Parental Perspectives on Family Estrangement: Two Large-Scale Surveys

This project contains data from two large-scale surveys of parents who have experienced estrangement from an adult child, conducted by Dr Peter Anderson, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and co-founder of the Coalition for Ethical Standards in Mental Health. The surveys were distributed through social media channels focused on family estrangement, primarily to audiences who follow content on this topic. Survey 1 gathered responses from approximately 1,027 parents. Survey 2 gathered responses from approximately 4,226 parents. Both surveys were conducted between 2024 and 2025.
What these surveys measure
Both surveys collected data on the nature and duration of the estrangement, the quality of the relationship before the cutoff, whether concerns about parenting were raised beforehand, the role of therapy in the estrangement, the emotional impact of estrangement on the parent, and parents' attributions for why the estrangement occurred. Open-ended questions also captured parents' own words about their experience.
Limitations — please read before using this data
These surveys are citizen science, not peer-reviewed research. They carry significant limitations that must be understood before the findings are interpreted or cited.
The sample is entirely self-selected. Participants chose to complete the survey, and were reached through channels that serve parents who are actively seeking information about estrangement. This almost certainly overrepresents parents who feel most wronged by the estrangement and underrepresents parents who initiated the cutoff themselves, who have made peace with the situation, or who bear significant responsibility for the rupture.
The data reflects only the parent's perspective. No data was collected from the adult children involved in these estrangements, and the findings cannot be used to draw conclusions about what estranged adult children experienced or why they made the decisions they did.
These surveys do not establish causation. The findings describe what a self-selected group of estranged parents reported. They do not demonstrate that estrangement is unjustified, that therapy causes estrangement, or that parents are blameless. They document one side of a complex relational phenomenon.
The geographic spread is predominantly English-speaking Western countries, with the United States representing the largest single group of respondents. Findings are not generalisable to other cultural contexts.
Conflict of interest statement
Dr Peter Anderson is the principal investigator and conducted all aspects of the surveys. Dr Richard Blake, Vice President of the Coalition for Ethical Standards in Mental Health, was involved in early discussions that informed the decision to conduct the surveys, is responsible for uploading this dataset to OSF, and has referenced the findings in a book on family estrangement. Both parties have a professional interest in the topic of estrangement and in the critique of certain therapeutic practices. Readers should weigh this when evaluating the findings.
Why we are publishing this openly
We believe open data produces better science and better public conversation, even when the data is imperfect. Publishing this dataset openly allows other researchers to interrogate it, challenge our interpretations, identify patterns we have missed, and build on it with more rigorous methodologies. We would welcome replication studies using representative samples.
Citation
Anderson, P. & Blake, R. (2025) Parental Perspectives on Family Estrangement: Two Descriptive Surveys. Coalition for Ethical Standards in Mental Health. OSF. doi: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/6XT53