'Not a question of love': The breaking point that led Brooklyn Beckham to release nuclear statement on his parents

A bombshell statement released by Brooklyn Beckham earlier this week made stunning claims regarding his parents' treatment of both him and his wife, Nicola Peltz.

Among the claims were accusations of control, media manipulation and inappropriate behaviour at Brooklyn and Nicola's wedding.

While the nuclear fallout continues, we decided to take a deeper look at the psychological mindset behind the feud.

Family Psychologist Justin Coulson said that at the heart of every conflict is the need for people to see our side of things.

This could be the motivating factor that pushed Brooklyn to post the statement – he was sick and tired of the blame being thrown on him and Nicola.

"We want people on our side, and we want people against the other side," he explains.

"But, taking anything to social media, especially a conflict, is a sign of immaturity and an unwillingness to resolve differences and work through challenges."

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He said the same thing can be said about Victoria and David allegedly leaking stories in the press.

"You're choosing to be immature in your conflict resolution style, and frankly, you're not actually interested in resolving the conflict," he adds.

"You're more interested in public relations and recruiting people to your side."

According to Brooklyn's statement, a major issue he has with his family is their need to control the Beckham Image.

"For my entire life, my parents have controlled narratives in the press about our family," the statement read.

"The performative social media posts, family events and inauthentic relationships have been a fixture of the life I was born into."

Coulson said in highly controlling families like this, parents see their children as an extension of themselves – and in the Beckhams' case, as an extension of their brand.

"The things that we're talking about here fundamentally come down to a question of control - it's not a question of love - I have no doubt that the Beckhams love their son," he said.

He added that in any case, being in a highly controlled family can fundamentally damage a child's sense of self, as control undermines three fundamental pathological needs – autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

"When people step in with high levels of control, it can undermine both your need for relatedness and your need for autonomy," he explains.

"To feel a sense of relatedness would be a sense of connection or acceptance.

"When a parent starts telling someone how to live their life, what you're essentially saying is 'You're not competent, you can't be in control, I need to be in control.'"

"You're undermining all three of those psychological needs...then the relationship is damaged, the child's sense of control over their own lives is harmed, and their feelings of competence are crushed."

He also explained that highly controlled environments don't allow for the critically important identity crisis that children are supposed to experience in puberty.

"That crisis isn't actually a bad thing, it's quite a healthy thing...the alternative is that we have our identity dictated to us.

"In a very controlled family, parents literally step in and say, 'You'll be a doctor, you'll be a lawyer, this is who we are in our family'".

"That identity foreclosure is really unhealthy, and over time, what you see is a lot of resentment and resistance [in the child].. because this is not what they've chosen, it's chosen for them."

He said the practical extension of this is that children do not want to be around their parents.

As we know, Brooklyn started distancing himself from his family long before the bombshell statement.

"If I'm in an environment where you're always telling me what to do, making me feel like I can't do anything right, and our relationship is based on me keeping up appearances so that you look good, then I'm going avoid that relationship," Coulson explained.

"I'm going to stay out of that environment because it sucks to be around you. I'm never good enough, our relationship is shallow, I just don't have a choice in my life... that is a horrible place to be."

One stunning claim made by Brooklyn is that his mother "hijacked" his first dance.

He shockingly alleged that Victoria "danced very inappropriately on me" in front of their 500 guests, saying: "I've never felt more uncomfortable or humiliated in my life."

Was this a pathological need for control, revenge or something else?

Coulson says it could be the result of a few things.

"The first thing is that people who have a high level of entitlement tend to be really controlling," he said.

"If Victoria Beckham feels that she's entitled to somehow govern her children's lives and they begin to resist that, she'll just increase the pressure and unfortunately, that will typically be done in a whole lot of unhealthy ways, like the first dance."

"There's also a more benign and maybe even a charitable way to look at this... maybe Victoria Beckham and people like her just lack self-awareness."

Now that the situation has gone nuclear, he says the only way to fix it is take it offline and communicate privately.

He says the family need to ask three questions.

"First, you have to ask what happened. Now, no one will ever agree on the facts of that, ultimately, you can't get a true answer," he said.

"Question two is the more important question of, 'What does this mean,' and the third question is, 'What happens now?'"

"When you do what Brooklyn is doing right now, focusing on all the bad stuff, it can only mean bad things. If you can start to focus on the good stuff, then you can change the meaning [of the disagreement]."

"If you do that, you're going have much more productive actions and conversations."

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