The Rising Beyond Podcast
If you're trying to protect your children while navigating an abusive ex, this podcast is for you. Because leaving the relationship didn't end the abuse, and no one prepared you for what came next.
The Rising Beyond Podcast is for protective mothers navigating the overwhelming reality of sharing children with someone who continues patterns of manipulation, coercive control, or emotional abuse after separation. Join Sybil Cummin, licensed professional counselor, who has spent the last decade helping survivors and their children navigate this incredibly difficult chapter. Every week, we share trauma-informed education, nervous system insights, protective parenting strategies, and honest conversations about family court, post-separation abuse, and healing, so you can feel more confident, more grounded, and better equipped to protect both your children and yourself.
Whether you're in the middle of family court, struggling with parenting alongside someone who continues patterns of control, or simply trying to become the parent you want to be after everything you've survived, you'll find validation, practical guidance, and hope here.
The Rising Beyond Podcast
Ep 111: The Realities of Court Ordered Reunification Therapy
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If your children have not had contact or very little contact with your abusive ex-partner then it is likely that a judge will court order reunification therapy.
What exactly is reunification therapy? And is it in the best interests of your children?
I share the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of reunification therapy based on my personal experiences of being trained (sort of) and providing reunification therapy with families involved with child protection. There were times where the process was beautiful and other times when the process was completely unethical.
Don't miss the CRUCIAL questions you MUST ask therapists before starting reunification therap in order to better protect your children from potential trauma and abuse.
- What does the process of reunification therapy look like with you?
- What kind of documentation do you provide to the parents or to the courts?
- What do you need from me?
- What is my role in this?
- What is your communication like with the other members of the team?
- How do you ensure that you're building enough rapport and relationship with my child so that they will share if they don't feel safe with you or with their other parent, what does that process look like?
- How are you assessing for emotional safety, how are you assessing when it's safe to move forward?
Two questions you can ask that might cause some discomfort for everyone involved:
- What is your stance on parental alienation?
- Are there cases or do you have cases where you did not recommend that the child reunify and have parenting time with the parent you're working with?
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