 | This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies.(December 2024) |
 | It has been suggested that Sibling estrangement be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2024. |
Family estrangement is the cessation or reduction of a previously existing relationship between family members, often to the extent that there is little to no communication for a prolonged period. Often, at least one of the parties wants estrangement to end. [1]
Family estrangements are broken relationships between parents, grandparents, siblings, children, cousins, etc. Characteristics of estrangement may include a lack of empathy in one or more of the parties involved. This can result in heightened levels of stress in all parties, although in the case of an abusive relationship the victim may feel a sense of relief once the source of stress has been removed.
A significant proportion of estrangements involve a third party, [1] : 22–23 such as a member of the extended family or the adult child's spouse. For example, a child who dislikes a stepparent might refuse to have a relationship with the parent who married the stepparent; in such a case, the stepparent is the third party involved in the estrangement between the child and the parent. In some cases, the third party provides emotional support to the individual initiating the estrangement, providing the estranger with an alternative social support system and thus enabling the deepening of the estrangement. In other instances, the third party—whether deliberately or not—is actually the sole or primary cause of two family members becoming estranged.
In situations where the estrangement is unilateral, the rejected individual may or may not try a number of strategies to repair the rift. In some cases, taking responsibility and making amends for harsh words or difficult circumstances may improve the relationship.
In some cases, the initiator of the estrangement stipulates boundaries in order to maintain limited contact (and therefore limit emotional damage) with the person they see as a potential abuser. In other cases, the initiator is unable or unwilling to consider any type of reconciliation.
Although the rejected party's psychological and physical health may decline, the estrangement initiator's may improve due to the cessation of abuse and conflict. [2] [3] The social rejection in family estrangement is the equivalent of ostracism which undermines four fundamental human needs: the need to belong, the need for control in social situations, the need to maintain high levels of self-esteem, and the need to have a sense of meaningful existence. [4] The rejected parties suffer adverse psychological consequences such as loneliness, low self-esteem, aggression, and depression. [5]
Family estrangement activates the grief response because people who have experienced it often see it as a loss they were not prepared for and happened unexpectedly. [6] However, the rejected family member may not achieve the final grief stage of acceptance, given that the social death of the relationship is potentially reversible. The prolonged suffering of the rejected party, together with a perceived or real stigma of having been rejected by a family member, results in isolation and behavioral changes in the rejected party. [7] [8]
Social workers who work with the elderly population are at the forefront of a new fallout from family estrangement. Non-supportive or absent family members during someone's end-of-life acutely increase the pain and stress of the final days. [9]
A study of adults estranged from their parents in the United States published in 2023 found that adults were more likely to be estranged from their father than from their mother, that LGBT individuals were significantly more likely than straight adults to estrange from their father while sexual orientation made no difference in the likelihood of estrangement from an individual's mother. Black adults were one-quarter less likely to estrange from their mothers than white adults but three times likelier to estrange from their fathers. On average, people who estranged from parents did so in their mid-twenties. Many estrangements eventually reconciled. [10]
An October 2022 YouGov poll in the United States found that 29% of Americans were estranged from a parent (11%), child (9%), sibling (14%), or grandparent (5%). [11] Considerably higher numbers of gay men (49%), lesbian women (55%), and bisexual people (38%) were estranged from a family member compared to heterosexual people (27%). [11]
Cultural attitudes influence the frequency of estrangement, with the United States experiencing about twice as many parent-child estrangements compared to Israel, Germany, England and Spain. [12]
The emphasis on the individual over a collective family unit is regarded as contributing to estrangement, as well as a rationale for estrangement. [13] [14] In individualistic cultures, the estranger may attribute the causes of estrangement to emotional, physical or sexual abuse. Other estrangers may see a lack of emotional support or clash of values as the justification, or may blame the other person for their own unhappiness. [14]
Estrangement is an isolating experience in ways that extend past the severed familial bond. Social science studies have found that neither estranged parents nor their adult offspring often discuss their estrangement socially, due to social stigma and frequent backlash. [15]
For some victims of psychological or emotional abuse, the damage has been done over a long period of time by a characteristic pattern of subtle and deniable abuse. For these people, validation may never appear in any meaningful form unless it is professional help. The estranged may also become less socially accepted because of lowered self-regulation, a reaction to the social rejection. [16]
Estrangement may result from the involvement or interference of a third party. [1] [9] [17]
A family member's sexual orientation, choice of spouse, gender identity, politics, disability, religion or lack thereof may cause the estranged party to feel judged, unloved, or unaccepted causing them to initiate the estrangement or may cause the parents to disown their child. [17] Life choices regarding education, profession, and geography are other potentially emotionally charged topics that reflect social values.
