Family conflict between adults has a particular quality to it. It does not feel like a disagreement between equals. It feels loaded. A conversation with your parent or your adult child can go sideways in seconds, and afterward you cannot quite explain what happened. You said something reasonable. They heard something else entirely. Or they said something small and it landed like a punch, because it landed on twenty years of accumulated material.
I work with adults on both sides of this. Adult children trying to make sense of their relationship with their parents. Parents trying to understand why their adult child pulled away, or why every conversation turns into the same dead end. Families where the conflict is loud. Families where the conflict is silent. And families where someone has walked away entirely.
Who this is for
I work with adults (16 and older) in family conflict. That includes adult children struggling with their relationship to a parent. Parents concerned about their relationship with an adult child. Parents and adult children together, when both are willing. Siblings in conflict. And individuals processing estrangement, whether they initiated it or are on the receiving end.
I work with individuals on their own, and I work with family members together when it makes sense. You do not need the other person to agree to participate. Much of the most effective work happens with one person, because when one person in a family system changes how they relate, the whole dynamic shifts.
What the research says
Family estrangement research has grown considerably in recent years. Studies estimate that roughly one in four adults experiences estrangement from a family member at some point. The research shows that estrangement is rarely sudden. It is usually the endpoint of a long accumulation of misunderstandings, unmet expectations, and unresolved conflict. Adult children and parents frequently identify completely different reasons for the distance between them, which is part of what makes reconciliation so difficult without outside help.
Family therapy research shows that systemic interventions can improve relationship quality, reduce conflict, and address the patterns that keep families stuck. But most of this research focuses on families with minor children. The adult family, where people are choosing whether to be in relationship at all, is a different situation. The power dynamics are different. The stakes are different. The tools need to be different too.
Research on estrangement specifically has found that conventional therapy is not always helpful. Approaches that pressure reconciliation or assign blame tend to make things worse. What helps is therapy that validates both sides' experience, addresses the underlying relational patterns, and works with the grief and identity disruption that estrangement produces, without forcing a particular outcome.
Where most approaches stop
Most family therapy teaches communication skills: I-statements, active listening, conflict resolution techniques. These are reasonable tools, and for some families they help. But they tend to assume the problem is that people do not know how to talk to each other. In my experience, the problem is not a skill deficit. Most adults know perfectly well how to communicate. The problem is that something deeper hijacks the conversation every time.
A parent says something neutral, and their adult child hears the criticism that lived underneath every neutral thing they heard growing up. An adult child sets a boundary, and the parent hears a rejection that confirms their deepest fear about losing the relationship. The words are secondary. What is running the show is a set of roles, expectations, and emotional reflexes that were built when the child was small and never updated.
How I work with this
My approach comes from the character-analytic tradition of David Shapiro, Wilhelm Reich, and Hellmuth Kaiser. In this framework, family conflict is not primarily a communication problem. It is a characterological one. Each person in the family has a way of being that was built, in part, in response to the family itself. The child who became the peacekeeper. The parent who cannot tolerate disagreement. The sibling who performs independence by cutting off. These are not choices. They are character styles, built early and running automatically.
In sessions, I pay attention to these patterns as they show up. When I work with family members together, I track the moment the conversation shifts from the present to the old material. The moment someone stops responding to what was said and starts responding to what they heard, which is usually something much older. I make the pattern visible so that both people can see it happening in real time.
When I work with individuals, the work is different but the principle is the same. We look at the role you play in your family and the way that role organizes everything you do in the relationship. When you can see the role clearly enough, you gain the freedom to stop performing it. That changes the dynamic even when you are the only person in the room.
For parents whose adult children have pulled away, this work is not about getting your child back. It is about understanding what happened and what your role in the pattern was, so that if and when there is an opening, you can meet your child differently. For adult children, this work is about understanding why your family affects you the way it does, and what you want to do about it from a place of clarity rather than reactivity.
I am a therapist, not a doctor. This is talk therapy, not medical treatment. Sessions are 60 minutes over secure video. Before your first session, we have a brief 15-minute call to see if this feels like the right fit for you.
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You do not have to be ready. You do not have to know what to say. A few sentences is enough.