divorce and separation have been reduced to what is called ‘letter box contact’ a restriction which is based upon limited letter writing from parent to child. This limited connection to a parent can cause you to feel as if you are writing into a black hole as month after month, you search for something to say.
What do you say in the face of such disconnection, when you cannot know what your child is feeling, when you cannot share how you are feeling for fear of causing your child to disconnect further or for longer.
During this Listening Circle we will look at ways of writing to your child which enable the deepest connection between you to be held in mind and conveyed to your child, we will consider language and its power and different ways of presenting meaningful words which will connect with the healthy child who is hidden behind the false self.
This listening circle will introduce you to the different phases a child who completely rejects you goes through as they cope with the onset of disorganised attachment and its accompanying defences of splitting. Learning how to map those phases and understand how, when and what to write to the child to trigger change brings a greater sense of understanding and empowerment to parents who too often feel helpless in the face of silence from their child.
Remember you can share the link with two other friends or family members when you buy a ticket for learning circles. Our aim is to share knowledge and skills with as many parents as possible so that children all over the world have the hope of a healthy parent to return to when that becomes possible.
Karen Woodall - Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer 