Showing titles in Dysfunctional Families

Lemon Moms: A Guide to Understand and Survive Maternal Narcissism walks you through the chaos and confusion of maternal narcissism: what it is, what it does, and how to recover from its devastating effects. With laid-back narrative, personal examples, and action-oriented steps, you’ll learn how to decode the crazy-making behavior, heal the damage, and move forward to live your best life possible.

It's the night before Christmas when Casey and Mike get the call. A 12-year-old girl, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Her father is on a ventilator, fighting for his life, while her mother is currently on remand in prison. Despite claiming she attacked him in self-defence, she's been charged with his attempted murder. The girl is called Bella, and she's refusing to say anything. The trouble is that she is also the only witness....

Childhood trauma is more common than any healthy society would like, with more than two-thirds of children reporting at least one traumatic event by age 16.

Detachment is called a "valuable technique" to deal with dysfunctional people. However, few actually know what it is, much less how to do it. This audiobook answers your questions about detachment as a tool to deal with codependent or toxic relationships.

The wounds of our inner child, though hidden, can silently devastate our present reality. They shape our beliefs, influence our choices, and hinder our joy. But here’s the truth: you hold the power to heal them with the help of “Healing Your Inner Child”—an empowering guide designed to illuminate the path to healing using practical, yet profound tools deeply rooted in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

In The Incurable Romantic, Frank Tallis recounts the extraordinary stories of patients who are, quite literally, madly in love: A woman becomes utterly convinced that her dentist is secretly infatuated with her and drives him to leave the country; a man destroys his massive fortune through trysts with more than 3,000 prostitutes - because his ego requires that they fall in love with him; a beautiful woman's pathological jealousy destroys the men who love her.

If you have even an inkling that you may be affected by emotional abuse, you owe it to yourself to take action...but that can seem easier said than done when you find yourself falling for manipulation tactics over and over again. But there are steps you can take to break free of the cycle and set foot on the road to healing and recovery…and this guide will be by your side every step of the way. As soon as you suspect that someone in your life is doing you more harm than good, it’s time to take action.

Emotionally broken. Mentally drained. Anxiety riddled and devoid of hope. The trauma bond that ties you to your abuser seems unbreakable. But it doesn't need to be this way. The bond can be broken. In this audiobook, I'll use my own 13-year-long story and the lessons I've learned along the way to guide you through breaking the trauma bond.

Spending the night in juvie wasn't the worst thing to happen to seven-year-old Teresa that summer. When her much-anticipated cross-country vacation turns to abduction, Teresa is forced to care for her mother, sister, and twin brothers. Homeless, abused, and afraid in the slums of San Francisco's Tenderloin District, Teresa finds joy in her adventures while fantasizing of a better life. Keeping this dream alive throughout her childhood is what drives her to end the cycle of abuse and poverty.

You love your mother, but she drives you crazy. She controls, criticizes, and butts into your life constantly. Then when you try and set boundaries, the pushback and resulting guilt are so bad you tell yourself...it's just not worth it. Is your mother narcissistic, borderline, or just plain difficult? Are you empathetic, sensitive, and kind? If so, chances are you have fallen into one or all of the hidden psychological traps that constitute the Good Daughter Syndrome.

Imagine waking up one day to discover that you have forgotten everything about your life. Your only link with the past, your only hope for the future, is your identical twin. Now imagine, years later, discovering that your twin had not told you the whole truth about your childhood, your family, and the forces that had shaped you. Why the secrets? Why the silences? You have no choice but to begin again. This has been Alex's reality: a world where memories are just the stories people tell you, where fact and fiction are impossible to distinguish.

In her unflinching memoir, Balascio bravely reveals an astonishing tale of a lifetime of manipulation, unexplained upheavals, and silent fear. Some part of her had always known what her father was capable of, but the full truth of how she came to these revelations is as riveting as it is quietly terrifying. Through searing storytelling, dedicated research, and intimate insight, Raised by a Serial Killer is a gripping, courageous memoir unlike any other.

A light in the darkness for severely troubled children, former special education teacher Torey Hayden faced three of her most extraordinary challenges after she left the classroom. Nine-year-old Cassandra, kidnapped by her father and found starving, dirty, and picking through garbage cans - a child prone to long silences and erratic, violent behavior, whose hard-won recollections of the nightmare she endured could not be fully trusted.

Women can be murderers and child abusers. They can commit acts of extreme and sadistic brutality. And those who do, are outcasts from society and from womanhood itself. They are seen as monsters and angels of death: and must be kept at a safe distance. Anna Motz is a renowned clinical and forensic psychologist in London and New York. Writing with candor, compassion, and a clear-eyed perspective, she explores in depth the shockingly underexamined psychological underpinnings of female violence.

The next book in Louise Allen's Thrown Away Children series.

Possibly one of the most excruciating things a human can experience is narcissistic abuse. It is not something to be taken lightly. By shedding light on the truth, you will finally be able to remove the shackles that have been binding you for years and take back your freedom.

Every family has a dirty uncle. In my family, it was Uncle Dan. Pour a couple beers in him, and he’d start telling inappropriate jokes in front of the whole disapproving family. “A girl only has one heart, so playing with her heart is wrong,” Uncle Dan advised. “Play with her boobs instead -- she’s got two of those.” “I’m feeling a bit depressed today: I just noticed I’ve got a gray pubic hair,” he said. “I didn’t freak out too much when I found it, but the people in the elevator with me looked horrified.” Uncle Dan shook his head sadly and said, “Some people say...

Building the Bonds of Attachment is the third edition of a critically acclaimed book for social workers, therapists, and parents who strive to assist children with reactive attachment disorder. This work is a composite case study of the developmental course of one child following years of abuse and neglect.

Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls' home. At age 15, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. She learned to scrape by, foraging for food and riding subways all night to have a warm place to sleep. Then, when Liz's mother died of AIDS, she decided to take control of her own destiny.

In So Many Freakin’ Secrets, Janet Cheney takes her readers on a journey through her own 1950s/1960s-era dysfunctional upbringing: a life full of secrets, unaddressed emotions, and unhealthy behavior patterns that cultivated a climate of abuse. Punctuated with humor and unusual spurts of joy, Cheney is stymied by unspoken family themes of suppressing grief, hiding abuse, eating away your emotions, "don't talk/don’t share," and withholding love and affection. It all becomes the catalyst to find self-love and learning that all are worthy of love, just for being born.