Yes, there is legitimate abuse and trauma that require a child or adult child to either be removed, or remove self from the situation for protection and healing. Let me make it clear, those situations are not what I’m referring to.

As a seasoned therapist for nearly four decades, I am appalled at what I see going on in today’s therapeutic world under the guise of healing, safety, and preserving one’s emotional well-being. Parents are being alienated and cut-off in record numbers in society today. It is an epidemic. It is cultural. It is spiritual attack. It is cruel. It is misguided…and it needs to stop!

I call it a ruse because it simply is not true that alienating one’s parents will grant you greater emotional or mental health. It is a ruse that trauma focused therapy is for everyone. In my training and practice as a marriage and family therapist it is clearly understood that emotional cut-off is the opposite side of the coin of emotional enmeshment. Both are unhealthy. Both stunt emotional growth and stunt healthy individuation from one’s parents of origin.

Note that I said “individuation” not “alienation”. Individuation is the process of forming a distinct independent personal identity. This does not require cutting off one’s relationship with a parent, but involves being able to know who you are separate from the parent and respecting who the parent is separate from you. This does not mean you have to think the same, worship the same, vote the same, etc. to maintain a healthy relationship with each other.

Healthy adulthood does not mean judging and blaming your parents. Of course they made mistakes, missteps, and sins. You have the choice of blaming them and abdicating responsibility for your own life or of exonerating them, knowing that they did the best they could with what they were given. I use a genogram to help people look back at their family for at least three generations, identifying relevant issues such as alcoholism, divorce, etc. After looking at the generational patterns, people are able to see more clearly how those patterns were passed down.

Seeing this helps them understand their parents better and gives them the opportunity to either choose to carry on certain things, or to discard generational dysfunctions. By doing so, they stop those patterns from being passed down to their own children. Maybe they also see how their parents were able to stop some of the dysfunctional patterns that were passed down to them or, for whatever reason, some of those patterns slipped through and weren’t dealt with.

Note that I said that the adult has the opportunity to choose to “discard the generational dysfunctions” not “discard the parents”. In discarding the parents the adult child forfeits the task of growing up, of achieving true differentiation of self, which requires staying connected to the parent while simultaneously maintaining their own individual identity.

Scripture is clear on “honoring your father and mother”. So if you claim to be a follower of Jesus and are being misled by culture and the ruse of adult child parental alienation, I would like to encourage you to take a closer look at your behavior. I could write a book on the cruelty of this epidemic. There is no place in the brain or heart for a parent to begin to process or heal from the hurt of being treated as though they are already dead by those who they dearly love. Many are missing precious years with their beloved grandchildren. Designer trauma does not justify this.

God sees all of our hurts, but this is not the way to resolve those hurts. There is a much better way–the way of love, the way of maturity, the way of understanding, forgiveness, and reconciliation.