Calling THESE Things as My Final Words
It's actually 2 Karen 2017 articals & the youtube interview of a PA Child's Experience (and questions for karen and Ryan Thomas I still want to have private consulations with before I proceed on Madison's Poems
No, these are not actually my final words with everything & I actually had to text back stacy to look back on 1/8/2025 and that's a good place to start with being misuderstood not doesn't have anything to do with family... but she stated that I should never stop with my own things expecially if it's on account of her. I really need to go over that with my response cuz believe me.... they all need to be done one by one as life hafe happens and can only do the one thing that is right in front of face.... that there really has been a non-stop beyond a tragic life events list too instance and too fast as it came and couldn't keep up what had already happened and I don't find out for weeks, months, years. decades. 2 decades later that I can say after my fall 2 days before xmas-2024 where I broke my nose and everything traumatizing and my life changed again with the realization especially from words by others stating I look like I was abused.... some questioning how can my fall done that to me....me explaining.... then finally having the first realization that NO, the reason steve never used his hands to abuse WAS NOT in my nieve mind believing he didn't use his hands BECAUSE in my mind that meant to me he never used his hand because that meant HE THOUGHT HE WAS NEVER ACTUALLY ABUSING ME...came to the truth after this fall that THE REAL REASON HE NEVER USED HIS HANDS WAS SO HE NEVER LEFT ANY PHYSICAL VISABLE BRUISES OR MARKS ON ME.
FOUND IN COMMENTS TO CONTACT KAREN...
May 20, 2017 at 5:00 pm
yes I can work with parents individually, if you want to work with me in court though you would need to follow protocol. If you email me at office@familyseparationclinic.co.uk I can let you know the different ways I work with families. Very best wishes Karen
LOTS OF INFO IN COMMENTS ON FIRST BLOG NEVER ANSWERED FROM KAREN!!!!
Make a in-page menu for this!
The Unbearable Experience of The Alienated Child: Lessons From The Recovery Journey
Resilience, Responsibility and Recovery: Healing the Wounds of Parental Alienation
Apr. 22, 2017
The You-Tube video interview of a PA Child's Experience
Ask Karen... then Ryan Thomas.....
THE two 2017 Karen's Articles
to start with.....
The Unbearable Experience of The Alienated Child: Lessons From The Recovery Journey
.............................................................
Back from Belfast where this week I presented to 110 Solicitors attending the Law Society of Northern Ireland Children’s Order Conference, on the legal and mental health interlock in case management of parental alienation. Whilst I was only able to attend for a short time due to a workload that makes my eyes water at times, it was clear to me from the conversations I had, that interest in the alienation of children from once loved parents is a feature of much of the work of the people I met.
What is also clear as I move around (the UK,) is that people understand parental alienation at a fairly sophisticated level, what they don’t know is what to do about it.
What they also often do not know or do not realize, is that the alienation of a child can cover up other problems in the relationship with the aligned parent and that in that and so many other respects, it is so much more than a child contact issue.
Much of my current work is with children in recovery from alienation through my work with residence transfer cases (This is 2017!) in which a child is moved to live with the parent they have been rejecting.
This work, in which I am working with the child from the vehemently rejecting position through to the recovery of a normal loving relationship with a parent, demonstrates very clearly the challenges faced by these children.
In essence, the unbearable position of the alienated child is one which should concern anyone who is working with children’s mental health, because it is child abuse at the deepest level of the developing psyche.
Whether the alienation is caused deliberately or through the unconscious upholding of the child’s maladaptive efforts to cope with post-separation family life, the end result is that the child is being abused at a level which is life-changing.
And because this abuse is so hidden and so much attributed to external factors which can be too readily dismissed or overlooked (it’s all about parental rights, it’s a he said/she said situation), the harm which is being done, which is at the fundamental level of developing personality and even brain structure, is being completely ignored.
Parental alienation is not about conflict between parents, it is not about a parent’s right to have a relationship with a child, it is not about whether a child should live in a shared care situation or whether a presumption of shared care would prevent the problem, it is a pernicious and dangerous form of emotional and psychological abuse which is perpetuated by parents and entrenched by our family law system.
Parental alienation is a child mental health issue and like the concerns raised about the brainwashing and grooming of children (in Rochdale,) it is an issue which is hidden from our immediate view by the attitudes and beliefs about post-separation parenting which are prevalent in our society.
Being alienated from a loved parent is a terrifying, lonely and confusing experience for a child and it does not matter what their age or how they arrived in the place where their psychological coping mechanism of dividing their feelings into all good and all bad, living with alienation is clearly something which children find unbearable.
"Living with alienation is clearly something which children find unbearable. "
There is a reason why alienated children are so often mute, or angry, or in need of the ‘protection’ of the parent they have aligned themselves with. To have to confront the horror of choosing to lose a loved parent is simply an intolerable experience for them.
"To have to confront the horror
of choosing to lose a loved parent is simply an intolerable experience for them."
Being with children who are now recovering from being alienated allows me to understand directly from them, the journey they have made into alienation and then out of it again. What is clear in my work with children is that each and every one of them, ranging from aged 6 to aged 18, knew that they were living a double experience of consciousness, in which they were aware that what they were saying and doing was wrong but that they had no choice but to do it.
"What is clear in my work with children is that each and every one of them, (aged 6 to aged 18)
knew that they were living a
double experience of consciousness, in which they were aware that
what they were saying and doing was wrong
but that they had no choice but to do it."
