Can happiness be found in family estrangement?
This article was written for therapists, psychiatrists and mental health practitioners. Since other readers may also find it helpful it has been slightly modified.
For many, maintaining distance from someone they once loved and cared about is not easy and was never on the menu. How to help a person become “happily” estranged from a family member can be quite a challenge for the clinician. One of the few researchers in this field encapsulates the complexity:
“Family estrangement is larger than conflict and more complicated than betrayal. It is entwined in contradictory beliefs, values, behaviours and goals and is the result of at least one member of the family considering reconciliation impossible and/or undesirable. The cessation of familial relations, whether that involves rejection or deciding to leave, can be an inordinately traumatising experience” (Agllias, 2017, p.1).
A person may need to remain apart from individuals with whom they once had a connecting bond because, for instance, of maltreatment and the trauma and grief that often follows. They may have loved, cared for or raised them, or been raised by or alongside them. In other words, had an earlier meaningful attachment. Learning how to stay apart and still lead a reasonably good life can be painfully hard for them. It carries multiple losses. Often beyond their control or perhaps beyond anything they did or did not do to prevent such losses from eventuating.
Estrangement is fairly common and widespread (Conti, 2015) and it’s different for different people so we can’t generalise (Blake, Bland & Imrie, 2020). But we must remember, “estrangement is a process, not an event” (Agllias, 2015). That is, it’s not an abrupt occurrence but rather filled with a complexity of patterns and processes (e.g., Gilligan, Suitor & Pillemer, 2022). People become estranged for various reasons. For instance, often the unmet needs of adult children of parents with a serious mental illness can involve losses which lead to estrangement (Misrachi, 2012).
There is no set definition of estrangement (Blake, Bland & Imrie, 2020). However, Agllias (2014) defines family estrangement as “a reaction to intense emotion or conflict resulting in the distancing or loss of affection between one or more members of a family, where at least one party is dissatisfied with the situation”. This researcher also suggests evidence which indicates that “estrangement is more common — and more complicated — than we might expect”. Certainly this has been my clinical practice experience. To become estranged from the very individual a person once loved and cared for is deeply heart-wrenching as it is emotionally and psychologically very demanding.
In an article entitled “The grief that dare not speak its name. Part III: Dealing with the ravages of childhood abuse”, Bloom (2000) recommends quitting attachments that are highly pathological, dysfunctional, or toxic for those trapped in relationships dangerous to their mental and emotional well-being. But this apparent ticket to freedom is not entirely free. It comes with a cost and with agonising challenges. In a blog post entitled “You’re Dead To Me, Why Estrangement Hurts So Much Understanding the Pain”, Agllias (2014a) notes that being estranged by a family member is one of the most painful events across the lifespan intensified by: (i) its unexpectedness, (ii) its ambiguous nature, (iii) the powerlessness it potentially creates, and (iv) the social disapproval it often carries. Here I’d add (v) the non-concrete trauma coupled with a deeply disenfranchised grief quietly bubbling beneath a facade in daily social life.
Because estrangement is a process rather than one single event, not something a person sets out to consciously do, and often not of their own independent doing, it is often filled with sensations never previously encountered or imagined. Yet that estranged person is now required to somehow digest and metabolize it all — it’s a tall ask. For example, he or she may need to remain strong, confident, and believe in their autonomous reasons for entering their estrangement decision-making process. Often, it’s based on a real or perceived need to create bigger, wider, higher boundaries to keep themselves psychologically, emotionally, and maybe also physically, safe. For some, such boundaries may also come as a relief of no longer being drained of resources, as for instance, in cases of parentification (see “Parentification: A License to Kill Childhood”). But the flip side to that contains a challenging dilemma. That is, a large part of parentified individuals had their identity develop around not having healthy boundaries and not having needs met. Yet whether for perceived or real psycho-emotional survival, that identity must now, in many cases, dramatically shift.
According to Blake, Bland and Imrie (2020), there is little to no empirical research into the clinical experiences of those estranged from one or more family members. And as such, few counsellors, clinicians, therapists or mental health practitioners know how to effectively help. Those professionals who can do so are usually knowledgeable about estrangement, supportive of the estranged person’s feelings and decisions, do not pressure or manipulate individuals to act, think or feel in any prescriptive manner, and generally offer non directive support. This may be tricky for clinicians who may have never needed to face the grueling experience of estrangement or who rigidly adhere to a family-focused approach.
