Combating Parental Alienation With Expert Amy Baker Part 1 - Episode 46

Discover the hidden dynamics of parental relationships with Dr. Amy Baker, a leading developmental psychologist, in our latest episode of the Family Disappeared Podcast. We'll unpack the critical differences between parental alienation and estrangement, offering parents invaluable insights on handling these emotionally charged situations. Learn how to recognize the signs of unjustified rejection versus justified estrangement, and gain practical advice on reconnecting with your children, no matter their age.

Dr. Baker delves deep into the psychological impacts of parental alienation and the manipulative tactics that can distort a child's view of the targeted parent. We discuss real-life examples and provide strategies to manage conflicts without reinforcing negative perceptions. Understand the importance of seeing the world through your child's eyes while maintaining your own truth, and get tips on how to navigate these challenging dynamics thoughtfully and effectively.

Finally, we explore the underlying issues that can lead to forming relationships with narcissistic partners and how these patterns influence behavior. Dr. Baker shares her expertise on communicating effectively with mental health professionals and maintaining your credibility in both legal and therapeutic contexts. This episode is packed with practical advice and heartening guidance aimed at helping you become the best parent you can be and heal fractured relationships. Join us for a transformative discussion that could change the way you approach parental alienation forever.

Dr Baker has generously offered a free session as a prize for our audience.  In order to be included in the competition, please do the following; SUBSCRIBE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL, AND LEAVE THE COMMENT "Amy Baker Rocks".  Competition closes on June 24, 2024.    Competition winners will be announced one week after closing, and selected randomly from the YouTube comments.

Dr Amy Baker: www.amyjbaker.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The premise is that a child is rejecting a parent. Some people say resist, refuse, but there's a breach in the relationship between a child and a parent. And if a child's rejecting a parent, we want to try to figure out what's the underlying cause. Right, it could be alienation, which is unjustified rejection. Or it could be estrangement justified rejection. So that's the difference between alienation. Be estrangement justified rejection. So that's the difference between alienation and estrangement. But lots of people use the terms interchangeably and lots of people use the terms colloquially.

Speaker 2: 0:34

There was a time in my life when I was overwhelmed and underwater. Those days are the inspiration for this podcast. This is by far the ultimate healing journey for all of us. Healing ourselves emotionally, spiritually and physically is paramount to this journey. From this place of grounding we can all go out into the world and change all our interactions and relationships. We can engage people from an integrated and resourced place. This is a journey of coming home to ourselves. In today's episode we'll start to explore some of these issues. Let's begin the healing journey today. Welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast. Hi, my name is Lawrence Joss and welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Today we have a home run show. We have Dr Amy Baker, who is an author, has been an expert witness, a coach, just has a plethora of information and talents, and this interview is really, really going to rock your socks. She has a wonderful way of bridging the gap. Like I can see two different sides of the bridge, and then she just adds this wonderful, beautiful perspective and experience and it kind of gives me like a view of the whole bridge for the first time. So I think you're going to love this. If you're new to the community, welcome. Make sure you stay until the end of the show, we're going to be raffling off one free coaching session with Dr Amy Baker, which is a phenomenal, phenomenal gift that she's given to the community, and please remember to like let us know your thoughts If there's any topics you'd like us to cover anything like that. In the show notes is a bunch of great information, including Dr Amy Baker's information. Yeah well, that's enough out of me, let's jump into the show.

Speaker 2: 2:15

I don't know how many people can relate to this, but I was out there and something was going on with my kids and you know, my oldest daughter didn't talk to me for a year and I couldn't figure out what was going on and I thought it was just a developmental thing. And then she started talking to me again and started living with me again, and then we started going back down the road of alienation three or four years later and I didn't know what was going on. And I was doing all this work and I found a book by Dr Amy Baker and I'm like whoa, parental Alienation. Huh, there's these 17 different characteristics and oh my God, these things are all going on in my life and I finally had a word to define what I was experiencing and in my excitement I bought a bunch of her books and I'm like, huh, this is going to change everything. I'm going to send these books out to everyone. And in the interview I actually asked her this question.

Speaker 2: 3:10

And then later on in the book that I'm so excited I was reading, she's like don't send this book out to your kids was like a moment in time where, like, I finally realized, or just started to realize, that even though I'm learning stuff and it feels like it's incredibly, incredibly important, it's not necessarily going to be incredibly incredibly important to my children. You know, I might actually create some harm by me trying to let them know what I'm learning and developmentally they're not in the same place and maybe I've been negating their reality and their feelings. So that's an interesting segue into the show, but let's jump right on in and, yeah, put on your seatbelts. This is gonna be a good one. Amy, it's so great to see you and thank you so much for taking the time to come out and join us on the show. And if you could, please just introduce yourself to the community out there so everyone who might know you or might not know you quite that well can understand who you are and what you do.

