Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

The work to mislead the public about the reality of the harm that children suffer when they are in a coercive relationship with a frightening caregiver has been intense. Using the same inter-personal terrorism strategies used by abusive parents, which are designed to frighten away anyone who challenges the defence, the campaign to silence these children has been co-ordinated around the world and has involved public servants, academics and campaigners who have refashioned themselves as legal experts. Nowadays, instead of the child being at the centre of the family courts, women are positioned as victims who must be allowed to escape the controls of a patriarchal society and the family court must be the gateway through which this freedom is obtained.

I have recently been working clinically with adult alienated children who were failed by the family courts. These children, who I was unable to help when I worked with them in childhood, have sought me out to ask for help in the here and now, a remarkable turn of events you might think, until you understand the truth of what they have been through.

Now free to speak about their experiences, these young adults work hard to think through the way in which their lives are hampered by what they experienced. What they experienced however, is not what most people assume.

These children were abused by their mothers who were frightening and controlling and extremely unpredictable. Each of these now adult children, speak of the time when they worked with me as being a time when they had to keep the secret of what was happening at home. As Josh told us at our Symposium last year, it was always clear that social workers were unwelcome in his home and when they did come, he knew exactly what to say to them.

‘My mother emotionally and psychologically abused me in a way that I fully, 100 per cent, believed that I hated my dad, that I didn’t want to see him, that I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. She would make me physically ill to a schedule so that I would miss visitation.’ Josh Timmons – aged 25

Hearing this repeating theme from the young people I am working with is a sobering experience and it could be dispiriting, knowing as I do that their voices are currently muted by the noise from the campaigners supporting mothers, some of whom have been found to have abused their children. But somehow it is not. Somehow it is not dispiriting at all because these young adults are not only able to articulate the abuse they have suffered at the hands of (largely) their mothers, they are able to work with the therapeutic approach which I have been tailoring for the past five years, showing me that not only does it help to heal, it helps these young adults to make meaning out of the suffering they have experienced and through that, it engages their interest in helping others who are suffering the same.

The core wounds suffered by children who have gone through the maladaptive attachment journey of alienation, cause long term adjustment problems if they are not properly understood. Therapists, psychologists, social workers and parents, can all assist young people in recovery using mirroring to enable a stable external world reflection of the child within. Alienated children speak of a kaleidescopic internal working model of self, which shifts and fragments and moves through tides of changing feelings and emotions. Finding a stable reflection through routine, consistency and predictable presence, are the essential core conditions for the internal healing of schizoid defences.

Those who understand how frightening it can be, to let go of the strongly held defence of parentification or adultification, will know that holding up the healthy mirror is necessary for much longer than most. When the world has felt as if it will collapse within, because the world outside has already collapsed, the competency of the existentially terrified child, emerges to take charge. When one parent is unpredictable and the other parent has been evicted, the child’s defensive self will take over to protect from the horror of utter abandonment. Now parent to their own parent as well as to themselves, these pseudo competent children will hold tight to their defensive structure until they are certain that someone outside of them can hold the world in a stable enough place for them to relax and let go.

My work with the internal worlds of these children, shows me their courage, their tenacity and their despair. Because long after the defence is no longer needed it remains, petrifying them as little adults, doing everything they can to survive. These children need our help, they need us to see beyond the competence so that we are able to hold up the mirrors they need to be able to step into the chaos of life, trusting that others will hold them steady until the internal kaledeiscope of self, once again makes sense.

This abuse, which seems so difficult for many to understand, is hidden behind closed doors. For some young people it has been hidden behind psychological doors as well as physical ones. Just like the secret carried by the sexually abused child, the emotionally and psychologically abused child will carry the secret of their fear and anxiety when they are bidden to do so because to do otherwise would be to go against their biological drive for safety. And just like the sexually abused child, often the only way to signal that harm is happening at home, is through their behaviour not their words.

