The focus of my clinical practice is to help clients live fully and peacefully through adversity.

My clients have ranged in age from approximately 20 to 90, and they consist of parents, grandparents, sons, and daughters who are all trying to navigate estrangement.  Several clients have peaceful relationships with their adult sons and daughters, but they work with me to improve those bonds.  Although my observations are aimed at supporting estranged parents, they can apply to any difficult relationship.

Clinical Observation #4:  Is there a causal relationship between a parent’s PTSD/C-PTSD diagnosis and parental estrangement?

As of this writing, I am grieving the loss of my beloved 91-year-old mother.  As an estranged parent, funeral services were quite triggering in addition to being grief-ridden.  I was surrounded by those who loved my mother and by several who are estranged from me in addition to my adult son and daughter.  The ripple effect of estrangement was evident at the funeral and brought up a sense of betrayal in addition to triggering symptoms related to my most recent diagnoses of PTSD and C-PTSD. The sense of betrayal came from wondering who in this room I can trust, as it was obvious some people had chosen sides in my estrangement. For weeks after, I felt numb and out of touch with my body, a hallmark symptom of trauma. PTSD generally refers to trauma that is caused by a traumatic event.  Whereas C-PTSD results from too much or not enough of a behavior that impacts a child’s development.  For example, there is a major difference between a parent keeping a child safe and a parent being consistently hypervigilant. Ongoing unhealthy scrutiny by parents can lead to a sense of being smothered or controlled as the child grows into adulthood, possibly leading to estrangement.

Before my own diagnosis, I had already begun to see a pattern in my clinical practice. Most of my estranged parent-clients shared with me some degree of deep woundedness in childhood.  Several from that group presented themselves as being wounded in the form of trauma.  A significant number of my clients are both estranged parents and trauma survivors.  This dynamic prompted me to raise the question: Is there a causal relationship between a parent’s PTSD/C-PTSD diagnosis and parental estrangement?

How can I connect my trauma to how I raised my children?  Based on my clinical experience, there are layers to surviving trauma and surviving parental estrangement.  The first layer is self-awareness, during which you begin to recognize unhealthy behaviors that have become your trauma responses.  For me, yelling at my young children became a consistent reaction because that is how people often communicated in my family, and that was the only way I got heard as a child.  I also recently recognized that when I yelled at them, it felt like an out-of-body experience.  I simply could not stop myself. These behaviors were symptomatic of my trauma. The second layer is recognizing how the pattern of trauma responses played a role in your parenting. 

This realization is the function of the ESTRANGEMENT ALGORITHM®which I created and addressed in an earlier article. For example, yelling at my children became a daily occurrence, multiple times a day.  I believe my adult son and daughter would say they constantly walked on eggshells around me and my moods.  Another trauma response was my hypervigilance about who my children hung out with and where.  I recently made the following connection: My hypervigilant behavior is the result of being assaulted by a nonfamily member as a child, a traumatic event that recently emerged. It is evident that this layer requires one to let down their guard and crawl deep inside their nervous system to find all the ways in which trauma showed up in your parenting. 

The third layer requires seeking a diagnosis from a licensed therapist or clinician.  Receiving the diagnosis of PTSD and C-PTSD as an estranged parent provided me with a tremendous sense of relief on the one hand and a tremendous sense of remorse on the other hand.  Finally, my entire life made sense: my parenting, my relationships, my temperament, my moods, and other hiding places for trauma.  For my adult son and daughter, I feel tremendous sadness.  Though there were many good times, the times they may remember most are my unpredictability that left them feeling insignificant, unloved, and unsafe.

The fourth layer for me, which I cannot call the final layer at this time, is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), which I am currently undergoing.  The purpose of EMDR is to lessen the intensity of intrusive memories.  For a clinical explanation of EMDR, I refer to you other clinicians and psychologists who have written about it.  What I can share is my experience with EMDR, which should not be misconstrued as a recommendation. 

