The Inner World of Parentification
How to Disentangle Guilt-based Trauma Bonds And Step Into Differentiation
In the depths of my Netflix binge over maternity leave, I became enraptured with the show Maid,
which tells the true story of a single mother leaving an abusive relationship and becoming a writer (Spoiler alert: I’ll be talking about the Netflix series Maid in this post). The marriage and family therapist in me couldn’t help but get sucked into the relational dynamics of the show, particularly the dynamic between the main character, Alex, and her mother, Paula, who suffers from untreated Bipolar Disorder.
Alex presents as a stereotypical parentified adult child. Parentified children are children who caretake their parents in developmentally inappropriate ways, where essentially they become the parent to their parent (Hooper, 2008). Throughout the show, Alex worries about where her mother is going to live. She reminds her constantly to attend appointments and take her medication. She emotionally regulates her and attempts to be the voice of reason during her mother’s episodes of grandiosity and mania.
Alex engages in these caretaking behaviors even as her mother profoundly disappoints her. Her mother drops the ball on writing a crucial character statement on her behalf for her child custody trial with her abusive ex-boyfriend. Her mother demonstrates a track record of unreliability in helping Alex with childcare needs. Her mother verbally berates her and guilt trips her as Alex extends acts of care. Sadly, their dynamic is what I often see emerge between an adult child and a parent with untreated mental health issues or unaddressed trauma. This dynamic can be described as a guilt-based trauma bond, where the adult child feels beholden to engage in caretaking behaviors to the parent, even to their own detriment.
GUILT-BASED TRAUMA BONDS & THE EXCHANGE OF MALADAPTIVE GUILT
A guilt-based trauma bond is a term coined by IFS therapist Martha Sweezy, author of Internal Family Systems Therapy For Shame and Guilt. Sweezy explains that there are two kinds of guilt: adaptive guilt, which is an appropriate reaction to undesirable consequences of your choices, and maladaptive guilt, which is an inappropriate reaction to actions someone else took. Adaptive guilt is healthy in that it drives you to learn from the consequences of your behavior and make adjustments when you feel a sense of guilt for your behavior’s outcomes. Maladaptive guilt, however, is dysfunctional in that it compels you to feel a sense of guilt for someone else’s behavioral consequences when they should be feeling it, and then take that guilt on through behaviors like compulsive caretaking.
THE NATURE OF GUILT-BASED TRAUMA BONDS
Guilt-based trauma bonds happen when maladaptive guilt drives how two people relate and when powerlessness and unpredictability constellate in the relationship. A trauma bond develops based on two factors: a power differential (one person has more power than the other) and intermittent reinforcement (unpredictable responsiveness, or flitting between extreme states of affection and abuse) (Dutton & Painter, 1981). Guilt-based trauma bonds emerge between a parentified child and their parent when the child feels responsible for the parent’s actions, powerless to change their parent, and scared and hypervigilant regarding how their parent is going to act.
THE PART-TO-PART RELATIONSHIP: AN IFS LENS ON TRAUMA BONDS
In the inner world, a guilt-based trauma bond reflects a dysfunctional way of relating called a part-to-part relationship. The parentified adult child’s caretaking part gets gridlocked with the part of the parent that is suffering. Sweezy writes the following of this way of relating:
“On the job, it (the parentified part) will treat the nominal caretaker like a child, anticipating needs, organizing, managing moods, and taking care not to compete or disappoint… A parentified young part will do things like tamping down personal ambition, failing at something when necessary to avoid surpassing the caretaker, or silencing exuberant parts if the caretaker is depressed (Sweezy, p. 94).”
In Maid, Alex’s dutiful reminder/rescuer part activates to curtail the effects of Paula’s irresponsible, unreliable part that lives in the world of artistic grandiosity. Alex’s part that feels guilty and responsible for Paula surfaces when Paula’s helpless, childlike part suffers, such as when she loses her house. Guilt-based trauma bonds can activate several parts between two people, but in parentified dynamics they always exist in a polarized, gridlocked stance that centers around the parent’s unmet needs.
WHY DISENTANGLING GUILT-BASED TRAUMA BONDS IS SO TRICKY
Centering a parent’s unmet needs isn’t a choice when you’re a child. Due to the nature of attachment, or the biological drive for connection and proximity, children will preserve a relationship with their parent at expense to themselves. Many parentified children instinctively sense that if they don’t take care of their parent, the parent could put them both in even greater danger. Over the course of my career, I have counseled clients struggling with addiction who come from addicted families and can attest to this very real threat to the parentified child. The child learns how to be the “good girl” who gets good grades and causes no trouble in the home to avoid the alcoholic parent’s rage, or the child becomes skilled at nursing a hangover through completing chores or even fixing a drink for their parent in the morning.
If the parentified child were to not comply with the parent’s needs, they risk the parent’s addiction escalating and potentially ending in medical crisis, jail, or even death. Sweezy explores this risk as follows:
“Parentified parts need help — but of a particular kind. They’re worn-out children whose grim determination aims to keep a meager version of hope alive. If I’m loyal, I can hope to save you; I can hope that we’ll reconcile and you’ll love me. They hope for redemption, fear, future guilt, and focus on the caretaker’s welfare with a single-minded concern that ultimately puts them at odds with the needs of the internal system they once aimed to protect. (Sweezy, p. 105).
