Cutting the ties that bind.

Family. We’re hard-wired to need them, to forgive them their trespasses, to love them. But what happens if we don’t like them? If they disappoint us? Or if they just don’t want to be in our lives? We watch it play out between royal brothers on a world stage, and more intimately in our own families.

Recent studies show that over one in four adults will experience family estrangement. It’s often compared to the grieving process following a death—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. The difference is that estrangement doesn’t produce the outpouring of support that follows an actual death. Instead, there are feelings of shame layered over loss, grief, and anger. There are questions about identity: are you still a sibling/child/parent if your child or your parent or sibling is removed from your life? With changes in economic dependency, families aren’t needed as…