Young voices
We are delighted to present the voices of two now-adult children who suffered relational trauma that emerged in the context of divorce and family separation. We are grateful to both of these young people for articulating their experiences, and for their wish to help other children who may be going through experiences similar to theirs.
Josh
Josh is now 25 and about to start training as a social worker. He was removed from the care of his mother at the age of 11 due to psychological harm caused by factitious illness. Josh grew up believing that his father had made him sick and that his anxiety and lack of social development were the result of this. Instead, it was found that his mother's overprotective and intrusive parenting had caused him serious harm. With the help of the Family Separation Clinic and his Local Authority social worker, Josh was moved to live with his father, with whom he now has a strong and enduring relationship.
He credits his social worker for the dedicated and committed work undertaken over a number of years and his father, and his work with the Clinic, for his capacity to understand and recover from the harm he suffered. Now Josh is writing his story so that others can understand the way that children in his situation are left to suffer without recognition or help by too many people. Josh articulates the plight of children who are trauma bonded to an abusive parent with incredible precision, shining a light on the necessary interventions which release children from this position, in great detail.
Alex
Alex is a young person who was removed from an abusive parent by the family courts, as a teenager, and is now on her way to University. She tells of a long history of psychological control and the distorted family relationships that arose because of this. She has written a book for children and young people that is packed full of information, guidance and practical strategies to help young people avoid being triangulated into an abusive parent's dominating experience.
Alex is keen to help other children and young people avoid the experience of being psychologically and emotionally abused in family separation. She articulates the experience of being controlled by a parent to make unimaginable false allegations against a loved parent and how choosing to focus on her own experiences and well-being rather than meeting an abusive parent's demands, led to recovery and integration of the self.
Her book, Choosing yourself when your parents separate: The young person's survival guide, published by the Centre for Childhood Relational Trauma, will be available to purchase at the symposium.
Please note: In order to protect the privacy of young speakers, their faces will not be shown on the live video stream.
