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Emotional cage fights mean dumping vitriol, words that can't be unheard, onto another.

Let go of assumptions that the visceral shock of your words will inspire change in the other.

Take a deep breath and stay silent until you calm down a little or give each other time to cool off.

Reading about the recent cage fights on the South Lawn of the White House, I was reminded of the emotional violence that can happen between parents and adult children when pain begets pain and relationships are changed forever.

Jenna, whose beloved father committed suicide when she was 12 years old, has carried grief and fury all these years. Her fury is aimed at her mother, who scrambled to get a job to support the family after her husband's death. Since then, Jenna has picked fights with her mother over things both minor and major. Her animosity culminated in a screaming match recently as she blamed her mother for all the difficulties of her life, both past and present, and finished her tirade off with, “And you’re the reason Daddy killed himself!”

“That took my breath away,” Jenna’s mother Amy told me recently. “My husband was bipolar and refused to take his medications. It was hard living with him and even harder to lose him in that way. I did the best I could at the time. Her words hurt me deeply. I'm her mother. I'll love her forever. But I don't know if I can ever like or trust her again."

Examples of Emotional Cage Fights in Families

I’ve seen a variety of emotional cage fights in therapy sessions. These are situations where one or both........

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