Speaker 1: 4:09

Sure, so my name is Amy Baker. I have a PhD in developmental psychology 100 years ago from Teachers College of Columbia University. I am a researcher and an author. I've written 10 books, I think, eight of which are on parental alienation, some facet of it, and I do coaching for parents who are concerned that the other parent is turning their child against them. I used to do expert witness work. I did that for about a decade and then I had enough, so I don't do that anymore. So basically, I'm a researcher and an author and a coach.

Speaker 2: 4:43

Wow, that's a lot, and thank you for the work. Thank you for all the wonderful work you do and your books are phenomenal, and one of your books was the first book I ever read on parental alienation, and it was definitely a life changer. So I just want to start with a really basic question that we hear a lot of parents asking, and that is what is the difference between parental alienation and estrangement? Could you let us know that please?

Speaker 1: 5:06

Absolutely. And I think it's confusing because the words have colloquial meanings and they have a specific meaning in the context of parental alienation theory. So the premise is that a child is rejecting a parent. Some people say resist, refuse. A child is rejecting a parent, Some people say resist, refuse. But there's a breach in the relationship between a child and a parent.

Speaker 1: 5:30

And if a child's rejecting a parent we want to try to figure out what's the underlying cause. Right, it could be alienation, which is unjustified rejection, or it could be estrangement justified rejection. So that's the difference between alienation and estrangement. But lots of people use the terms interchangeably and lots of people use the terms colloquially. I feel estranged from somebody, but when you're talking about a child in the context of a fractured family, we try to be precise Alienation is unjustified rejection. So a child is rejecting a parent who didn't abuse them, neglect them, abandon them, molest them or engage in egregious parenting. That's alienation. Estrangement is when the child has a reality-based, non-distorted reason for rejecting a parent.

Speaker 2: 6:21

Oh, that's incredibly useful because I know a lot of people get confused and we do interchange those words all the time, but hearing that it's when a parent is undermining another parent versus something traumatic happening in the household really simplifies that for me. And the follow-up question to that would be, as the kids turn into young adults or adults, if alienation had occurred or is still occurring once they're in their 30s, do you still consider that alienation or does that term move towards estrangement, like, how does that work as a kid's age?

Speaker 1: 6:55

I wouldn't change the terminology based on the age of the child. I think that I'm being precise because we're trying to understand. I think that I'm being precise because we're trying to understand, especially in a legal context or a clinical context, what's the underlying cause. At some point, you know, it might not matter so much, like if you have a 30-year-old child, as you're saying, and there's been a break in the relationship for a long time. You as a parent might believe that it's alienation, that the other parent engineered it, but the child might not, the adult child might not see it that way.

Speaker 1: 7:29

And I actually have developed a method for helping parents who have a break in the relationship with their adult child reconnect with that child, and the process would actually be the same, whether it's alienation or estrangement.

Speaker 1: 7:43

Because when people come to me and they say I have a 30-year-old child and I haven't talked to them in 10 years or 20 years and I want to repair the relationship, I don't know if it's alienation or estrangement. I don't have any way of knowing, and so my method sort of works for either, because that's the only thing that made sense to me, because I don't have any way of determining, and I think that's true for a lot of people. You can't know what the underlying cause is. It's only if you're in a divorce case and or you're a clinician or you're doing reunification therapy. There are certain contexts where you do need to know what is going on in this family, but at some point you have to just look at it from the adult child's point of view and say what do they believe is the cause of their disaffection from you and how can you address their wound without either proving you're innocent or admitting you're guilty, which is where a lot of parents get stuck. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: 8:45

where a lot of parents get stuck. Does that make sense? That makes a lot of sense and that's incredibly useful in meeting the child, young, adult, adult where they are with the languaging that they want to use. So you actually have an access point for some kind of reconnection is what I'm hearing you say.

Speaker 1: 8:56

Yes, I would say it's extremely tricky, because I'll give an example which I, which I talk about a lot, because it's a lot, because to me it's so poignant. I had a mom client come to me. She told me the story that when her son, who's now an adult, was seven, she asked the dad can I move away with little Jimmy or whatever his name is, I don't remember and according to her, the dad said yes, they were divorced. He's like yeah, sure, you can move away. She sold her house, quit her job, got a new house, new job hundreds of miles away, and the day before she was set to move he filed an emergency motion preventing her from leaving with the boy. She moved anyway because she didn't want to lose her house and job. She thought she would win at the hearing or the trial, and she't, so she was never the primary caregiver again.

