At the Family Separation Clinic, all of our work is brain based and rooted in contemporary trauma theory, which means that we are working with you to help and heal the somatic as well as cognitive and psychological harm this experience causes. Lighthouse Keeping is a brain based approach to healing from the reactive splitting caused when your child rejects you and a way of healing your alienated child using the attachment relationship.
In this frame, the days up to Christmas are anticipatory days, which means that your brain is focused on doing what your brain has evolved to do. The brain is a prediction machine, its primary job is to help you to survive and to do that, it constantly scans the future to see what is coming so that you can prepare. When you are a parent in the rejected position and surrounded by images of family, warmth and togetherness, you are braced for defence because your brain anticipates with memory plus prediction.
When the brain anticipates Christmas Day for example, it does not do so neutrally, it draws upon previous christmases, memories of presence and most of all absence, plus the embodied memory of longing and grief, which is love with nowhere to go. In this respect the amygdala which is the brain’s threat detector and the hippocampus, the memory processor, work together to say this hurt last time, it will hurt us again and the result is an anticipatory dread which feels like fatigue, fog, irritability and sometimes collapse.This is not you failing to cope and it is not resolved by trying to stay positive or look on the bright side and it is absolutely not helped by people who tell you your children ‘will come back again in their own time’.
This is your nervous system trying to reduce shock by grieving early and the brain does not respond well to emotional invalidation of this nature, even when it comes with good intention, because when feelings are pushed away, the threat system increases its volume.
Instead, regulation instead, comes from acknowledgement of the pain and recognition of the trauma reaction to this unending loss. When others reflect that your brain is not anticipating pain because you are broken but instead It is anticipating pain because you are attached to a child who is out of reach to you, your brain feels understood. Attachment does not switch off because a calendar changes or because a child says they do not want to see you at Christmas and it is time we acknowledged that.
What your brain needs this Christmas is what calms your brain and the brain calms when it experiences predictability, agency and meaning. Therefore, the best approach this Christmas, is for you to do what all good Lighthouse Keepers do when the seas are stormy, which is to tend to the Lighthouse itself. So instead of asking yourself ‘how will I cope at Christmas‘ set out for yourself ‘this is what I will do at Christmas.‘
- I will focus on what is really happening to my child not how it impacts upon me.
- I will make my love for my child even though they are not here.
- I will be creative in showing my love even if they are not there.
Christmas, like birthdays activate the attachment channel and attachment, even when it is blocked and therefore painful, is evidence of your humanity. Your brain is carrying love and is doing everything it can to help you survive. So let’s give it a hand to rethink and reframe so that you can be ready for the days ahead.
Here are the key reframes that help your brain to understand and move into resting and healing.
Problem
You cannot rest is because your brain is searching for the reason why your child is rejecting you.
Reframe: My child isn’t rejecting me, they are surviving the unpredictable care and control of the parent they are aligned to.
Resolution: the relational field is on an asymmetrical tilt, I am disadvantaged in play but I must ensure that my child is not the referee.
Lighthouse Keeping Position: I will stand on the sideline and show my child my support without competition.
Problem
You cannot stop telling the story because your brain is traumatised, people get tired of listening, some people blame you and say that you are crazy because you cannot stop telling the story.
Reframe: A trauma story must be told until you can stand outside it and tell it in a coherent narrative, this is how the brain makes sense of something traumatic.
Resolution: Focus on the telling in safe space, journelling, therapy groups for alienated parents, timed telling spaces in which you make an agreement with someone to tell the story in 20 minutes, drawing, creating.
Lighthouse Keeping Position: I will release the trauma in manageable stages until I can tell the trauma from the outside instead of living it from the inside.
Problem
You cannot shift from a hyper focus on the unjust nature of the situation, you just cannot make sense of how this can be allowed to happen.
Reframe: This is an attachment trauma which is not well understood yet. The world needs educating to understand how this happens.
Resolution: I will learn all I can about how this happens and I will join with others who know so that awareness can be raised more quickly around the world.
Lighthouse Keeping Position: I will become an informed advocate for children and young people who suffer this harm.
Problem
You are focused on the lack of contact from your child, the lack of connection. You are convinced you will never see them again.
Reframe: Just because I cannot see them doesn’t mean they cannot see me. I will trust the attachment science and ensure that I am visible and that they are receiving signals of safety from me.
Resolution: What words can I use to convey signals of safety, what tools can I put in my toolbox to ensure that safety is a continuous message that I am sending out into the world.
Lighthouse Keeping Position: What days of the week will I send out my messages, what channels will I shine my lighthouse beam on, what is my child seeing when they are looking for me.
What happens to the brain when we reframe
When we reframe the messaging, we are training the brain to see the reality of this attachment trauma, which is that it is a projection of the split off parts of self, of the parent to whom the child is aligned, and the child is forced to be a player in the other parent’s pantomime.
When you step out of the projective pantomime and start living in the truth, your brain stops searching and starts focusing on healing and when you are focused on healing, the lighthouse beams you send out share signals of safety with your child not signals of panicked reaction.
This attachment trauma is like no other, it is cruel and it causes deep harm but it can be healed and Lighthouse Keeping is a key way to utilise the attachment conduit, to provide the light that children who are sailing on stormy seas in little boats, need to find their way home.
As the year moves to the ‘still point of the turning world’ we are sending out signals of safety to you all, you are not alone, your love is seen and you are recognised for what you are, the best hope your child has for a healthy future.
Keep the Lighthouse Beam bright until next year.
News from the Family Separation Clinic
FSCParenting.com
Our new watch on demand channel has our Connecting at Christmas Seminar available for download now. In 2026 this channel will host many more seminars and courses for you to watch in your own time. We look forward to welcoming you to join us there.
Therapy Groups for Parents in the Rejected Position
From January we will be delivering three dedicated therapy groups for parents in the rejected position.
Lighthouse Keeping for the Northern Hemisphere (UK/USA and Europe) on alternate Tuesdays at 17:00 UK time. (25 Places only)
Lighthouse Keeping for the Southern Hemisphere (UK/Australia/ Hong Kong and Europe on alternate Tuesdays at 9:00 UK time (25 places only)
Therapeutic Support Group for Mothers on Mondays at 17:00 UK time (15 places only)
These groups will be facilitated by me and will be an opportunity to undertake depth therapeutic work in a group setting.
Please note that I will not be able to provide any one to one services in 2026 due to a focus on writing and development of resources for families and so these therapy groups are the best way of accessing my direct support. I have limited the places to ensure that you receive the best input possible.
Karen Woodall - Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer 
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