Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

Children who are trauma bonded to abusive parents in divorce and separation behave in recognisable ways, the most significant of which is a hyper vigilence and attunement to the behaviour of the parent who is causing harm. This is because trauma bonded children have been trained to be aligned to the needs of the abusing parent through the repetitive pattern of attention and neglect and unpredictable shifts in parental mood. Painter and Dutton (1993), describe the intermittent re-inforcement patterns which create a trauma bond in a situation where there is a power imbalance. Children who are dependent upon parents who are angry, manipulative and vengeful, are often living in an extreme power balance where sudden shifts in mood and circumstance can create this hyper attuned trauma bond.

The problem for children of divorce and separation is that in the care of now separated parents, if they are exposed to the unpredictable behaviour of a parent who is angry, distressed and anxious or suffering from any form of psychological problem, there is no way of ameliorating this. Many children who are themselves already experiencing distress and anxiety due to the shift in family circumstance, become trauma bonded to a greater or lesser degree due to this exposure to adult emotions. When they show the results of that through alignments, separation anxieties and concurrent resistances and rejection, this can trigger angry responses from parents or more entrenched behaviours such as rumination, projections and sometimes creation of false narratives to explain away the child’s reactions. If one parent is particularly affected and as a result triangulation of the child into the adult distress occurs, this can trigger the shift into the child’s coping strategies of alignment and rejection, often leading to psychological splitting in which the child’s attachment relationships become disorganised and their behaviours as a result, erupt into unpredictable and often aggressive reactions.

This process of deterioration of the family system into an entanglement of primitive defences and projections, is poorly understood and often denied and yet, when it is treated through structural means, the child is liberated from the need to regulate distressed parents, leading to a withdrawal of projection and a healing of the family system. Led by the parent in the rejected position, this healing of children who have been trauma bonded to an abusive parent is an essential part of recovering their chance of a healthy future.

Focused Recovery Groups from FSC

The Family Separation Clinic has been trialling the use of Therapeutic Parenting for alienated children with disorganised attachment behaviours for four years and is now launching a series of focused recovery groups which are devoted to the unique needs of mothers and fathers in the rejected position.

Whilst FSC usually provides training to mixed groups of parents, these new groups, which launch in the Autumn/Fall of 2024, are designed to meet the different needs of mothers, who are often ignored by family services and fathers who are often disregarded in terms of their experience. Providing recovery groups for mothers and fathers separately, allows for the unique and different needs of victim parents to be properly and fully met.

Recovery groups will meet every other week from early October through to Christmas and will focus upon self care, understanding children’s disorganised attachment behaviours and managing your court case in a situation where a child is trauma bonded to an abusive parent.

Groups have a maximum of 15 places to ensure that each parent receives attuned care throughout the six sessions and the cost is £240 per group (each session runs for 2 hours).

Keeping Mum

Mothers whose children reject them are often traumatised, first by the harm they have suffered in the relationship with their abusive partner and secondly by the guilt, shame and sadness which occurs when they realise that whilst they may have escaped, their children have not.

Looking on at a child’s trauma bond with the father who was their abusive partner, many mothers recognise that if it took them many attempts to leave, it will take their children many more. Mothers in the rejected position are often shamed, blamed, silenced and silent. Their needs are overlooked by many, especially, it seems, those very groups who they should be able to look to for assistance.

Keeping Mum is a recovery group for mothers who have been rejected by their children after divorce and separation, it is a six week programme which covers all aspects of this situation from a structural, psychological, emotional and mental health perspective.

Topics covered include:

• Understanding the psychological reasons for children’s trauma bonding
• Responding to children’s disorganised attachment behaviours 
• Managing your court case
• Dealing with professionals to help them to understand
• Advocating for yourself and for your child(ren)
• Self care over the longer term

Dates this group will run: (18:00 hours UK time)

• Wednesday 2 October 2024
• Wednesday 16 October 2024
• Wednesday 30 October 2024
• Wednesday 13 November 2024
• Wednesday 27 November 2024
• Wednesday 11 December 2024

Staying Dad

Fathers with trauma bonded children, whose attachment has been disrupted in divorce and separation, are faced with the difficulties of keeping the relational bonds alive in circumstances where mothers are often playing a gatekeeping role. In these circumstances, the attachment bonds between father and child(ren) come under intense pressure as the child is potentially exposed to excessive anxieties, control behaviours, different parenting styles, and an expectation that father-care is secondary to that provided by mothers.

Taking an attachment focused, therapeutic parenting approach to supporting children in such circumstances can provide significant change in the way that these dynamics evolve and, coupled with structural awareness of how to manage the framework of care arrangements in ways that enable the father-child bond to flourish, outcomes for children can be improved.

This is a therapeutic parenting based coaching programme which focusses on strengthening your ability to respond to the traumatised child’s disorganised attachment behaviours which are caused when children are trauma bonded or hyper aligned to their mother due to a range of issues, some of which may be harmful to the child. This group will improve your ability to understand why children behave as they do in circumstances where they are exposed to gatekeeping behaviours and how you can keep the focus on your child whilst ensuring that you are able to offer proximity, safety and the security that protects the father-child attachment bond.

Topics covered include:

• Self care and the circle of reciprocity
• Interpersonal relational safety, protecting the father-child attachment bond
• Whose anxiety? Transgenerational patterns of trauma.
• Keeping a clear timeline, establishing objectivity in your court case
• Boundary holding in an enmeshed world
• Clarifying your intent, keeping your expectations clear for the road ahead.

Dates this course will run (start time 18:00 UK time)

• Thursday 3 October 2024
• Thursday 17 October 2024
• Thursday 31 October 2024
• Thursday 14 November 2024
• Thursday 28 November 2024
• Thursday 12 December 2024

References

Dutton, Donald & Painter, Susan. (1993). Emotional Attachments in Abusive Relationships: A Test of Traumatic Bonding Theory. Violence and victims. 8. 105-20. 10.1891/0886-6708.8.2.105.