ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the impact of estrangement on parents and adult children, grandparents and grandchildren, political strife, migration, and incarceration. As cutoff has a context in family systems theory, few ideas from individual theories of human development are directly comparable. Estrangement is the idea with the closest parallel in the research literature. Probably the most widely used measurement for cutoff developed was the Differentiation of Self Inventory (DSI) by E. A. Skowron and M. L. Friedlander. The DSI was based on Bowen’s concept of differentiation of self as associated with lower levels of chronic anxiety, fewer symptoms, less reactivity, greater life adjustment, and less cutoff. A. Eichholz investigated cutoff in an in-depth research project of her own family, examining the differences in five generations between family lines who experienced cutoff and those who stayed connected. Rauseo illustrates how the emotional process in a family can fuel cutoff through emigration.
