What If More People Knew There Were Skills to Repair Relationships?

Over the past several weeks, articles in both the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal have sparked conversation about whether therapy is contributing to the rise in family estrangement. As I read the stories and the opinions that followed, I found myself reflecting on the issue from several different perspectives. I write not only as a licensed mental health counselor, but also as a family educator who has spent years teaching relationship skills through PAIRS. I also write as someone who has experienced significant estrangement within my own family. Those experiences have shaped both my personal life and my professional work, and they leave me convinced that the conversation deserves far more nuance than the question of whether therapy is bringing families together or pulling them apart.

Like many conversations surrounding mental health, I don’t believe the answer lies at either extreme.

I don’t believe therapy is responsible for the increase in family estrangement. At the same time, I believe therapists carry tremendous influence. The way we frame relationships, discuss boundaries, and help clients make sense of painful experiences matters. Our words can foster hope, encourage healthy boundaries, and help people make thoughtful decisions. They can also influence whether someone believes a relationship has the potential to grow or whether it is beyond repair.

As therapists, we often meet people after years, sometimes decades, of unresolved hurt. Communication has broken down. Assumptions have replaced curiosity. Resentment has accumulated. By the time someone walks into a therapy office, they may feel emotionally exhausted and wonder whether ending the relationship is the only path toward peace.

There are relationships in which abuse, manipulation, repeated betrayal, or ongoing harm make distance the healthiest choice. Protecting yourself or your children is not a sign of failure; it is an act of wisdom. Nothing in this article is meant to suggest that people should remain in abusive or chronically harmful relationships. My hope is simply that we become better at distinguishing relationships that are unsafe from those that are unskilled.

I believe many families are living with something different. They aren’t abusive. They are disconnected. They are caught in patterns they don’t understand and don’t know how to change. They love one another, yet continue having the same painful conversations until someone concludes the relationship simply isn’t worth the pain anymore.

Over the years, I have become convinced that one of the greatest things missing from our culture is relationship education. We teach algebra, history, science, and economics, yet very few people receive formal instruction in how to communicate during conflict, how to express hurt without attacking, how to truly listen, how to repair after a disagreement, or how to remain connected when emotions run high.

These aren’t simply personality traits.

They are learned skills.

And like any other skill, they can be practiced, strengthened, and passed on.

That belief is one of the reasons I became involved with PAIRS (Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills). The work is built on a simple but powerful idea: healthier relationships are strengthened when people learn practical communication and emotional skills that foster trust, empathy, and connection.

I’ve watched individuals arrive believing their relationships were beyond repair and leave with conversations they never imagined possible. I’ve seen couples replace criticism with curiosity. Parents and adult children begin listening instead of defending. I’ve watched people discover that vulnerability often creates more connection than winning an argument ever could.

Those experiences have reinforced something I believe deeply: healthy relationships are rarely the result of finding the “right” people. More often, they are the result of learning healthier ways to relate to the people already in our lives.

I sometimes wonder if we’ve become much more comfortable talking about boundaries than we have talking about relationship skills. Boundaries matter. I encourage them often in my own practice because they create safety, clarity, and self-respect. But boundaries and reconciliation are not opposites. In many cases, healthy boundaries create the conditions that make healthier relationships possible.

Likewise, accepting that families are imperfect doesn’t mean accepting unhealthy behavior. It means recognizing that disappointment, misunderstanding, and conflict are part of every close relationship. The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is learning how to move through those moments without allowing them to define the relationship.

One word I wish we used more often is goodwill.

Goodwill is choosing, when appropriate, to believe another person is more than the worst moment you’ve experienced with them. It doesn’t remove accountability, nor does it excuse harmful behavior. Instead, it creates room for curiosity, compassion, and the possibility that people can grow.

As both a therapist and a family educator, I believe we have an opportunity—and perhaps even a responsibility—to offer more than validation. Validation is an essential part of healing, but it is only one part. We can also teach people how to communicate more effectively, how to repair after conflict, how to tolerate discomfort, and how to reconnect when reconnection is healthy and desired.

Not every relationship can or should be repaired.

But I suspect more relationships could heal if people had the tools to do so.

I write that with humility because I know firsthand that family estrangement is complicated. I know there are situations where reconciliation is not possible, and I would never suggest otherwise. I also know there are relationships that end not because love disappeared, but because hope did.

As someone who continues to navigate my own complicated family relationships, I don’t write this because I believe reconciliation is always possible. I write it because I’ve seen what can happen when people are willing to learn new ways of relating to one another, and because I know how painful it is when those opportunities are never given the chance.

Perhaps the conversation we should be having isn’t whether therapists are contributing to family estrangement. Perhaps it’s whether we’ve invested enough in teaching people the skills that help relationships survive conflict in the first place.

Part of that conversation requires us to distinguish relationships that are unsafe from those that are simply unskilled. Those are not the same thing, and they deserve different responses.

If we want stronger families, perhaps the answer isn’t simply more therapy.

Perhaps it’s making relationship education just as common as every other life skill we believe is worth teaching.

Because when people are given the tools to communicate differently, they often discover something they thought they had lost forever: hope.

And sometimes, hope is where healing begins.