There are licensed therapists who have been major proponents of cutting off families and going "no contact." Their entire profession has been built on the idea of cutting off family members for the sake of mental health. It has caught the attention of major media outlets with this line: "It's better to become an orphan than to remain a hostage."1 This idea of family estrangement has become normalized in the therapeutic world.
A recent Wall Street Journalarticle ignited an important conversation after reporting that, among roughly 7,000 estranged parents surveyed, one-third believed their adult child's therapist had influenced or recommended cutting off the relationship.2 Whether or not that perception reflects every situation, it raises a question worth asking: "Is therapy helping families heal, or helping them separate?" Some relationships genuinely require safe distance. Violence, sexual abuse, addiction, manipulation and ongoing emotional cruelty must be taken seriously.
Victims of physical, sexual and emotional abuse should never remain in harm's way. But today, family conflict of any kind is increasingly seen through the modern therapeutic lens as a harm that requires estrangement without repair or reconciliation. Sometimes good parents who believed they were setting proper boundaries, loving correction or passing on time-honored traditions and conviction are now being told they are controlling, traumatic or abusive.
And many adult children carry wounds their parents either didn't cause or never intended. The problem begins when modern labels replace real relationships and tough conversations. The first response then becomes following a cultural fad, which perpetuates the problem and its narrative. Debra Fileta, a licensed professional counselor and prolific author, has observed that words matter because they can carry real clinical meaning. Yet clinical language has become the language of our culture.
In today's vernacular, every disagreement is called "gaslighting." Every person with selfish tendencies becomes