Speaker 1: 9:46

By the time she came to me, there'd been a breach in the relationship, which she believed had been engineered by the dad. But of course, the adult son didn't think that way. He thought the mom had abandoned him, and so the question that we tackled and I do this with each and every one of my clients is how can you look at the experience from your child's point of view and maintain your allegiance to your truth. Because she did not want to say to her son well, if you think I abandoned you, then I guess I did, and I'm sorry. That didn't feel authentic to her, and if it's not authentic, the kid's going to know it, and it's not, you're not going to get anywhere. But she also didn't want to do what she had already done. That didn't work was to say you know you're wrong, it's not my fault that I moved away. I had permission. Your father tricked me. I'm the one who lost out. Basically, telling the story from her point of view right, this is what I went through and this is why you're wrong for feeling what you're feeling. But she didn't want to validate it and say well, if you think I abandoned you, I guess you're right. So if you want, I can tell you how we sort of worked it through, because it's sort of illustrative of what I do with every client who comes to me with an adult child. So I help clients write a letter. There's 10 paragraphs. Each one has a function, but for her, one of the paragraphs had to address the issue that her son was upset because she moved away and she just kept saying, amy, I did not abandon my son. I'm not going to say I did that, just doesn't feel right for me. So this is what we wrote. I know that you are upset with me because I moved away.

Speaker 1: 11:33

And then she tells the story from his point of view. You were just a little boy. You were seven years old, you were starting first grade. You were so excited your first tooth had come out. Whatever, whatever his life had been like at the time, you were used to seeing your mommy and daddy every week. And then, all of a sudden, your mom was an airplane ride away and you only saw me on summers and holidays. What a big change for such a little boy. So she's showing him.

Speaker 1: 11:59

I'm interested in your perspective. And then she asked questions. She asked him what was that like for you? Did kids tease you because they lived with their moms and you didn't Were there times when you needed me to be there for you and I wasn't? And then she ended the paragraph with a wish. I wish I had worked harder to understand what it felt like for you when I moved away. So my belief is that the healing takes place when the targeted parent is able to look at the child's pain without trying to. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing. You're right to feel this way, you're wrong to feel this way. It's I'm interested in how you felt and I'm interested in your perspective. That's what I think every child wants from their parent and it's see, it doesn't matter if she abandoned him or not in terms of healing.

Speaker 1: 12:56

So anyway, that's a long winded way of saying what I think about when I think about parents who have adult alienated or estranged kids.

Speaker 2: 13:05

No, I love that methodology. That methodology sounds really wonderful and seems to really be able to put themselves in the kids shoes and maybe see stuff or understand stuff they could never ever have understood without looking at it from that perspective yeah, I, that's absolutely true.

Speaker 1: 13:30

It's a process where I I have a whole philosophy. You got like a sliver of it, so I have to walk the parent through the whole philosophy. That takes like an hour. Then I give them homework to really begin to orient them to the child's perspective. Then we work on the letter. You can't just jump to the letter, because to me the letter writing starts when the targeted parent is able to let go of the idea that it's either proving you're innocent or admitting you're guilty. But finding this path to connection and that takes effort, it's not easy, it is very, it is cathartic, but it's also painful for the parent.

Speaker 2: 14:09

Yes, yes, I can see all those different layers to it. And if you're listening to the show and you're interested in the coaching session with Dr Amy, at the end of the show we're going to be raffling off one free coaching session. So make sure you stay until the end of the show. And another question I had for you is when I first found your work and I read your first book, I was so excited I finally had a word parental alienation that fit with all the different things that I was struggling with. And I went out and I bought five or six books and my big plan was to give them to my kids, to give them to anyone. And then I read later on don't give a book, don't shout from the mountaintop, and whether it's a book or just the terminology, why do you say do not share this with the children?

Speaker 1: 14:55

Right, so right. I actually I have a blog on my website. It's like one of them is like don't give my book to your child, because it's basically foisting your perspective on the child. If your adult child says to you you know, what do you think happened to me? Maybe? Then you could say well, I think maybe. But even then I actually wouldn't feel that comfortable with somebody saying let me tell you what happened to you, what happened to you.

