An uncomfortable conversation about validation, accountability, family relationships, and what happens when therapy reinforces the very patterns we're trying to change.
Family estrangement has become an increasingly visible conversation. We see it in the news, on social media, in therapy offices, and in conversations between parents and adult children who are trying to make sense of relationships that have become painful, distant, or completely disconnected.
And lately, there's been another question entering that conversation.
Are therapists contributing to family estrangement?
This isn't the first time I've explored this question. In my earlier article, Are Therapists Contributing to Family Estrangement? Looking Beyond the Headlines, I discussed the growing public scrutiny surrounding therapy's role in family disconnection.
But a November 2026 article in The Telegraph brought this conversation back to the forefront, raising concerns about therapists potentially encouraging adult children to distance themselves from their families, reinforcing negative perceptions of parents, or assigning psychological labels to people they've never evaluated.
As a therapist who specializes in adult family systems, I think this is a conversation our profession needs to be willing to have.
Not because I believe therapists are responsible for family estrangement. We don't even have enough reliable longitudinal research to confidently establish how much estrangement itself has increased.
A 2025 YouGov survey found that 38% of Americans surveyed reported estrangement from at least one immediate family member, grandparent, or grandchild. That's significant, but a single survey tells us about reported prevalence, not whether estrangement is increasing over time.
The distinction matters.
But regardless of whether estrangement is becoming more common or simply more visible, therapists have influence.
And I think we need to examine what happens when that influence intersects with trauma, attachment, family conflict, and deeply personal decisions about whether relationships should continue.
Do I believe therapists sometimes contribute to family estrangement?
Of course.
We're human.
We bring our own histories, experiences, assumptions, and biases into the therapy room. Sometimes we recognize something in a client's story that reminds us of our own experiences. Sometimes we become invested in what we believe would be the healthiest outcome for someone. Sometimes we want so badly to protect a client from further pain that we inadvertently begin directing them toward decisions they may not be ready to make.
And sometimes we forget that supporting someone doesn't mean making their decisions for them.
But blaming therapists for family estrangement overlooks a much larger conversation about family systems, generational differences, cultural expectations, and our changing understanding of trauma and relationships.
So rather than simply asking whether therapists are causing estrangement, I think we need to ask something more difficult.
Are we helping people develop the capacity to navigate complicated relationships, or are we sometimes reinforcing the very patterns that keep them stuck?
When Validation Becomes Enabling
Validation is an important part of therapy.
People deserve to feel heard. They deserve opportunities to explore painful experiences, understand how their histories have shaped them, and identify relational patterns that may no longer be serving them.
But validation and agreement are not the same thing.
When someone comes into therapy describing a parent, sibling, partner, or another family member as toxic, narcissistic, or abusive, I'm interested in understanding what has brought them to that conclusion.
What happened?
What was said?
What behaviors have occurred repeatedly?
How did those experiences affect them?
And what assumptions or interpretations have developed around those experiences over time?
There is a difference between what we know happened and the stories we have developed to explain why it happened.
That distinction matters.
Our feelings are real. They tell us something important about how we're experiencing a situation. But feelings aren't necessarily facts about another person's intentions, motivations, or character.
Someone can make us feel rejected without having intended to reject us.
Someone can disappoint us without deliberately trying to hurt us.
And someone can genuinely cause harm even when their intentions were good.
These things are not mutually exclusive.
I think validation becomes enabling when we continually reinforce a narrative that keeps someone stuck in the same dysfunctional relational patterns without helping them examine their own choices, responses, or contributions.
If someone repeatedly experiences the same conflicts across multiple relationships, there may be something worth exploring beyond the behavior of the other people involved.
That doesn't mean they're responsible for how others have treated them.
It means they may have opportunities to understand how they're participating in patterns that continue to cause them distress.
Research has begun exploring the experiences of people who seek counseling while navigating family estrangement. Blake and Bland's study, The Counseling Experiences of Individuals Who Are Estranged from a Family Member, is one example of why therapeutic support in these circumstances deserves thoughtful attention.
