July 16, 2024

By Courtney Wise

Plus, a new doc featuring screen legend Faye Dunaway in which she opens up about her past struggles with alcoholism and bipolar disorder.

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Controversial TikTok social worker counsels cutting ties with abusive parents improves mental health

If she hadn’t stumbled upon Patrick Teahan’s YouTube videos, Zhenzhen imagines she might be dead. The abuse she suffered from her parents was so bad that her stress had developed into suicidal thoughts, she said. Withholding her last name to freely speak about the family conflict, Zhenzhen told the New York Times that she’d done her share of therapy, but as she floundered through her sophomore year of college, she determined it had barely helped. None of the therapists she spoke to would help her address her parents, otherwise known as The Real Problem. “They would always stand by reconciliation, and ‘family is everything,” she said. “They would always look at the problem from the parent’s lens.”

But she was so stressed, she was losing her ability to function. Her parents inundated her phone with calls to meet their restrictive expectations: Study business. Return to China. Marry rich. Raise their grandchildren in a house nearby. When Zhenzhen pushed to amend their requests, they berated her with shouts and tears. That’s when she ran across Teahan’s videos that suggested going ‘no contact’ to be able to heal from the trauma she’d already endured. She did, much like half of Teahan’s clients who also restrict or sever ties with family members. It was lonely at first, but not too long, she said. Zhenzhen has developed with others who’ve done the same and supported her action. “I think [Teahan] saved my life, in a way,” she said.

Teahan, a licensed social worker with massive followings on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok changed her perspective. He’d gone ‘no contact’ with his own mother and found himself better for it. His own journey, and subsequent business, is based on treatment he received from therapist Amanda Curtin, whose concepts about the value of going no contact with abusive family members evolved into a three-and-a-half year program of group therapy. It’s a program Curtin says she developed after studying work from Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman, author of Trauma and Recovery, which compared the experiences of abused children to those of combat veterans. She was also inspired by John Bradshaw, a self-help rockstar who drew crowds seeking healing for their wounded “inner child.”

Teahan followed Curtin’s program and severed ties with his parents. Then, he quit drinking, attended college and grad school, and finally built his own groups based on Curtin’s Relationship Recovery Process model. If not for COVID, he’d likely still be obscure to the internet. But the shutdowns forced him to take his business online. As more therapists come to align with the alleged benefits of going ‘no contact,’ his popularity has grown. 

There is little data about the effectiveness of familial estrangement, the Times states, except to say that roughly 67 million people are estranged from a relative, according to research conducted by Cornell sociologist Karl Pillemer. People in their 20s more commonly cut ties with a parent, it’s usually a father, and the rift is typically nonpermanent. 

A contingent of therapists interviewed by the Times find Teahan’s encouragement of estrangement to be unethical and wholly in opposition of their training as therapists. “A therapist is to be neutral, period,” said Katy Murphy, whose own daughter has ended contact with her. “We do not state our opinion. Our personal belief system stays outside the door, and we go in as a clean slate.” Earlier this year, Murphy began reporting therapists who promote ‘no contact’ to state licensing boards. “My personal opinion is that TikTok therapists are destroying the trust and professionalism that took forever to build up in this field,” she said. “What they want is to generate revenue. They all have podcasts. They all have books.” She’s seen no results, thus far, from her efforts. 

To her point, Teahan has built a rather lucrative business online. By mid-2020, his online groups so swiftly expanded that he “couldn’t meet the demand.” He’s tapered off treating clients individually to focus on continuing to scale the online business. 900 people are now in his Healing Community at a rate of $69.99 a month. Teahan also offers à la carte webinars for $30 or $40 that guide people through writing a no-contact letter.

Parents who’ve been cut off are also organizing and finding community among one another. Most say they know they had shortcomings, but are confused and heartbroken over their children’s estrangement. Psychologist Joshua Coleman, author of Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict, has made it partly his mission to help families reconcile. It’s personal; he’s got a testimony of estrangement and reconciliation with his own child. 

Coleman’s advice to parents is to stop making attempts to defend themselves if they want to regain connection. “In my practice I see the generations talking past each other,”he said. “Younger generations who are in therapy, they are coming to their parents saying they were traumatized, abused, neglected — and the parents are like, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’” There’s a generational divide between what’s even identified as trauma, he said. Parents who want to reconcile, he says, should write amends letters apologizing to children for the issues their children identify. Though some parents view this action as “groveling,” he encourages them to dig in. 

“I say, this is not marriage therapy — you don’t get to talk about how you were hurt or betrayed. It’s more like your spouse is willing to give you another chance.” Adult children seem to benefit some from cutting ties, but “for the parents, it’s all downside — shame, guilt, regret,” Coleman said.

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In other news…

Social-emotional benefits of running: Running offers clear benefits to physical health, research supports exercise as a booster for mental health, and now, in a recent article from National Geographic, runners say that hitting the pavement with others helps them build new friendships. “If you are near somebody but not necessarily facing them eye to eye, there might be a little bit more willingness to open up or you might just feel a little bit less intimidated,” explained Rachel Goldberg, a licensed marriage and family therapist who incorporates walk-and-talk sessions into her practice. That extra pinch of vulnerability can spark deeper conversations and stronger connections. It might also help people reduce social anxiety, she said. 

Most media watchers are dissatisfied with the portrayal of disabilities and mental illness on screen, according to a new report from the Inevitable Foundation. The non-profit, which exists to destigmatize disability and mental health, surveyed more than 1,000 people – disabled and non-disabled – about the current representation of disability and mental health in TV and film. Sixty-six percent of respondents said they’re dissatisfied with what they see. It’s costing the industry money, too, Deadline reports. More disabled than non-disabled people watch TV, and 20% of all respondents said they’d subscribe to a new streaming service and go to more movies in theaters if the representations of people with disabilities and mental health conditions were more honest and realistic. 

Hollywood legend Faye Dunaway talks her career and living with bipolar disorder in new documentary, “Faye,” now streaming on Max: The Detroit Free Press describes the film as a “candid, affectionate portrait of a woman who reigned on the big screen from the late 1960s to the middle of the 1970s, when American movies caught up to the turmoil and tumult of the modern world.” Fans will appreciate how Dunaway opens up about her battles with alcoholism and bipolar disorder. Her son, Liam Dunaway O’Neill, with whom she shares a healthy relationship, muses on how both affected her professional and personal lives. “I think you have to ask yourself this question: If she wasn’t in so much pain, would she have been that good? Which then, in turn, wouldn’t have made her be able to touch people acting,” he said. “You’ve got to take the good with the bad. That’s just life.”

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If you or someone you know is in crisis or experiencing suicidal thoughts, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and connect in English or Spanish. If you’re a veteran press 1. If you’re deaf or hard of hearing dial 711, then 988. Services are free and available 24/7.

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