Living with the pain, shame, and bewilderment of being aware whilst trying to desperately not be aware of this, causes particular recovery tasks for children when the alienation lifts.
SEE other article on this page (Resilience, Responsibility and Recovery: Healing the Wounds of Parental Alienation)
As I understand more and more about how and why children become alienated I find myself recognizing the ways in which children in our society are incredibly vulnerable at an emotional and psychological level. Without sovereignty over their being, children depend upon adults in every minute of every single day for their basic needs being met.
As I get closer and closer to a visceral understanding of alienation, I can see, hear and smell the reality of a child’s life in the post-separation family, and I can see how, the entry to alienation is caused not just by a cold and calculating determination on the part of one against the other, but often simply a failure of the child to be able to cope with the adult decompensation into despair and depression due to the crisis of separation.
These families, where alienation becomes the child’s only refuge, are great tragedies because it is the lack of support around the family, lack of knowledge about how to deal with children who are vulnerable to alignment and rejection and lack of care or interest in our society as a whole about how to help children.
For all the years I have done this work, for all the millions that government has poured into it, for all the voluntary sector agencies, the NSPCC and the other children’s charities, the lives of children in separated family situations remain simply unbearable, intolerable and incomprehensible.
(MY COMMENT is I
Whilst these charities say they work for children, the truth is that behind the scenes their ethos is largely based upon feminist principles of women’s rights first with children’s needs being indivisible from those of their mother. Which means that mothers whose children are aligned with them post-separation are believed and mothers whose children say they no longer want to see them, are viewed as being deficient. Fathers on the other hand are largely dangerous, disposable and dismissed. Forget the real experience of children in separated family situations, forget the fear, the confusion, the fact that in a separated family it is only the children who have to continue to relate to both sides dug down into enemy camps. Forget it all in fact and in our current system, simply ask a child what their wishes and feelings are, which in the midst of an all out war or a situation where one side is waging psychological warfare and the other is simply trying to do the right thing, is a bit like breaking the child’s legs and then asking them which shoes they would like to wear.
In my work with alienated children I am coming to know, at the deepest level, the ways in which the damage which is done to a child in an alienation reaction is both emotional and psychological AND systemic in that it impacts upon a child’s developmental stages and it causes changes to the life chances of the child.
Recovering from such a reaction is not easy for a child although normal responses to a rejected parent can be seen to occur within seconds when the underlying dynamics are dealt with. It is not just the relationship with the rejected parent however which heralds recovery...
The child has a post-reunification journey of recovery which has particular tasks which I have written about before.
If the child is assisted to move through these tasks their integration of the divided self begins. If not, the child continues the process of splitting but reverses it so that the once-aligned parent now occupies the role of the rejected parent. This leaves the child reunited with a once rejected parent but still psychologically divided. This for me is the clearest evidence that the underlying challenges of parental alienation are not concerned simply with relationships with parents but with emotional and psychological damage which must be repaired if the child is to heal.
"Clearest evidence that the underlying challenges of parental alienation are not concerned simply with relationships with parents but with emotional and psychological damage which must be repaired if the child is to heal. "
And yes, there are many once-rejected parents who are devoted to healing the underlying problem for the child and who ensure that the child is assisted to continue to be in a relationship with the once-aligned parent to assist them to do so.
But there are others (and this is a fact so we had best get used to it), who will, on receiving the child, allow the counter-rejection of the previously aligned parent and feel justified in doing so.
Just as for the children whose once aligned parent abandons them completely when the child is removed from them, the child who reunites with a rejected parent who then allows the child to counter-reject the previously aligned or alienating parent, is a child who continues to suffer. And the suffering is long and it is sustained.
And it is the suffering of children which is my primary and abiding concern in the work that I do. It is the damage that is done to them in post-separation relationships and the way in which the extreme of this, which is parental alienation, causes lifelong challenges.
I do not write as a disinterested bystander either, I should be clear that I was once a single parent, I am married to a man who shared care of his children for many years, and I am a step-parent and a grandparent. I understand, from both a personal and professional standpoint, how family separation affects children. I know how the impacts of it cause children to struggle at all stages of their lives. And I understand parental alienation, from just about every possible standpoint there is to understand it.
And I know it to be one of the most pernicious and problematic experiences a child can suffer.
To cause a child, who should be unconsciously free to play and grow and emerge with their right to their own identity intact, to divide their feelings about loved adults into good and bad, is to steal away childhood and replace it with something else. A dread, a fear and a burden no child should have to carry.
"A dread, a fear and a burden no child should have to carry."
As I continue my journey of learning from alienated children, I intend to make their voices, their wishes and their feelings, as loud as it is possible to make them. I will speak because they can only act it out. I will say it because they are prevented from doing so.
I will speak because they can only act it out. I will say it because they are prevented from doing so.
These children, who are amongst us all every single day, are some of the most vulnerable children in our society and they deserve to have the reality of their suffering shouted from the rooftops.
they deserve to have the reality of their suffering shouted from the rooftops.
Which is what I intend to keep on doing.
COMMENTS………………………….
FIND THIS ONE... WHO IS WRITING THIS THAT SAY THEY ARE INTERESTED IN COMMENTS ABOUT THIS???
You touch on it here, and I agree that for a child to reject the alienating parent can also cause harm.
