Sybil Cummin: When Your Kids Are Being Triangulated

Sybil Cummin requires both parents to email her together, and she will not tell either of them what their child said in session. Parents hate it. She does it anyway, because the moment one parent has more of her attention than the other, that becomes the argument in court, and the child loses the one adult who was holding neutral ground.

Our guest this episode is Sybil Cummin, a licensed professional counselor based in Colorado. She trained as a play therapist, which led her to children living with domestic violence, which led her into family court, where she testified and came away asking whether anyone was listening. Thirteen years on she works with adult survivors, runs the Rising Beyond community, hosts her own podcast, does legislative work, and trains clinicians on coercive control and legal abuse. She keeps her domestic violence specialty off her practice website on purpose, so that a controlling parent does not screen her out before her child ever gets in the door.

Sybil and Lisa open with why an inner circle of support changes how fast someone heals, and why friends and family often make things worse without meaning to. From there they get into triangulation: what it sounds like on a first phone call, the communication rules Sybil sets to stay out of it, and how she still gets pulled in sometimes and has to catch it. They talk about what to do when the other parent refuses consent for therapy, how a pediatrician or school counselor recommendation changes a judge's response, and why an experiential therapy is harder to coach a child through than sitting across from someone answering questions.

The conversation closes on the children themselves: building trust with a kid who has been told family business stays inside the family, giving a child back some say over their own information, and what Sybil calls the gift of perspective, which is helping a child feel the difference between care with no conditions and care with conditions attached.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• How a high-conflict parent triangulates a child's therapist, sometimes on the first call
• The communication rules that keep a therapist from being pulled onto one side
• Why a good child therapist will not report back to you about your child's sessions
• What to do when the other parent refuses to consent to your child starting therapy
• Why play, art, and music therapy are harder to coach a child through than talk therapy
• How to build trust with a child who has been told to keep family business secret
• The gift of perspective: helping a child feel what care with no conditions is like
• Why narrating your child's sadness beats making excuses for the parent who no-showed

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Why a safe circle of support speeds up healing
5:00 When friends and family make it worse without meaning to
9:00 Post-separation abuse, and keeping it from becoming your whole life
13:00 Legal abuse, and why most therapists were never trained in it
17:00 What domestic violence actually looks like in a therapy practice
19:00 How a high-conflict parent triangulates your child's therapist
21:00 The communication rules Sybil sets with both parents
29:00 Why play, art, and music therapy are harder to coach
33:00 When the other parent will not consent to therapy
37:00 Building trust with a child who has been told to keep secrets
41:00 The gift of perspective, narration, and letting your child be sad

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Sybil Cummin at Rising Beyond: https://www.risingbeyondpc.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.