They found it too difficult or too frightening or just decided that for them it was too late. But as a therapist and trauma survivor herself, Dr. Schmelzer wants us to know that it is never too late to heal from trauma, whether it is the suffering caused within an abusive relationship or PTSD resulting from combat. Sometimes what feels like a big setback is actually an unexpected difficult step forward. So she wrote Journey Through Trauma specifically for survivors--to help them understand the terrain of the healing process and stay on the path. There are three basic principles that every trauma survivor should know: Healing is possible. It requires courage. And it cannot be done alone. Traumas that happen more than once--child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, gang violence, even war--are all relational traumas. They happened inside a relationship and therefore must be healed inside a relationship, whether that relationship is with a therapist or within a group. Journey Through Trauma gives us a map to help guide us through that healing process, see where the hard parts show up, and persevere in the process of getting well. We learn the five phases that every survivor must negotiate along the way and come to understand that since the cycle of healing is not linear, circling back around to a previous stage does not mean defeat - it actually means progress as well as facing new challenges. Authoritative and accessible, Journey Through Trauma provides support for survivors and their loved ones through one of the most challenging but necessary processes of healing that anyone can face.

    Describing how Western patterns of amnesia and anesthesia affect our capacity to cope with personal and collective sorrows, Weller reveals the new vitality we may encounter when we welcome, rather than fear, the pain of loss. Through moving personal stories, poetry, and insightful reflections he leads us into the central energy of sorrow, and to the profound healing and heightened communion with each other and our planet that reside alongside it.The Wild Edge of Sorrow explains that grief has always been communal and illustrates how we need the healing touch of others, an atmosphere of compassion, and the comfort of ritual in order to fully metabolize our grief. Weller describes how we often hide our pain from the world, wrapping it in a secret mantle of shame. This causes sorrow to linger unexpressed in our bodies, weighing us down and pulling us into the territory of depression and death. We have come to fear grief and feel too alone to face an encounter with the powerful energies of sorrow. Those who work with people in grief, who have experienced the loss of a loved one, who mourn the ongoing destruction of our planet, or who suffer the accumulated traumas of a lifetime will appreciate the discussion of obstacles to successful grief work such as privatized pain, lack of communal rituals, a pervasive feeling of fear, and a culturally restrictive range of emotion. Weller highlights the intimate bond between grief and gratitude, sorrow and intimacy. In addition to showing us that the greatest gifts are often hidden in the things we avoid, he offers powerful tools and rituals and a list of resources to help us transform grief into a force that allows us to live and love more fully.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    This book teaches adult children how to overcome the devastating effects of growing up with a parent who suffers from BPD.Although relatively common, borderline personality disorder (BPD) is often overlooked or misdiagnosed by therapists and clinicians and denied by those who suffer from it.Symptoms of this problem include unpredictability, violence and uncontrollable anger, deep depression and self-abuse. Parents with BPD are often unable to provide for the basic physical and emotional needs of their children. In an ironic and painful role reversal, BPD parents can actually raise children to be their caretakers. They may burden even very young children with adult responsibilities.If you were raised by a BPD parent, your childhood was a volatile and painful time. This book, the first written specifically for children of borderline parents, offers step-by-step guidance to understanding and overcoming the lasting effects of being raised by a person suffering from this disorder. Discover specific coping strategies for dealing with issues common to children of borderline parents: low self-esteem, lack of trust, guilt, and hypersensitivity. Make the major decision whether to confront your parent about his or her condition.

    How are our personalities formed? How do our early struggles with our parents reappear in the way we relate to others as adults?In Becoming Attached, Robert Karen offers fresh insight into some of the most fundamental issues of emotional life. He explores such questions as: * What do children need to feel that the world is a positive place and that they have value? * What are the risks of day care for children under one year of age, and what can parents do to manage those risks? * What experiences in infancy will enable a person to develop healthy relationships as an adult?Becoming Attached is not just a voyage of discovery in child emotional development and its pertinence to adult life but a voyage of personal discovery as well, for it is impossible to read this book without reflecting on one's own life as a child, a parent, and an intimate partner in love or marriage.

    Beginning with an introduction to the diagnostic interview, the Pocket Guide addresses the goals of the interview, provides an efficient structure for learning how to conduct one, reviews the screening questions, and then tackles the ways in which DSM-5T, with its updated approaches to diagnosis and classification, impacts the interview going forward. Significant revisions from DSM-IV-TRr to DSM-5T are reviewed. The final chapter, the core of the guide, walks the reader through a complete diagnostic exam that includes the follow-up questions for each of the DSM-5T disorder classes. The book is useful for beginners learning the format and flow of the diagnostic interview and for seasoned clinicians conducting an interview consistent with the significant revisions reflected in DSM-5T. Not intended to replace DSM-5T itself or psychiatric interview texts, The Pocket Guide to the DSM-5T Diagnostic Exam is a pragmatic and concise resource for diagnosing a person in mental distress while establishing a therapeutic relationship.

    . . again.Getting angry is easy. Daily irritations, frustrations, and pain poke at us. Feelings of disappointment, hurt, rejection, and embarrassment prod in us. And once the unwieldy cluster of emotions of anger are aroused, our thoughts and actions can feel out of control and impossible to manage.Dr. Gary Chapman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The 5 Love Languages®, offers helpful-and sometimes surprising-insights into why you get angry and what you can do about it. Using real-life stories and practical principles, Chapman explains how you can channel anger in ways that are healthy and productive. You'll also be equipped to help those you love (including your children) deal with their own anger, as well as effectively deal with those long-simmering feelings of anger toward people in your past.Includes an assessment that will help you discover your personal propensity toward handling anger and how to effectively tame it when it arises.

