Is your family in the 27% of American families which Cornell University researchers tell us will be affected this holiday season by planned estrangement, called the “no contact” movement?  Oprah Winfrey’s recent podcast on the subject has spiked interest and also protest from child abuse survivors  who say they are not part of a movement, but simply trying to survive.

The podcast discusses the no contact option for adult children who do not allege child abuse but do allege that their parents are “toxic.”  No contact is a unilateral decision designed to control a relationship when an adult child does not allege abuse but decides to cut off contact with a parent, usually following an upsetting or hurtful incident.  Mistreatment inflation from people surviving abuse to adult children identifying parental “toxicity” is a dilution of seriousness of child abuse and a loss of adult responsibility to respect family despite parents’ weaknesses.

Child abuse is an objective, observable act, which inflicts lasting injuries and gratifies the abuser.  Child abuse is not a relationship problem.  It is immorality and criminality in the abuser.  So-called toxicity is a subjective experience of the adult child, which might be amended with improved communication and commitment in family members.

Oprah claims she is neutral about the no contact movement, but that is not what comes across.  Oprah did not marry, does not seem to recognize the unique significance of sanctified man-woman marriage, did not have or adopt children, and has long publicized her grievances against her own family of origin.  Oprah was eager to be used by Meghan Markle to defame two generations of the British royal family.

Oprah’s expert, Dr. Joshua Coleman, a regular contributor to the Washington Post, authored the book Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties & How to Heal the Conflict.  He observes, “The old days of honor thy mother and thy father, respect thy elders, families forever has given way to much more of an emphasis on personal happiness, personal growth, my identity, my political beliefs, my mental health.”  Dr. Coleman is sincere in his effort to rebuild family through communication.  However, biblically based beliefs regarding the sanctity of marriage and family life are not gone.  They are gathering strength in America.  In truth, without shared foundational beliefs, the traditional American family cannot exist.

Dr. Coleman adds, “We are a divided society, lonely with rising rates of mental illness looking for our tribe.  Our tribe used to be our family and it still could be if we figure out how to talk to each other.”

Like many therapists, Dr. Coleman promotes the myth of the magical conversation.  He does not understand that it is values, not verbal skills, that keep families together.  For example, does Dr. Coleman believe there is any conversation that would bring the left wing he writes for to respect and honor the viewpoints of Trump-supporters?  There is an implicit derogation in the meme of tribalism.  The goal of preserving a vigorous constitutional republic for posterity is not tribal consciousness; it is patriotic idealism.  

Another expert is Dr. Lindsay Gibson.  She is author of the N.Y. Times bestseller Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents.  Oprah reveals her anti-family bias, saying to Dr. Gibson, “Many people credit your book as the catalyst , actually, for this upsurge in adult children going no contact.”

Dr. Gibson’s therapy is designed to heal people from non-abusive but imperfect parents.  It epitomizes the limitations and harmful potential of psychotherapy.  Adult maturation involves understanding the advantages and liabilities of one’s childhood, but permanent victimization narratives focused on the flaws of parents, with the expedient of ghosting them, imprisons the mind in the unhappy memories of childhood like an insect in amber.

Dr. Gibson says of her clients, “The coping mechanisms they had learned when their parents were either trying to control them or get them to do what they wanted were being transferred to their current relationships.”  Parents must control their children to keep them and others safe: Brush your teeth, use manners, don’t bonk the other kid on the head.  Through adolescence, parents have to guide, control, and train.

Regarding no contact, Gibson says, “I want them to turn within and test out their inner guidance.  In other words, get back in touch with their own feelings and how things effect them.”  Inner guidance in 23-year-olds looking back resentfully at their parents’ flaws?  What age are they getting back in touch with?  It may be a young adult discovering that being grown up is more difficult than he thought, and it is easier to blame parents.

Gibson adds, “We’re just trying to help them understand their objective experience of their parents.”  Not possible.  The earliest modern psychiatry and psychology, Kraepelin’s doggone Erinnerungsverfälschung and Freud’s Verdichtung, describe a phenomenon recognized to this day: It is impossible to have objectivity about one’s own history.  Also, preoccupation with the mistakes of your parents often leads to overcompensation in that direction and overlooking new mistakes being made.

If I wrote a book about family life, it would be entitled You Do the Work, You Get the Blame.

Oprah introduces audience members who are “going through” no contact.  Those words subtly cast married adults like her guests Chris and Bre, who have chosen to cut off Chris’s parents and two brothers, as victims who are “going through” something.  Chris and Bre have two small daughters who have never met either set of grandparents, or their paternal uncles.

Chris is serious and anxious.  It is unclear why an apparently thoughtful man would denigrate his family in a national podcast.  He says, “I grew up in a very performance-oriented household.”

Polished and plaintive, Chris, shown in Princeton regalia, says he was pressured to achieve to get “the money, the power, the status.”  His parents’ pressure for status might stem from the burdens of their own childhoods.  It is Chris’s responsibility that his elite education be used to benefit others.

Chris explains that “his family’s” initial reaction to Bre was “apathetic.”  Oprah destructively reframes that as “they didn’t like her.”  Chris says family members went behind his back “to take this marriage off the table.”  Oprah goads Bre: “Didn’t your mother-in-law try to mess up the bridal shower?”

Chris says his parents were invited to the wedding but did not attend.  When he told his parents a baby was coming, he perceived “disappointment” and was “profoundly hurt.”  Following one more attempt to gain approval, Chris, worried that his parents would not accept their grandchild, permanently ended contact.

Two of Oprah’s three experts are comfortable with this family’s breakdown.  They offer unworkable formulae for Chris to talk about his own childhood and his daughters’ shadow family, amounting to they’re not bad people; we just don’t have anything to do with them.  Dr. Coleman alone states the “cautionary” that Chris and Bre are teaching their daughters that the way to solve conflict is to cut people out.  Also, if one of Chris’s daughters is “profoundly hurt” some day, she can cut him off.  Chris chose a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

In addition to being hurtful, “no contact” towards non-abusive family almost always traps an adult in the emotional neediness of childhood.  It is fueled by fixating on negative memories while hindering the spiritual freedom gained through acceptance of one’s unique life path.  Families are forever, and they are the graduate school to learn and actualize what is important and true.

You can listen to Dr. Tyler on discuss the experience of Chris and Bre in greater depth at “Psychology Reoriented” on Substack.

Image via PickPik.