Mean Mothers: Overcoming the Legacy of Hurt


Peg Streep - 2009
    But Mean Mothers is also a narrative of hope, recounting how daughters can get past the legacy of hurt to become whole within and to become loving mothers to the next generation of daughters. The personal stories of unloved daughters and sons and those of the author herself, are both unflinching and moving, and bring this most difficult of subjects to life.Mean Mothers isn't just a book for daughters who've had difficult or impossible relationships with their mothers. By exposing the myths of motherhood that prevent us from talking about the women for whom mothering a daughter is fraught with ambivalence, tension, or even jealousy, Mean Mothers also casts a different light on the extraordinary influence mothers have over their female children as well as the psychological complexity and emotional depth of the mother-daughter relationship.

I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression


Terrence Real - 1997
    And these escape attempts only hurt the people men love and pass their condition on to their children.This ground breaking book is the "pathway out of darkness" that these men and their families seek. Real reveals how men can unearth their pain, heal themselves, restore relationships, and break the legacy of abuse. He mixes penetrating analysis with compelling tales of his patients and even his ownexperiences with depression as the son of a violent, depressed father and the father of two young sons.

The Emotionally Absent Mother: A Guide to Self-Healing and Getting the Love You Missed


Jasmin Lee Cori - 2010
    The Emotionally Absent Mother will help you understand what was missing from your childhood, how this relates to your mother’s own history, and how you can fill the “mother gap” by:Examining the past with compassion for yourself and your motherFinding the child inside of you and learning to mother yourselfOpening to the archetype of the Good MotherAllowing friends and loved ones to provide support, guidance, and other elements of good mothering that you missedThrough reflections, exercises, and clear explanations, psychotherapist Jasmin Lee Cori helps adult sons and daughters heal the wounds left by mothers who failed to provide the essential ingredients that every child needs. She traces perceived personal “defects” back to mothering deficits, relieving self-blame. And, by teaching today’s undermothered adults to cultivate the mothering they missed, she helps them secure a happier future—for themselves and their children.

Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself


Nedra Glover Tawwab - 2021
    We all know we should have them--in order to achieve work/life balance, cope with toxic people, and enjoy rewarding relationships with partners, friends, and family. But what do healthy boundaries really mean--and how can we successfully express our needs, say no, and be assertive without offending others?Licensed counselor, sought-after relationship expert, and one of the most influential therapists on Instagram Nedra Glover Tawwab demystifies this complex topic for today's world. In a relatable and inclusive tone, Set Boundaries, Find Peace presents simple-yet-powerful ways to establish healthy boundaries in all aspects of life. Rooted in the latest research and best practices used in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), these techniques help us identify and express our needs clearly and without apology--and unravel a root problem behind codependency, power struggles, anxiety, depression, burnout, and more.

It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle


Mark Wolynn - 2016
    Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains—but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited—that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. It Didn’t Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood.   As a pioneer in the field of inherited family trauma, Mark Wolynn has worked with individuals and groups on a therapeutic level for over twenty years. It Didn’t Start with You offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to his method, the Core Language Approach. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree create a map of experiences going back through the generations. And visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health. It Didn’t Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch.

What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing


Bruce D. Perry - 2021
    It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives.”―Oprah WinfreyThis book is going to change the way you see your life.Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand.Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. Joining forces with Dr. Perry, one of the world’s leading experts on childhood and brain development, Winfrey and Dr. Perry marry the power of storytelling with science to better understand and overcome the effects of our pasts.In conversation throughout the book, the two focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future―opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.

Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery


Catherine Gildiner - 2020
    Among them: a successful, first generation Chinese immigrant musician suffering sexual dysfunction; a young woman whose father abandoned her at age nine with her younger siblings in an isolated cottage in the depth of winter; and a glamorous workaholic whose narcissistic, negligent mother greeted her each morning of her childhood with Good morning, Monster.Each patient presents a mystery, one that will only be unpacked over years. They seek Gildiner's help to overcome an immediate challenge in their lives, but discover that the source of their suffering has been long buried.As in such recent classics as The Glass Castle and Educated, each patient embodies self-reflection, stoicism, perseverance, and forgiveness as they work unflinchingly to face the truth. Gildiner's account of her journeys with them is moving, insightful, and sometimes very funny. Good Morning Monster offers an almost novelistic, behind-the-scenes look into the therapist's office, illustrating how the process can heal even the most unimaginable wounds.

Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal


Donna Jackson Nakazawa - 2015
    Childhood Interrupted also explains how to cope with these emotional traumas and even heal from them.Your biography becomes your biology. The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall well-being. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly how parents, chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical fingerprints on our brains.When we as children encounter sudden or chronic adversity, excessive stress hormones cause powerful changes in the body, altering our body chemistry. The developing immune system and brain react to this chemical barrage by permanently re-setting our stress response to high, which in turn can have a devastating impact on our mental and physical health.Donna Jackson Nakazawa shares stories from people who have recognized and overcome their adverse experiences, shows why some children are more immune to stress than others, and explains why women are at particular risk. Groundbreaking in its research, inspiring in its clarity, Childhood Interrupted explains how you can reset your biology and help your loved ones find ways to heal.

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert


John M. Gottman - 1999
    Here is the culmination of his life's work: the seven principles that guide couples on the path toward a harmonious and long-lasting relationship. Packed with practical questionnaires and exercises, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is the definitive guide for anyone who wants their relationship to attain its highest potential.

Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men


Lundy Bancroft - 2002
    So...why does he do that? You've asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men--and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn about:The early warning signs of abuse- The nature of abusive thinking- Myths about abusers- Ten abusive personality types- The role of drugs and alcohol- What you can fix, and what you can't- And how to get out of an abusive relationship safelyPrevention Programs, Harvard School of Public Health

Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care about Has Borderline Personality Disorder


Paul T. Mason - 1998
    It is designed to help them understand how the disorder affects their loved ones and recognize what they can do to get off the emotional roller coasters and take care of themselves.

The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are


Daniel J. Siegel - 1999
    Daniel J. Siegel presents a groundbreaking new way of thinking about the emergence of the human mind, and the process by which each of us becomes a feeling, thinking, remembering individual. Illuminating how and why neurobiology matters, this book is essential reading for clinicians, educators, researchers, and students interested in human experience and development across the life span.

Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss


Hope Edelman - 1994
    First published a decade ago, it is still the book that motherless daughters of all ages look to for understanding and comfort and that they press into each other's hands. Building on interviews with hundreds of mother-loss survivors, this life-affirming book is now newly expanded to reflect the author's personal experience with the continued legacy of mother loss; now married and a mother of young children herself, Edelman better understands how the effects of mother loss change over time and in light of new relationships. A work of stunning courage and honesty, Motherless Daughters is a must read for the millions of women whose mothers have gone, but whose need for healing, mourning, and mothering remains. It is a timeless classic.

Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship


Laurence Heller - 2012
    These five core capacities are associated with biologically based core needs that are essential to our physical and emotional well-being: the needs for connection, attunement, trust, autonomy, and love-sexuality. Recognizing these needs as well as five Adaptive Survival Styles set in motion when the core needs are not met early in life, authors Laurence Heller and Aline LaPierre cut through the seeming complexity of life’s problems.   Explaining that an impaired capacity for connection to self and to others and the ensuing diminished aliveness are the hidden dimensions that underlie most psychological and many physiological problems, they introduce the NeuroAffective Relational Model® (NARM), a resource-oriented, psychodynamically informed approach that, while not ignoring a person’s past, emphasizes working in the present moment. NARM uses somatic mindfulness to re-regulate the nervous system and to resolve identity distortions—such as low self-esteem, shame, and chronic self-judgment—caused by developmental and relational trauma. Heller and LaPierre demonstrate how this therapy helps clients establish connection to the parts of self that are organized, coherent and functional, integrating the role of connection on all levels of experience as it affects a person's physiology, psychology, and capacity for relationship.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change


Robin Norwood - 1985
    Therapist Robin Norwood describes loving too much as a pattern of thoughts and behaviour which certain women develop as a response to problems from childhood.