    You're terrified of losing your child and angry about the havoc this disorder has wreaked in your family. More than anything, you want to be able to unlock the secrets of OCD, understand the cause of your child's bizarre symptoms, and help your child break free of these disruptive, relentless thoughts and actions. In her landmark book, Freeing Your Child from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Dr. Tamar E. Chansky creates a clear road map to understanding and overcoming OCD based on her successful practice treating hundreds of children and teenagers with this disorder. In Part I, Dr. Chansky "cracks the code" of the peculiar rules and customs of OCD -- the handwashing, tapping, counting, and so forth. She explains how OCD is diagnosed, how to find the right therapist partner, and how to tailor treatment options to your child's needs. You'll learn how powerful behavioral modification can be and when medication can help. In Part II, you'll learn how not to be pulled in by your child's debilitating rituals at home or at school, how to talk to your child about the "brain tricks" OCD causes, and how to create an effective OCD battle plan that will empower your child to "boss back" the OCD monster. You'll also learn how to cope in moments of crisis.Part III offers specific advice for how to help your child handle the most common manifestations of OCD such as fears of contamination, checking, getting things "just right," intrusive thoughts, and more. Part IV is an indispensable guide to additional resources, including books, videos, organizations, and websites.Filled with Dr. Chansky's compassionate advice and inspiring words from the many children with OCD whom she has helped, this book will be your lifeline. Battling back from OCD is hard work, but with the comprehensive, proven guidance in this book, you can help your child reclaim a life free from its grip.

    . . . No student’s education in psychotherapy is complete without reading this book. Decades after its original publication, it still stands as a pioneering landmark in the history of psychotherapy.”-John Suler

    Death and illness touch us all, but even the everyday sufferings of loneliness and fear are traumatic. In The Trauma of Everyday Life renowned psychiatrist and author of Thoughts Without a Thinker Mark Epstein uncovers the transformational potential of trauma, revealing how it can be used for the mind’s own development.Western psychology teaches that if we understand the cause of trauma, we might move past it while many drawn to Eastern practices see meditation as a means of rising above, or distancing themselves from, their most difficult emotions. Both, Epstein argues, fail to recognize that trauma is an indivisible part of life and can be used as a lever for growth and an ever deeper understanding of change. When we regard trauma with this perspective, understanding that suffering is universal and without logic, our pain connects us to the world on a more fundamental level. The way out of pain is through it. Epstein’s discovery begins in his analysis of the life of Buddha, looking to how the death of his mother informed his path and teachings. The Buddha’s spiritual journey can be read as an expression of primitive agony grounded in childhood trauma. Yet the Buddha’s story is only one of many in The Trauma of Everyday Life. Here, Epstein looks to his own experience, that of his patients, and of the many fellow sojourners and teachers he encounters as a psychiatrist and Buddhist. They are alike only in that they share in trauma, large and small, as all of us do. Epstein finds throughout that trauma, if it doesn’t destroy us, wakes us up to both our minds’ own capacity and to the suffering of others. It makes us more human, caring, and wise. It can be our greatest teacher, our freedom itself, and it is available to all of us.

    Each generation of therapists can boast of only a few writers like Deborah Luepnitz, whose sympathy and wit shine in her fine, luminous prose. In Schopenhauer's Porcupines, she recounts five true stories from her practice, stories of patients who range from the super-rich to the destitute, who grapple with panic attacks, psychosomatic illness, marital despair, and sexual recklessness. Intimate, original, and triumphantly funny, Schopenhauer's Porcupines goes further than any other book in illuminating "how talking helps."

    A varied mix of essays, book chapters, case histories, and compelling fiction written by veterans of both sides of "the couch" and representing many schools of thought, Inside Therapy includes: Janet Malcolm's The Impossible Profession * Mark Epstein's Thoughts Without a Thinker * Eric Fromm's The Art of Listening * A. M. Homes's In a Country of Mothers * Theodore Reik's The Third Ear * and others. The foreword by Irvin D. Yalom, author of Love's Executioner, offers additional wisdom, humor, and perspective.At a time when managed care threatens the psychoanalytic tradition, this dramatic, inspiring collection reminds us of the healing power of insight and the unique gifts of the patient-therapist relationship.

    A careful line of 36 questions and self-analysis techniques designed to get to the heart of relationship and marriage problems.  This straightforward and practical advice is designed for newer and older relationships, and presents a plethora of information and experience in a clear, concise manner.

    Dr. Minuchin has achieved renown for his theoretical breakthroughs and his success at treatment. Now he explains in close detail those precise and difficult maneuvers that constitute his art. The book thus codifies the method of one of the country's most successful practitioners.

    Originally published: Lafayette, CA: Real People Press, 1969.

    Henry Cloud and John Townsend offer solid guidance for making safe choices in relationships, from friendships to romance. They help identify the nurturing people we all need in our lives, as well as ones we need to learn to avoid. Safe People will help you to recognize 20 traits of relationally untrustworthy people. Discover what makes some people relationally safe, and how to avoid unhealthy entanglements. You'll learn about things within yourself that jeopardize your relational security. And you'll find out what to do and what not to do to develop a balanced, healthy approach to relationships.