Cutting out family members and going “no contact” has become chic in some corners.
asserted
Cutting → cut → corners
Op-eds with titles such as “I feel happier and healthier when not around my mother” litter outlets like The Guardian, #nocontact
asserted
I → feel → nocontact
has garnered 1.9 billion views on TikTok, and searches for “no contact” on Google are up 191% since early 2020, per Google Trends.
asserted
searches → garner → Trends
Increasingly, the narrative has become: Is your family member stressing you out?
asserted
member → become → you
And apparently people are doing just that.
asserted
people → do → that
“I have noticed a larger rush to terminate contact and relationships,” Driola Dega, a New York City-based therapist specializing in couples and families, told The Post.
asserted
Dega → notice → Post
“[People seem less willing to accept] that challenges exist in any emotional bond, be it friendship or family or romantic partnerships.”
asserted
it → seem → bond
A shocking 38% of American adults say they are estranged from at least one close family member, according to a 2025 YouGov poll.
uncertain
they → say → poll
Many report that their therapists are the ones suggesting they take such drastic measures.
asserted
they → report → measures
“You carry all the turmoil, all the conflict, all the pain with you when you leave, and sometimes it intensifies,” Dr. Dee Apple, a psychologist based in Princeton, New Jersey, said.
asserted
Apple → carry → Princeton
“But [no contact] has, nonetheless, taken off off in therapy.”
asserted
contact → take → therapy
Annie Wright, a San Francisco therapist, considers going no-contact “often the only way to survive” in cases of “severe narcissistic or emotional abuse.”
asserted
going → consider → abuse
She told The Post that going no contact “reminds people that family ties come with conditions.”
asserted
ties → tell → conditions
But Wright, an outspoken proponent of the method, tells The Post that thinks it’s becoming too trendy in the world of therapy and self-help.
asserted
it → tell → therapy
“What I do hear about and occasionally see is clients who say… a former therapist or social media account encouraged them to cut someone off very quickly,” she told The Post.
asserted
she → hear → Post
Yes, I think that’s a problem.”
asserted
that → think → ?
In her own practice, the clients she’s most likely to pump the brakes with are those wanting to go no contact after a bad fight rather than an ongoing pattern, or before they explained to their parents what’s wrong.
asserted
what → ’ → parents
The clients who are too eager, she says, usually have a rosy understanding of “no contact” from social media.
asserted
she → say → media
“A 60-second video can make no contact sound like the obvious answer…
asserted
contact → make → answer
People can go in and make that decision really unprepared for how hard the aftermath is,” she said.
asserted
she → go → decision
If we use those words for everything, they stop meaning anything to people who really actually do need them.”
asserted
who → use → them
James Kerr, a British Columbia-based therapist with a specialization in estrangement agrees that the trendiness of “no contact” has made it feel too simple a solution.
asserted
it → base → contact
“Unwittingly, many therapists only hear one side of the story, and they are saying, ‘Wow, if your mother is all that, I don’t think you should have them in your life.'”
asserted
you → hear → life
Kerr — and all other experts interviewed for this article — agrees that sexual or physical abuse clearly justify “no contact,” but that more complex emotional situations should be handled with greater care.
asserted
situations → interview → care
According to a 2025 YouGov survey of American adults, 34% of those who had gone “no contact” with a parent had done so due to manipulative behavior, 31% for lies, and 34% for physical, emotional, or sexual abuse — a notably broad category.
uncertain
who → accord → abuse
Karl Pillemer, a professor of human development at Cornell University, has interviewed hundreds of people with estranged or once-estranged family members.
asserted
Pillemer → interview → members
He says the biggest challenge for therapists is the fact that “they can’t get both people in” their office to get to the bottom of the conflict.
asserted
they → say → conflict
His research estimates that 27% of American adults have cut off contact with a family member and only a “tiny minority” of them felt unambiguously good about the choice.
asserted
minority → estimate → choice
“Most of the estranged folks described being highly ambivalent about it,” he explained.
asserted
he → estrange → it
“[They] report that estrangement carries real costs, even when it feels necessary, like broken attachment, chronic stress, grief, collateral damage to children and families.”
asserted
it → report → children
According to Pillemer’s research, only a small fraction of estrangement stems from trauma-based relationships.
uncertain
fraction → accord → relationships
More people go no contact for “situational” reasons, like values differences or in-law issues.
asserted
people → go → law
“I’ll go out on a limb,” he said.
asserted
he → go → limb
“I think this no-contact craze has a lot of adult children deciding to cut off contact from parents who were reasonably good parents and with whom some kind of contact would be beneficial for them and for their parents.”
asserted
kind → think → parents
Another big change, he says, is more adult children using clinical language.
asserted
children → say → language
“There is an impact of the therapeutic language of trauma, boundaries, and toxic relationships, and that’s new as a mass cultural phenomenon,” he said.
asserted
he → be → phenomenon
“You have adult children using terms and reinterpreting what everyone during their childhood thought was normal behavior as trauma, boundary violation, toxic relationships [and] you have parents not understanding what gaslighting and ghosting or being called a narcissist means.”
asserted
gaslighting → have → what
Dega, who studied psychology in Austria, sees another layer in the story: a distinctly American component to the no-contact trend, rooted in our hyper-individualistic culture that centers the self over family.
asserted
that → study → family
“Having lived in different countries, I’ve noticed that in the US, people tend to rely more on the ‘I,’ on the individual, rather than emotional connection and family systems,” she said.
asserted
she → live → individual
“That promotes actually more distance, rather than understanding.”
asserted
That → promote → understanding
…and 3 more, not listed.
The Aporia