From a cult perspective, however, it can be a really important aspect of recovery to have nothing more to do with the cult once exited. People can be extremely vulnerable to the coercive tactics that cult leadership use, if a person chooses to walk out. Rejecting the abuse can be a very important aspect of recovery, which ultimately manifests as rejecting the cult. There are different exit routes out of a cult, and this will be something I will be writing about in the future. As always similar patterns to children exiting from parental alienation.
So I am very interested in your thoughts on how a child copes in this situation and what relationship they might have with an alienating parent that can be healthy.
May 21, 2017 at 9:17 am
Superb article again. I have said all week that there are so many parallels with this & the ‘Three Girls’ grooming story.
There does need to be a massive change in society’s view. Just like we would never now leave a girl to be groomed, just because she looks like she wants to be there!
If a child says they don’t want to see their parent, we must dig a lot lot deeper to understand why. Rarely is it because the parent is dangerous or has harmed them.
And for the courts to walk away & leave the children to cope alone is disgraceful. If a child lost their father to death, everyone would be extremely sympathetic. If that child also lost all of their paternal grandparents, aunts, uncles & cousins, possibly also step-mums & step-siblings, you would know that this child needed some major emotional support.
But not our courts. Our judges think the children are capable of standing up to their mother, with whom they live and rely on 24/7 (as it is in our case) & if the children can’t, then they just walk away.
This is child abuse.
This is neglect.
This is a safeguarding issue & should be a criminal matter. It’s not about conflict & ‘bad dads’
We no longer shut the door on wife batterers & say it’s a private matter (although we sometimes still do on husband batterers). But we shut the door on these children & leave them to it.
This is the last taboo. Mothers do abuse their children. Tens of thousands of children (just in UK).
And just because it’s emotional/psychological abuse makes it no less horrific than physical abuse.
We must put a stop to it & make it completely socially unacceptable.
Keep up the good work Karen. Hope to meet you soon.
My Comments to SAY!
This 1st Karen article & combined with the other one on this page I claimed as my final words to say... even though these articles were from 2017, so far this one is one I would like Madison to read for these reasons......FINISH!!!
Resilience, Responsibility and Recovery: Healing the Wounds of Parental Alienation
Apr. 22, 2017
THESE 2 KAREN WORKS (and the youtube “The Alienated Child’s Experience Interview) GAVE ME THE FINAL DECISION… BUT STILL NEED TO ASK ABOUT IF PUNISHED FOR AUTHETIC YOU HAVE TO GO FULL FORCE AND THERE IS NO TURNING BACK!!!
THIS Article GOES WITH:
https://karenwoodall.blog/2017/05/20/the-unbearable-experience-of-the-alienated-child-lessons-from-the-recovery-journey/
The Unbearable Experience of The Alienated Child: Lessons From The Recovery Journey
There is a reason why alienated children are so often mute, or angry, or in need of the ‘protection’ of the parent they have aligned themselves with. To have to confront the horror of choosing to lose a loved parent is simply an intolerable experience for them.
Being with children who are now recovering from being alienated allows me to understand directly from them, the journey they have made into alienation and then out of it again. What is clear in my work with children is that each and every one of them, ranging from aged 6 to aged 18, knew that they were living a double experience of consciousness, in which they were aware that what they were saying and doing was wrong but that they had no choice but to do it.
Living with the pain, shame, and bewilderment of being aware whilst trying to desperately not be aware of this, causes particular recovery tasks for children when the alienation lifts.
https://karenwoodall.blog/2017/04/22/resilience-responsibility-and-recovery-healing-the-wounds-of-parental-alienation/ Resilience, Responsibility and Recovery: Healing the Wounds of Parental Alienation
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Resilience, Responsibility and Recovery: Healing the Wounds of Parental Alienation
Apr. 22, 2017
Helping children and young people to heal from alienation is not a difficult task when one understands the process they need to go through in order to do that.
For there is a clear and easily followed path to assisting children and young people in these circumstances.
I know that because I have walked that path with eleven children so far this year and all are on the road to healing well. Last year I walked it with almost forty children and all of them are healing well, most well enough for me to not need to work with them any longer. Over my working life in this field I have walked with and helped many children, young people and adults heal from the impact of parental alienation.
It is not a difficult task, especially if one has a healthy rejected parent to work alongside because this parent is the key to the balance the child (of whatever age) desperately needs in order to begin the journey to recovery.
Alienation is healed when the alienated child can hold three things in mind, heart, body and soul –
Alienation is healed when the alienated child can hold three things in mind,
heart, body and soul –
• They are not and were not to blame for the ‘decision’ to reject a parent and they are forgiven by that parent for doing so.
• They have two parents, one of whom is healthy and provides stability and balance, one of whom is not. This parent must be understood in order to manage the relationship with them without rejecting them.
• They have the right to seek congruence in their lives.
Helping the child, adolescent or adult in recovery from alienation to reach the above point is again not difficult. Alienation does not have to last a lifetime and if the right skills and understanding are learned, it will disappear never to return.
Whilst the impact of alienation is significant, healing it means that the pattern dissolves and the struggle for the child is over for good. This is why understanding how to help a child in recovery (the subject of my current work), is an essential task for anyone professing to be proficient in this field.