Divorce was cited as a reason for estrangement by 12.3% of parents and 2.3% of children in one study. [17] Divorced families are significantly over-represented among people experiencing a parent–child estrangement. [14]
Child abuse in the form of emotional, psychological, sexual, or physical abuse was cited by 13.9% of children who initiated estrangement with one or both parents as a reason for estrangement. Furthermore, 2.9% of estranged parents acknowledged their failure to prevent the abuse. [17] Abuse by siblings is a factor in some estrangements between siblings. [14]
Substance and alcohol abuse, on the part of either the estranger or the estranged, are common causes of family tension and the resulting separation. The most highly predictive domain of social estrangement for both alcohol and drug dependency is homelessness. [18]
Mental illness on the part of either the estranger or the estranged is also a common cause of family tension and estrangement.
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is correlated with family estrangement. Both the PTSD sufferer's symptoms and the family members' failure to be sufficiently supportive can contribute to the estrangement. Studies on soldiers with PTSD have concluded that families with a PTSD patient require more support to facilitate healing and prevent estrangement. [19]
From disputes over inheritances to perceived insults in public settings, a sense of betrayal can weaken the trust bonds of a family. According to developmental psychologist
Competing hypotheses attempt to understand and explain estrangement.
The separation of young adults from their families of origin in order to create families of their own is part of normal human development. According to Murray Bowen, this separation can be achieved in a healthy and gradual manner that preserves the intergenerational relationships of the family of origin, providing both the new family and family of origin with a sense of continuity and support. Alternatively, a schism can differentiate these life stages. Familial estrangement falls into the second category.
In Bowen's theory, emotional cutoff and avoidance are unhealthy coping mechanisms for dealing with anxiety and stress. These coping mechanisms represent emotional and intellectual systems that are fused rather than differentiated, so that emotions overwhelm objective thought process and govern behavior. [20] Poor differentiation is associated with continued relationship problems in life. Poor differentiation is also contagious in that it may induce stress in others. High differentiation is associated with emotional interdependence and multi-generational cooperation. Triangulation is when a third party enters the dynamic. A third party, however, may increase tension and trigger a rebellion.
In the Bowen theory, both the estranger and the estranged may use social and work relationships to create substitute families. [21] Support groups and other highly emotional organizations also provide a conduit for emotional energy from unresolved issues with parents, siblings and other family members. [22]
Only since the late 20th century, family estrangement has been framed, usually by the estrangers rather than the involuntarily estranged family members, as a sign of their own personal growth. [14] This marks a recent shift from families as a source of moral obligations and material support to people seeing their families as tools to increase their individual happiness and to affirm their identities. [14] People in this mindset may say that their choice is courageous rather than avoidant or selfish. [14]
In the case of a parent–child estrangement, in which the adult child is typically the estranger, the adult child may receive benefits such as a sense of gaining power within the relationship, of freedom, or of control. [14] The rejected parents do not experience any benefits but do experience social stigma and feelings of loss. [14] [23]
Reconciliation and resolution of the conflict are possible in some situations. [24] A decision to "live life forward", and to not seek the emotional validation of getting the other parties to agree about what happened in the past, helps some people build a functional, if sometimes more limited, relationship. [24] [25] This may involve setting boundaries collaboratively, for example, so that all parties agree that a particularly difficult subject will not be discussed. [25] For example, parents and their adult children may set boundaries together about how often they want to communicate or what information should be considered private. [14]
Triggers for reconciliation include changes in the family situation due to death or divorce, worries about health and death, and developing a clearer perspective about the original situation through the passage of time. [25]
In social psychology, an interpersonal relation describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more persons. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which are the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences. Relations vary in degrees of intimacy, self-disclosure, duration, reciprocity, and power distribution. The main themes or trends of the interpersonal relations are: family, kinship, friendship, love, marriage, business, employment, clubs, neighborhoods, ethical values, support and solidarity. Interpersonal relations may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and form the basis of social groups and societies. They appear when people communicate or act with each other within specific social contexts, and they thrive on equitable and reciprocal compromises.
