Suzie Chick

“Absence, the highest form of presence” James Joyce

After starting to research the topic of family estrangement recently it became clear that this topic is not only huge but contains many layers, twists and turns. And so, as you may recall I wrote part one of this piece covering the basics of estrangement (what, why and how) and now I want to delve a bit deeper into some of the trickier emotional and psychological aspects. 

Separation is not estrangement. 

One point I want to make clear is that separation from a family member is not the same as estrangement. Often the two get put together so it’s important to make the distinction. 

As the fabulous Jungian therapists who host This Jungian Life podcast, explain when we separate from a family member, we experience a sense of wholeness within ourselves. Estrangement however is as a result of a relational difficultly where often resentment resides coupled with a sense of something unresolved or unfinished. With separation, there is nothing left lingering. It feels like a very different experience. Separation is a natural part of individuation. We have to separate in order to become whole as an individual being. 

Ambiguous loss

Estrangement from family members can feel like a bereavement given there is a loss involved. This can be not only the loss of the connection or relationship but also coming to terms with the reality of the situation (versus the hopeful fantasy we can sometimes hold onto).

Ambiguous loss is a type of grief when the person concerned is still alive/present in some way. For example, with someone with dementia, they may be present physically but not always mentally or a missing person will be held in mind by their loved ones etc but are not physically present.  Estrangement is another type of ambiguous loss. 

This type of loss is complex as the people involved are still living, still meeting with others in the family, still posting on social media etc. There is a death of sorts with estrangement but not one readily recognised by our wider society, making the loss even more challenging to process and work through. With a physical death, there are rituals to follow, a structure which hold us in our pain. With ambiguous loss there is no such holding and more often there is a gap in understanding and empathy. 

Stigma

Even though there might some very valid reasons for estrangement (i.e., distance from an abusive family member), there is often societal stigma. This can lead people to feel a sense of shame or feeling judged by others. To intentionally decide to end a family relationship can appear quite bizarre to some. But obviously we cannot fully understand the situation from an outsider’s perspective. People who experience estrangement need support not judgement. 

Coupled with the potential stigma, estrangement can understandably bring a sense of instability and isolation. Our families often provide an important structure and base from which we can grow and feel supported. Losing this structure can untether us, even if the structure wasn’t healthy or safe, it was a structure, nonetheless. 

On the rise

Research has shown that family estrangement especially between adult children and their parents appears to be on the rise.  A growing importance on boundaries and personal wellbeing has been suggested as possible reasons for the increase. Recent studies have suggested that disagreements over values, such as religion, politics and gender appear to account for a third of mother/child estrangements. Events such as Brexit in 2016 brought about more family feuds and increased the chances of estrangement. 

The rise of a more “individualistic culture” has also been attributed to the increase.  We appear to be less dependent on families than before (e.g., compared to back in the day when we might inherit the family business), making estrangement more of a possibility.  Joshua Coleman, psychologist and author of The Rules of Estrangement explains that “Today, nothing ties an adult child to a parent beyond that adult child’s desire to have that relationship.”

Is estrangement even possible?

I pose this question not in the sense of a physical estrangement but more from a psychological point of view. Can we ever really cut someone out of our lives entirely? The amazing film “Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind” explores what it could be like to erase someone from our mind and memory, but this isn’t a reality.  

Dr Rebecca Bland, who founded the charity, Stand Alone, after she became estranged from her parents, explains “…key family relationships are not only made up of exchanges of words and messages. That’s one form of relational maintenance. Relationships between family members are energetic, emotional and heart-centred connections, and we still have that shared history in the form of memories, however traumatic they may be.”

As James Joyce explains (quoted above) when someone is absent from our lives, their presence is felt more profoundly. Cutting someone out of our lives might even have the opposite effect, they become more prominent in the estrangement. 

The Jungian Life analysts suggest that cutting someone out of our lives could be a kind of defence against a painful reality. We pretend the other is dead to us, so we don’t have to confront something difficult within ourselves. The relational cut off is within. We are essentially estranged to a part of ourselves. And we project this buried part onto the other so we can play out the fantasy of attacking it through estrangement. 

I agree with the Jungian analysts for the most part, there can be great psychological richness if we explore estrangement. Estrangement is rarely a black or white situation. But where family members have been harmful, toxic and abusive then there is no projection in the estrangement, it is quite simply a way of making ourselves safe.

A way forward

If you’re experiencing estrangement in your family, be it as the instigator or the recipient, there are a few steps you could take to help you navigate this tricky process.

• Get professional support – speaking to a therapist and/or organisations (such as Stand Alone) will provide you with the much-needed space to explore your feelings, understand some of the underlying relational dynamics and develop ways of coping. In therapy, you’ll be able to come to terms with the associated loss including grieving for the relationship you thought you had and coming to terms with the reality of the situation. 
• Boundary setting – Estrangement is unlikely to be a clean cut off. That’s quite hard to achieve. So, deciding what levels of communication/ contact you are comfortable with is important to keep you safe and prevent any further emotional distress. For example, how do you want to manage family events such as birthdays and Christmas? If the people involved try to make contact, how are you going to respond? A good way to resetting boundaries with someone can be to have a conscious temporary break, (e.g., you let them know you’re needing some space and won’t be in contact) and then when you return, you begin to renegotiate the terms of the relationship. 
• Open communication – Try to stay as open and honest in your communication. It will help let people know where you stand and how to feel and also assist with any possible future reconciliation. Try to hold empathy and compassion for those involved and enter communications without any expectation of a certain response (hope is a lovely thing, but it can really hurt us when dashed).  Writing letters, emails, messages can be a good way of expressing ourselves and gives the other party a chance to process what we’ve written before responding. 
• Self-care – Estrangement is painful, whichever way you experience it, so it’s important to be kind to yourself. Regular exercise, a healthy diet and keeping up with hobbies and passions can help. As well as meeting people not connected to the situation so you can get perspective and have a break from the emotional turmoil.
• Gain knowledge – Your therapist can help you understand the dynamics at play within your family, so you have some theory and education around what has happened and why.  Completing a family tree (what’s called a genogram in therapy) can be especially enlightening when it comes to conflicts within the immediate and wider family (there can be patterns which get repeated unconsciously through the generations).  Completing research, reading books, joining relevant support groups can also help with making sense of what has happened. 
• Acceptance – This is a big step, and one which I believe can only be achieved through taking some of the other actions described above. Sometimes the prospect of reconciliation can seem remote and so the most mature and healthiest place to be is in acceptance of how things are, no matter how much we want things to be different. Acceptance will stop us struggling and suffering. Finding meaning in the loss of estrangement will assist with the process of acceptance.

Estrangement is never easy for anyone involved, but sometimes necessary. Given the tentative ties which appear to hold modern families together, estrangement feels like it will become more common in future. Reconciliation can be possible in some cases, but it takes a great deal of courage, open communication, honesty and compassion.  As Tara Westover wrote in her memoir, Educated, “I know only this: that when my mother told me she had not been the mother to me that she wished she’d been, she became that mother for the first time.”