The restoration of health, for rejected parents, begins with an understanding of what has happened internally and how that has become entangled with the child’s own splitting reactions. When parents are able to map this splitting across the family system, their own reactive splitting can integrate and they can begin the work of developing the healthy mirror needed by the child.

Parents who have healed reactive splitting can then learn to apply the skills of therapeutic parenting. This is an approach to parenting children who are suffering from attachment disorder due to being emotionally and psychologically harmed. Alienated children with therapeutic parents are shown, in evaluation, to be able to recover quickly from the underlying harms which have caused their rejecting behaviours.

The topic for this session will be:

Helping the parentified child

Parentification is one of the key problems facing children who are manipulated in divorce and separation. It is a covert manipulation which can be difficult to spot precisely because, as Dr Steve Miller always pointed out, it looks like a close and loving relationship. There is no need to be helpless in the face of the parentified child however and, because the relational networks in the brain are constantly open to change, learning how to help the parentified child is a powerful tool to have at the ready for any parent who has been forced into the rejected position. This circle will focus upon understanding how parentified children behave and how to operationalise strategies to help them.

This is a bi monthly drop in group which can be attended regularly or just as a one-off. The circles will be facilitated by psychotherapist Karen Woodall. Each session will focus on a particular element of therapeutic parenting for children with attachment difficulties due to divorce and separation and will comprise of 45 minute input and then an hour and 15 minutes of group discussion. Participants can attend to listen and learn and to share and receive knowledge. The basic requirement is simply curiosity about helping alienated children.

Please note:

A link to the event will be emailed to you, separately. This may not be sent until a few hours before the session is due to begin. If you have not received the link, please check your spam folders. If you are still unable to find the email, please contact parenting@familyseparationclinic.co.uk

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 The cost of this session is £40.00 (including sales tax) - family members and friends can join for the cost of one place.

Tickets for this event may not be purchased after 17:30 GMT on Tuesday 21 March 2023.