Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

For he comes, the human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand
from a world’s more full of weeping than he can understand

Yeats, W. B. “The Stolen Child.” The Irish Monthly, vol. XIV, 1886, pp. 646-647

As a psychotherapist, my work with children affected by what is called alienation in popular commentary, has allowed me to observe closely, the journey that occurs beyond the entry point into the alignment and rejection behaviour which is seen when children maladapt their atatchments in divorce and separation. In 2019 I wrote about splitting as the central dynamic in the trauma of the alienated child and since then, my work with families around the world has confirmed that it is this response, within the child, which lies at the heart of what unfolds next.

Psychological splitting is recognised in the attachment literature as being the response in a child who is abused by a caregiver (1,2). Trapped in what is called in attachment terms ‘fear without solution’ (3), the onset of disorganised attachment behaviour is the first response, followed by the defence of splitting which allows the child to keep loving someone who is abusing them.

“With regard to child abuse, awareness of dependency on and attachment to the abuser … clarifies how viable dissociation is as a means of endurance and survival, especially in the short run.” (Howell, The Dissociative Mind, p. 10) (4).

It is my assertion that what we are looking at when we work with alienated children, is a sustained pattern of psychological splitting, which has allowed the child to carry on as normal in the face of overwhelming exposure to adult feelings. This is another state which is well recognised in the trauma literature, (5), and one which causes a cascade effect in which the original defensive split, is followed by further fragmentation. I would argue that in divorce and separation, this is particularly true in circumstances where a child has been exposed to professionals and others who seek to intervene over a sustained period of time.

It is also my view, that the parents who are rejected by children who are captured at the heart of these families, are also suffering from a form of splitting, which I have called ‘reactive’ in that it is not present in the parent’s psychological framework prior to the child’s rejection and cannot be said to be contributory to the child’s behaviour.

When a child rejects a parent because they are regulating the parent they are aligned to, there is always a lack of empathy, demonstrating that the relational brain has gone offline and very often a contemptuousness which accompanies the lack of empathy. Not only is it against all of the known evidence on attachment for a child to reject a parent in this way, the cause of this display is recognised as being the child’s frantic attempt to survive their own abuse.

“The findings of the study revealed that children who have been abused often exhibit aggressive behaviours similar to those of the aggressor, termed ‘reproducing the same aggressive behaviour.’ … even if the behaviour changes, they may still display aggressive tendencies, referred to as ‘identification with the aggressor.’” (p. 934) (6)

The cause of a child becoming aligned to a parent who is causing, enabling, permitting, encouraging, witnessing or standing by and allowing a child to reject a parent in this way, is, in my experience, abuse of the child which is hidden behind closed doors. The allowing and enabling of the rejection, which is often accompanied by strong assurances of a wish for the child to see the parent ‘if only the parent would change’ is the clue which gives away the truth that the child is being exposed to a double bind. The most common presentation seen in parents who are controlling children this way are elevated narcissistic traits, in which the child is seen as an extension of the parental sense of self. When the child is resisting because of something a parent has done, for example when a child is struggling because of lack of attuned parenting, the absence of contempt for the parent being rejected and the presence of affect (feelings of empathy), suggest that the child is trying to articulate their own lived experience.

It is the mimicry of the abusing parent which offers the strongest clue that a child is being harmed behind closed doors. The mimcry is often robotic and highly exaggerated, leaving observers feeling discomforted due to the cognitive dissonance (the child’s reasoning does not match the external reality). In these circumstances the child is likely to repeat narratives about the parent being rejected which they have witnessed in the past, which may distress the parent being rejected, especially when professionals accept these narratives as evidence of that parent’s abuse. What occurs in these circumstances is referred to as DARVO by women’s rights campaigners.

The behavioural pattern that women’s rights campaigners describe as DARVO—Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (7), can be understood as the external enactment of the intrapsychic defence Anna Freud (8) termed identification with the aggressor. When a child is powerless in the face of an abusive or frightening caregiver, the psyche may preserve attachment and a sense of safety by internalising the aggressor’s stance and adopting their contempt or authority (9). The manoeuvre functions to ward off shame and helplessness by assuming the position of power. What begins as a child’s survival strategy may thus crystallise into an interpersonal tactic of domination, which is carried forward in life and enacted in relationships with others.

The half alive ones are the children whose developing sense of self was crushed before it was allowed to emerge. Young people whose lives depended upon ensuring that someone they were in the care of, was regulated and stabilised daily. Adults for whom the shame of the scars which are invisible even to them, ensures that the transmission of generational trauma continues.

Another generation of children of divorce and separation is emerging, whose experience of having to defend against hidden harm at home, is once again made invisible by the carefully orchestrated campaign to deny this form of child abuse, which in trauma terms is the well recognised onset of a false and defensive self, which arises to protect at times of psychological overwhelm(10).

Not only have those who deny that children can be triangulated into adult matters in divorce, hidden the abuse that children suffer when they are forced to reject their father, they have effectively sealed the exit routes for children who are forced to reject their mother too. This is not unexpected however in a scenario where campaigners for women’s rights work together, act together and support each other. When this group of people also support those who cause this kind of harm to children, there is both motive and method for this level of obfuscation. And if some mothers are rejected by their children and if those children cannot find a way back to their mothers, the pathological tendencies amongst this group, will conclude that this is simply the unintended consequence of protecting the group as a whole.

The fragmentation of self and invisible scars of hidden harm at home will however, remain visible so long as there are those who understand that the half alive ones do not have to suffer the same fate as the generations of children who went before them. And as we are not living in the nineteen seventies and eighties anymore, the the silencing of new generations of children is no longer possible. This children’s mental health crisis will have its day and those who have suffered and are still suffering will lead the way to showing the world that they are not willing to live half a life anymore.

See them, hear them, protect them, because they suffer as children and as adults they suffer too.

1. Musetti, A., Gori, A., Michelini, G. et al. Are Defense Styles Mediators between traumatic Experiences and Maladaptive Daydreaming?. Curr Psychol 42, 26683–26691 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03708-5.
2. Cavalera, C., Andreani, P., Baumgartner, O., & Oasi, O. (2022). “Do Immature Defense Mechanisms Mediate the Relationship Between Shame, Guilt, and Psychopathological Symptoms?” Frontiers in Psychology, 13:832237.
3. Main, M. , & Hesse, E. (1990). Parents’ unresolved traumatic experiences are related to infant disorganized attachment status In Greenberg M.T., Cicchetti D., & Cummings E.M. (Eds.), Attachment in the preschool years (pp. 161–181). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
4. Howell, E. F. (2008). The Dissociative Mind. Oxon, UK: Routledge.
5. Fisher, J. (2017). Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors: Overcoming internal self-alienation. Routledge
6. Soufyane T., & Lakhal M. (2024). Identification with the Aggressor in the Abused Child: A Clinical Psychological Study of Three Cases. Psychology & Education, 61(4), 933-947.
7. Freyd, J. J. (1997). Violations of power, adaptive blindness, and betrayal trauma theory. Feminism & Psychology, 7(1), 22–32.
8. Freud, A. (1936). The ego and the mechanisms of defence. London, UK: Hogarth Press.
9. Howell, E. F. (2008). The dissociative mind. Routledge.
10. Sieff, D. F. (2015). Understanding and healing emotional trauma: Conversations with pioneering clinicians and researchers. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.