Between Stimulus and Response: Lighthouse Keeping for Parents in the Rejected Position

This weekend I have been the subject of yet another round of lurid headlines, this time in the Irish Mail on Sunday. As usual, the evidence upon which this hit piece rests, are the self reports of mothers who say their children have been given to abusive fathers. To clarify, whilst I have worked in one High Court case in Ireland, I am not currently working there, a fact the journalist was aware of when she wrote the article. In addition, the sanction which makes up the headline, was not about fitness to practice and has been public knowledge for almost a decade (and raised in practically every single case I have worked in). The reality is that this article is just another in a long line of attacks I have faced for raising awareness of the harm caused to children when they are triangulated into adult matters in divorce and separation by abusive parents.

Headlines such as this, which go along with the usual unpleasantness on social media platforms, is something I have grown used to over the years but it can still, when it comes out of the blue, trigger reaction. In this respect what I experience is similar to parents in the rejected position, whose lives are peppered with unexpected attack and trigger events which cause psychological and emotional distress. Learning to move from reaction, which is caused by a sense of helplessness and injustice, to response, which comes from a place of regulation and observation of the underlying motives of those who attack, is an essential task for all parents who find themselves in the rejected position. Learning how to withstand personal and in my case, professional attacks, are part of what we call learning to live in the lighthouse position.

Living in the lighthouse position is a metaphor for being able to move into an observing position when under emotional and psychological attack. Many parents in the rejected position experience personal attack from their children as they become conduits for a post separation abuse pattern of behaviour which is enacted by one parent against the other. Post separation abuse is defined as patterns of abusive behaviour which continue after the end of a relationship and in the UK, as of April 2023, the law changed to include post-separation abuse under the Serious Crimes Act (2015) – the Act made coercive and controlling behaviour a criminal offence. Facing post separation abuse from an ex partner is one thing, facing it as it is channelled through the actions of your child is something else entirely and this particular pattern of abuse has a sinister element to it in that it entangles the recipient in a series of actions and reactions which cause the child to come to believe that the parent who is being abused, is the abuser. This element of post separation abuse, is what my work is all about and helping mothers and fathers in the rejected position to avoid the dynamics which lead to the child being inveigled into this distorted viewpoint, is what training parents in therapeutic parenting aims to achieve.

Working in the space between stimulus and response means being able to regulate the self in the face of extreme uncertainty and anxiety. For parents in the rejected position, this means being able to stand still and not react to the provocations which are caused by a child who is being harmed and being harmful as part of that dynamic. Being able to recognise that a child who is being manipulated is at once being abused and abusive, is key to being able to provide the safety that the child needs, so that your responses to escalations of difficult behaviours respond to the disorganised attachment behaviours the child is displaying. Knowing that the child is an unconscious conduit of an abusive adult’s negative transferential material, means that you can avoid knee jerk reactions and find a calm place from which to set and maintain boundaries. Understanding that negative projections from the abusive parent are the split of parts of self that are intolerable to that person, means that you do not allow those projections to stick.

It’s not easy however, to not react when under psychological attack, but it becomes easier when you understand how negative projections work. If I use myself as an example and this week’s MoS piece and observe those who are fervently resposting this on social media, along with a photo of me which is, shall we say, less than flattering, the intent of those reposting it is to regain a sense of control over what they cannot tolerate being exposed, (that some mothers can and do harm their children). Those who are the most active in reposting on social media therefore, are those who promote the self reports of mothers who claim that their children were removed and given to abusive fathers, meaning that for them, this media piece about me MUST be exposing the truth because it vindicates their hatred of me and thus, anything positive which is said about me elsewhere MUST, by definition, be a lie.

This is how psychological splitting defences work, the drive is to keep the self regulated by ensuring that what is intolerable in the self is projected onto others. This is how post separation abusive patterns of behaviours operate and it is why children become triangulated into them. When controlling people feel angry and divested of the ability to control others, mocking, belittling, shaming and blaming are core behaviours and when children are exposed to this, their inability to differentiate their own feelings from that of their controlling parent quickly disappears.

Which is why being able to work in the space between stimulus and response is so essential for parents in the rejected position, especially when the attacks come from your own children. Becoming entangled in a controlling parent’s negative projections is a real risk for parents in the rejected position, whose reactions can swiftly be used as bait to convince the child that they are the real abuser. It is no different for anyone working with families affected by a child’s alignment and rejection behaviours, who will find themselves in the middle of negative projections and shame and blame whenever they identify who the abuser in the family system really is.

In our Lighthouse Keeping groups and on our courses we are working to support, stabilise and anchor and educate parents in the rejected position to understand the dynamics inherent in post separation abuse patterns of behaviours. In doing so we are building a strong and confident community, skilled in recognising the trips and traps in coping with being in the rejected position and capable of looking ahead at the points where it becomes possible to assist children with disorganised attachment behaviours to recover. Always alive to the external narratives of projection and primitive defences, this community is a place of safety, where parents can work with others and develop their own networks of support and feel protected.

The world of children’s alignment and rejection behaviour after divorce and separation, which we call Childhood Relational Trauma, is a place of risk, uncertainty and negative projection. Learning to live in the lighthouse position means working in the space between stimulus and response, a place of growth and freedom from the primitive defences which stalk this landscape. As someone who works in this space, I like all parents in the rejected position am not immune to its challenges. When you live in the space between stimulus and response however, the light shines just as brightly, whatever the weather.