Speaker 1: 15:26

I just don't believe that it would feel good for somebody who is alienated and has their own perspective for you to say basically you're wrong, I'm right, I'm the victim here and you need to see things my way. And I think it's basically insulting to tell somebody they were brainwashed, even if you think they were. You know we have I'm not sure if it's human, the human condition or the American human condition, but we have a strong desire to believe that we are the agents of our own, you know personalities and that we are rational. People don't even believe advertising works right. I mean, there's lots of research on that, like why are you buying that laundry detergent versus that? Well, I've read it. A lot of people say well, I researched it. People like to think that they're informed, educated consumers who are making thoughtful, wise decisions. They don't realize that it's the music in the background at the supermarket and the swirly pattern on the box that's actually attracting them to the product. We don't believe advertising works right. People certainly do not want to believe that they are puppets or pawns or brainwashed and so all you're going to do is insult your child.

Speaker 1: 16:53

If you want to repair the relationship with your child, the best thing you can do is say tell me what your perspective is. But I'm going to tweak that a little bit. Which is what I wouldn't want somebody to say is I have no idea why you're upset with me. I'm racking my brain. Tell me what you think. My problem with that is that's insulting, because it's basically saying I've scoured the universe of possibilities and nothing, you know. Nothing comes to mind, because I think that's conveying. Whatever your complaints are, they're so ridiculous or picky or, you know, absurd that they couldn't possibly be in my realm of consciousness. I think if you want to connect with your child, you have to start by being genuinely interested in their perspective, not just asking them. You have to start by being genuinely interested in their perspective, not just asking them. You have to do the work. That's what the letter writing is about.

Speaker 1: 17:47

The parent has to figure out why is your child hurt? Because all parents hurt, frustrate and disappoint their children. Alienation happens when the other parent convinces the child that the targeted parent's flaws are unforgivable. It's not that the favorite parent is making up things. Your mother's a Martian, you know she's. You know, stole a million dollars from you. Know what I'm saying. We used to think that alienation was when one parent made up extravagant extreme lies, but it's really more about reinterpreting the everyday hurts that the child experiences. All parents have to frustrate and disappoint their children at some point, and so the starting of the healing is being able to tolerate admitting that you have hurt your child, you frustrated them, You've disappointed them, and just try to figure out where that wound is and then look at it from the child's perspective. So the book is basically here's my theory of what happened, and so that's not going to work.

Speaker 2: 18:56

Yeah, that's some great information. And also acknowledging that their reality is real. And when I say, hey, parental alienation, I'm basically negating everything that they've lived and experienced and I've done that and it's not useful, so don't do that out there. So you said something really interesting which is really nuanced that I don't know how many, I don't know if I've even heard this before that it's not about the egregious big things that you've done, that the other parent is targeting, that the other parent is targeting. It's just like small things, like you don't show up to dinner, or you, you yell that one time or something like that, and then then they go oh, you know how your father is, or you know how your mother is. They always do this or they don't really show up, and it's really those subtle things over and over and over again. That's what I'm hearing you say, correct?

Speaker 1: 19:47

Yes, I would say that oftentimes targeted parents are put in impossible situations where whatever they did, it would be wrong. You know, if you let's say the child says don't show up for my soccer practice, and then the parent does show up, then it's see, they're not honoring your voice, they're not listening to you. But if you don't show up, it's look at how easily they gave up. They don't care enough to show up. So I think the targeted parents often are in difficult situations but the child's perspective is still their feelings and it's not about whether it's right or wrong. A feeling is a feeling and if you're interested in your child's feelings, your child feels heard and understood. No-transcript, you know, calling a mother by her first name, for example, is so painful, you know, for the parent. It's painful for the dads too. I'm just thinking of one mom in particular. So there are certain things that really trigger I hate to overuse that word but trigger the targeted parent, and then they behave worse than they would and they inadvertently reinforce the lie right? So the lie is that the targeted parent is unsafe, unloving and unavailable. It is always that Some combination Doesn't have to be all three, but it's some combination of that. And then if the targeted parent yells, then it's oh, dad's. Again. I'm going to use the example of dad as the alienator, but obviously it works both ways. Dad's right, mom's so mean. Or let's say mom is the alienator, mom's right Dad's a monster. All he does is yell.

