When it comes to being trauma-informed, certain key principles arise with respect to safety, trustworthiness, freedom to choose, mutuality, empowerment and cultural consideration. These are all important elements to ensure the well-being of individuals facing trauma. Just as with trauma, estrangement can appear invisible, until it is openly shared and spoken about. What would an estrangement-informed approach look like? This is what we’ll attempt to answer here. Sibling estrangement, or any type of estrangement, can be multi-layered, and requires an understanding of the emotional impact that t ..read more

Our experience with sibling estrangement can leave a lasting mark on our lives. Being in an estrangement-prone family, we can be left with the experience of fear, hurt, misunderstanding, hostility, avoidance, or rigidity within us. These reactions can cause us to become something we are not, and play themselves out in unhealthy ways that drive us away from what can be the potential to experience an innocent and pristine part of ourselves. In this article, we’ll attempt to demystify what wonderment can look like, and how it can be reexperienced after sibling estrangement.  It’s very natura ..read more

Every so often in the support group that I host, it’s mentioned that after we experience sibling estrangement, we become more aware of the relationships around us whenever we experience further rejection or estrangement. Maybe it’s happened that you’ve experienced another compounding loss in your life, be it from a friend, another family member, or a colleague at work. The good news is that we can work with some tools to help foster more peace and less rumination. I’ve been working with a twofold way to help myself and others who go through estrangement or rejection from a loved one, and I tho ..read more

As more and more of us start to name and understand sibling estrangement, we start to see the underlying elements that create suffering for us. These can include rumination, the lack of answers, the rejection of who we are, or the hijacking of a narrative about us within the family system that is false, just to name a few. Most of us experience a sense of incompleteness in our sibling relationship, what with the lack of answers, and it’s this very point that deserves more attention. In fact, the lack of acknowledgment is one of the biggest hurdles we have to face when it comes to sibling estra ..read more

There are a variety of factors that cause sibling estrangement. Some such factors include parental favoritism, lack of conflict management strategies, mental health issues, a sense of betrayal, and inheritance issues, just to name a few. But differences in political beliefs can also have a hand in driving people apart. Here, we’ll explore how conspiracy thinking traits can cause siblings, and families, to experience division, and what to do about it. A recent scientific article published by the American Psychological Association last year (Bowes, Costello, and Tasimi, 2023, Psychological Bulle ..read more

The experience of sibling estrangement is caused by many factors. One such factor is the influence of parents on issues that arise with a brother or sister. Indeed, what parents say and do, and what they don’t, can make a difference. Here, we’ll explore what happens when matriarchs and patriarchs shirk their roles of influence within a family system. It can happen often that in families, there is a designated matriarch or patriarch. These are important power positions within the family structures. When they speak, other members tend to take into account what they say. They can serve as models ..read more

A few weeks before my sister’s wedding day some years ago, I had been pressed to confirm my presence at her event. I had mentioned to her that I would indeed be present, despite that it cut into a course I was taking at the time several hours away. On the day of the event, as some of you know, I was the only one prevented from speaking on the podium to praise her. This incident cut deep, and altered our sibling relationship to this day. That she refused a potential opportunity to lavish her with praise and gave in to her apprehension demonstrates to me how our siblings tend to shy away from mo ..read more

In a former job, where I used to work as a substance abuse counselor, there would be a concept that I would bring up with regard to certain behaviors that would be predictive with some clients. It had to do with the idea that if an initial problem was not taken care of and kept in check, a compensating behavior would be likely to repeat itself over and over again until that said problem was corrected. Taking this idea, what if this process happened with those of us experiencing self-esteem issues following our sibling estrangement if left unchecked?   As a therapist, if you sit long ..read more

Mapping the challenges that come with sibling estrangement can be a daunting task. We are invariably put in a position that causes us to reevaluate entire relationships, and assess what this has done to us, and how best we can cope and protect ourselves. One aspect that comes to mind is the courage and dignity that this path demands us to encompass. One such way to assess how we’ve been changed by our sibling estrangement lies in analyzing the various types of courage that this has brought us. Let’s explore some of these together. One particular aspect involves physical courage. This can mean ..read more

It’s often mentioned that we should forgive. Everywhere we go, we are told to turn the other cheek. That is especially true in family settings. Certain family members may well feel awkward with the idea that their offspring don’t get along with each other. So much so that undue pressure can be put on us to somehow make things right with the other. And yet, if our siblings recognize this value within the family, it can be exploited against us. This is what I call weaponizing forgiveness. If you are the one who constantly has to forgive the other for the sake of peace in the family, it can take ..read more