I am not a fan of hand-wringing tales of woe about parental alienation, I see little value in portraying the problem as being too difficult to resolve, too big to manage and too desperate for anyone to deal with. It is not. An alienation reaction in a child is caused by the infantile defense of psychological splitting, therapeutic work (THIS IS FROM 2017 AND NEVER WAS A OPTION THAT THERAPEUTIC WORK ALLOWED THAT THAT GOT TO THE POINT IN COIRTS HE WAS ATTEMPTING 50 YR OFP ABOUT ME ACTUALLY TELLING MT CHILD (and him) I WANTED TO KILL THEM MUPTIPLE TIMES AND SEPERATE OCCASSIONS along WITH A FALSE FB FELONY TRIAL WITH A JURY WHERE MY DAIGHTER WAS HIS....AND THE STATE'S WITNESS!
The task is to take the child/adolescent/adult back to the place of the original wound and to confront them with the reality which has been denied.
The task is to take the child/adolescent/adult back to the place of the original wound and to confront them with the reality which has been denied.
This is why reunification work is so critical with alienated children and why transferring residence without such work will simply transfer the problem with the child.
Without the confrontation with the healthy parent, all reunification work is simply whispering in the wind and without the child being taken down the recovery road, all therapeutic intervention is merely words. It is only the combined confrontation with the split off and denied object which is the healthy parent, the management of the power dynamic around the child and the reorganisation of the child’s internalised belief and feeling system which brings alienation to an end. And when that work is done alienation is at an end, for good, because the resilience the child lacked in the first place, the understanding and the conscious acceptance of reality brings the child to balance. And that is true whatever the age of the alienated child.
The problem of parental alienation is not difficult to resolve when one knows what to do and has the courage to do it. There is a clear, step by step approach to resolving the outer and inner damage caused by alienation and anyone working in this field should know it and practice it. In reality, any practitioner who works with alienated children should be capable of healing the child using the known and proven steps and that should be possible within a twelve week period. A child who is caused to use psychological splitting as a defense must learn, when the outer circumstances are resolved and the relationship is with the rejected parent is healed, that their lifelong task is to understand cope with and manage the behaviours of the parent who caused the problem in the first place – without rejecting them completely. What is absolutely fascinating to me is the number of children who, when liberated from an alienating parent, are able to name exactly the behaviours in the alienating parent which caused the problem for them in the first place. Children liberated early enough can point to it and say it, children who have grown up psychologically split take longer and adults who have lived their lives in this state of mind longer still. But with the right intervention, delivered confidently and competently, every single one understands what was done and how it was done and in the end why it was done (although that is not something we focus upon in the early days of therapeutic work with children, transgenerational consciousness is part of the recovery process).
For young people healing the relationship with the rejected parent can feel like a dilemma in which they are constantly trapped because they cannot speak of this to the alienating parent. Which means that the task in therapy is to help them to accept the impossibility of living with a parent who is intensly hostile to the other and to bring them out of the childhood fantasy that they should be able to have two parents who are accepting of their relationship with each other. It is about bringing them out of their childhood where they are stuck with the primary wound of splitting and into their adulthood where perspective, integration and acceptance of ambivalence awaits.
Resilience building, in terms of bringing understanding, coherence and consistency to the lives of alienated children is assisted in their relationship with their healthy parent and as a therapist, I often work closely with this parent for a period to enable them to reinforce the stability within and without which has been lacking in the child’s life. This is intensive work but again, after a period of twelve weeks, there is little need to keep doing it because the benefit to the child of the reconnection with health is immense and with the steps of recovery having been completed, the forward motion towards resolution is continued.
Resilience building for recovery, it is the responsibility of all practitioners in this field to understand how to do it and do it. And when you know how, the difficulty, like the alienation in the child, is gone for good.
COMMENTS
karenwoodall
April 22, 2017 at 9:21 am
The desire for revenge is never present in a child unless the child is encouraged by an adult to want revenge and that would mean that the child has been coerced by the formerly rejected parent to want revenge.
Why would a healthy parent want to cause a child to seek revenge? They wouldn’t. A child wouldn’t want to seek revenge because they are hard-wired to love a parent not hate them and even in recovery, when parents have done terrible things to them, children still want to love them, it is their natural drive.
The child reaches a place of acceptance. Not pity, not forgiveness always but acceptance that it is not their place to help the parent or even understand the parent although understanding the parent is part of what we help children to do to enable recovery but the child accepts that this is the way it is for them and that is enough.
What suffices as a panacea is the realization and experience of having a good enough healthy parent and the knowledge that balance is possible in a relationship with this person.
Alienating parents cope in a range of ways from cutting out the child, blaming the other parent, configuring the change as the child being kidnapped, showing insight, trying to change, understanding the situation and attempting to help and more.
April 23, 2017 at 8:20 am
“..but the child accepts that this is the way it is for them and that is enough.”
Isn't acceptance’ a double-edged sword here? For equally the alienated/ unrecovered child(ren) can similarly learn to ‘accept’ falsehoods as their reality, and grow to ‘accept’ that “this is the way it is for them”? Whose version of ‘reality’ prevails? Great if it is the ‘true reality’ they are ‘accepting’ but disastrous when what the child(ren) ‘accepts’ is a fabrication of half-truths, mistruths, and downright lies?
karenwoodall
April 23, 2017 at 9:49 am
In a case in which a child has been taken from a parent through false accusations of parental alienation and has then been cut off completely from that parent yes, acceptance is going to cause the child to reject the parent they have been taken from and that child will be brainwashed to believe that they were brainwashed by the parent they have been taken from and will therefore be harmed by the process – badly. This is the risk in this work, someone says parental alienation and everyone believes it. Which is why differentiation is key to getting it right and why so many get it wrong. often badly wrong.
