Before You Cut Them Off, Let’s Think About the Relationship
A therapist’s job isn’t to tell you who to cut off. It’s to help you think clearly enough to decide what kind of relationship you want, if any.
A recent Wall Street Journal article recently wrote an article highlighting that some therapists are telling adult children clients to cut ties with their parents when the client is saying the parent is toxic, narcissistic, manipulative, etc. The article asks a thought-provoking question: Are therapists partly to blame for the rise in adult children cutting off their parents?
I think this is a question worth discussing, but I also think we need to be careful about how we discuss it. Adult children cutting off their parents is not a simple issue, and I don't think there is one answer that applies to every family.
I see many problems with a therapist telling a client what to do.
Therapists Should Not Tell Clients What to Do
I do not see it as my job to tell someone whether to leave a marriage, change careers, nor to cut-off their parents. I see my responsibilty as asking meaningful questions and helping guide clients toward a choice that feels right for them.
Cutting off a parent is a huge decision filled with many complexities. Who am I to tell a client that they should simply get rid of the relationship? I’m not the one that has to live with that choice - the client is.
It also sends a message that the therapist knows what is best for the client's life better than the client does. I don't think that's our job. Our job is to help clients develop the ability to think more deeply about themselves and their relationships so that they can make their own decisions.
That might mean helping someone recognize that they have been tolerating unacceptable behavior for years and the client decides to create significant distance from a parent. It might mean helping someone realize that they have been trying to get something from their parent that their parent simply isn't capable of giving them. It might mean helping someone recognize that they can have a relationship with their parent, but it needs to look different than it has in the past, and they need to modify their expectations. Or it might mean helping someone come to their own conclusion that the relationship is not healthy enough to maintain.
There is no single right answer, and I don't think we should be the ones giving clients the answer.
We Only Hear One Perspective
There's another piece of this that I think is really important for therapists to remember. When a client comes into therapy and tells us that their parent is horrible, selfish, narcissistic, or toxic, we are hearing one person's experience of that relationship.
That doesn't mean we should dismiss what the client is telling us or assume that their experience isn't accurate. Their experience is real, and it's important, but it's still one perspective.
We don't know what was happening inside the parent in that moment. We don't know what they were thinking or feeling, what they intended, or how they would describe the same interaction. That also doesn't mean we need to defend the parent or take their side. It means we need to remain curious.
This is where reflective functioning becomes so important. Reflective functioning is essentially the ability to think about the thoughts, feelings, wishes, intentions, and experiences that might be underneath someone's behavior. It means trying to understand what is happening inside ourselves and inside another person. We can potentially help clients build their reflective functioning skills, and higher reflective functioning has been linked to better mental health outcomes, in general (Fonagy et al., 2016; Lenzo et al., 2022). More specifically, higher reflective functioning has been found to mediate the effect of childhood trauma on psychological distress, which seems revalent to this topic (Ensink et al., 2019).
To increase client’s reflective functioning we might explore any of the following: Can we help our clients think about what might have been happening in the mind of the other person while still honoring their own experience? Can we help them consider that their parent may have had their own history, insecurities, limitations, or wounds that influenced the way they behaved? Can we help them recognize that understanding someone's behavior is not the same thing as excusing it?
I think there is a big difference between validating someone's experience and automatically accepting their interpretation of another person's motives as fact.
If a client tells me, "My mom did this because she doesn't care about me," I can validate how painful that experience was without immediately confirming that their mother doesn't care about them. I might instead get curious, and ask:
"What makes you think that's what was happening for her?"
"Has she always responded this way?"
"Is there another explanation that could also fit?"
"What do you think she might say happened?"
Again, this isn't about questioning the client's pain. It's about helping them think more deeply about the relationship. We can say, "I believe that this is how you experienced it," without saying, "And therefore, this is exactly what happened."
Are We Really Helping if We Immediately Validate Everything?
"Validate" is a common word we hear in psychology. "Your feelings are valid” appears across many social media posts. While that may be true, I think sometimes the idea of validation gets generalized to include our behaviors and interpretations, too. I think we can agree that not every behavior is valid simply because it is connected to a feeling.