A stepfamily is a family where at least one parent has children who are not biologically related to their spouse. Either parent, or both, may have children from previous relationships or marriages. Two known classifications for stepfamilies include "simple" stepfamilies, where only one member of the family's couple has a prior child or children and the couple does not have any children together, and "complex" or "blended" families, where both members of the couple have at least one child from another relationship.
Physical abuse is any intentional act causing injury or trauma to another person or animal by way of bodily contact. In most cases, children are the victims of physical abuse, but adults can also be victims, as in cases of domestic violence or workplace aggression. Alternative terms sometimes used include physical assault or physical violence, and may also include sexual abuse. Physical abuse may involve more than one abuser, and more than one victim.
Parental alienation is a theorized process through which a child becomes estranged from one parent as the result of the psychological manipulation of another parent. The child's estrangement may manifest itself as fear, disrespect or hostility toward the distant parent, and may extend to additional relatives or parties. The child's estrangement is disproportionate to any acts or conduct attributable to the alienated parent. Parental alienation can occur in any family unit, but is claimed to occur most often within the context of family separation, particularly when legal proceedings are involved, although the participation of professionals such as lawyers, judges and psychologists may also contribute to conflict.
Psychological trauma is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events, such as bodily injury, sexual violence, or other threats to the life of the subject or their loved ones; indirect exposure, such as from watching television news, may be extremely distressing and can produce an involuntary and possibly overwhelming physiological stress response, but does not always produce trauma per se. Examples of distressing events include violence, rape, or a terrorist attack.
A form of child abuse, child neglect is an act of caregivers that results in depriving a child of their basic needs, such as the failure to provide adequate supervision, health care, clothing, or housing, as well as other physical, emotional, social, educational, and safety needs. All societies have established that there are necessary behaviours a caregiver must provide for a child to develop physically, socially, and emotionally. Causes of neglect may result from several parenting problems including mental disorders, unplanned pregnancy, substance use disorder, unemployment, over employment, domestic violence, and, in special cases, poverty.
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior and often child neglect or abuse on the part of individual parents occur continuously and regularly. Children that grow up in such families may think such a situation is normal. Dysfunctional families are primarily a result of two adults, one typically overtly abusive and the other codependent, and may also be affected by substance abuse or other forms of addiction, or sometimes by an untreated mental illness. Parents having grown up in a dysfunctional family may over-correct or emulate their own parents. In some cases, the dominant parent will abuse or neglect their children and the other parent will not object, misleading a child to assume blame.
Social alienation is a person's feeling of disconnection from a group – whether friends, family, or wider society – with which the individual has an affiliation. Such alienation has been described as "a condition in social relationships reflected by (1) a low degree of integration or common values and (2) a high degree of distance or isolation (3a) between individuals, or (3b) between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment [enumeration added]". It is a sociological concept developed by several classical and contemporary theorists. The concept has many discipline-specific uses and can refer both to a personal psychological state (subjectively) and to a type of social relationship (objectively).
Social rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes interpersonal rejection, romantic rejection, and familial estrangement. A person can be rejected or shunned by individuals or an entire group of people. Furthermore, rejection can be either active by bullying, teasing, or ridiculing, or passive by ignoring a person, or giving the "silent treatment". The experience of being rejected is subjective for the recipient, and it can be perceived when it is not actually present. The word "ostracism" is also commonly used to denote a process of social exclusion.
In evolutionary psychology, the Cinderella effect describes the phenomenon of a higher incidence of child abuse and mistreatment by stepparents than biological parents. It takes its name from the fairy tale character Cinderella, a girl who is mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters. Evolutionary psychologists describe this effect as being a byproduct of a bias towards biological family and a conflict between reproductive partners investing in young children that are unrelated to one partner.
Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is a stress-related mental and behavioral disorder generally occurring in response to complex traumas.
Sibling abuse includes the physical, psychological, or sexual abuse of one sibling by another. More often than not, the younger sibling is abused by the older sibling. Sibling abuse is the most common of family violence in the US, but the least reported. As opposed to sibling rivalry, sibling abuse is characterized by the one-sided treatment of one sibling to another.
