01/04/2026
There seems to be a narrative out there that says adult children going "no contact" with their parent(s) is a "trend". People are blaming therapists for telling their clients to cut off their family. People assume that the adult child must be unstable, angry, bitter, impulsive, or callous about their decision to distance themselves.
While this may be true for a select few, this is far from the truth in the vast majority of situations.
No good therapist is going to tell someone to cut off their parent. Estrangement is a very last resort in most cases.
What I see in my practice is that the people who are estranged from their parent came to this very difficult decision after YEARS of abuse, disrespect, neglect, invalidating, and grieving a relationship that could (and should) have been. They spent most of their life surviving the person who was supposed to unconditionally love and protect them. They tried time after time to connect, to be heard, to have some semblance of a relationship with them.
But a person can only take so much. Please do not judge the estranged child for having to walk away to protect their own wellbeing. Know that they grieved deeply for the person they had to walk away from. This is not a trend. It is survival.
