October 1, 2025 • 8PM ET

Do you ever wonder what the alienated child and alienated grandchild are thinking? Do you ever wonder how they are dealing with with alienation and the hell on earth that it brings and how they cope? Do you ever wonder how they feel about all of this high conflict? In this segment tonite, please pay close attention as Lisa Rothfus will be speaking to us on what the alienated child doesn't tell us.

Lisa Rothfus is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 35 years of experience working with families and children in private practice. She earned her Master’s degree in Social Work from Simmons School of Social Work in Boston, Massachusetts, and completed internships at two Harvard teaching hospitals. To further her expertise, she pursued post-master’s training in Structural Family Therapy at the Cambridge Family Institute in Boston. Lisa specializes in counseling families navigating various stages of divorce and high-conflict family situations. Her work includes the assessment and treatment of families impacted by Parental Alienation, offering Reunification Therapy for cases ranging from mild to severe. She has been appointed by courts across numerous Texas counties to assess and provide counseling for families dealing with alienation or estrangement issues. In addition to her clinical work, Lisa has served as a Guardian Ad Litem, Mediator, and Parent Facilitator/Coordinator in the Texas court system. She has also been appointed as a Reunification Therapist for out-of-state families when the child resides in Texas. Lisa offers a unique 4-day Intensive Reunification Program out of Austin, Texas, designed for severely alienated parents who have been granted custody of their alienated child. This program, which requires a “no contact order,” integrates structural family therapy, psychoeducation, experiential therapy, and includes a comprehensive aftercare protocol for the alienating parent.

October 8, 2025 • 8PM ET

High conflict people tend to display repetitive patterns of behavior that include: 1) preoccupation with blaming others; 2) lots of black-or-white, all-or-none thinking; 3) emotional dysregulation and/or unmanaged emotions; and 4) extreme behaviors or threats. They tend to have traits of one or more Cluster B personality disorders, which means that they have an enduring pattern of inner experience and interpersonal dysfunction which tends to involve family members including children, parents and grandparents. That often includes vindictive, domineering, and intrusive behavior, for example, a tendency to violate interpersonal boundaries. This presentation will first focus on understanding these high conflict personalities, which often include alienating behaviors with their children. We will then focus on four general tips for dealing with any high conflict person, an approach that is called the CARS Method®: Connecting, Analyzing, Responding and Setting Limits. This module will also include “BIFF” communications in writing (where BIFF stands for Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm), based on Mr. Eddy’s most recent book published in November 2020: BIFF for CoParent Communication: Your Guide to Difficult CoParent Texts, Emails and Social Media Posts. At the conclusion of the presentation, participants will be familiar with a number of practical techniques for dealing with high conflict and other types of difficult people – including those who engage in parental alienation and other abusive behaviors. Bill Eddy is co-founder and chief innovation officer of High Conflict Institute. He pioneered the High Conflict Personality Theory (HCP) and is the world’s leading expert on methods for managing disputes involving people with high conflict personalities. Bill has worked as the senior family mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center, a certified family law specialist representing clients in family court, and a licensed clinical social worker therapist. In 2021, he received the Lifetime Achievement award from the Academy of Professional Mediators. He serves on the faculty of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law in California and is a conjoint associate professor with the University of Newcastle Law School in Australia. He has delivered talks and trainings in more than 30 U.S. states and thirteen countries and is the author or co-author of 20 books. His popular blog on the Psychology Today website has more than 5 million views. He trains lawyers, judges, and mediators, and regularly consults on issues of alienation, family violence, and false allegations in family court cases.

October 15, 2025 • 8PM ET

This week on Families Divided, Dr. Joshua Coleman discusses the Five Common Mistakes of Alienated and Estranged Parents. Also we have a brief segment with Dr. Amy Baker on how to inoculate your child from becoming alienated. Dr. Coleman is a psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families, a non-partisan organization of leading sociologists, historians, psychologists and demographers dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best practice findings about American families. He has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, NBC THINK, The Behavioral Scientist, CNN, MarketWatch, the San Francisco Chronicle, Greater Good Magazine, AEON, Huffington Post, Psychology Today and more. He has given talks to the faculties at Harvard, the Weill Cornell Department of Psychiatry and other academic institutions. A frequent guest on the Today Show and NPR he has also been featured on Sesame Street, 20/20, Good Morning America, PBS, America Online Coaches, and numerous news programs for FOX, ABC, CNN, and NBC television. He is the author of numerous articles and chapters and has written four books: The Rules of Estrangement (Random House); The Marriage Makeover: Finding Happiness in Imperfect Harmony (St. Martin's Press); The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework (St. Martin's Press); When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along (HarperCollins) He is the co-editor, along with historian Stephanie Coontz of seven online volumes of Unconventional Wisdom: News You Can Use, a compendium of noteworthy research on the contemporary family, gender, sexuality, poverty, and work-family issues. His books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, Polish, and Crotian.He is the co-editor, along with historian Stephanie Coontz of seven online volumes of Unconventional Wisdom: News You Can Use, a compendium of noteworthy research on the contemporary family, gender, sexuality, poverty, and work-family issues. Dr Coleman also writes music for film and television. His music has been featured on Lethal Weapon, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Longmire, Shameless, Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