Over the period of several weeks, I shared in detail the various traumas with my clinician, which, at times, felt like reliving the incidents. My clinician selected one trauma to begin the actual eye movement, and she chose to begin with the most painful event, which was the assault. I am now approaching the end of the reprocessing phase for the most traumatic event.  I will continue EMDR focusing on both developmental trauma and other traumatic events one at a time.

I can say already that EMDR has helped me with the painful triggers, images and memories.  Before EMDR, my whole body would cringe with shame whenever the thoughts appeared.  At times, the thoughts were inescapable.  Now, I can think about the assault without holding onto the thought and while bringing self-compassion to it and to me.  I may address, in more detail,  my entire experience with EMDR in a future article. And I repeat, my discussion on EMDR is to share my experience.  It is not a recommendation.

As an estrangement clinician, I am not qualified to make diagnoses.  However, I am trained to see patterns and make connections for my clients, and several clients displayed symptoms that may be related to C-PTSD and/or PTSD.  A client’s trauma and estrangement journey are captured by the ESTRANGEMENT ALGORITHM®

To summarize, after my clients share their childhood wounds or traumas, they are asked to reflect on any related unhealthy dynamics when raising their children. These connections become the ESTRANGEMENT ALGORITHM® The parent then has priceless information which can inform their decision on whether they reach out to their adult son and/or daughter.  Just as significant is seeing and knowing these connections that can bring understanding to the client, and self-understanding helps to promote self-compassion. Both ingredients are essential for healing from the excruciating pain of being cut off by your son or daughter.

The Estrangement Algorithm® is ultimately a tool to bring estranged parents greater peace of mind and to answer the question: Is there a causal relationship between a parent’s PTSD/C-PTSD diagnosis and parental estrangement?

WORD OF CAUTION:

The ESTRANGEMENT ALGORITHM® is solely based on educated assumptions about why an adult son or daughter chooses to estrange. 

Only the estranged son or daughter holds this reliable information.

Life, Positive. “The Link between Trauma and Emotional Numbness: Causes, Symptoms, and               Recovery.” Positive Life Asia, 6 Sept. 2025, www.positivelifeasia.com/post/the-link-       between-trauma-and-emotional-numbness-causes-symptoms-and-recovery.                   Accessed 9 Apr. 2026.

“Undoing Emotional Numbing May Be Key to Trauma Recovery.” Psychology Today, 2024,                   www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/experimentations/202405/undoing-emotional-   numbing-may-be-key-to-trauma-     recovery?msockid=0ab16c569c8a680527087ae09d486983. Accessed 9 Apr. 2026.

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My clients range in age from approximately 20 to 90, and they consist of parents, grandparents, sons, and daughters who are all trying to navigate estrangement.  Several clients have peaceful relationships with their adult sons and daughters, but they work with me to improve those bonds.  Although my observations are aimed at supporting estranged parents, they can apply to any difficult relationship

Clinical Observation #3: Estranged parents seek to create their adult child’s why, but the only why parents can answer on their own is: Why Did I Parent This Way?           

Estrangement leaves family members trapped in darkness with the feeling that walls are falling down all around them.  When experiencing the physical and emotional devastation, estranged family members often ask themselves the question: How Did This Happen To Me?  But perhaps the most crushing question of all is:  Why did my adult son/daughter do this to me?  So, for weeks, months, and oftentimes years, estranged parents are in desperate search for “the why?” since adult children often do not share their reasons for the cutoff from parents.  In the absence of information, parents are left to speculate in the form of relentless rumination.  However, in the words of estrangement expert and author of Navigating Family Estrangement, Karl Melvin: “It’s not your why to answer” (Karl).   That one statement halted my endeavor to formulate my son’s why and transformed my thinking.  It became clear to me that my attempt to answer this question without his input was futile.  However, the futility piqued my curiosity, which led to the evolution of the other why.