RESPONSE BY KAREN FOR ASSISTANCE
karenwoodall
April 23, 2017 at 9:56 am
The problem here Willow is the power dynamic and the way in which your daughter’s father has inveigled himself into every corner of your daughter’s psyche so that she is a slave to his belief system and bonded by his dazzling light so that you are pushed into the shadow. The core of this though is that in order to cut you out in this way she has to perform some serious psychological moves in order to survive, half of who she is has been cut away, but she is female and therefore as she grows older she will increasingly experience within herself the mother she has cut out. When this starts to happen it becomes very difficult for the repression of what she has cut out to be successful and it will begin to erupt in bursts. You don’t say whether she is a mother herself or not but becoming a mother can cause a massive rupture in the repression as can death of her father. There are events which will occur in her life which will prevent her from being able to simply ignore you and your existence in her internal world. For now, without knowing much about your background it is hard to give you specific advice, what would be really helpful to you is contained in our book which helps you to map out the route to alienation in a child in order to work out what to do to maximise the chances of reconnection. Coming soon, promise. K
MORE KAREN RESPONSE
karenwoodall
April 22, 2017 at 9:57 am
For younger children the return to the authentic childhood is the goal and this is achieved largely through reconnection with the rejected parent who then safely takes on the role of holding the tension around the child so that the alienating parent cannot continue their behaviours. In older children, those over the age of say 13/14, that childhood cannot be returned to and so the goal is to help the child understand enough to be able to rest in peace in their minds and not take on the responsibility the alienating parent is attempting to foist upon them. In older teenagers who are free of physical dependency upon their parents the goal has to be to take them back to the primary wound, hear the alienated child’s voice and authenticate the experience of being in a double bind but swiftly bring the inner child to adulthood through use of strategies to enable understanding, perspective and balance. The older the child the more grief work has to be done in order to resolve the primary wound. But it still doesn’t need to take a long time, it can be healed swiftly and it should be. Psychological splitting is not a lifetime’s wound, it can be resolved and it is not difficult to do it.
Anonymous
April 22, 2017 at 1:48 pm
Hi Karen. You write about “Confrontation with the healthy target parent”. I agree with that, but for my adult children now I would think that maybe I would need a therapist well educated in the subject matter to help in the confrontation to make it work. Coaching if you will. I have a couple of questions/ scenarios.
1) How do i get the kids to come and talk this confrontation out? This maybe a waiting thing now until they are ready.
2) Suppose a child now an adult comes back but does not want to discuss the past but wants to have a relationship with the target parent without confrontation. I am thinking that adult child is not ready to go deep in the forest of the past yet since he is out numbered. How does that work? Is this a good solution?
karenwoodall
April 23, 2017 at 10:03 am
Not all children need to talk it out, some need to live it out, some need to feel it out, what your children need is what you need to do most of and they will show you what they need.
an adult child who wants to come back but not discuss the past should be welcomed with open arms and the past should not be discussed with them. Discuss it with someone else but not the adult child. The worst any parent can do with a returning adult child is force them to go over the past, if they don’t want to do it, don’t force it but enjoy the reunion and show them they are safe and loved and you are well and when and if they need to talk they will.
**********This is a note for all parents whose children reunite***************.
The past should only be revisited by the child with the parent following, to force a child who is reunited with you to go into the past with you is to act in the same way as the alienating parent – it is putting your needs before theirs and when you do that you disrupt the attachment hierarchy. Alienated children who come home do not need to know/understand/admit/agree they were alienated from you, they have been through enough. Only revisit the past with an alienated child when the alienated child leads you to do that, otherwise stay in the present and enjoy it as much as you can with your child and give thanks for their strength in returning to you.
April 23, 2017 at 11:45 am
Thank you, Karen. My reply may be out of place and sorry about that. It’s like if the adult child has figured out some things and does not want to discuss the past. Honorable! Additionally remarkable the alienating parent is still in the adult child’s life too. Sometimes I feel like I am meandering expressing my response and thoughts. Writing does not come easy for me.
How do we know if the adult child is recovered and healed or gauge where he is at? How would we know if the adult child still believes the false abuse allegations and fabrications and fear that were drilled in him? So parents must never discuss the past in attempt to fix these false allegations? How do we help in this circumstance so the child can stand up to other siblings and stop the fabrications?
