Children removed from home by court order: Fathers' disenfranchised grief and reclamation of paternal functions

•Fathers experience court-ordered removal of a child from home as a traumatic event.•They report intense pain and loss, which went unrecognized by family and friends.•Four dynamics contributing to the intensity of their feelings are suggested.•Most fathers acclimate to the removal and report an expansion of paternal identity.

The study, based on in-depth interviews with 15 fathers in Israel, reports on fathers' emotional reactions to the court-ordered removal of their children from home. The findings show that all the fathers experienced the removal as a traumatic event, which utterly devalued them and annihilated their paternal identity. Although they suffered intense pain and loss well after their children were removed, their grief was disenfranchised as friends and family accused them of allowing the removal to happen. With this, most of the fathers acclimated to the removal and even reported an expansion of their parental identity. The discussion suggests some theoretical conceptualizations of their intense feelings of pain and loss.