In my practice, I have learned that there is another critical why: Why did I parent my children in the ways in which I did?  This is a why that estranged parents are able to answer with the appropriate tool.  The Estrangement Algorithm℠ (EA) is a personalized approach I developed to help estranged family members understand the complex relational and nonrelational factors from pre-birth through the present that might have led to their estrangements. The EA℠ can assist with finding the answers to the other why (A modified version of the EA℠ template is attached).

An Estrangement Algorithm℠ might include an array of circumstances or factors and can incorporate the work of other researchers.  For example, the first Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente in the mid-1990s.  The original study focused on how traumatic childhood events may negatively impact adult health and inform adult behaviors ultimately impacting how one will parent.  The ACE questionnaire asked participants historical questions about their experiences with childhood maltreatment and family dysfunction in addition to questions about their current health status. The ACE study found a connection between childhood trauma and adult onset of chronic disease, social issues, and employment challenges.  This is why I often refer to the EA℠ as a trauma journey that connects the past to the present estrangement.

The EA℠ also relates to the work of Alex Howard, psychotherapist and author of the book It’s Not Your Fault. The premise of the book is that, as children, we encounter a number of events that can be characterized as trauma (Howard).  According to Howard, “overt traumas being those more obvious things like adverse childhood experiences where we may have had a parent that was physically or sexually abusive, or we may have grown up with a parent that was incarcerated.”  On the other hand, covert traumas are much more subtle, according to Howard. For example, it may be that as parents, we value intellect, achievements, and accomplishments over emotion, sensitivity, and openness. I will add that it appears that an intergenerational lag and dissonance exist between conjoined generations.  In other words, baby boomers were raised based on the former list of societal values, but the millennials they gave birth to were born into a society that fostered the latter set of values.  Perhaps intergeneration lag and dissonance will be the focus of a future article in my series.

Regardless of the specific trauma lens one selects, the Estrangement Algorithm℠ can provide answers to the “other why:” Why did I parent in the way I did?  The EA℠ can include a host of factors, including intergenerational trauma, family history of estrangement, family dysfunction, childhood fantasies, adoption, maladaptive behaviors, mental health issues, or any other events and experiences that keep estranged parents in self-destructive bondage.  Once my clients have identified these factors, and there might be many, perhaps the process of healing can begin.

The use of the EA℠ in my practice has been quite therapeutic.  The EA℠ gives parents answers and insight about themselves when the estranged adult sons and daughters choose to keep their absence from the parents uncommunicated.  The EA℠ is a path for estranged parents to reconnect with themselves and repair an internal bond that was damaged, perhaps as far back as childhood.  In the words of Alex Howard, “Our pain is the gateway to our healing” (Howard), and the Estrangement Algorithm is the gateway through our pain.

ESTRANGEMENT ALGORITHM℠

MODIFIED TEMPLATE

Works Cited

“Adverse Childhood Experiences | National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance       Center.” Nhttac.acf.hhs.gov,   nhttac.acf.hhs.gov/soar/eguide/stop/adverse_childhood_experiences#:~:text=The%20fo     undational%20ACE%20Study%20was.

Howard, Alex. It’s Not Your Fault. Hay House, Inc, 12 Sept. 2023.

Karl Melvin, Speaker.  Estrangement and Letter Writing.  Parents Estranged from Their Adult   Sons/Daughters Support Group.  Greater New Haven, CT.  May 22, 2021

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

My clients range in age from approximately 20 to 90, and they consist of parents, grandparents, sons, and daughters who are all trying to navigate estrangement.  Several clients have peaceful relationships with their adult sons and daughters, but they work with me to improve those bonds.  Although my observations are aimed at supporting estranged parents, they can apply to any difficult relationship.

Observation #2: Persistent childhood loneliness manifests itself in adulthood and becomes a major catalyst for some parents’ estrangement from their adult sons and daughters.