Because parentified dynamics are so entangled with the child’s attachment system and these concerns around survival, they imprint deeply and can be challenging to suss out as an adult. Alex struggles to let her mom deal with the consequences of her actions because those consequences result in toxic relationships, behavioral health hospitals, and homelessness. These consequences are more threatening to Alex as a child when she depends on her mom for a sense of safety, but her adult self cannot distinguish the difference between then and now due to how these dynamics have been internalized in the form of her caretaking, hyper-responsible parts.
PARENTIFIED ADULT CHILDREN HEAL WITH HEALTHY DIFFERENTIATION
For a parentified child to dissolve their guilt-based trauma bond with their parent, they have to step into healthy differentiation. Differentiation is a term in Bowen Family Therapy Theory that refers to the experience of separating from your family of origin to become your own individual (Gilbert, 2006). Differentiation is an act of maturation. You take a stand for yourself by prioritizing your own needs. Alex ultimately goes through this process when she decides to go to writing school despite moving far away from her homeless mother. Adult children of addicted parents differentiate when they stop responding to the guilt trips, entertaining lash-out episodes, and enabling or managing their parent’s addiction. Parentified children have to challenge their tendency to “act against the wishes and interests of their own tribe and body because they’re bonded to a dysfunctional caretaker by longing, fear, pity, genuine concern, and maladpative guilt” (Sweezy, p. 94)” in order to differentiate.
From an IFS lens, differentiation requires us to first get into relationship with the parts of us that are activated in guilt-based trauma bonds. Martha Sweezy highlights several main parts of parentified children in her book, which are:
part that caretakes, sacrifices personal needs, and feels guilty for parent’s problems
part that empathizes with parent’s suffering instead of accessing healthy anger
part that expresses guilt about prioritizing their own needs, having ambitions, and experiencing success
part that is afraid to disappoint others
part that internalizes the fears and prejudices of the parent
These parts keep the parentified adult child trauma bonded to the parent. Getting into relationship with them looks like identifying their core fears, needs, and agendas. By listening with conscious, curious attention, these parts become aware of you, that is, healthy adult you, or what we call Self in IFS.
Parentified parts are stuck in the past, encapsulated in states of hypervigilance, fear, and helplessness. Witnessing them and acknowledging their concerns sincerely wins their respect and shows them that there is a healthy adult in the room who actually gets it. They become willing to step back from their rigid roles and intense expressions. They soften, and finally let Self lead the system through making skillful decisions on their behalf, with their concerns and needs in mind.
Remember,
you can attend to parentified parts as the loving adult you needed when you were younger. You can heal the wounds of parentification with presence and compassion. You can begin the practice of parts work where you are, remembering that all parts are valid, welcome, and make perfect sense.
~S
p.s. See below for a practice and journaling guide for working with parentified parts.
PRACTICE FOR WORKING WITH PARENTIFIED PARTS: ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND AFFIRMATION
I am including a list of reminders that I have found to be powerful touchstones for parentified parts on the path of differentiation. When you start to blend with these parts, reading them to yourself can help these parts relax, unblend, and let your loving awareness fill the internal system again.
♡ I can be afraid for my parent and I can still make decisions that are right for me.
♡ This is not my problem to solve anymore.
♡ I am allowed to pause and decide what I want to do quietly, without their pressure and sense of urgency.
♡This sense of guilt that I feel actually belongs to them. This isn’t mine.
♡ I can care about my parent’s feelings and also set boundaries with them.
♡ I can wish someone well and also not take on their illness.
♡ This is not all of them, this is just a part. And I don’t have to take responsibility for that part today.
♡ Their urgency is not my responsibility.
♡ I can be afraid to say no and disappoint them and still say no. I can breathe with the part of me that is afraid to disappoint others now.
JOURNALING GUIDE
Answer the following questions in regard to each of the parts that Sweezy named:
part that caretakes, sacrifices personal needs, and feels guilty for parent’s problems - How does this caretaking part show up with your parent? Do you like the role you play in your relationship them? If not, how would this caretaking part like to exist or show up in your life?
part that empathizes with parent’s suffering instead of accessing healthy anger - What would happen if you didn’t empathize with your parent? Why is accessing anger so threatening to the part that empathizes?
part that expresses guilt about prioritizing their own needs, having ambitions, and experiencing success - When did you first learn that being seen in your success was not okay? How might your relationship with your parent change if you prioritized your needs and success? What about your relationship with yourself?
part that is afraid to disappoint others - What are the implicit and explicit messages your parent gave you about disappointing them?
part that internalizes the fears and prejudices of the parent - What are the beliefs, fears, and prejudices you share with your parent? Do you like that you have them? In what ways do they foster closeness and belonging to your parent?
Works Cited
Gilbert, Roberta M. 2006. The Eight Concepts of Bowen Theory: A New Way of Thinking About The Individual And The Group. Leading Systems Press.
Sweezy, Martha and Richard C., Schwartz. (2023). Internal Family Systems Therapy for Shame and Guilt. New York, NY, The Guilford Press.
Hooper, Lisa. (2008). “Defining and Understanding Parentification: Implications For All Counselors.” The Alabama Counseling Association Journal. Vol. 34, No. 1.
Dutton, Don and Painter, Susan Lee. (1981). Traumatic Bonding: The Development of Emotional Attachments in Battered Women and Other Relationships of Intermittent Abuse. Victimology: An International Journal. Vol. 6, No. 1-4.