Manual № 56 · Family estrangement

TheEmptyChair

The manual for family estrangement.

For the parent, and for the adult child. Both chairs.

12 modules — for the parent, adult child, or sibling living with a family estrangement

  1. 01What This Is, and the Two Stories
  2. 02Your Safety Plan
  3. 03Ambiguous Loss: Grief Without a Funeral
  4. 04The Loop, and the Question That Has No Answer
  5. 05Guilt, Shame, and an Honest Accounting
  6. 06Boundaries, Distance, and Cutoff Are Three Different Things
  1. 07What to Tell Other People
  2. 08Holidays, Weddings, Funerals, and the Empty Chair
  3. 09The People in Between
  4. 10Deciding Whether to Reach Out, and How
  5. 11When Contact Resumes, and When It Does Not
  6. 12The Long View: A Plan for Living With This

Two editions

Themanual,orthemanualand the toolkit.

Standard edition

$39

The full program: all 12 modules, with the exercises, logs, and checklists that save as you go. Everything you need to do the work.

Elite edition · most complete

$69

Everything in Standard, plus The Toolkit, 14 techniques drawn from across the evidence base, each labeled with where it comes from, to use alongside this program rather than instead of it. With original diagrams throughout.

Start with Standard if you would rather. You can upgrade to Elite at any time for the $30 difference, and nothing you have written is lost. And once you own one manual, every other one is 20% off.

Inside The Toolkit

  1. 01Both/And: Holding a Loss With No Ending
  2. 02What Is Yours to Move
  3. 03From Why to How
  4. 04The Window
  5. 05Checking the Story Against the Record
  6. 06The Shapes This Thinking Takes
  7. 07Unhooking From the Verdict
  1. 08Riding the Wave
  2. 09The Kinder Voice
  3. 10What the Gap Is Not Allowed to Take
  4. 11Mapping the System
  5. 12The Letter You Do Not Send
  6. 13The Conversation, If There Is One
  7. 14Forgiveness Without Reconciliation

Educational content — not therapy, diagnosis, or treatment, and not a substitute for a clinician when one is needed. Every manual opens with a safety page. If you are thinking about suicide, call or text 988 now.