The Family Separation Clinic is a pioneer in helping parents in the rejected position to understand the lived experience of children who align with one parent and reject the other. As psychotherapists, we work with this issue from a psychodynamic perspective, deepening your understanding of this family attachment trauma and assisting you to mentalise your child’s experience over time.
The Lighthouse Project
We call our courses and resources The Lighthouse Project because we aim to assist you to learn how to self regulate and remain in a stable position whilst you signal to your child the sense of safety which is missing in their lives. We base our Lighthouse Project work on our clinical experience of helping alienated children to recover their whole sense of self after suffering the disorganised attachment behaviours which are denoted by the onset of psychological splitting. Clinical experience means working with children in recovery over a sustained period of time, sometimes many years. This has enabled us to collate and curate the recovery journey of alienated children and understand those things which are necessary to support full integration of the split sense of self. A recent published judgment in the High Court of England and Wales, evidences our successful work even in the most complex of cases.
The Journey of the Alienated Child
I am currently focused on collation of over a hundred cases studies of my work with alienated children between 2009 and 2024. These studies enable a depth understanding of the common features of the journey of the alienated child from onset of disorganised attachment to recovery of the whole self. Mapping this journey and analysing the needs of the alienated child in recovery enables me to assist many more parents to understand the ways in which alienated children behave in different stages of the alienation journey. This provides a unique insight into the internal world of alienated children which assists parents to mentalise their own child’s journey more effectively. This Spring Refresher Seminar, will examine the stages of the journey of the alienated child and will include testimony from now adult children with whom I have worked over the past fifteen years. This provides another window into the lives of children of divorce and separation and an opportunity to deepen your understanding of what is needed to enable children to recover from this harm.
A Trauma Responsive, Safe and Supportive Learning Environment
In all of our work with families we aim to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for parents in the rejected position. Our aim is to assist in the repair of what we call reactive splitting in parents, which occurs when you face false allegations and projections from the child who rejects. Splitting is a core feature of this relational trauma and parents who have to cope with day to day anxieties, grief and fear arising from the experience of rejection by a child, are often using a similar coping mechanism to that of alienated children, causing a sense of loss of self and dysregulation. Working together in groups, we aim to provide a trauma responsive environment to move you from reacting to your child’s behaviour to responding with forethought and purpose.
Spring Refresher
Revitalise, refresh and renew your commitment to becoming the lighthouse for your children through 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, in turn.
- 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 projection.
We look forward to seeing you for this one-off event!
Saturday 23 March 2024
This four-hour event will be delivered on Zoom between 16:00 and 20:00.
To check your local start time, please click the link below, ensure ‘Date’ is selected, and enter 16:00 – 2024-03-23 – London in the right-hand boxes, here: https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter
Example start times:
- 17:00 Stockholm, Sweden
- 18:00 Athens, Greece
- 12:00 New York, NY
- 11:00 Dallas, TX
- 09:00 Los Angeles, CA
- 12:00 Ottawa, Canada
A separate version of this seminar will be recorded and will made available for watch on demand by those in Australia, New Zealand, and Far East time zones, or anyone else who is interested but who is unable to attend on the day.
A Zoom link for this event will be included in your order confirmation (please contact us, immediately, if you do not receive this).
Cost £60.00
Karen Woodall - Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer 
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