Processing divorce parents: Hypnosis plays a role

If your parents divorced when you were growing up, it can have far-reaching consequences. You may not be aware of it at the time, but even later in life, coming to terms with your parents’ divorce can still make a big difference for you.

In this blog article, you can read more about how divorcing your parents while you were a child may have affected you, what you can do now to still process your parents' divorce, and the benefits of doing so now.

Impact of divorce on you

If you’re a child and your parents are getting divorced, this can have far-reaching consequences—but it doesn’t have to. The negative consequences depend mainly on the mother (or the parent you live with), her finances, level of education, beliefs about parenting, mental health, and behavior.

If the parent with whom you spend the most time was in a difficult financial situation, held limiting parenting beliefs, suffered from depression, or exhibited other problematic behavior, this may have hindered your healthy development.

This involves the development of your thoughts—in other words, how well you were able to keep up in school. It also involves social development—in other words, how well you were able to make friends at school.

Whether you developed behavioral problems yourself and how well you can form attachments to other people[1].

Recent research shows that the bond you have with the parent you live with after divorce is especially important to how you develop. If the bond was good, then you probably fared well, but if you had a lot of arguments (because your parent wasn't entirely comfortable with you either, for example), then this may have harmed your development[2].

This impaired development can lead to you having up to 46% less money or wealth as an adult than children of parents who stayed together—especially if your parents divorced before you turned¹⁵[3].

But that doesn’t have to be the only problem when things go wrong. Depending on how your parents treat you, you might end up in a victim role or even become a sort of therapist for one of your parents. That’s not helpful at all, because as a child, you really can’t handle that[4].

This can lead to limiting beliefs that you must always take care of yourself and cannot rely on other people.

If your parents argued a lot, it can also lead to anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem(source 4).

Mental health later in life

Speaking of anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Other research again shows that women whose parents divorced before age ¹⁶ have a higher chance of developing mental health problems and may have difficulty with personal relationships[5].

This may explain why people of divorced parents are themselves more likely to divorce (even if you are male)[6].

Processing Divorce

So if you do find that forming relationships is difficult for you. You suffer a lot from fears and insecurities, then it may be helpful to take a closer look at how divorce is affecting you.

To cope with your parents' divorce.

For example, by considering what the benefits of divorce were for you, you can still look back on it with different feelings. For example, many adults with divorced parents report that divorce provided a larger social network, which in turn had its own benefits[7].

In the process, processing trauma can also provide personal growth, a better understanding about how relationships work, and it can even cause you to have a better relationship with your parents[8].

Transforming divorce into something positive

Your parents can have a lot of influence on you, but ultimately it is up to you to improve yourself. Fortunately, it is possible to transform your parents' divorce into something positive.

Gratitude

One of the "easiest" exercises you can do is to think about what divorce has given you. This can feel very difficult, but just think about what things you developed that are helping you in your life now because you went through a difficult period in your life?

It can be big and small things.

For example:

1. I am self-employed because I needed to take care of myself.
2. I am good at assessing how someone is feeling, because I had to do that with my parents.
3. I can quickly pack my bags for vacation because I did that every week to go to the other parent.
4. I can adapt well to a new situation, because I did at the time.

Etc.

By adding to this list, "I am grateful for my independence."Etc. already makes you feel completely different about what you've been through and you may even look at your parents differently.

Regression

As a child, you see things that you cannot yet make sense of. This can cause you to develop limiting beliefs because you usually don't "evaluate" what you have experienced for a while later in life.

Regression therapy gives you the opportunity to do just that. For example, if you find that you don’t trust men or women because one of your parents cheated. Under hypnosis, you can mentally go back to that moment and reexamine it.

The hypnotherapist then helps you to be able to look at this with more distance than when you were a child. Emotions can therefore color the situation less, and with your current adult knowledge you can learn to understand the whole situation in a new way, removing limiting beliefs[9].

Inner child

Sometimes, a divorce may have caused the relationship between you and a parent to become strained. In that case, having a conversation with your inner child can be helpful . This also begins with a regression to the age when you actually wanted to say something to one or both of your parents.

You can then engage as your own child with your parents as they were then. You can even enter the conversation with your older self if necessary.

Whatever it takes, it can help you restore your feelings of safety and security in your current life.

Social panorama for current influence parents

Sometimes a divorce from your parents can affect the position your parents hold in your life to this day. This can be too much and too little. Social Panorama allows you to reposition your parents.

Indeed, mentally, you can imagine where someone is around you. Suppose you have an empty space. You are in the middle and around you are family and friends. Where does everyone else stand? Where are your parents standing?

If that's an awkward place, you can change the position in your mind. A hypnotherapist will help you with this.

Doing so can already cause many changes in how you and your parents interact with you.

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