Hyper competent children, pseudo adult children, controlling children and those who parent their siblings as well as their own parent are not coping well, they are not working as a team and they are not ‘providing support’ to a fragile parent. When these children are observed in clinical practice they are robotic, they have no sense of their own psychological and emotional needs and their relational capacity is compromised. In truth, they are regulating an unpredictable caregiver, often with a mental health profile of concern who is often causing serious psychological and emotional harm. Josh told us this, Alex Dean told us this and increasing numbers of now adult children who were failed by the family courts in the past decades are saying it now.

As the pendulum swings to its peak focus on the rights of women, these voices, of abused children, can wait until the time is right for their voices to be heard. After all, it is their future now and they are planning to take it back.

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News from the Family Separation Clinic

Presenting your case to the professionals – a Saturday Seminar with Nick Woodall

Saturday 2 August 2025
This seminar will be delivered on Zoom between 17:00 and 19:00 UK Time.

To check your local start time, please click the link below, ensure ‘Date’ is selected, and enter 17:00 – 2025-08-02 – London in the right-hand boxes, here: https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter

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 £45.00

About this seminar

Parents who are working to preserve or re-establish the natural relationship with their children will, in almost all cases, come into contact with a wide range of professionals, including child custody evaluators, social workers, lawyers, judges, psychologists and therapists. Each of these professionals will play a part in determining the outcome of the case. As a parent in the rejected position, how you respond to those professionals, and how you present your case can be a critical factor in whether you achieve your goal. 

This seminar will examine the world of family separation professionals and the systems in which they work. It will also look, in detail, at the types of professional you might meet and how they fit into that wider system. In addition, it will focus on the importance of narrative and the art of story telling, offering practical insights and skills so that you can be concise, precise and persuasive. 

There will also be time for Q&A on workshop content.

The seminar will offer you: 

• ways to talk about you case that can be easily understood
• key skills for constructing court documents
• insights into professionals’ biases and how they operate
• information about the use of expert witnesses
• strategies for considering risk and reward approaches to decision making

This seminar is for all parents with children who are affected by alignment and rejecting behaviour, whether your child is present in your life or not. 

Utrecht Workshop for parents and the professionals who work with them

Our first in person workshop was attended by 23 mothers and 7 fathers. Our work with parents is to skill them in therapeutic parenting, to help them to mentalise the plight of the alienated child, learn how these abused children ‘speak’ and respond to their deep attachment needs.

There is nothing complex about these cases in reality, but the personality profiles of many parents who cause this presentation in children are complex. They are also dangerous in terms of the way in which they project false narratives and create fear and anxiety.

Parents in the rejected position must learn how to avoid projections because they absolutely infect this space.

It was a pleasure to work with parents in Utrecht and we will be back there soon to train professionals in, amongst other things, learning to work with projections.

Until then we continue our work around the world, putting abused children’s needs for safety and healthy relationships at the heart of all we do.

A second workshop will be held at the end of September in Utrecht for parents and professionals who wish to develop a relational approach to understanding and working with this family attachment trauma. Details will be available in our newsletter and will be announced here as soon as the autumn schedule of our therapeutic parenting courses is available.

Research outputs

Our research programme with children of residence transfer and also with adult children who were left without protection from abuse in the family court process continues. Outputs will be utilised when the time is right for those who are responsible for the protection of children are able to hear them. Utilising the right action at the right time approach, it is vital that we recognise that during times of heightened misinformation, key information which can support positive changes to protect vulnerable children may be wasted because they cannot be heard amidst the noise of counter campaigning. We are mindful however, that the pendulum of public opinion swings back and forth and thus we will make our outputs available to the right people at the right time.

Autumn courses and resources

This autumn/fall/spring in the southern hemisphere, will soon be upon us and we will be delivering a full programme of courses and resources to support you. My new book The Journey of the Alienated Child will be available for purchase and our Holding up a Healthy Mirror Course will be available for download. New courses to support deeper learning in relational healing for alienated children will be running and therapy groups for those who would like ongoing support for stabilising and integrating after leaving coercive controlling relationships will be available. Our aim is to provide for parents the intensive support that you need as you undergo your own recovery journey and then the skills that position you as the best therapist to heal your alienated child. Whatever you need we are with you all the way. More news on everything we have available for you soon.