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The Family Separation Clinic – Lighthouse Project News

Spring Seminar Series No 2

Think Like a Therapeutic Parent – Understanding, Writing, Communicating, Signalling and Managing Your Relationship with An Alienated Child

Alienated children are suffering from disorganised attachments due to the situational pressures upon them caused by divorce/separation and/or a parent’s influence due to psychological/psychiatric issues. Whilst many people claim that children’s alignment and rejection behaviour is caused by high conflict, clinical work with alienated children demonstrates that this misunderstands what is happening in the child’s world.

Alienation of children, when experienced close up, is seen as a defensive response to the trauma of the child being driven to regulate an unpredictable caregiver in order to stabilise the family system and regain a sense of safety. For children whose world is turned upside down by family separation, the onset of the alignment reaction might be slow at first or it might be sudden, the child may be able to tolerate movement between homes or may completely withdraw from one parent becoming hyper aligned with the other. The path to alienation is unique for each child but the common denominator is situational disorganised attachment behaviour which appears after the child is exposed to unpredictability in the family system.

Disorganised attachments are well recognised in the trauma literature as arising in children who are neglected or abused. The Family Separation Clinic understands alienated children as suffering from both neglect AND abuse in the relationship with the parent they are driven to regulate. This is because this parent neglects their emotional and psychological needs in favour of the coercion of the child to regulate parental need, whilst simultaneously causing the child to feel fear and anxiety about their other parent. This double bind position causes the child to enter into a hyper aligned state of mind in which their fear of abandonment by this parent, is calmed by mirroring back to them a shared animosity about the other parent who is now placed at distance. This fused, dyadic relationship response, which flags serious boundary violations such as enmeshment, can cause a long term impact upon a child beyond the rejection of a healthy parent capable of providing healthy care.

Therapeutic Parenting is an approach to working with alienated children which has been adapted by the Family Separation Clinic from work with abused children who are fostered and adopted and pioneered in mild to severe cases of alienation of children both inside and outside of the Family Courts. Based upon successful work with families where children have been severely alienated, including those making serious allegations against a parent, this approach works effectively to heal the parent in the rejected position from the reactive splitting trauma which is caused by the child’s rejection, to build powerful skills for thinking and responding to alienated children’s disorganised attachments therapeutically.

What You Will Learn

• How to recognise projections and persecutory patterns of behaviours entangling your child
• How to spot traps being set by projections and avoid them
• How to understand what your child is thinking
• Where your child goes when they enter into psychological splitting
• How to identify where your child is on the alienation journey from onset to recovery
• Mapping, mentalising and mobilising your key responses to children’s disorganised attachment behaviours
• How to use words to connect with your alienated child
• Modelling critical thinking from near and far

Delivered by Karen Woodall a specialist in treating alienation in children through use of therapeutic parenting both inside and outside of the Family Courts, this second in a series of Spring Seminars, focuses upon helping you to reframe your thinking from that of victim survivor to skilled and confident therapeutic parent capable of responding to the changing needs of alienated children.

Think like a Therapeutic Parent is part of a series of seminars based upon the parenting hand book by Karen Woodall ‘Therapeutic Parenting for Alienated Children, which will be published later this year.

Date April 13^th 2024

Time 16:00 – 20:00hrs (UK time)

Cost £60 per person

BOOK HERE

Lighthouse keeping: Survivor support group
An online therapy group for parents of alienated children faciliated by Karen Woodall

This is a rolling therapy group which is open again for new entrants and will be delivered on Zoom, in 6 x two-hour sessions, on the following dates:

• Sessions will begin at 17:00 UK time.

• Tuesday 16 April 2024
• Tuesday 30 April 2024
• Tuesday 14 May 2024
• Tuesday 28 May 2024
• Tuesday 11 June 2024
• Tuesday 25 June 2024

To check your local start time, please click the link below, ensure ‘Date’ is selected, and enter 17:00 – 2024-MM-DD – London in the right-hand boxes, here: https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter

NB: The start time is set to accommodate attendees living in UK, Europe, USA and Canada time zones, however those living in other parts of the world are welcome to attend this course.

A Zoom link for this event will be included in your order confirmation. This link should be used for all sessions.

Cost £240.00

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About this course:

Based on contemporary trauma theory, Lighthouse Keeping is a way of reframing the reality of being a parent in the rejected position away from helplessness to an active and positive mindset.

Beginning with an understanding of trauma and its impact, this course is designed to jump-start the move, from reaction to the trauma of being rejected, to responding to the needs of the alienated child.

Led by Karen Woodall, this group will compliment the work undertaken in Holding up a Healthy Mirror or Higher Level Understanding Courses by offering grounded techniques for mentalising and responding to the trauma of being the parent in the rejected position. This course will be useful to you if you feel helpless, are suffering from symptoms of anxiety, are just entering the process of being a parent in the rejected position, or are supporting someone in this situation.

Please note:

A Zoom link for this event will be included in your order confirmation. This link should be used for all sessions. Please contact parenting@familyseparationclinic.co.uk with any questions you may have.

You can find our terms and conditions here

BOOK HERE

Please note that we are currently preparing our watch on demand service for parents which means that the next delivery of our Holding up a Healthy Mirror Therapeutic Parenting Course and the Higher Level Understanding Course which runs on from HUAHM, will be announced after Easter.

Dates for Listening and Learning Circles between April and end July 2024 will be listed shortly.