A mental health crisis in adolescents and young adults that has been growing since the COVID-19 pandemic is leading to estrangement from family members on the recommendation of licensed mental health professionals.
Online therapists, in particular, are encouraging this social response to mental distress. The New York Times profiled a college student who disengaged from her parents after being encouraged by an online social worker to do so, on July 17, 2024.
A Recent Phenomenon
The promotion of family separation appears to be a recent development in the field of mental health treatment, says Michelle Cretella, M.D., spokesperson for Advocates Protecting Children at the American College of Pediatricians.
“Possibly [within] the last two or three decades this blaming of parents has grown into…therapists saying you have to cut them,” said Cretella. “Whether it originates from the young adult or client, this narrative is not challenged or investigated.”
Historically considered the strongest social structure, families are increasingly impacted by the trend, and some health care professionals are weighing in on its detriment to both clients and the culture.
“The culture, over the last several decades, has become so focused on autonomy, the individual and client-directed goals in therapy, that you can go to the extreme,” said Cretella. “Especially when we’re dealing with children and young adults, the family is the most pro-child and pro-young adult institution we have.”
Standard of Neutrality
Robert Emmons, M.D., a practicing family and individual therapist and clinical associate professor of psychiatry, says therapeutic neutrality is the standard practice in psychotherapy.
“When intense conflict occurs in a family, generally I find the best practice is to not take sides toward any specific outcome, reconciliation, or breaking contact,” said Emmons.
Rather, the role of the therapist is to “facilitate exploration of thoughts and feelings in an emotionally safe environment,” said Emmons. “In service of modifying problematic dynamics of communication and behavior…therapists promote change, but usually do not prescribe the specifics of change. A family system is extraordinarily complex, and too much cannot be fully known, so therapists are well advised to avoid the role of omniscient prescriber of reconciliation or separation.”
Estrangement Therapy Movement
“Counselors can unintentionally minimize, maximize, or [alter our perceptions of] our emotional wounds for good or bad,” said Cretella. “[In this way, there may be] some social contagion, perhaps even unintentional manipulation of memory.”
Recollections can certainly vary by family member, writes Devon Herrick, a health care economist, in a post on the Goodman Health Blog. Herrick notes the “trend of TikTok therapists and sociology gurus on YouTube counseling young adults on becoming estranged from family members.”
In the New York Times article, some of the people who are estranged from their parents appeared to “dredge up false memories of childhood trauma and poor treatment that siblings and parents don’t recall,” wrote Herrick.
“It’s hard to know what to make of the estrangement therapy movement,” wrote Herrick. “In 30 years, it may be remembered like the Recovered Memory Movement, or it may have evolved into a more nuanced therapy about setting health boundaries.”
Estrangement therapy has also coincided with the rising diagnoses of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). The rate of PTSD diagnoses among college students has more than doubled between 2017 and 2022 to 7.5 percent according to a study published May 30 by JAMA Network.
The increase doesn’t surprise Stephen Halley. “Since the 1970s, psychologists have steadily increased the scope of PTSD, at first changing what counts as trauma, then making the symptoms more and more vague until just about every person on the planet has it,” writing for The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal
Institutional Influence
Both health care institutions and educational establishments promote the separation of family members. In some states, minor consent laws now separate patients as young as 12 years of age from their parents in the exam room.
“Leaving the parent out of the exam room [allows] the physician to talk to younger and younger children about birth control, part of the culture of death, putting them at risk for becoming sexually active at younger and younger [ages],” said Cretella. “[Becoming sexually active at younger ages] increases their risk of STDs, which can cause sterility, and unwanted pregnancies and abortion.”
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) recently signed into law Assembly Bill 1955, which prohibits public schools from requiring parental notification regarding their child’s gender identity or gender expression unless the child consents.
“Counselors and therapists are integral to the move to disempower parents, whether it’s about restorative justice or the radical gender agenda,” said Larry Sand, president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network. “Schools are now taking over the traditional role of moms and dads, with teachers and counselors in charge.”
Culture of Death
The estrangement trend appears to be an extension of “death culture,” which goes beyond assisted suicide, abortion, and euthanasia, says Cretella.
“The culture of death is much more insidious,” said Cretella. “I don’t know if it’s a political or cultural goal, but I do think it’s a eugenics goal of the people involved in undermining the family and cutting young people off from the family.”
This is even present within the Christian community, which is a true distortion, says Cretella. “What’s really frightening and so diabolical is…we’re seeing that medicine and psychiatry have imbibed that anti-family bias, anti-parent bias which is in our culture and they are damaging nuclear families, actively encouraging and justifying estrangement,” said Cretella. “[Estrangement] heals no emotional deficits.”
Ashley Bateman (bateman.ae@googlemail.com) writes from Virginia.