Speaker 1: 21:46

So where the targeted parents get into most trouble is in managing conflict in ways that don't reinforce the lie right. So the extreme would be a let's say mom is the alienator and she convinces the kid to like get in the dad's face. You know you did this, you did that. You know you hit me when I was a baby and let's say it never happened, there was never any physical abuse. But the kid is so unpleasant to the dad and he finally loses his cool and hits the kid. Well, now he's made the lie a truth. And that's what happens on a less extreme basis, all the time that the targeted parent gets pushed into this position of being depressed or reactive and it reinforces the idea that they don't care or they're not available or they're not loving. Because they're just, they don't always have the tools to manage all of that conflict. So that's really where my heart is at is in helping parents navigate that.

Speaker 2: 22:49

Oh yeah, what a, what a treacherous landscape and, like you're saying, sometimes it's just a no win, it's a, it's a negative on either side of it, and I'm just going to move on here to a little bit of a different topic that's still related directly to that. Like for you, what are some of the major like red flags or indicators that you could see in a family, so you could start to identify that some sort of alienation or something to that degree starting to grow or fester or is present and you just haven't noticed it before?

Speaker 1: 23:19

So, just to be clear, I only coach targeted parents. I don't work with whole families and I work with people once they already feel like something's happening and I never do assessments or evaluations. I never tell my client I know this is alienation. I'm like if it's alienation, then this is how you want to comport yourself, because I'm not doing independent analyses. But for a parent who's sort of trying to figure it out, the main thing I would say is is the child distorting who you are? Are they suspicious of your motives or not? Based on anything that you're doing, you know, all of a sudden your child is saying like well, you only gave me that gift to. You know to buy my love or something, which is a distortion. Kids love getting gifts right, they're happy usually to get a you know some goodie and for them to now say to the parent you're only doing that because you have some ulterior motive.

Speaker 2: 24:16

So any distortion of who you are or your motives, I would say is the biggest red flag in the relationship developmentally what the kids were going through and just something that was internally with them that wasn't influenced by someone else in the family system like my ex-partner. So I can see those different nuances kind of like fall into place and, based on my family of origin or another parent or grandparents family of origin, are they more likely to engage with someone that has tendencies to alienate as a partner if they're brought up in a dysfunctional family, is there a connection from our family of origin to our partner and how the system kind of gets out of hand?

Speaker 1: 25:10

Well, family systems therapy certainly believes so. Most people who do individual therapy are interested in family of origin issues. I would say you know there's. I don't know if there's research on this because it's outside my area of research expertise, but I wouldn't be surprised if people who are raised by narcissistic parents end up being attracted to people who are narcissistic, for example because there's certain. You know, our first relationship with our parents is the template for all future relationships. Until we go into therapy and take some responsibility for our choices right At that point your family of origin is a kind of a filter, but shouldn't be like the major determining factor in who you end up with.

Speaker 1: 25:57

But, for sure. We're all subject to being attracted to or reacting against. You know how our relationships with our parents were. I will say that a lot of my clients want to tell me how narcissistic or borderline or sociopathic their you know the other parent is and I usually don't let them go there because it's irrelevant for their parenting. They need to be the best parent they can be and when targeted parents start overly, in my opinion, focusing on the flaws of the other parent or their family dynamic, I think it's sort of not the best use of their energy.

Speaker 1: 26:44

And a lot of times people like I coach clients a lot in how to talk to like a reunification therapist or a custody evaluator, and I say you know no jargon, you're not a licensed mental health professional. Don't use diagnoses. Try to describe the behavior of the other parent. You know they hang up on me when I call or they do this or they do that and let the listener come to the conclusion themselves like oh, maybe that person is a narcissist. But you shouldn't be leading with that, because it looks like you're overly energized by the negativity in the other parent and I don't think that reflects well on targeted parents. But also targeted parents are very energized by the idea of, like you know.

Speaker 1: 27:27

Let's say I have a male client and he knows that his ex-wife was alienated from her father when she was younger and therefore she's probably an alienator too because she's repeating the pattern.

Speaker 1: 27:40

That could all be true, but in a sense it's irrelevant for the parenting that my client in this case the dad has to do and there's no one-to-one correspondence between anything that happens to us and our child and who we are as adults. Even only one-third of people who are physically abused end up abusing their own kids. So I think too often my clients think it's sort of proof. I know my ex is an alienator because it happened to her when she was a child and I'm like, maybe, maybe not, it's not proof. So let's talk about, you know, the behavior of the other parent, because that's what. That's what the judges care about. They don't care if somebody's a narcissist, they care if they're not bringing the child to parenting time, right. So let's explain to the custody evaluator or the reunification therapist or the judge or whoever, the behaviors of the other parent and not getting over energized by sort of supposing there are these personality disorders that may or may not, these, you know personality disorders that may or may not be present.

