The Half Self and Estrangement

When your adult child feels only half formed inside, any closeness with you can feel overwhelming, and estrangement can look like strength instead of unfinished development. In this webinar, Dr. Coleman revisits the “half self” concept specifically through the lens of family cutoff: how underdeveloped identity, dependency, and fragile boundaries make some adult children vulnerable to cult‑of‑one partners, bad therapy, or radical rewrites of family history. He explains why your child may need to vilify you to feel separate, and why their love for you can actually be part of what makes you the target. You’ll learn practical ways to understand this dynamic without collapsing into guilt or getting lost in self-defense, and how to respond in ways that keep a pilot light on instead of fanning the flames.