And sometimes the work of examining our own patterns is uncomfortable.
Which brings me to another concern.
Have We Become Afraid to Challenge Our Clients?
I think this is something therapists need to examine within ourselves.
There is a fine line between supporting a client's emotional experience and reinforcing perspectives that may be keeping them stuck.
Some people come to therapy wanting to be challenged. They're ready to examine their patterns, take accountability, and explore how they might approach relationships differently.
Others come because they need a place to feel supported and validated. They may not be ready to examine their role in what has happened.
Neither starting point makes someone a bad client.
But we have to recognize the difference.
Our responsibility is to meet clients where they are while also helping them move toward their therapeutic goals.
Sometimes that means recognizing that a client isn't emotionally ready to consider another perspective.
For individuals with significant trauma histories, even gentle challenges can activate intense emotional and physiological responses.
Their nervous system may interpret disagreement, criticism, or perceived rejection as a threat.
In those situations, approaches such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), and somatic interventions may help some individuals process trauma-related responses and develop greater capacity to remain present during difficult emotional experiences.
The goal isn't to convince someone that their interpretation of a relationship is wrong.
It's to help them develop enough emotional flexibility to consider possibilities without immediately becoming overwhelmed.
And as therapists, we also have to be willing to examine whether our own discomfort with challenging clients is influencing the work.
Are we avoiding difficult conversations because the client isn't ready?
Or because we're uncomfortable having them?
Those are two very different things.
The Problem With Diagnosing People Who Aren't in the Room
One of my greatest concerns about the broader conversation surrounding family estrangement is how casually diagnostic terminology has entered everyday discussions about relationships.
Narcissist.
Borderline.
Toxic.
Manipulative.
Abusive.
These words are everywhere.
And while some people absolutely experience relationships involving serious emotional, psychological, or physical harm, I worry about how easily complicated family dynamics can be reduced to diagnostic labels.
As therapists, we have an ethical responsibility to recognize the limitations of what we know.
The National Association of Social Workers' Code of Ethics emphasizes professional competence, client self-determination, and responsible clinical practice. These principles are particularly important when working with complicated relational concerns.
If I'm working with an individual who describes their parent as narcissistic, I don't need to determine whether that parent has narcissistic personality disorder to help my client.
We can explore patterns of criticism, emotional invalidation, control, boundary violations, or other unhealthy interactions without assigning a diagnosis to someone we've never evaluated.
And we should be especially cautious about doing so.
Individual therapy provides an opportunity to understand one person's experience within a relationship.
It does not automatically provide a complete understanding of the entire family system.
That doesn't mean the client's account is inaccurate.
It means we're working with the information available to us.
I also think we need to be cautious about how popular psychology influences these conversations.
A social media post describing five signs of a narcissistic parent cannot adequately capture the complexity of a lifelong family relationship.
And recognizing ourselves in a description of unhealthy behavior doesn't necessarily establish that another person has a psychiatric disorder.
We can identify harmful patterns without needing to diagnose everyone involved.
Are We Confusing Emotional Discomfort With Emotional Danger?
This is something I've been thinking about quite a bit.
I worry that we've increasingly created an environment where discomfort itself is treated as something that should be avoided.
Difficult conversations are uncomfortable.
Hearing that we've hurt someone is uncomfortable.
Having someone disagree with our interpretation of events is uncomfortable.
Being asked to examine our own behavior can be incredibly uncomfortable.
But discomfort isn't automatically harm.
I frequently hear variations of the sentiment, "I shouldn't have to do that. It isn't fair to me."
And sometimes that's absolutely true.
But sometimes, in our unwillingness to make adjustments within a relationship, we're expecting everyone else to accommodate our needs while remaining unwilling to consider theirs.
That's not a realistic expectation for most healthy relationships.
Relationships require flexibility.
They require compromise.
They require us to recognize that other people have their own histories, perspectives, feelings, and needs.
And sometimes they require us to participate in conversations we'd rather avoid.