Childhood trauma is often described as serious adverse childhood experiences. Children may go through a range of experiences that classify as psychological trauma; these might include neglect, abandonment, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse. They may also witness abuse of a sibling or parent, or have a mentally ill parent. These events can have profound psychological, physiological, and sociological impacts leading to lasting negative effects on health and well-being. These events may include antisocial behaviors, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and sleep disturbances. Additionally, children whose mothers have experienced traumatic or stressful events during pregnancy have an increased risk of mental health disorders and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
Child-on-child sexual abuse is a form of child sexual abuse in which a prepubescent child is sexually abused by one or more other children or adolescents, and in which no adult is directly involved. While this includes one of the children using physical force, threats, trickery or emotional manipulation to elicit cooperation, it also can include non-coercive situations where the initiator proposes or starts a sexual act that the victim does not understand the nature of and simply goes along with, not comprehending its implications or what the consequences might be.
Siblings play a unique role in one another's lives that simulates the companionship of parents as well as the influence and assistance of friends. Because siblings often grow up in the same household, they have a large amount of exposure to one another, like other members of the immediate family. However, though a sibling relationship can have both hierarchical and reciprocal elements, this relationship tends to be more egalitarian and symmetrical than with family members of other generations. Furthermore, sibling relationships often reflect the overall condition of cohesiveness within a family.
The effects of domestic violence on children have a tremendous impact on the well-being and developmental growth of children witnessing it. Children can be exposed to domestic violence in a multitude of ways and goes beyond witnessing or overhearing, although there is disagreement in how it should be measured. Children who are exposed to domestic violence in the home often believe that they are to blame, live in a constant state of fear, and are 15 times more likely to be victims of child abuse. Close observation during an interaction can alert providers to the need for further investigation and intervention, such as dysfunctions in the physical, behavioral, emotional, and social areas of life, and can aid in early intervention and assistance for child victims.
Emotional abandonment is a subjective emotional state in which people feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded. People experiencing emotional abandonment may feel at a loss. They may feel like they have been cut off from a crucial source of sustenance or feel withdrawn, either suddenly or through a process of erosion. Emotional abandonment can manifest through loss or separation from a loved one.
Early childhood trauma refers to various types of adversity and traumatic events experienced during the early years of a person's life. This is deemed the most critical developmental period in human life by psychologists. A critical period refers to a sensitive time during the early years of childhood in which children may be more vulnerable to be affected by environmental stimulation. These traumatic events can include serious illness, natural disasters, family violence, sudden separation from a family member, being the victim of abuse, or suffering the loss of a loved one. Traumatic experiences in early childhood can result in severe consequences throughout adulthood, for instance developing post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or anxiety. The effects of this trauma can be experienced very differently depending on factors such as how long the trauma was, how severe and even the age of the child when it occurred. Negative childhood experiences can have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. However, not all children who are exposed to negative stimuli in early childhood will be affected severely in later life; some children come out unscathed after being faced with traumatic events, which is known as resilience. Many factors can account for the invulnerability displayed by certain children in response to adverse social conditions: gender, vulnerability, social support systems, and innate character traits. Much of the research in this area has referred to the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE) study. The ACE study found several protective factors against developing mental health disorders, including mother-child relations, parental health, and community support. However, having adverse childhood experiences creates long-lasting impacts on psychosocial functioning, such as a heightened awareness of environmental threats, feelings of loneliness, and cognitive deficits. Individuals with ACEs are more prone to developing severe symptoms than individuals in the same diagnostic category.
Out-of-home placements are an alternative form of care when children must be removed from their homes. Children who are placed out of the home differ in the types and severity of maltreatment experienced compared to children who remain in the home. One-half to two-thirds of youth have experienced a traumatic event leading to increased awareness and growing literature on the impact of trauma on youth. The most common reasons for out-of-home placements are due to physical or sexual abuse, violence, and neglect. Youth who are at risk in their own homes for abuse, neglect, or maltreatment, as well as youth with severe emotional and behavior issues, are placed out of the home with extended family and friends, foster care, or in residential facilities. Out-of-home placements aim to provide children with safety and stability. This temporary, safe environment allows youth to have their physical, mental, moral, and social needs met. However, these youth are in a vulnerable position for experiencing repeated abuse and neglect.
Sibling estrangement or sibling alienation is the breakdown of relationships between siblings resulting in a lack of communication or outright avoidance of each other. It is a phenomenon that can occur in families for various reasons such as unresolved conflicts, personality differences, distance, or life events. Similar to family estrangement, sibling estrangement is also linked to disruptive family events, such as parental divorce or the death of a family member. It includes emotional and physical distancing of siblings. It is a voluntary and intentional process in which at least one sibling creates or keeps distance from another sibling, triggered by a negative relationship between them. It can happen at different ages, in the majority of cases it happens during adulthood.