It’s common for rejected parents who are unwillingly estranged from an adult child to feel utterly powerless. And that's a horrible feeling in the face of a breach in an important relationship. But there are three specific assumptions parents make that leave them truly powerless. These insidious assumptions are: Your child’s estrangement is entirely about something that happened in the past, Someone else is controlling (or has brainwashed) your child, and Your child has a personality disorder that’s making him act this way. Each of these assumptions in the parent says, in effect, “This estrangement in entirely beyond my control.” Only when parents give up any hope of having a positive impact on their troubled relationship, are they truly powerless to heal estrangement from their adult children. The other episode mentioned on this show was Episode #62, Personality Disorders and Estrangement.