Speaker 2: 28:47

Yeah, I love that and, again, it's incredibly useful because in having conversations with alienated parents and grandparents like over and over everyone's diagnosing and they go in often and they're talking about that and for you to just break it down like hey, stick to what's happening, they hang up the phone on you. They don't show up stuff like that and be the best parent you can and just stay in your own lane. And I'll say this when I hear parents continuously talking about narcissism and stuck in the other family's living room instead of in their own living room, it seems like they help perpetuate parental alienation and it starts to generate and create its own inertia and then it kind of gets out of control and away from everyone. Do you tend to see that?

Speaker 1: 29:31

I think it makes a bad impression for sure on the other mental health professionals, so it's counterproductive. You know, I actually have like a 16 point training that I give to my clients. It takes like a full hour, 16 different points for do's and don'ts. When you're talking to other mental health professionals and the way that I say it is, you know you have people in your inner circle. I'm your coach, I'm on your inner circle, your attorney, your individual therapist, every other mental health professional, whether it's the school guidance counselor, reunification therapist, guardian ad litem, parenting coordinator, parenting coach, co-parent, guardian, ad litem, parenting coordinator, parenting coach, co-parent, whatever All those other people sit in the middle between you and the other parent and you have two main assets that you need to protect at all costs credibility and likability. And so each of my 16 points is like this is how you need to. You know, if you do X, you're going to lose credibility. If you do Y, you're going to lose likeability If you do.

Speaker 1: 30:32

You know and I just sort of run down and talking about parental alienation is a way to lose credibility because it invokes in the listener the belief that you think you're perfect and you think everything is the other parent's fault and then it invites the listener to think well, that can't be true, you must be the problem. So it's just totally counterproductive and it impairs likability when you start talking about alienation, because people get over energized, they get overly intense, they start like talking fast and it's like this whole big have you read this video, have you seen this and have you read this book? And they start insulting essentially the professional by acting like they know how the professional should do their job. Most professionals do not appreciate that, so now you've sort of annoyed them. So that's sort of the main problem, in my opinion, with talking about it.

Speaker 2: 31:30

I love that and, again, incredibly useful, that you have your inner circle and the people you can really trust and you can share on a more complex or a deeper level. And then you have the folks in between that are navigating both parties and you need to be really cognizant of how you show up and share. That's incredibly useful. Just that little piece of information is going to save a lot of heartache with the community at large. And the next question is is in families like there's some semblance of alienation or some semblance of just negative talk from one parent to the children, or both parents potentially at times, and can you identify like a tipping point or a triggering point where it goes from just this little family dynamic that most probably most families have to, it escalates to alienation and it just there's like you just fell down the hill. Is there a tipping point that's identified? Wow, wow, wow, wow and wow. What a powerful first half of the show dr amy baker over delivered. I am blown away. I really, really enjoyed that part of the interview and as I was interviewing her, I was like thinking about my life and the different things that I've done and certain nuances that I could have done better, or just identifying new places to do some of my own interpersonal work. So, man, it's really fun to talk to someone that's really got it. It's got some really great, important information and useful information, so I hope you enjoyed the show.

Speaker 2: 32:56

There's a bunch of stuff in the show notes how to get hold of Dr Amy Baker. There's a link to Parental Alienation Anonymous, which is our free 12-step program. There is our free 12-step program. There is, uh, our email address parental alienation anonymous at gmailcom. Send us comments, let us know what's going on. Please remember to like and subscribe and share this with all your friends and and um, at the end of the second episode, there's going to be an opportunity for someone to win a free session with Dr Amy Baker. So make sure you listen, listen to what you need to do to be able to participate in this opportunity. And thank you so much for coming out today.

Speaker 2: 33:34

And in case no one has told you yet, today I love you, right? I love you and and again, sometimes it just seems silly because you don't even know me and I don't even know you, but, uh, there is a love for what we are struggling with and going through, no matter if you're on either side of the coin. If you're an alienated child, young adult, I love you. If you're a parent or grandparent, I love you. It's just uh. Yeah, I think that gives us the opportunity to take the next step. Some days is just hearing that. So, so enjoy the day and I will see you around the neighborhood. Thanks for taking the time to join me on this episode of Family Disappeared Podcast. Do you know someone who can benefit from what we're discussing on today's episode? If so, please share this podcast with them and anyone else in your community that might be interested in changing their lives. Together, we'll continue the exploring, growing and healing journey. I will see you on our next episode. Until then, happy days to all.