October 22, 2025 • 8PM ET

Ambiguous loss is an unclear and unresolved loss that occurs without closure or clear understanding. This is what many targeted parents and grandparents are coping with on a daily basis. What is most devastating is that their children are still physically alive but psychologically they are gone. This kind of loss leaves a person searching for answers, and thus complicates and delays the process of grieving, and often results in unresolved grief. Ambiguous loss can cause anxiety, depression, anger, yearning, frustration, panic, and other negative emotions including feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and emptiness. One way to deal with this is to cultivate self-compassion. If you can learn to soothe yourself — especially through the use of specific techniques — then you are more likely to cope with the loss and emptiness. This presentation will focus primarily on two things: (1) techniques to reduce both internal and external conflicts of your loss; and (2) how self-compassion can help to reduce emotional distress. The presentation will include methods to cope with ambiguous loss such as (1) becoming comfortable with ambiguity (2) reconstructing your identity and (3) developing hope. This presentation will focus primarily on two things: (1) techniques that can reduce both internal and external conflicts; and (2) how self-compassion can help to reduce emotional distress. The presentation will include methods to foster self-forgiveness such as identifying, acknowledging, and accepting in order to lift spirits and enhance well-being. Related techniques will include journal writing, heart-holding, and positive self-talk. By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to identify specific steps they can take to reconnect with themselves and — most importantly — with their children and/or grandchildren. Dr. Sue Cornbluth is a certified parenting expert, coach and thought leader with international recognition, specializing in high conflict divorce and parental/grandparent alienation situations. In 2013 Dr. Sue established Dr. Sue & You LLC, a consulting & coaching firm working with parents to help them successfully move through their high conflict divorce situations and reunite with their children. She has reunited hundreds of families with her tools and techniques. Her passion and goal is to heal family conflict with compassion. She accomplishes this through her work educating and guiding parents and professionals. Dr. Sue has served as a child abuse and victims’ rights expert. The exposure she gained as a lead expert during the Jerry Sandusky trial directly contributed to the growing demand for her expert opinion. She has gained global recognition and is contracted for speaking engagements around the world. The Women’s Distinctive Business Magazine recognized Dr. Sue as One of the Country’s Most Distinctive Women. She is a regular contributor as a mental health expert for network television stations including NBC, Fox and CBS. She has contributed to several national publications. Dr. Sue resides in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children. She holds a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology and has worked as a Psychology Professor at Temple University.

October 29, 2025 • 8PM ET

Dr. Amy Baker discusses with us things to help those who are cut off from their adult children as well as being cut off from their grandchildren. Dr. Amy J.L. Baker has a PhD in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College of Columbia University. She is a nationally and internationally recognized expert in parental alienation and psychological maltreatment of children. She is the author or co-author of 8 books and over 115 articles. Some of her books are Adult children of parental alienation, surviving parental alienation, co-parenting with a toxic ex, and the high conflict custody battle. She has conducted trainings for legal and mental health professionals around the country. Dr. Amy J.L. Baker, has a PhD in developmental psychology and specializes in parent-child relationships. Based on her research in the field as well as her training in human development, Dr. Baker offers personalized telephone coaching for parents dealing with parental alienation. She works with all types of PA-affected families including those in which the alienated children are adults and completely cut-off from the targeted parent as well as those in which the children are under 18 and still have ongoing contact with the targeted parent. The coaching is tailored to the specific needs of each family and focuses on both parenting and co-parenting issues as well as working on maximizing interactions with legal and mental health professionals. Sessions are on the phone, last 60 minutes, and cost $230. For more information contact Dr. Baker at amyjlbaker@aol.com. amyjbaker.com