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Why would a qualified, ethical therapist support their client’s decision to estrange from their family? Aren’t families sacred relationships that must be preserved at all costs? Not always. In fact, family estrangement can be beneficial to many people in therapy.
Here are three common reasons why therapists might support family estrangement.
1. Promoting Safety and Agency
Without safety, therapists have little foundation to stand upon. Clients who are not safe or who feel unsafe in therapy are unlikely to benefit or progress, even with the most sophisticated evidence-based treatments. This is why ethical clinicians prioritize their responsibility to establish and maintain safety above all else, including the need to prevent or mitigate family estrangements.
Safety is impossible without agency. If clients are not allowed to make choices about their own lives, including who has access to them, they feel unsafe, and the therapeutic relationship collapses. Suppose they feel pressured by a therapist to maintain contact with someone against their wishes. In that case, their nervous system will likely retreat into survival mode, and therapeutic progress will stall or cease altogether.
An ethical therapist might help clients explore options and risks. Yet, they do not override a client’s autonomy when the client is not a danger to themselves or others. As psychologist Sharon Lamb explains, “If we truly listen to clients and honor their perspectives… by telling them that we know more about their agency in the world than they do… we do them an injustice.” If a client chooses to initiate or maintain family estrangement, this is their decision.
When clients choose family estrangement, they are exercising their agency, which supports their feelings of safety that are required to progress in therapy.
2. Supporting Self-Protection
Clients are more likely to progress in therapy when they have access to safe relationships, and family members are not excluded. Safe relationships do not cause sexual, physical, financial, spiritual, or emotional harm and are based on trust, respect, equality, and reciprocity. A safe person who has caused harm in the past will not intentionally cause or contribute to further harm and will take accountability and make the necessary changes to promote safety in the relationship. Safe relationships are not void of conflicts, which provide growth opportunities. Yet, conflicts in safe relationships tend to be repaired while disputes in unsafe relationships often are unacknowledged, unrepaired, and continue to occur.
When family members are unable to provide safe relationships, clients may need to initiate estrangement to protect themselves or others, such as their children or romantic partners. If a therapist restricts a client’s efforts to defend themselves, they may put their client at risk of experiencing continued abuse. Expecting someone to remain connected to those who are harming them doesn’t support therapy; it sabotages it.
Family estrangement has protected people from experiencing continued abuse and allowed them the safety and space to progress in therapy.
3. Acknowledging and Accepting Beliefs about Family
There is a widespread belief in many cultural groups that those who are genetically related to you are entitled to have contact with you. The phrases “Blood is thicker than water,” “Family first,” and “Family is everything” exemplify this belief. But what if a therapist’s client does not subscribe to this belief? What if they feel no sense of relational obligation to their family?
Some clients reject genetic relational entitlement, the idea that people who share their DNA deserve to have access to them. They find this idea confusing or outdated. Some clients have adopted the concept of chosen families, which consists of people they choose to be members of their primary support system, such as friends, colleagues, neighbors, community members, and even animals.
An ethical therapist does not impose their cultural or personal beliefs about family onto their client. Instead, they honor their clients’ values and beliefs.
Supporting family estrangement isn’t about fueling conflict or encouraging family isolation; it’s about protecting safe connections where they exist. When clients initiate or maintain family estrangement, they are not rejecting the idea of family; they’re redefining it in a way that protects them and supports their mental health. Ethical therapists recognize that healthy relationships are built on safety and agency, not obligation or genetics. By honoring a client’s right to choose who is in their life, therapists empower them to build relationships that promote their healing, rather than sabotage it.