If a client is hurt by someone, we can validate that hurt without automatically validating every conclusion they draw from it or every action they take in response. There is a difference between saying, "It makes sense that you're hurt," and saying, "Because you're hurt, anything you do next is justified." Those are not the same thing.
I think we can fall into a similar trap when we immediately accept a client's interpretation of their parent and then encourage what seems like a quick and easy solution.
They hurt you →They're toxic →Cut them off → Problem solved.
…Except the problem isn't necessarily solved.
There’s several issues with telling a client to cut off a parent.
We risk teaching them that they can't trust themselves to make the right decision, so they need their therapist to tell them what to do.
We reinforce the idea that relationships should be easy and that when someone hurts us, the answer is simply to leave.
We miss an opportunity for the client to grow through conflict, develop new relational skills, or learn how to navigate a difficult relationship differently.
We miss the opportunity for the client to evolve their relationship with their parent into something that is actually sustainable.
Sometimes the work of therapy is not just helping clients grow as individuals, but helping them grow within relationships. I’m not supporting staying in relationships that are abusive or unsafe. I don’t think we should tolerate mistreatment in the name of personal growth.
However, it does mean that there can be tremendous opportunities for growth when we learn how to navigate conflict, set boundaries, communicate our needs, tolerate disappointment, and recognize that another person may see the world differently than we do.
The most important work isn't figuring out how to get our parent to finally become the parent we always wanted. Sometimes it's accepting that they aren't going to change. Then we must ask ourselves, “What do I want to do with that reality?” Maybe we stop expecting our parent to give us the warmth and nurturance we've always craved. Maybe we stop looking to them for approval they aren't capable of giving us. Maybe we set boundaries around certain topics. Maybe we see them less frequently. Maybe we change the way we interact with them. Maybe we come to appreciate the things they can give us while grieving the things they never could. And maybe, after exploring all of that, the client decides that the relationship is still too unhealthy to maintain, but I think, as therapists, we are not doing our due diligence if we skip over the exploration (barring no immediate safety concern).
I believe there is a difference between helping someone leave a relationship that is genuinely harmful and helping someone avoid the discomfort of working through a relationship that is difficult.
Of Course, Sometimes Leaving Is The Right Choice
I want to be very clear that I am not suggesting that adult children should remain connected to their parents at all costs. There are situations where cutting off a parent may be the healthiest decision for someone. If someone is experiencing ongoing abuse, manipulation, coercion, threats, or repeated violation of boundaries, creating distance may be necessary.
If a client comes to that decision on their own terms, I’ll support their right to make that decision.
The important distinction, to me, is that the decision belongs to the client - not the therapist. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't help my client explore the relationship more fully before making such a significant decision.
My job isn't to convince clients to stay, and it isn't to convince them to leave. I see my job as helping them think, reflect, and understand themselves and the other person. My goal is to help the client recognize their own patterns and the patterns within the relationship, and ultimately, to help them make a decision that is truly their own.
People are complicated. Relationships are complicated. And complicated problems deserve complicated solutions. Therapy should be one of the places where we make room for that complexity instead of rushing to simplify it. Maybe nuance isn't "sexy” or fit neatly into an Instagram post, but I think it's where the real work happens.
And perhaps the most important question isn't, "Should I cut off my parent?" It's, "What kind of relationship, if any, allows me to remain connected to myself?" As therapists, our job isn't to answer that question for our clients. It's to help them become the person who can find the answer for themselves.
References:
Ensink, K., Normandin, L., Plamondon, A., Berthelot, N., & Fonagy, P. (2019). The protective role of mentalizing: Reflective functioning as a mediator between child maltreatment and psychological distress. Child Abuse & Neglect, 96, 104099.
Fonagy, P., Luyten, P., Moulton-Perkins, A., Lee, Y. W., Warren, F., Howard, S., Ghinai, R., Fearon, P., & Lowyck, B. (2016). Development and validation of a self-report measure of mentalizing: The Reflective Functioning Questionnaire. PLOS ONE, 11(7), e0158678
Lenzo, V., Sardella, A., Musetti, A., Petralia, M. C., Grado, I., & Quattropani, M. C. (2022). Failures in reflective functioning and reported symptoms of anxiety and depression in bereaved individuals. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(19), 11930
