Saturday Seminar: The journey of the alienated child (UK, Europe, USA and Canada time zones)

The journey of the alienated child
An online event for parents of alienated children and their families with Karen Woodall

Saturday 5 April 2025
This seminar will be delivered on Zoom between 17:00 and 19:30 UK Time.

To check your local start time, please click the link below, ensure ‘Date’ is selected, and enter 17:00 - 2025-04-05 - London in the right-hand boxes, here: https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter

A Zoom link for this event will be included in your order confirmation (if you do not receive this, please check your spam folder).

Cost £60.00

T&Cs: Please read our terms and conditions here

15% Discount Voucher: Those who join this seminar will receive a 15% Discount Voucher for the new upcoming course entitled The Journey of the Alienated Child, which will be available in the summer. The voucher will be sent via email before the new course opens for bookings (please see T&Cs here).

About this seminar

A two hour introductory seminar to Karen Woodall's new work on the psychological journey that the child takes through the attachment maladaptations which are popularly referred to as 'alienation.'

Alienation is a good word for what happens to the child who is pressured into a strong alignment and concurrent rejection of their parents. Rather than thinking about this from the perspective of what is happening in the relationship with their parents however, Karen Woodall begins this work from the perspective of what is happening to the child. Using contemporary trauma theory, Karen examines the onset of what the Family Separation Clinic refers to as self alienation, a state of mind which is caused by traumatic events which are overwhelming to a child.

Dr Gabor Mate, the Hungarian Physician, tells us that:
         'the primary impact of unresolved trauma, particularly as a result of our childhood experiences, is alienation, from ourselves, from our work and from others.'

and notes that:
          'trauma isn't what happens to us, it is what happens inside of us.'

And Dr Janina Fisher, the US Psychologist tells us that:
         'self-alienation is when someone disowns parts of themselves that are painful or unacceptable. This can be a way to maintain attachment to abusive caregivers.'

Working with the trauma impact of divorce and separation, Karen has assisted well over a hundred psychologically and emotionally abused children to recover their relationship with their own integrated sense of self and with the parent they were forced to reject. Working with the internal shifts that the child has had to make, Karen's experience in enabling self understanding in children, young people and adults who have been abused, brings healing and hope for those whose trauma has been misunderstood or invisible for too long.

This seminar introduces two new concepts in working with alienated children:

• the journey the child takes, including the stages they pass through from onset of disorganised attachment behaviour through to integration in recovery

• how to use 'right action at the right time' protocol, to maximise the chances of being able to assist the child to speed up the journey back to integration

This seminar is suitable for all parents who are interested in using therapeutic parenting to assist their alienated child, it is an entry level seminar so no prior experience in therapeutic parenting is needed. Those who join this seminar will get priority access to the new upcoming course entitled The journey of the alienated child, which will be available in the summer.

About Karen Woodall
This series is delivered by Karen Woodall and is based on her successful work with alienated children over fifteen years. Drawing upon her psychotherapeutic experience as well as her research and direct work with alienated children in recovery, Karen offers you a unique insight into the world that the alienated child inhabits whilst helping you to understand how to build a path for the child to walk upon to return to you. Beyond that, Karen will assist you to understand the alienated child in recovery and their unique needs for longer term therapeutic parenting which helps them to integrate all of the lost parts of self. The wealth of knowledge and experience of direct work with families to help them to integrate and recover from this serious trauma that Karen offers, makes this series an experiential, warm and effective opportunity to create your own positive outcomes for your alienated child(ren).  Karen's new parenting handbook 'Therapeutic Parenting for Alienated Children' will be published later this year.

About our Saturday Seminar Series 

The Saturday Seminar series runs throughout the year with a focus on different aspects of therapeutic parenting for parents who have been rejected by their children due to trauma bonding in divorce and separation. The series is for mothers and fathers and provides guidance, psycho-education, reflexive space and support for parents at each stage in this family attachment journey. Led by Karen Woodall, a psychotherapist with thirty years experience in working with families affected by the crisis of attachment trauma which involves psychological and emotional as well as physical and sexual abuse, this seminar series is for you if you are:

• new to the experience of a child’s rejection
• stuck in a place where a child is completely rejecting of you
• frightened or bewildered by a child’s behaviour towards you
• on the path out of the child’s rejection with some reconnection
  
• fully reconnected but recognising that your child still needs help

About Therapeutic Parenting and Alienated Children
The core problem for children who are hyper aligned to one parent and rejecting of the other in divorce or family separation is the trauma bonded state of mind which causes disorganised attachment behaviours. This form of abuse is well hidden, even from the child who suffers from it and who may not realise that their bond with an abusive parent is harming them. Conversely, the child recognises the harm but is powerless to escape, meaning that the double bind they are in causes them to maladapt their behaviours with the parent who is the rejected position.

As that parent there is a great deal that you can do to protect your child and protect yourself from the longer term harms this family attachment trauma causes. Therapeutic parenting, which was first developed to help children who were removed from harmful parents to be fostered or adopted, is a way of responding to the behaviours of alienated children which enables them to receive healthy love and care from you, even if you are not able to see your child at all.