Can alienated children ever find their way home? It is a question I am repeatedly asked and one which I always try to answer honestly. Before I answer however, I always ask the questioner to think about the core conditions the child is coming home to, because those conditions, make the difference between a child who comes home in body and a child who comes home in body AND mind. And it is the latter we are looking for when we are working as Lighthouse Keepers because it is relational repair which enables the child to integrate the split self and find wholeness in their internal sense of self. And it is wholeness in the self which allows for the full return of the alienated child to their rightful place as simply your son or daughter in an ordinary, everyday world.
The truth is that children do not, because they cannot, come back to the relationship as it used to be. That is because this journey of alienation, which is first and foremost and alienation from the self, changes the brain, changes the mindset and changes the internal working model of self. That is not to say that the original internal map of relational health cannot be resurfaced and revived, it can and it is that which is the blue print for eventual relational health. But it does mean that the entanglements, the diversions and the defensive structures which have shaped the alienated child’s world, must be recognised as having changed the way that the child interacts with the internal and external world.
Lighthouse Keeping is the name we use to describe the co-therapeutic model of relational repair which is used at the Family Separation Clinic. This is a synergy of attachment theory, neuroscience and Object Relations Theory, which is combined with humanistic, psychodynamic, internal family systems approaches and structural therapy, to bring a comprehensive map of the needs of the alienated child and the responses which are most helpful at different stages in their journey. This approach, which will be published on December 9th by Routledge, offers all parents in the rejected position, a detailed guide of how to use relational healing to help their alienated children to come home, first to their own sense of self and then to the ordinary relationship with the parent in the rejected position, which has been denied to them by the triangulating and coercive dynamics which are seen when children are forced into alignment and rejection behaviours.
Whilst some children do align mildly and reject temporarily, the children we are concerned about are not those whose parents are struggling through the early days, it is the children who have entered into rigid and fixed beliefs which are shown to have no basis in reality and those children who cling to parents who are found to have caused them serious harm. In short, the alienated child is an abused child, whose predicament has often been hidden behind closed doors and the charming face of the parent they are aligned to. A child who is utterly dependent upon a parent who has absolute control over them and a child who cannot speak for themselves and even when they try to, their only route to safety is to mirror the abusive parent in their certainty that the parent they are rejecting is the cause of their refusal.
Helping children to come home is what we are doing every day at the Family Separation Clinic and we are doing this by helping parents to recognise that you cannot push, pull, persuade or punish a child who is aligned and rejecting, because their behaviour is about seeking safety not about preference or choice. As so many children who were trauma bonded have said to me in the past when I asked them if they were aware that they were aligned to a parent causing them harm – “what else did you expect me to do? I was a kid, I couldn’t have escaped even if I wanted to. If I had said I wanted to leave (s)he would have simply come after me.“
Lighthouse Keeping is an alternative approach to chasing, hoping, appeasing, persuading, begging and pleading. It is an alternative approach which works because it offers the child a stable point of regulation which, when they are able to access the path it creates, a predictable route back to safety. It is not a quick fix and it is not a set of tips, hacks or get your kids back quick strategies. Lighthouse Keeping is a serious, therapeutic pathway to repair which clears away trans-generational trauma patterns and which ensures that the internalised split sense of self is integrated over time.
Most of all Lighthouse Keeping offers parents in the rejected position a way of living which is realistic not just hopeful. It offers steady and regular support which creates a co-regulation for the parent in the rejected position who has somewhere to go which is safe and supportive as well as filled with practical guidance and useful reflections. Lighthouse Keeping offers a parallel process to support your work in helping your children to come home. What we do with you, you will do with your children and as we do that repeatedly, the internal and external lights which signal safety and home, shine brighter.
Our Lighthouse Keeping Therapy Groups begin again on 14th October (Southern Hemisphere) and 20th October (Northern Hemisphere) and run every two weeks through to January. Each group is two hours long and allows you to work directly with me at the lowest possible cost (£25 per hour) so that you can get the support that you need to understand, recover and rebuild, develop and deliver your own Lighthouse Keeping strategy to help your child find their way home.
I am deeply committed to this way of working as it has been shown to be repeatedly effective in families around the world. For now this is the only direct service delivery that I am involved in due to my commitment to the completion of a new set of guides for families and the practitioners who work with them, as well as the final submission stage of my doctoral thesis. New groups and services will be available from 2027 however, including the new Lighthouse Keeping Club which is a subscription service, you can find out more about that in our regular newsletter which you can sign up for here.
The Journey of the Alienated Child will be published on December 9th 2026 by Routledge and you can join me for a free launch event online