Loneliness has taken center stage since COVID-19 as a national health issue.  Loneliness is also a major characteristic of many of the estranged parents with whom I work.  My clients provide me with an overview of their childhoods including the traumas that are forever branded into their psyche.  For many, one of these traumas is chronic loneliness that begins in early childhood and becomes the mental infrastructure for how to parent and for subsequent emotional triggers.

Loneliness is defined by the National Institute of Health (NIH) as a “distressing feeling that accompanies the perception that one’s social needs are not being met by the quantity or especially the quality of one’s social relationships” (Marinello).  It is this experience of loneliness that resonates most with my clients.  Here are some examples from the work entitled, 36 Absolutely Heartbreaking Quotes about Loneliness (36):

Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity [proximity] with someone who has ceased to communicate.

Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The thing that I’m most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me.

Loneliness is about the scariest thing out there.

I created an Estrangement Algorithm℠ that I use with my clients to trace back to all the traumas they can remember and wish to share.  The Estrangement Algorithm℠ can also be described as a trauma journey that uncovers invaluable information connected directly to parenting behaviors.  During the trauma journey, clients typically recall a deep sense of aloneness even in the company of family.  Some report they reexperienced loneliness, which could be tasted. It was a loneliness that could hear deafening silence.  It was a loneliness that could be observed.  It was a loneliness that was so palpable that one could touch it.  It was a loneliness that became part of one’s nervous system and remains deeply embedded.

Based upon my experience as a practitioner, I define loneliness as an excruciatingly painful condition characterized by an insatiable feeling throughout the body, mind, and soul that you belong to no one, not even yourself, and no one belongs to you.

Using the Estrangement Algorithm℠, I pose a series of questions to my clients including:

• What is your earliest memory of loneliness?
• What are some of the ways you coped with feeling lonely?
• What is your earliest memory of wanting children?
• Why did you want to have children?

These questions have delivered a great deal of insight into the minds of the lonely parents as patterns began to emerge primarily for the mothers.  First, the mothers began to talk about the intense feelings of being alone in the presence of family, friends, and others.  The intensity varied with the situation, but the emptiness remained whether at school, at home, or attending a birthday party.  Second, they longed to become mothers when they got older.  Ultimately, having children was an enduring life goal that overshadowed any other life goals, including finding the right mate.

Third, these mothers were asked why they wanted to have children, and the responses were consistent, captivating, and enlightening.   These lonely parents admitted to having children mainly to fill the cavernous void that existed from within.  In other words, these mothers did not decide to have children in order to nurture beings for the greater good or to create a nurturing family unit.  In general, estranged mothers admitted to having children for the main but not sole purpose of “never being alone.” 

A common grievance of estranged adult sons and daughters during childhood is that they feel unheard, unseen, invalidated, and/or unloved.  I have found that many parents come to realize that they capriciously married and became pregnant in order to pacify an unmet need from their own childhood unconsciously.  Therefore, the child becomes the OBJECT or tool meant to achieve the parents’ unsatisfied needs.  This results in a child whose feelings, needs, and identity are neglected, devalued, and disregarded.  Ultimately, this series of events during childhood unknowingly sets the stage for the eventual estrangement that occurs later in life.

Although this data is observational only, it has informed how I use the Estrangement Algorithm℠ and serve my clients.  The presence of incurable loneliness in the field of estrangement requires further investigation.  However, there are ways for clinicians and clients to make use of the current information.

What Parents Can Do

1. Rather than doing the work independently, seek a coach, counselor, or therapist trained in trauma and estrangement.
2. Work with a coach, counselor, or therapist to decide whether the knowledge gained will inform the internal work needed to improve one’s relationship with oneself.
3. Work with a coach, counselor, or therapist to decide whether or not the knowledge learned will inform the repair work needed for the relationship with an estranged adult son or daughter.
4. Begin to see the estrangement through a trauma-informed perspective based on self-understanding, self-love, and self-forgiveness.

Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash

Acknowledgments

Editor, Barbara Greenspan, Psy.D.

