Are Therapists Causing Family Estrangement? What Ethical Therapy Actually Does
Episode 50: Behind the Therapy Door
This article draws on a conversation between therapists Sarah Thome and Matt Gallagher. Listen to the full episode for the stories behind the takeaways.
You have seen the headlines, or lived the reality: adult children going quiet, parents left wondering what they did, whole relationships fading into silence. And a pointed question keeps circulating: are therapists the ones pushing families apart?
Family estrangement is worth an honest answer, because a Wall Street Journal piece put exactly that question in the air. The short answer: an ethical clinician will not coach you to cut off your family unless you are in danger or being harmed. The more useful question is why estrangement happens and what healthier paths exist.
Related: What is the Process Communication Model®?.
Related: How to navigate family drama during the holidays.
What Ethical Therapy Actually Does
Start with the firm line. Just as a good therapist would never casually coach divorce, they would never casually coach cutting off a parent. It is not the clinician’s call to make a client’s life decisions. The worry in the news is that therapy is quietly pushing people out of their families, and that is not the goal of good therapy.
The exception matters and is narrow: genuine abuse or danger is a different situation entirely, and that is not what this is about. The common territory is big value differences and communication-style clashes, and there the job is to help a client see both sides and then decide what is actually in their own interest, so they can act without regret either way. The work is building self-awareness, boundaries, and clearer communication, then letting the client choose, whether that is reconnecting or building healthier distance.
We arrive at readiness when we’re ready.
Sarah Thome, Behind the Therapy Door
Why Family Estrangement Happens: Conflict Avoidance, Not Therapy
What often drives estrangement is conflict avoidance. Estrangement can be an escape hatch: I do not know how to set a boundary with you, so I will just sever it. Underneath sits a quieter fear: I do not want you to be mad at me, so disappearing feels less painful than telling you I am hurt. There is self-preservation in it, a way to not feel all of it, so I ghost you. It is not healthy, because the conflict never actually gets confronted.
Estrangement is also different from natural drift. Kids are supposed to build their own relational lives, leave the nest, and start new families and friendships. A grown child who mostly hangs out with their spouse and friends is not rejecting you. That is development, and it is what you raised them to do.
Related: How to deal with disappointment.
When the Relationship Strains, Adjust the Expectation
Sometimes the struggle is really about expectations: you keep holding out for something the other person is simply not capable of giving. The work, then, is getting free of expectations that will never be met, and figuring out what a realistic one for this particular person actually is.
Match your expectation to reality and you stop meeting the same disappointment over and over. Stop demanding what someone cannot give and you often find more grace, and less hurt, in whatever is left. It connects to a hard developmental truth: because I said so works on a three-year-old and does not sustain a relationship with a twenty- or thirty-year-old. One faith-based parenting organization known for a stricter, more authoritarian style recently wrote about hearing from many Boomer parents worried about their kids drifting away. The style that once ran a household does not, by itself, hold an adult bond together.
Parents, Autonomy, and an Uncomfortable Truth
Here is the hard part for parents: you are not technically entitled to a relationship with your adult children. If you are about to send a kid off to college, that one stings. But we raise kids to choose their own path, which means they get to choose their friends and their time, once we let go of our own selfishness.
The hope is that as you shift from parenting to coaching, your grown kids want to come back, the way you want your kids to be able to tell you when you are being too much and trust you to rein it in. One dad walked through the house his grown daughter had just bought and immediately started listing every problem with it. Then he caught himself: I am not trying to bring down the mood. She answered honestly, yeah, you kind of are, and he owned it instead of defending. Under most over-parenting is anxiety and control, the fear of not being needed. Being needed can start to feel like the thing that justifies your existence. Seeing that motive is the first step to loosening the grip that pushes adult kids away.
Related: About Sarah and Matt.
I’m not going to coach someone to end a relationship unless they are in danger or being harmed.
Matt Gallagher, Behind the Therapy Door
Radical Acceptance, Grief, and Finding Meaning
When a relationship cannot be what you hoped, the healthiest response is often radical acceptance: accepting the situation, and accepting the loss inside it. Part of what you are grieving is the gap between what you wanted and what is possible. On a normal level, that is I will accept you as you are and give up what I had hoped. In the hardest cases, it is a real grief that you can barely share a life.
It helps to see all of it as a series of small griefs, the kind that come constantly: kids leaving the nest, parents aging, friends moving away. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross named five stages of grief, and a sixth was added later: finding meaning. Applied here, you can choose to make meaning out of the loss, by becoming a better parent, building a different relationship with your own kids, or growing through the struggle itself. And keep the reassurance in view: an ethical therapist is not in the business of casually coaching anyone out of their family. Good therapy helps you reach your own readiness, whatever that turns out to be.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are therapists causing family estrangement?
Ethical therapists are not. A good clinician will not coach someone to cut off their family, except in cases of genuine danger or abuse. Coaching estrangement is not an ethical move, and it is not the therapist’s decision to make. Good therapy helps a client see all sides and reach their own readiness, not push them toward a rupture.
Why do families become estranged?
Often the driver is conflict avoidance rather than therapy. Estrangement can become an escape hatch for someone who does not know how to set a boundary or does not want to risk the other person’s anger, so they disappear instead of addressing the hurt. This deliberate cutting off is different from the natural drift as adult children build their own lives.
How can I have a healthier relationship with a difficult family member?
One approach is adjusting your expectations to match what the person is actually capable of, so you stop meeting the same disappointment repeatedly. It is a way of being realistic. Healthy, honest boundaries, choosing what you will and will not engage, often preserve more of the relationship than either silence or constant conflict.
Are parents entitled to a relationship with their adult children?
Honestly, no: parents are not technically entitled to one. We raise kids to become independent adults who choose their own relationships. The healthiest path is shifting from parenting to coaching and respecting a grown child’s autonomy, which is usually what makes adult children want to stay close in the first place.
Repair Beats Estrangement.
Most family rifts start with communication that never got repaired. Our PCM® workshop for parents helps you shift from controlling to connecting, so the relationship can survive your kids growing up.