I think we've become increasingly comfortable establishing boundaries, but perhaps less comfortable examining what those boundaries are intended to accomplish.
Is the boundary protecting someone from ongoing harm?
Is it creating healthier conditions for a relationship to continue?
Or is it being used to avoid a difficult conversation or the possibility of hearing something we don't want to hear?
Those questions matter.
Of course, there is a significant difference between asking someone to tolerate discomfort and asking them to tolerate abuse, coercion, threats, or ongoing violations of safety.
No one should be pressured to remain in a harmful relationship simply because someone else wants reconciliation.
But I also don't believe every uncomfortable interaction should automatically be interpreted as evidence that a relationship is unsafe.
Sometimes discomfort is part of growth.
Sometimes it's part of accountability.
And sometimes it's part of learning how to maintain relationships with people who don't see the world exactly as we do.
Accountability Doesn't Mean Admitting Fault
This may be one of the most important distinctions in adult family relationships.
Accountability does not automatically mean admitting fault.
It doesn't mean agreeing with every accusation.
It doesn't mean accepting responsibility for something you didn't do.
And it doesn't require abandoning your own experience to validate someone else's.
Accountability can simply mean being willing to examine how your actions, choices, responses, and expectations may have influenced a relationship.
Even when you don't believe you were wrong.
I often see people approach difficult family conversations wanting acknowledgment that their version of events is correct.
They want the other person to admit what happened, recognize the harm, and agree with their interpretation.
And sometimes those conversations become so focused on establishing who was right that there's very little room left for understanding.
But two things can be true at the same time.
A parent may genuinely have done the best they could with the resources, knowledge, and circumstances available to them.
Their child may still have experienced significant emotional harm or unmet needs.
And there may genuinely not have been better options available at the time.
Those realities can coexist.
A parent can remember making enormous sacrifices to provide for their family.
Their adult child can remember feeling emotionally unsupported.
Neither experience necessarily erases the other.
Research on intergenerational estrangement, including work by Gilligan, Suitor, and Pillemer, illustrates the importance of examining how family relationships develop and change over time rather than treating estrangement as a single event with one universal explanation.
But when accountability becomes synonymous with admitting guilt, people often become defensive before the conversation has even begun.
Instead of listening, they're preparing to defend themselves.
Instead of trying to understand, they're trying to prove their point.
And that's where relationships can become stuck.
Accountability should create opportunities for understanding, not become a courtroom where someone has to be declared guilty before the relationship can move forward.
Should Therapists Be Encouraging Reconciliation?
Psychologist Dr. Joshua Coleman, whose work focuses extensively on family estrangement, has argued that therapists should be more oriented toward reconciliation.
I agree with part of that argument.
I believe reconciliation should be explored when appropriate.
I don't believe estrangement should automatically be the first response to relational difficulties.
There are often middle grounds.
There may be opportunities to establish boundaries, change the frequency or nature of contact, have difficult conversations, or develop new expectations for a relationship.
Sometimes relationships cannot continue in the form they previously existed, but that doesn't necessarily mean they cannot continue at all.
However, I don't believe therapists get to decide whether reconciliation should happen.
The people within that family system do.
And that distinction is important.
In my adult family therapy work, I conduct individual assessments with each participating family member before bringing everyone together.
I'm not trying to determine whether the relationship deserves to be repaired.
I'm assessing whether the people involved are prepared to engage in a process that can be productive and whether moving forward is clinically appropriate.
If someone wants to participate in family therapy solely to repeat grievances, tell another person how terrible they are, or demand that someone agree with their version of events, the conditions for productive work may not yet exist.
That doesn't mean reconciliation will never be possible.
It may mean people need additional support before they're ready to participate in those conversations.
Because productive conversations require more than a willingness to speak.
They require a willingness to listen.
And family therapy isn't intended to become another setting where unhealthy patterns are repeated under the supervision of a therapist.
I don't get to decide whether a family should reconcile.
But I do have a responsibility not to facilitate continued dysfunction or abuse in the name of keeping a family together.
