I want to speak directly to protective parents who have been ordered into reunification therapy, or who are considering it, or who are watching their child come home from it and wondering what has just happened.
Reunification therapy is presented as a way to repair the relationship between a child and a parent the child is resisting. When both parents are safe, and when a child’s resistance is rooted in misunderstanding rather than fear, reunification therapy can support a child in rebuilding a relationship.
That is not what I see in coercive control cases.
How Reunification Therapy Is Supposed to Work
In theory, reunification therapy gives a child space to be honest about what they feel toward a parent they have been estranged from. The therapist is supposed to help the child express those feelings safely, and help the parent hear them without defensiveness or retaliation.
Over time, trust is supposed to be rebuilt.
The model depends on one crucial thing. The resisted parent must be capable of receiving the child’s honesty without using it against them. In a coercive control case, that is usually not true.
What Actually Happens in a Coercive Control Case
When a child who has been living under coercive control is placed in reunification therapy, the child is not safe to say what they actually feel.
They have been trained, often for years, to watch what they say around the predatory parent. They know that telling the truth, especially about how the predatory parent makes them feel, creates retaliation that will continue long after the session ends.
So the child performs. They say what they have been told to say. They repeat things about the protective parent that they know are not true, or that have been shaped into a distorted version of something that happened. Sometimes the therapist believes the child. Sometimes the protective parent is asked to apologize for things that did not happen, or to accept responsibility for a version of events the protective parent does not recognize.
If you have lived inside coercive control, this will feel familiar. The same thing that was done to you is now being done to your child, inside a room that was supposed to help.
Why Children Do This
Children in coercive control dynamics align with the parent they are afraid of because alignment is what has kept them safe. This is survival alignment.
Children learn very early which parent controls outcomes. They learn who escalates when challenged and who cannot be contradicted without consequence. They adjust to that. They say what keeps them safe.
No child wants to reject a parent who has been good to them. When children say harmful or rejecting things about a protective parent, that behavior usually reflects pressure, not preference.
The Problem Nobody Talks About: Shame
When a child is made to say harmful things about their protective parent, over and over, in front of a therapist or a judge or a custody evaluator, something happens to the child that is rarely discussed in the reunification therapy literature.
The child begins to carry shame.
They know, at some level, that what they are saying is not fully true. They may not be able to articulate it. But the weight of having said it, of having aligned with the harmful narrative, of having been the voice that was used against the parent who protected them, stays with them.
The predatory parent is counting on that shame. A child who feels ashamed of what they have already said is a child who is more reluctant to change the story later, and more afraid of what telling the truth would mean.
The same shame that was used to control you in the relationship is being replicated inside your child, through the therapeutic process. That is what makes forced reunification therapy so harmful in these cases.
Why Individual Therapy May Be a Safer Option
When possible, individual therapy with a qualified therapist can offer something that reunification therapy cannot.
In individual therapy, the child is not sitting next to the protective parent and across from the therapist, being tested in real time. The predatory parent is not in the room or waiting in the parking lot. The child is not being asked to perform for two parents at once.
That can create some space for the child to begin to express what they actually feel, at their own pace, without immediate consequences.
The therapist matters a great deal. What you want is a therapist who understands coercive control, who knows the difference between a child who has been coached and a child who is genuinely afraid, who will not rush the child to disclose more than they are ready to disclose, and who will not share what the child says in session with the parent the child is afraid of.
A therapist who describes your situation as a high-conflict divorce, or who asks you to extend good faith to the other parent, does not understand what your family is actually dealing with. That therapist is unlikely to be safe for your child.
What This Means for You as a Protective Parent
If your child is currently in reunification therapy and it is painful to watch, that pain is not irrational. You are witnessing something that is harming your child, and you are being asked to cooperate with it.
Document what you observe. Where possible, advocate for individual therapy with a coercive control-informed therapist instead. Push back on professionals who treat your situation as a high-conflict divorce. When your child comes home from sessions, your job is not to undo what was said in the room. Your job is to be the steady, predictable, non-reactive parent who does not force your child to defend or explain what happened. Your child needs a place where they do not have to perform. That place is you.
Your child’s relationship with you is more resilient than you may realize right now. Secure attachment can be fractured, but it is not easily destroyed. What your child needs most is for you to remain yourself, consistent and steady, while this process unfolds.
If you are a protective parent and want support specifically built for what you are dealing with, the Protective Parenting Program offers education and practical tools for parenting during and after coercive control. The Inner Circle membership provides ongoing group support from other parents who understand your situation, along with real-time guidance from me.
And if you would like my free guide with interview questions for hiring therapists or court professionals, you can download that HERE.