karenwoodall
April 23, 2017 at 12:22 pm
the healing of the child must be child led in spontaneous reunification, however old the child is. If you, as the alienating parent, attempt to take the child back to the past it is going to put the child back into a place where they feel pressured but this time by you. That is not to say that you cannot speak of the past but you must wait until the bond is repaired ENOUGH to be able to do that. Too many parents struggle with this idea and think that they should speak of the alienation and the past to help the child. The child will let you know when they are ready, they will ask questions and take conversations into the past, when they do this you can speak your truth quietly and clearly and tell them that it has always been this way. The child will find, in this approach, the firm ground they are in need of and will build trust back into the relationship with you, as this happens you can open up with the child more and more because the child is ready. It takes a HUGE leap of faith for a child to reunite spontaneously and I have cringed in despair at the stories told of when the child knocks on the door the court bundle is ready for them to look at – NO. Please do not do that, Please do not show the child books or articles about parental alienation, pray that your child can heal in the relationship with you without ever having to know the words parental alienation because that is the way that your child, however old, will find peace. Unfortunately, as the targeted parent, this is the burden you must bear so that your child doesn’t; have to, this is the damage you must repair because your child’s other parent handed them a heap of sorrow to deal with. Lift the burden from your child and give them the space. When the time is right your child will ask and you will have your chance. In the circumstances you speak of above where the child is adult and facing difficult stuff from other siblings and parent, love, love and love some more. Give love, time, patience, kindness and keep giving it, keep going and keep loving, it is your love which will speak your truth and this will offset the power of any false allegations from the past. Alienated children crave love, love from a healthy parent, give them it, don’t let them down by making them feel you are like the other parent by wanting them to listen to things from the past. K
THIS IS EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER NEEDED TO KNOW as of 1/4/2025…. But one last thing I need need to know from Karen is how does she explain her response in comments ABOUT ONLY ONE WAY TO KNOW TO TRY TO PREVENT PA IS IF YOU WERE AWARE OF THIS BEFORE HAND…..and IF THE CHILD WAS PUNISHED FOR SHOWING HER TRUE AUTHETIC SELF?
April 24, 2017 at 3:36 pm
“If you, as the alienating parent, attempt to take the child back to the past it is going to put the child back into a place where they feel pressured but this time by you” is from your reply Karen to Anonymous above….
sadsam
April 22, 2017 at 2:53 pm
“They have two parents, one of whom is healthy and provides stability and balance, one of whom is not. This parent must be understood in order to manage the relationship with them without rejecting them”
Karen you say the above is one of the three things an alienated child needs to hold ” in mind, heart, body and soul” for alienation to be healed. However, doesn’t this require that the ‘healthy’ parent is correctly identified? Yet in the cases not involving you, isn’t this where problems arise when the ‘wrong’ parent is officially classified as ‘healthy’ and the child(ren) is told by professionals their classification is right?
karenwoodall
April 22, 2017 at 4:14 pm
yes it does SS and I am often brought in to sort out cases which are incorrectly identified – social workers find it hard to admit when they are wrong though.
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2. sadsam
April 22, 2017 at 11:05 pm
Thanks for your reply. I’d love to know what the typical responses are of SWs you find to have been wrong in such cases and what judges have to say to such SWs when they choose to accept your analysis of a family rather than the SWs?!?
I’m further left pondering about the multiple cases, in which you are never involved, which should be reassessed and corrected, but are left with the original mistakes intact and hence where the child(ren) are left believing a falsehood about, in essence, both parents….and how a targeted parent in this position can best deal with it? When recourse to the courts is a financial impossibility, it really seems a bleak hope that any positive changes can be effected. Or am I being unnecessarily pessimistic? Can you offer any crumbs of hope?
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April 23, 2017 at 10:03 am
sadsam – we are one of those cases, and whilst Karen has worked with us, and spoken to people who have care of the child in our case, we were never able to get her more direct contact. Maybe in years to come when the child is an adult. Maybe. In the meantime we did everything we could and pursued the court side of the case almost as far as we could (stopped short of a full hearing for fear of deeper damage to the child, but continued to pursue through regulatory channels). Never got anywhere due to the culture within these organisations of not accepting responsibility for bad decision-making, although impossible to know what impact our endeavours had under the surface. In responding to your question, I have thought for a long time I’d like to write to the SW, now it’s nearly 3 years after he recommended ‘no direct contact’, to let him know how that’s worked out. There no contact at all now, other than through the resident parent, so no contact. I think it’s appalling that there is no follow up required to what are its changing decisions by the court. The bad decision-making has been validated, and presumably continues, damaging others in its wake.
danalaquidara
April 22, 2017 at 11:36 pm
I am an adult alienated child and it seems to be too late for me to establish much of a relationship w/ my very wounded mother who also lives far from me. I would love to go to the source of my childhood wound, but I was four years old when alineated and have very little memory of it. How can access that to heal fully? Is this possible? I am almost tempted to do hypnosis just to get this wound up and out. I want to reclaim my authenticity. I get close through meditation and other healthy habits, but I feel I am not “there”.
karenwoodall
April 23, 2017 at 9:45 am
Dear Dana, I have just read your latest piece on your blog and I would say this – it is not too late for you to receive the mothering that you crave and need and have missed out on. This lack of mothering in your life is the core of your authenticity which you are trying to reclaim but cannot get enough of from your mother because she is not ready or able to give you that – yet. What is happening is a concurrent journey of recovery but each of you have different tasks to complete before the systemic correction of the relationship can be undertaken (which basically means before your mother can be mother and you can be her child again). Your mother has had to survive the loss of her child at the age of four and you, her child, have had to survive the loss of your mother at the age of four, a catastrophic loss for both of you which has caused a primary wound which needs healing. That four year old child in you needs her mother to be closer and needs her mother to be strong enough to mother you. Your mother is not strong enough to mother you – yet. In therapy, I would invite that four year old child to speak and let that child be heard well. There is grief and sorrow and loss and abandonment in your writing which needs hearing. Eventually your mother needs to hear it but she will need to be strong enough to do so without crying. For now your mother needs holding and hearing, the young mother in her needs to be enabled to speak. It can be done, it just needs to be done by someone who understands how to do it. You can be heard and so can your mother and you can heal, you can find peace in being your mother’s daughter and she in being your mother. If you would like help I can offer it by Skype and I can help your mother too. Email me at office@familyseparationclinic.co.uk if you feel it might assist you. K
April 24, 2017 at 12:59 pm
Thank you, Karen. What you say makes perfect sense to me. Unfortunately, my mother is so wounded, far away, and has little means of contact (no email, text, skype) that I feel she is mostly unavailable and unwilling to go through a healing process. Is it possible to do this without her? I will email you.