Estrangement Isn't a Trophy
I want to address something that may be uncomfortable for some readers.
I worry about the way family estrangement is sometimes celebrated within our culture, particularly on social media.
I understand that ending contact with a family member can bring relief.
For some people, it creates necessary safety and distance from longstanding harmful patterns.
And sometimes estrangement may genuinely be the healthiest available option.
But I don't believe that makes estrangement something we should automatically celebrate.
Because estrangement is also a loss.
It can involve grief, loneliness, abandonment, guilt, sadness, and complicated feelings that don't disappear simply because someone made the decision to end contact.
Family estrangement researcher Lucy Blake discusses the emotional complexity of these experiences in the American Psychological Association's Speaking of Psychology episode on family estrangement.
And the impact often extends beyond the two people directly involved.
Siblings may find themselves navigating divided loyalties.
Grandparents may lose relationships with grandchildren.
Holidays, milestones, family traditions, and significant life events can become complicated.
Even when estrangement is necessary, there can be tremendous grief surrounding what the relationship was, what it could have been, and what may never be possible.
I also think we need to examine how much external validation influences these deeply personal decisions.
A social media post announcing that someone has cut off a toxic family member may receive hundreds of comments celebrating their decision.
But those people often know very little about the relationship.
They don't necessarily know the history, the circumstances, the attempts at repair, or the potential consequences.
And while support can be valuable, public approval isn't the same as thoughtful reflection.
Someone can feel safer, healthier, and more at peace after ending contact while still grieving the loss.
Both things can be true.
We can support someone's decision to protect themselves without treating the loss of a family relationship as a victory.
So, Are Therapists Making Estrangement Worse?
I don't think there's a simple answer.
I think therapists can contribute to estrangement when we reinforce narratives without sufficient exploration, allow our own histories to influence our clinical judgment, diagnose people we've never evaluated, or begin directing clients toward outcomes we believe are best.
But I also think therapists can be unfairly blamed for estrangement that has been developing for years.
A parent may experience an adult child's decision to end contact as sudden, while the adult child may have spent years attempting to communicate concerns, establish boundaries, or repair the relationship.
And sometimes neither person fully understands how the relationship reached that point.
The reality is that family estrangement is rarely as simple as one person being entirely right and another being entirely wrong.
Our relationships are shaped by histories, attachment experiences, family roles, generational expectations, communication patterns, and the ways we respond to conflict.
Sometimes people cause harm without intending to.
Sometimes people respond to harm in ways that create additional harm.
Sometimes families have the capacity to change.
And sometimes they don't.
As therapists, our responsibility isn't to save every family relationship.
It also isn't to encourage people to walk away simply because a relationship is difficult.
Our responsibility is to support self-determination while remaining willing to challenge unhealthy patterns, examine our own biases, and recognize the limits of what we know.
We can be neutral about the outcome without being passive about the process.
And I think that's where the real work happens.
Not in deciding who is right.
Not in determining which relationships deserve to survive.
But in helping people develop the emotional capacity, insight, and willingness to understand themselves and the people around them.
Sometimes that work leads to reconciliation.
Sometimes it leads to healthier boundaries.
Sometimes it leads to acceptance that a relationship cannot continue.
Whatever the outcome, I hope we're helping people arrive there through thoughtful reflection rather than simply reinforcing the story they entered the room with.
Because good therapy shouldn't just help us feel understood.
It should also help us become more capable of understanding.
References and Further Reading
The Telegraph. (2026, November 3). Article examining family estrangement and the role of therapy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/11/03/family-estrangement-increase-therapy/
YouGov. (2025). Family estrangement: How often and why it happens.
https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/52733-family-estrangement-how-often-and-why-it-happens
Blake, L., & Bland, B. (2020). The counseling experiences of individuals who are estranged from a family member. Family Relations.
https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12385
Gilligan, M., Suitor, J. J., & Pillemer, K. Research on intergenerational estrangement and mother-adult child relationships. Research on Aging.
https://doi.org/10.1177/01640275211036966
**National Association of Social Workers.