Works Cited

“36 Absolutely Heartbreaking Quotes about Loneliness.” Thought Catalog, Thought Catalog, 16 Mar. 2015, thoughtcatalog.com/lorenzo-jensen-iii/2015/03/36-absolutely-heartbreaking-quotes-about-loneliness/.

Marinello, Paul Michael. “Loneliness – Silent Stalker (Part 1) | CPTSDfoundation.org.” CPTSD, 11 Mar. 2024, cptsdfoundation.org/2024/03/11/loneliness-silent-stalker-part-1/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

My clients’ ages range from approximately 20 to 90, literally, as I work with estranged parents,
grandparents, sons, and daughters. Ironically or sensibly, I have several clients who have
peaceful relationships with their adult sons and daughters, but they work with me to improve
those bonds. Although my observations are aimed at supporting estranged parents, they can
apply to any difficult relationship.

Observation:

Estranged parents are not the only parents who are hurting.
Some estranged parents have limited contact with their adult sons and daughters as
estrangement is on a continuum from complete cut-off to intermittent communication to
abusive behavior as well as points in between directed at the parent. What I have seen in my
clinical practice is that parents who do not fit the estrangement spectrum also suffer from their
relationships with their adult offspring. The suffering is a result of several common occurrences
including:

• A pattern of infrequent calls by the son/daughter to the parents.
• A pattern of calls to request money or some other form of assistance from parents.
• A pattern of calls made only when the time to talk is limited.
• A pattern of calls during which the parent receives rude or abusive behavior.

These behavioral patterns force non-estranged parents to walk on eggshells, weighing and
measuring every syllable that comes out of their mouths. Before, during, and after the call, the
parent’s mind will be trapped in a self-abusive cycle of thoughts:

• Maybe I should not have used the word _______.
• Maybe I should not have asked that question.
• I should have _______.
• I shouldn’t have _______.
• Did I make the situation worse?
• And the cycle repeats itself.

If non-estranged parents walk on eggshells, estranged parents walk on broken glass

Perhaps this prison of self-loathing will hijack the parent’s mind until the next conversation,
possibly weeks or months down the road, if there is a call at all. During a coaching session,
parents will recall their part of the conversation, often verbatim, in a desperate search for
validation from me that their words did not violate the “rules” established by Dr. Joshua Coleman
author of The Rules of Estrangement. When warranted, my validation brings about a tremendous
sense of relief. However, if I make any suggestions for improvement, a parent’s depression or
anxiety can often spiral. This is why many parents will make a list of topics they can discuss with
their son or daughter and a list of topics to avoid. Despite this necessary staging of conversations,
parents still feel a heightened sense of angst as if they are continually auditioning for their role
of parent and awaiting rejection.

If non-estranged parents walk on eggshells, estranged parents walk on broken glass. For both
groups, conversations can be painful to have and equally painful to not have. In the
estrangement support group that I run, parents often express their fear of losing their adult son
and/or daughter forever rendering them immobilized. However, there are strategies that
parents have at their disposal.

What Parents Can Do

1. Own their part of the relationship difficulty or estrangement and only their part, no
more and no less.
2. Realize that whether they are walking on glass or on eggshells, parents are not alone.
3. Understand that the perfection they are seeking in their part of the conversation is
neither realistic nor sustainable. Being mindful is one way to address this concern.
4. Seek support through coaching, counseling, and/or attending support groups.
5. Compliment yourself whenever you witness your own progress.
6. Accept that what you perceive as mistakes may actually be your humanness.
7. Make internal and external self-care a priority. Internal self-care can be journaling,
writing a letter, or meditating. External self-care might include walking, jogging, or
buying a new outfit.
8. Lastly, create a team that includes family, friends, healthcare providers, and faith. Give
your team your name: Team Lynn, Team Joe, etc. Your team is made up of people who
have consistently shown up for you in good times and in not-so-good.

Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.