When children’s rejection of healthy parents is examined closely it is apparent that this is not about conflict, contact or complex divorce, it is about the leakage of behaviours and control over the family system by someone with elevated narcissistic traits.
Narcissistic traits include the use of primitive defensive behaviours to control others – ie; gas lighting, shaming, blaming, triangulation and the disavowal of legitimate feelings expressed by others. When children are relentlessly exposed to this in divorce and separation, the mirrors in which they are building a sense of self, are fractured and distorted, meaning that developmental processes are distorted.
Many children who are captured in these distorted mirrors are trapped between coercive control by one parent and fragility and uncertainty in the other parent, who has usually escaped the abuser but who is unable to feel confident about their own capacity to help their children escape. The manner in which these children are suffering from entrapment, is often missed because professionals are trained to look in the wrong direction for the source of the problem.
Our new Narcissistic Abuse Recovery group begins on 18th September at 17:00 on Zoom. It is a small, closed group which is for mothers and fathers who have escaped abuse only to find that their children are trapped in the mirror of the abuser. Joining this group will help you to work in two directions at once, to recover and restore your own ego strength and to reunite your child with the healthy love you can provide so that you can help them to heal from the abuse they have suffered.
Narcissistic abuse underpins many situations where children align with a caregiver and reject the other, it causes devastating harm which ripples through the generations. Based upon my own work with alienated children through the years, it is clear that being trapped in the mirror of an abusive caregiver in childhood, causes serious relational harm which can be difficult to heal from largely because of the lack of understanding of this hidden harm at home amongst the professional community.
For those who do not want to leave the help and healing in the hands of others and those who want to be ready to help their child whenever the opportunities arise, this safe, closed group provides strategies, understanding, healing and depth care to lift you out of the helplessness and build confidence and hope for a new healthy future for you and your children.
Karen Woodall 