karenwoodall
April 24, 2017 at 1:56 pm
Yes it is possible Dana, do email me, we can Skype and I will be in the US in the fall too with a seminar planned in Boston and a weekend trip to Cape Cod planned so it may well be possible to meet up too. K
Frankie
June 29, 2017 at 7:35 am
At the risk of being told I’m completely wrong…. I can’t imagine your mother doing anything else but hugging you tightly while brushing away a tear or two!
I wish you every success in your future journey back to your mum!
Those of us reading this have dreamt of the day……I would love to know what happens!
Much love!
Frankie
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2. Willow
April 23, 2017 at 9:00 am
Dana I clicked on your name which took me to your story, it was very moving. I read it and felt love on both sides as well as a hurt that can’t speak. I truly wish both you and your mum happiness and resolution. If I was your mum I’d want to read that piece of writing and I would fall into your arms overflowing with love. So much lost time…
I’d like to think that one day my daughter would be able to feel the love you show in your writing but all I saw was her contempt and rejection. She doesn’t have any of the soft edges that show in your writing. She changed so much. And to be honest, because of that, my soft edges have begun to harden.
I hope you both get there one day 🙂
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3. Willow
April 23, 2017 at 2:06 pm
Dana I hope Karen can help you and your mum because reading your blog it seems to me that if there is anything crying out for a hopeful outcome it’s your story. I’d love to ask you about your back story (how you came to realise you’d been alienated) but know it wouldn’t be appropriate; instead I am really hoping for a happy outcome for you.
Good luck 🙂
FIND DANAS BLOG 2017
Frankie
April 30, 2017 at 1:16 pm
Karen, are members of the public permitted to attend your talk at the law society in Northern Ireland, and if so where is it being held!
After 4 yrs of hard line alienation by his father my son got out of hiscar today and gave me a big hug as I handed him cards from my family for his 17th birthday! Thank you for keeping me focused, strong and determined and sharing the wealth of knowledge and experience you have_ I fear had I not found you, I may not have been around today!! It was only a hug but my heart is full!!
To those parents who fear it will never come good, please take solace of my situation!! God knows when I will see him again as my ex kept him from me for 4yrs….could be another 4 til the next time but I will be here when he needs me!!
So want to hear you speak Karen, you are that light at the end of the tunnel!!
ALL NEEDED JUST NOT RIGHT NOW! NEED TO CONTACT KAREN TO ASK QUESTION!!!!
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1. Frankie
May 4, 2017 at 5:55 pm
CG,
Your husbands journey with his son and mine seem very similar in as much as we have both wanted the best for our children and have suffered to make it so! What I have learned over many years is that people like your husband and I are not responsible for other people’s behaviour and all we can do is deal with what we can control within our own lives!
I find it so very difficult to deal with a father who only wants his son in order to hurt the mother, and who gives very little attention to his beautiful daughter who was once his little princess because she choses to live with me!
My son’s father abused me physically and mentally for many years but I stayed for the sake of my children, I did however refuse to allow him to do the same to my son, so when it happened, I took them and left!! That’s their daddy’s problem, he lost control!! Believe me I understand only too well your husbands frustration and pain. The last beating my son got at the hands of his father has now been turned on me! The little boy I protected for 13 years has now stated that it was perpetrated by me, but the children are being brainwashed and for my part all I can do now after 4yrs of courts and social workers is be there for him when he realises this! Part of the plan of an alienating parent is to destroy the targeted parent….please don’t let it happen! I’m living proof you can get through it, and live with whatever pain is felt!
I watched my son, drink, smoke, take drugs and let his education go down the pan, and his daddy stood and watched me fight to stop it!!
There are so many of us it’s hard to believe…. I wait with baited breath on their daddy’s next move and my only concern is keeping my children safe, it’s all we can do!!
Frankie xx
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2. Frankie
May 22, 2017 at 3:43 am
CG,
things don’t really change!!! It’s 4am in Ireland and after having watched my son drive up to collect his sister with his daddy beside him in the car (L) I had a complete meltdown!! I don’t know how the hell I will get through this living hell and sometimes in my dark times, I don’t want to! I’m sounding off here cause I thought something “more” would happen after the hug, but it hasn’t!! I feel a pathetic mum, which in a way is precisely what their father wants!!
I’m lost and I don’t know what to do anymore…..suggestions on a postcard!!
If I don’t try to laugh, I’ll cry!!
Karen, I wish I’d had you 4 yrs ago when this all started instead of a Court Welfare Officer who couldn’t have spelt Parental Alienation!!
There’s so much self-pity in this comment, I apologise!
