Rules of Estrangement, Joshua Coleman, PhD
Rules of Estrangement, Joshua Coleman, PhD
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Rules of Estrangement
Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

Author: Joshua Coleman, PhD

Narrator: Fred Sanders

Unabridged: 9 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/02/2021

Synopsis

A guide for parents whose adult children have cut off contact that reveals the hidden logic of estrangement, explores its cultural causes, and offers practical advice for parents trying to reestablish contact with their adult children.

“Finally, here’s a hopeful, comprehensive, and compassionate guide to navigating one of the most painful experiences for parents and their adult children alike.”—Lori Gottlieb, psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Labeled a silent epidemic by a growing number of therapists and researchers, estrangement is one of the most disorienting and painful experiences of a parent's life. Popular opinion typically tells a one-sided story of parents who got what they deserved or overly entitled adult children who wrongly blame their parents. However, the reasons for estrangement are far more complex and varied. As a result of rising rates of individualism, an increasing cultural emphasis on happiness, growing economic insecurity, and a historically recent perception that parents are obstacles to personal growth, many parents find themselves forever shut out of the lives of their adult children and grandchildren.

As a trusted psychologist whose own daughter cut off contact for several years and eventually reconciled, Dr. Joshua Coleman is uniquely qualified to guide parents in navigating these fraught interactions. He helps to alleviate the ongoing feelings of shame, hurt, guilt, and sorrow that commonly attend these dynamics. By placing estrangement into a cultural context, Dr. Coleman helps parents better understand the mindset of their adult children and teaches them how to implement the strategies for reconciliation and healing that he has seen work in his forty years of practice. Rules of Estrangement gives parents the language and the emotional tools to engage in meaningful conversation with their child, the framework to cultivate a healthy relationship moving forward, and the ability to move on if reconciliation is no longer possible.

While estrangement is a complex and tender topic, Dr. Coleman's insightful approach is based on empathy and understanding for both the parent and the adult child.

About Joshua Coleman, PhD

Joshua Coleman, PhD, is Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families and a psychologist with a private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has been a frequent guest on the Today Show, NPR, and the BBC, and has also been featured on Sesame Street, 20/20, Good Morning America, and numerous news programs for FOX, ABC, CNN, and NBC television. His advice has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, Fortune, Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, Slate, Psychology Today, U.S. World and News Report, Parenting magazine, and many others.

Dr. Coleman has served on the clinical faculties of the University of California at San Francisco, the Wright Institute Graduate School of Psychology, and the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Simcha on April 05, 2021

If you picked up this book, you are likely an estranged parent/in-law, an adult child who is estranged from their parent(s)/in-law(s), or someone in the support system of one of the aforementioned parties. When reading this book, you may need to remind yourself on more than one occasion that Dr. Col......more

Goodreads review by K on June 03, 2021

tw: sexual abuse, physical abuse, child abuse I've been happily estranged from my physically, sexually, and emotionally abusive mother for over 11 years. I've helped other adult children of abusive parents estrange. This book obviously isn't for me, I was curious what messages Coleman writes for estr......more

Goodreads review by Christina on January 08, 2022

I was really excited and interested to read this book. As an adult child who has taken breaks from my parents and one of my sisters, I had a personal connection to the issue. I also have a BF who has been cut off by her 4 daughters. I feel so much empathy for my friend, while at the same time knowin......more

Goodreads review by Alexander on October 19, 2021

Whenever I hear about estranged parents, my first thought is to automatically blame the parents and not the child, which is a tunnel vision I was never even quite aware of. This book shows another side. It was written for the parents whose children estranged them, and therefore it looks more kindly t......more

Goodreads review by Lanette on March 19, 2021

Helpful, informed and compassionate, Dr. Josh Coleman has made a career out of helping estranged family members heal--whether they are able to reconcile with their estranged family or not. I have learned through this book and Coleman's many online workshops that I am far from alone in having been cut......more

Quotes

“Finally, here’s a hopeful, comprehensive, and compassionate guide to navigating one of the most painful experiences for parents and their adult children alike. Rules of Estrangement candidly addresses parental estrangement from every conceivable angle, steering readers away from shame and blame to a place of newfound understanding and empowerment. I’ve seen many parents and adult children grappling with these issues, and this is exactly the book they have all been waiting for. I will be recommending it widely.”—Lori Gottlieb, psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

“A very thoughtful book filled with great wisdom and care. Over Dr. Coleman’s years of practice, as well as his own personal journey, he has developed a deep appreciation for how to help parents see their relationship with their children through the child’s eyes. It is through that process of compassionate perspective taking that a healing conversation can begin.”—Amy J. L. Baker, PhD, author of Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome

“Coleman addresses what historians see as a strange paradox: Even as more adult children view their parents as friends rather than mere obligations, psychologists report seeing a wave of parents who have been rejected by their adult children. Coleman explores the socioeconomic and cultural changes that inflate both our expectations and our disappointments in family life, offering calming advice on ways that estranged families can recover or move on.”—Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap

“With the authority and wisdom that comes from both a firm grounding in history, sociology, and, especially, clinical practice, Joshua Coleman provides compassionate and useful advice to parents and their adult children as they try to navigate the minefield of past family experience.  His work with families is engaging, informative, exceedingly helpful.”—Frank Furstenberg, Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology, emeritus, University of Pennsylvania

“Rules of Estrangement is a must-read guide for any parent in a troubled relationship with their adult child. But it is also so much more—a sharp social and philosophical analysis of what it means to be part of a family in our strange cultural moment and a road map for parents everywhere to strengthen and future-proof their relationships with their children.”—Ruth Whippman, author of America the Anxious

“Joshua Coleman has provided a beautifully written book that describes painful disruptions in relationships between parents and their adult children. His wise and authoritative strategies and specific tips will prove to be essential for both younger and older generations and for clinicians who attempt to foster hope and relationship repair.”—Carolyn and Philip Cowan, emeritus psychology professors at UC Berkeley

“I have, for many years, recommended people to go see Dr. Coleman, but until I read this book, I don't think I ever knew the extraordinary range of his gifts. Yes, there are many sad stories in this book—but there are also fantastic stories of reconciliation and personal renewal. It's inspirational.”—Pepper Schwartz, PhD, sociologist and psychology expert on Married at First Sight

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