CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of childhood emotional neglect, verbal and physical abuse, and parental abduction. How is it that your grandmother is loving and steady to you, but failed to raise your mother in a way that she can do the same? A fellow therapist writes in about exactly that, and Whitney offers a way to hold both truths at once. In the second listener question, a...

Whitney is fed up with how the "concept creep" of estrangement gets used to shut down conversations about real family harm. She traces the term back to psychologist Nick Haslam's actual 2016 research, then walks through decades of data that make the case these harms aren't new, just newly named. Sign up to spend the holidays with us at Calling Home: https://cmnyyv4kpyt.typeform.c...

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of child abuse, sexual abuse of a child, infidelity, and family estrangement. A listener writes in with a lifetime of family secrets. She asks Whitney how to heal and move forward after finally breaking a cycle her parents and grandparents never did. Whitney draws the line between a parent's past regret and a child's present safety, and m...

Journalist Ashley Oerman joins Whitney to talk about her new book, Motherf*cked: How to Stop Your Mother's Toxic Drama from Ruining Your Life, and the low contact relationship with her own mother that inspired it. Connect with Ashley Oerman Book, Motherf*cked: How to Stop Your Mother's Toxic Drama from Ruining Your Life: https://link.amazon/B0jexMTjK As an Amazon Associate I earn from qual...

A listener spent years hoping her two divorced, emotionally immature parents would finally take accountability, only to watch the same excuses repeat with new partners. Whitney answers the question of whether parents ever really change later in life and how to handle it if they don’t. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership c...

Every dysfunctional family needs somewhere to put the blame, and one person usually ends up holding it for everyone else. Whitney traces the history of the word scapegoat, then walks through the research on why one child gets cast as the family's problem: not because of what they did, but because of what the family needed. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and...

Whitney answers two listener questions this week: one from a woman who's been cut off by her parents because of her marriage and another from a woman who found her family badmouthing her, her marriage, and her parenting in a separate family group text. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people na...

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of domestic violence, violence against women, and past abuse. Whitney talks with Dr. Shefali Tsabary, author of the twin books Raising Conscious Sons and Raising Conscious Daughters, about what boys and girls each need to thrive right now in our current society. The through-line: you can't hand your child a self you haven't worked on, and...

Whitney answers questions from listeners. The first from a woman who despite living blocks from her aging father can’t seem to connect with him. The second question is from a mother planning for the day her estranged mother tries to contact her kids. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate...

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of childhood physical and emotional abuse, neglect, and the death of a parent.  Psychologist Dr. Sherrie Campbell, creator of the viral TikTok series on "low effort families”, joins Whitney to unpack what it looks like to show up just enough to avoid blame while giving almost nothing that children really need. Connect with Dr. Sherrie Campbe...

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of emotional abuse, ongoing harassment, and a mention of suicidal ideation. In this Q&A episode, Whitney answers a woman whose parents keep sending guilt-laden texts and showing up uninvited. In the second question, a listener's therapist keeps telling her to decide what she wants from her parents before she feels ready. Whitney Goodman is a...

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of child abuse and corporal punishment.  Stephanie Warren was taught that her parents beating her was proof of their love, because in the fundamentalist Christian world she grew up in, that was what love was allowed to look like. She and Whitney talk through how her parents rationalized the abuse, why she eventually went no contact, and what...

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of child abuse and domestic violence. In this Q&A episode, answers a question from a woman whose parents responded to her request for space by suing her for access to her children. In the second question, from a man whose mother stayed with an abusive partner and is still with him today. He asks what to make of a parent who chose someone else...

People don't walk into a therapist's office and say they're having a differentiation problem. They say they feel like a different person around their family, or that they have a whole life their parents know nothing about. Whitney walks through what differentiation actually is, and the four very different situations people are in when they can't be themselves around family. In this episode, you'll...

In this Q&A episode, Whitney answers two questions from listening asking what their responsibility is to people who aren’t going to change. In question one: a stepmom asks how much to intervene with a 19 year old stepson who is getting pulled back into a controlling household. In question two: a woman who seeks advice about parents who give her migraines and stomachaches every time they call....

Content warning: This episode discusses suicide, postpartum psychosis, and the deaths of children, and includes detailed discussion of the Lindsay Clancy case. The Lindsay Clancy trial revealed a family that was educated, involved, genuinely, and yet still could not see how much danger their family member was in. This is not an episode about what the Clancys did wrong. It's about why people concea...

In this Q&A episode, Whitney answers questions about parents who pull back instead of facing accountability. In question one: a father goes silent for a year after his daughter discovers he secretly bought her sister a house. In question two: a mother wants a third family therapy session, after quitting the last two the moment the therapist named something she didn't like.  Whitney Goodma...

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of child abuse and references to sexual abuse. Kreed, host of the Estranged Heart Podcast, shares her perspective as both a formerly estranged adult daughter and a formerly estranged mother, now reconciled with her daughters. Kreed and Whitney cover the common mistakes parents make when first reconnecting with children and what their children act...

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of domestic violence, child abuse, and suicidal ideation. In this Q&A episode, Whitney answers questions about families who respond with denial when being called out. In question one: a parent threatens suicide to shut down an argument. In question two: two parents shield each other instead of the kids. Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage...

Rin Reczek spent two decades studying families before she turned her research toward estrangement.  What she found in the data took her by complete surprise. In this conversation, the sociologist and author of Families We Lose explains why the estrangement rate probably isn't actually rising, why the language of "honor thy father and mother" shows up even in nonreligious families, and why gra...

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of self-harm, physical and emotional abuse, and a parent expressing suicidal ideation. We spend a lot of time talking about the person who decides to go no contact, and much less about everyone else who ends up living with that decision. In this Q&A episode, Whitney answers a woman in her 30s who inherited and is now dealing with the conseque...

We have the cure for estrangement: just see your parents as children too. Easy. Case closed. [Read: sarcasm] In this episode, Whitney traces where this sometimes helpful and sometimes very unhelpful idea came from and shows how something genuinely useful got turned into a permanent exit ramp from accountability. In this episode, you'll learn: - How "your parents were children too" worked its way i...

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of suicidal ideation, child abuse and neglect, childhood sexual abuse, and abortion. Whitney answers two questions about accepting a family situation you never chose and never asked for. First, a mother whose family just lost a three year grandparent visitation case. She is being mandated by family court to send her children on unsupervised month...

If you've spent time in the estrangement conversation online, you've noticed how fast it flattens into two camps: the people who cut off and the people who got cut off. Ashley and Jon Lefrandt have lived on both sides of that line. The couple behind Leave Then Cleave joins Whitney to talk about what happened when they asked for space from one family member and ended up estranged from 40 family mem...

Content warning: This episode contains a description of a traumatic birth, postpartum complications, and abuse. Before the Q&A, Whitney opens with an unscripted reflection on taking a break from Instagram. She then moves into two listener questions from people who have stopped waiting for an apology and are asking what comes after you finally see your family clearly. In this episode, you'll le...