Frankie x
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3. karenwoodall
May 22, 2017 at 9:24 pm
Dear Frankie, I am sending you a hug. I have spent today with a child aged 10 who is now reunited and I am only now uncovering the depth of what this child has had to deal with. What this child would want you to know is that the love never dies, the knowledge of your love never dies and there is always the double pull of love and fear when the alienation is at its worst. What is happening is terrifying because you don’t know what is happening, what is happening to your boy is that he doesn’t realise what is happening and when he does he may not be able to get free. But that hug was not unreal or false or not from anywhere, it came from the healthy child underneath. The hug released the longing though which makes the subsequent encounters too painful to bear. Stay with it. Take CG’s advice, don’t push the river, wait, bide your time, mend your nets like fishermen who cannot go out in the storm. I heard today from someone whose boy came back this weekend, that in itself is the start of a new phase. This is a roller coaster of a time but do not let go of that hug in your heart, it was real. I promise you. Sending my love and support Kxxx
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3. CG
May 22, 2017 at 10:58 am
Frankie,
I’m sorry for your crisis. And don’t worry about the self-pity – its hard not to feel alone and lost. Sometimes you have to let that wash over you. Its grief after all. Then pick yourself up and move on. Its the only thing you can do. Being downtrodden doesn’t change anything. You can’t change what’s happening but you do have control over how you feel about it and how you react. Without wanting to sound trite, of course you can have no idea what’s happening for your son inside. I have no doubt the hug came from the authentic child. That moment will have meant something to him, it just needs to get to a place where the fear of not doing something about it exceeds the fear of doing something about it. Added into that the complications that children want to love both their parents, so going against his father will eventually need to feel less urgent than the need to have another hug. How your son responds is beyond your control. Have faith.
I don’t have any answers on a postcard, but I do have soothing music that we play sometimes, that really can help to heal the soul. A long suite of pieces is called ‘The Prayer Cycle’ – its various artists but the names that usually come up are Jonthan Elias, Alanis Morrisette and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Then another old favourite for zoning out is Speigel im Spiegel by Arvo Part. Keep going – your child needs you. Your comments are also undoubtedly helping other people in this situation. There are many many people who silently read these posts. And you can have no idea how your honesty is helping others – small comfort but a comfort to be had none the less. My very best wishes to you
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Hope
September 9, 2018 at 8:33 pm
I hurt everyone who is caught up in parental alienation. I’ve been there….it was heart wrenching. I felt lost, in disbelief, and alone at the time. After the divorce my teenaged son with whom I always had a healthy, happy and supportive relationship, would not see me for over 2 years, and seemed as if under a spell, believing awful things about me. I believe PA is insidious psychological abuse of a child by a mentally unwell parent who is triggered and unhinged. The children are victims and should never be blamed, no matter what behavior they show. We need to find a way to recognize and stop PA through the courts and the therapeutic community, both of which are generally impotent with regard to this pervasive abuse. The adversarial legal system is partly to blame as it inflames conflict, triggering mental health weaknesses in all involved.
When I was going through it I looked everywhere for help to bring my son back. There were very few Internet postings of parents who were able to reunite, or who could suggest how. So I would like to post my experience to give hope for reuniting, and say what helped me. I urge you not to give up, because you are and always have been their parent. Your child loves and needs you to be strong and actively creating an environment that inspires reuniting. Thank goodness and with great gratitude to published guides like you and other professional leaders in the field, and all the family and friends who helped when asked, my son returned 3 years ago, and we are healing wounds and have made so much progress. He is a thriving young man with two parents and extended family on both sides now to support him through life.
-never give up
-never blame the child
-reduce tension in relation to ex- be respectful, civil, show you are able to speak together in front of your children. This parent is a part of them so rejecting that parent is felt as a rejection of them, causes painful internal conflict. To reduce that conflict children feel they must choose, and may stay with the parent whose love is entwined with need, or is more conditional, often on the rejection of you.
-I did not use family court as I had experience with its relative incompetence and lack of care during the divorce, giving me no confidence in its ability to help the situation. I had a strong sense it would backfire and cause more resentment in my son, would add to his sense of conflict and stress, and use up funds I needed to pay his college tuition.
-I fought hate with unconditional love-patient, continuous, unflinching. I behaved based on my own code, not in reaction to others’ behavior.
-I believe parental alienation causes self-loathing and great anxiety in a child, which is behind much of the negative behavior. The only way to heal this is to show you believe in them and love them no matter what, to help them love themselves again. Only after they feel self-love can they begin to show others love again. Be patient and reassured this will happen with the power of your consistent love and support.
-I took time to heal myself, to soul-search, read and learn, to plan a strategy to bring him back to me and his whole family
-I researched PA extensively, read multiple books. I most benefitted from Richard Warshak’s Divorce Poison.
-I continued living my life as fully as possible-consciously focused on gratitude for what I had, worked hard to be financially independent, found a new loving supportive partner, spent time with friends, sought new experiences, spent a lot of time in nature.
-I committed to writing my son brief loving cards including photos, each 1-2 weeks. No negativity, expectations, or guilt. Occasional suggestions of what fun things I envisioned we could all do together someday when he felt ready.
-I tried not to be pushy, and to relax in the knowledge that someday he would return, on his own timetable of healing
-I stated my boundaries, with kindness
-I asked for support from everybody-friends, his therapist, my family, the family of my ex with whom I worked to maintain a good relationship, to speak to him of me and encourage reuniting. This was key.
-I looked for opportunities, asking to be briefly in his presence, but letting him control any contact
-I kept believing in the good outcome. Envisioning, asking, showing gratitude for any little thing.
I hope my thoughts help. Please keep your hope alive and actively work step by step, undaunted, to heal yourself, your child, and your family.