Course guides professionals working with people estranged from family members

Sociologist and gerontologist Karl Pillemer has launched an online training program- one of the first in the U.S. - on family estrangement and reconciliation.

Pillemer is the founder of the Cornell Family Estrangement and Reconciliation Project which conducted the first national survey on estrangement. The project also conducted in-depth interviews with hundreds of estranged individuals and interviews with therapists.

"We know estrangement affects a lot of people and causes enormous amounts of psychological distress," Pillemer said. "Yet many professionals feel entirely unequipped to deal with it. Our program is for any professionals who are likely to encounter estrangement, even though it's not the focus of their jobs."