311 SelfWork: When Families Are Fractured: Estrangement and Parental Alienation
The SelfWork Podcast
Margaret Robinson Rutherford PhD
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The term “cancel culture” came to be around 2016 and according to the dictionary, it’s the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure. Yet, in families, estrangement has been around quite a long time. Parents can distance themselves from children. Adult children can stop “coming around” as the term goes. Friendships can end. The root of the word in Latin is extraneare, "treat as a stranger." It can be chosen by you or it can be chosen for you, meaning that someone can estrange themselves from you. It can be a painful part of any relationship where there has formerly been affection or trust or mutual respect. How is it connected to a dynamic called parental alienation? And of course, how do the stereotypes of “family” and “the holidays” make the pain of estrangement even worse?
We'll talk about these questions and I'll be looking into the work of Dr. Karl Pillemer to give us great direction. He's the author of the recent book, Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them.
The listener email today is from a mom who’s been a listener to SW for quite some time – but a tragedy has occurred in her family, and she’s asking for some advice. There’s a trigger warning here – her daughter has been sexually abused – so please listen with care.
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Psychology Today article on "Estrangement: The Silent Epidemic"
New York Times article on Fractured Families
Forbes article on parental alienation
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Selfwork, and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford. |
| 0:14.1 | At Selfwork, we'll discuss psychological and emotional issues common in today's world |
| 0:19.0 | and what to do about them. |
| 0:20.4 | I'm Dr. Margaret, and Selfwork is a podcast dedicated to you taking just a few minutes today |
| 0:26.2 | for your own Selfwork. |
| 0:29.9 | Hi, and welcome or welcome back to Selfwork. |
| 0:32.5 | I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford. |
| 0:33.7 | I'm a clinical psychologist at a fave Arkansas, and I began Selfwork six years ago to try |
| 0:39.1 | to extend the walls of my practice to those of you who might already be in therapy, but |
| 0:45.0 | are interested in another clinician's point of view. |
| 0:47.7 | Maybe those of you who've just been diagnosed with something or you're looking for some |
| 0:50.6 | relationship answers, or those of you who might be a bit skeptical of therapy in general |
| 0:58.6 | and think psychology is a little weird if you're here because you're searching for something |
| 1:04.4 | that I hope that Selfwork will help you find it. |
| 1:07.6 | The term cancel culture came to be around 2016, and according to the dictionary, it's |
| 1:13.1 | the practice or tenancy of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval |
| 1:18.8 | and exerting social pressure. |
| 1:21.0 | Its primary venue is social media, but it doesn't simply pertain to celebrities. |
| 1:25.5 | People can actually have it to anyone, and there's substantial controversy about it, whether |
| 1:29.6 | it's fair, whether it's better good, whether it's new, or has it been around for a while, |
| 1:33.8 | but in different forms. |
| 1:35.4 | Certainly, in families, cancel culture looks like a strangement, and it's been around |
... |
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