Since estrangement is a form of trauma and eventuates when “at least one member of the family considering reconciliation impossible and/or undesirable” (Agllias, 2017, p.1), it makes sense to assume, as the case in my clinical practice, that there likely was the presence of various forms of abuse or maltreatment. Otherwise, in the absence of any mental or personality disorder, why would anyone be driven towards family estrangement? It may therefore be worthwhile appreciating the question of what the alternative option or “choice” for that patient would look like had they not entered the uncomfortable estrangement process. For instance, if we are to assume that estrangement was the consequence of the person no longer tolerating maltreatment, then we’d need to draw from trauma-informed literature to comprehend what the option of not becoming estranged would look and feel like for a patient choosing not to escape the trauma of abuse. Based on trauma-informed literature and my own clinical practice experience, not becoming estranged in this context has the following seven implications:
That person would have to: (1) remain silent; (2) engage with victim-perpetrator dynamics; (3) become traumatically bonded to the abuser; (4) risk continuous emotional abandonment; (5) acquiesce to the perpetrator; (6) lose one’s true identity and erode one’s soul, i.e., be invalidated via constant psycho-emotional strategies employed by the perpetrator aimed at dis-empowerment; and (7) in the words of Middleton, Sachs and Dorahy (2017), subscribe to “a powerless underclass” (p.252). Their article “The abused and the abuser: Victim–perpetrator dynamics” is a worthwhile read as is Frankel’s (2002). “Exploring Ferenczi’s concept of identification with the aggressor: Its role in trauma, everyday life, and the therapeutic relationship”.
For many, family estrangement is indeed strange or at the very least surrealistic. It is a mind-twisting climb out of what one person called “a hell-hole” as sufferers struggle up and out to where they may find some sunlight and fresher air. How to help someone become and stay “happily estranged” may sound like a contradiction in terms. But for those with an ongoing, seemingly never-ending history of abuse and neglect — whether from a close relationship or an attachment figure, or from any perceived or real comprehension of reasons for the estrangement — they usually arrive at their predicament with very little choice. So they may as well be helped to engage with their predicament as “happily” as possible, particularly if they are to ever achieve and maintain any sense of genuine and adequate safety. How to do this?
Self preservation for such individuals is key. Literature on ‘how to do’ estrangement, while rare, is expanding. For instance, research and clinical experience indicates common misconceptions around what constitutes “a family”, limited also by clinicians’ own beliefs or values. As Scharp (2018) notes: “Sometimes estrangement is the happy ending… People are horrible at relationships, so getting away is the best thing that could have happened to someone.” Ultimately, the ‘how to’ is often about tolerance, creative thinking, patience, and an ability to increase a client’s capacity for self care and self compassion throughout this delicate process. For all therapists, this demands professional and personal courage, sensitivity, resourceful imagination, and most critical of all, a hefty dose of kindness.
This article was originally published in Mind Cafe, February, 2023, Issue 87. (Some modifications were made to the original article to suit a general readership).
Selected references:
Agllias, K. (2017). Family Estrangement: A matter of perspective. Routledge
Agllias, K., (2015). What We Lose, and Gain, When a Family Separates: Expert advice on what comes after estrangement. Posted Mar 01, 2015. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/family-conflict/201503/what-we-lose-and-gain-when-family-separates
Agllias, K., (2014). Family Estrangement: Aberration or Common Occurrence? Posted Sep 08, 2014: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/family-conflict/201409/family-estrangement-aberration-or-common-occurrence-0
Blake, L., Bland, B., Imrie, S. (2020).The Counseling Experiences of Individuals Who Are Estranged From a Family Member. Family Relations, 69(4), 820–831.
Bloom, S., L. (2000). The grief that dare not speak its name. Part III: Dealing with the ravages of childhood abuse. Psychotherapy Review, 2(12), 516–519.
Conti, R. P. (2015). Family Estrangement: Establishing a Prevalence Rate. Journal of Psychology & Behavioral Science. 3(2) December, Abstract 4.
Gilligan, M., Suitor, J.J., Pillemer, K. (2022). Patterns and Processes of Intergenerational Estrangement: A Qualitative Study of Mother–Adult Child Relationships Across Time. Research on Ageing. 44(5–6), 436–447.
Misrachi, S. (2012). Lives Unseen: Unacknowledged Trauma of Non-Disordered, Competent Adult Children of Parents with a Severe Mental Illness (ACOPSMI). Department of Social Work Melbourne School of Health Sciences Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, from http://hdl.handle.net/11343/37852
Scharp, K. (2018). Researcher’s Work on Parent-Child Estrangement Gets a National Platform. January 18, Utah State University. Utah State TODAY. Health & Wellness. See: https://www.usu.edu/today/story/work-on-parent-child-estrangement-gets-a-national-platform
