Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

The Family Separation Clinic in London is focused upon the recovery journey of the alienated child, in particular in divorce and separation but also in any circumstance where a child has suffered from relational trauma.

Relational trauma is any traumatic experience which is considered to be caused within a relational setting, this includes neglect, physical and sexual abuse and emotional and psychological harm. In divorce and separation, the child’s strong alignment and rejection behaviour is recognised by the Clinic as being evidence that there are harmful dynamics in the family system which are causing the child to (re)-enter the paranoid schizoid position which is denoted by the infantile defence of psychological splitting.

There is actually nothing mysterious about the behaviour of children who align strongly with one parent and reject the other, it is readily understood within the psychological literature on attachment as disorganised attachment which is situational due to harmful family dynamics. The physically abused child will convey their experience through a pattern of behaviours which denote their fear and anxiety of displeasing the physically abusive parent and the sexually abused child will convey their experience through the forced keeping of secrets becoming watchful and often overly compliant with adult demands as a way of managing the trauma they have experienced. The emotionally and psychologically abused child who is triangulated into the adult relationship in divorce and separation, will convey their experience through exaggerated alignment as an attempt to manage the anxiety or control behaviours of the unpredictable parent. In this respect all children who give signals that family dynamics are causing relational trauma, should be protected by the Family Courts and understood by all of the professionals who work with them.

The Recovering Futures International Symposium which will be held on 12th September 2024 in Cambridge, UK, features young people who have recovered an integrated sense of self after suffering from serious emotional and psychological harm at the hands of a parent after divorce or family separation. These young people will speak about their experience of being removed from the care of an abusive parent and the similarities between their experience and that of children and young people who suffer from other relational traumas. On the day, we will launch a new book entitled ‘Choosing Yourself When Your Parents Separate ‘ which has been written by one of the young people who will give testimony. This book, which is written to enable other children and young people to understand and manage their feelings and avoid psychological splitting, is a powerful support to the many young people around the world who suffer emotionally and psychologically when their parents separate.

In addition to the testimony of these young people, experienced clinicians will present their work with families, articulating from a psychoanalytic perspective, the dynamics we are working with in identifying the problem for children who align and reject. Treating clinicians, both therapists and social workers, will present their experience of working with alienated children and their families, whilst therapeutic parents will present on the power of training parents in the rejected position to understand and work with disorganised attachment behaviours.

The Symposium marks the start of a new phase of work at the Family Separation Clinic in which the recovery journey of alienated children will be our focus. Two new books will be published in the coming months, one for parents and one for clinicians working with families in this field as well as a range of resources to help adults to help alienated children. All of our work is now focused under the umbrella term of childhood relational trauma and as such we will increase our services to parents in the rejected position, to enable their participation in healing their children. This is because we have seen, through our clinical work in the family courts and through our direct support to families, that where the dynamics of alienation exist in a family system, it is the healthy parent in the rejected position who possesses the power to restore the child to an integrated state of mind.

After over fifteen years of working with children who are alienated, the underlying problems for these children are now fully excavated and visible to the Clinic and now is the time to begin the process of bringing knowledge and the capacity to heal to the people who need it most – children who have been unheard for far too long and the parents they reject, parents who, when they are found to be non abusive in court, need all of the help and assistance possible to enable their trauma bonded children to let go of the need to regulate an abusive parent and move back into a place of integration where normal childhood awaits.

Recovering Futures will take place at Cambridge University on 12th September 2024 from 10am until 4.30pm and will be streamed live online. To protect the young people from the targeted harassment we experience as practitioners in this pace (we have already experienced efforts to try and disrupt the event), we will send the details of the event to everyone who has a ticket to attend in person shortly before the event takes place. We will also screen the faces of the young people during live stream.