Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

Sixteen years ago I wrote my first blog, it was about mothers who are rejected by their children and was based upon my work over the years with mothers who had been in controlling relationships prior to family separation, leading them to lose their relationship with their children.

In the sixteen years since I wrote that first blog, I have been attacked, vilified, lied about and misrepresented everywhere, I have been called an MRA, a fraud and a handmaiden of the patriarchy. All for calling out the hidden child abuse which is caused by pathological patterns of behaviour in parents in divorce and separation.

But I am still here and I am still showing the world what happens when parents with mental health problems use and abuse their children in divorce. In doing so I am now working with adult children who are recovered from what a parent did to them and I am still doing everything I can to amplify their voices and their experiences.

Because my work has never been about parental rights, it has always been about children’s mental health and how this family attachment trauma interrupts their development and sends them on a diversion of maladaptive attachments during the most important physiological and psychological stage in their whole life.

I have also written widely through the intervening years, about how this child abuse is hidden by parental rights activists, particularly those who use the manufactured meme that alienation of children is just something that is claimed by abusive fathers. This meme interferes with the wellbeing of children in divorce and separation by misleading the public and it has been deliberately deployed around the world to place control over children back into the hands of mothers.

But does it place control back into the hands of mothers, or does it just empower SOME mothers, particularly those whose self reports contribute to the perpetuation of the myth that alienation of children doesn’t exist? I would say that the mothers it empowers are those who have been found to have abused their children, mothers and their supporters and the myths that they peddle.

Over sixteen years many, on all sides of this debate, have tried to make me go away. But I won’t go away, because when you have seen this abuse of children and you understand how it happens and how it is hidden and why it is hidden, you cannot look away or go away.

And so this is for the mothers whose children have been taken by abusive fathers, and for fathers whose children have been taken by abusive mothers and for the children whose lives have been derailed by the power and control that a parent has exerted in their lives at a time when they were the most vulnerable.

This is the first blog that I ever wrote, it is for alienated mothers and sadly, it is still as true today as it was sixteen years ago.

Mothers Day can be a painful reminder

When the daffodil trumpets start to open up, it’s time to think about Mother’s Day again. For many families, this is a day when children make cards and dads remember to take them shopping for presents.

For separated families, it can be a day that is as complicated as Christmas or birthdays. A special day that requires all the planning of a military campaign. For separated mothers who live apart from their children, Mother’s Day can be another painful reminder of what has been taken away, of what has been lost, of time passing by.

Mothers who do not live with their children after divorce or separation all share something in common; the trauma of loss and the silence surrounding their status. Some of that silence comes from mothers themselves, unable to talk about their situation for fear of judgement, but most of it comes from the society in which we all live. A society that conspires to believe that a mother who is not the main carer for her children is somehow not really a mother at all.

Just like non resident fathers, non resident mothers feel isolation, a lack of status and a deep unhappiness at the erosion of their relationship with their children. Unlike non resident fathers, however, mothers face the further pain of society’s disapproval, the unspoken question that hangs in the air. For, if a mother is not living with her children, she must have done something to cause that, mustn’t she?

But mothers who do not have any contact with their children, are just as deserving of their children’s cards, presents and love on Mothering Sunday – perhaps even more so. Mothers living apart from their children are often doing so because of incredibly difficult circumstances in which their choices about relationships with their children were taken away from them. Just like fathers who are alienated from their children after family separation, mothers living apart from their children are living with the dual grief of their loss and the knowledge that their children are unlikely to want to see them even if it were possible.

As we approach another Mothering Sunday, I would like to wish every separated mother a happy day. If you are lucky enough to be a separated mother with care of your children, spend a minute on Sunday to think about those mums and dads who are deprived of that role.

If you are a separated dad and it’s your time to be with your children, give up an hour or two of that precious time and help your children make their mother’s day. You may not love her anymore, but your children certainly do and will love you all the more for making it easy for them to show her that. Hopefully, when it comes to Fathers Day, she will remember and respect your efforts and help your children to do the same for you.

And if you are a mum who does not live with her children or who will not see her children on Mother’s Day for whatever reason, remember that there are people in our society who do not immediately assume the worst, people who understand the complexities of situations like yours, people who will be celebrating your motherhood with you.

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Saturday Seminar Series

The journey of the alienated child
An online event for parents of alienated children and their families with Karen Woodall

A Zoom link for this event will be included in your order confirmation (if you do not receive this, please check your spam folder). 

Cost £60.00

T&Cs: Please read our terms and conditions here

15% Discount Voucher: Those who join this seminar will receive a 15% Discount Voucher for the new upcoming course entitled The Journey of the Alienated Child, which will be available in the summer. The voucher will be sent via email before the new course opens for bookings (please see T&Cs here).

About this seminar

A two and a half hour introductory seminar to Karen Woodall’s new work on the psychological journey that the child takes through the attachment maladaptations which are popularly referred to as ‘alienation.’

Alienation is a good word for what happens to the child who is pressured into a strong alignment and concurrent rejection of their parents. Rather than thinking about this from the perspective of what is happening in the relationship with their parents however, Karen Woodall begins this work from the perspective of what is happening to the child. Using contemporary trauma theory, Karen examines the onset of what the Family Separation Clinic refers to as self alienation, a state of mind which is caused by traumatic events which are overwhelming to a child.

Dr Gabor Mate, the Hungarian Physician, tells us that:
         ‘the primary impact of unresolved trauma, particularly as a result of our childhood experiences, is alienation, from ourselves, from our work and from others.’

and notes that: 
          ‘trauma isn’t what happens to us, it is what happens inside of us.’

And Dr Janina Fisher, the US Psychologist tells us that:
         ‘self-alienation is when someone disowns parts of themselves that are painful or unacceptable. This can be a way to maintain attachment to abusive caregivers.’

Working with the trauma impact of divorce and separation, Karen has assisted well over a hundred psychologically and emotionally abused children to recover their relationship with their own integrated sense of self and with the parent they were forced to reject. Working with the internal shifts that the child has had to make, Karen’s experience in enabling self understanding in children, young people and adults who have been abused, brings healing and hope for those whose trauma has been misunderstood or invisible for too long.