ReadHowYouWant Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

It looked like it was a fake copy

In some ways, I wish I'd read this book years ago - but I like to think all books arrive when we are ready to take in their message. Taken to heart - this book has the potential to take the reader into more freedom. Just after the first chapter, I felt for myself - for what I had gone through and experienced as a child and how it affected me well into my adulthood. However, the author skillfully guides us through the tough terrain and shows the path towards healthier relationships - with ourselves, with our difficult parents and with emotionally immature others. A really unique and excellent book in my opinion; especially as it ends with identifying emotionally healthy relationships.

I have been trying to make sense of my childhood experiences and my Mother for most of my life - I am now in my 50's. I did psychology A level, trained as a mental health nurse, had counselling & therapy and read numerous books attempting to comprehend a difficult upbringing. I cannot express my thanks enough to Lindsay for writing this. I now have a deeper understanding of my Mother's ways of being and know it was not about me - it was never about me - it was not my fault - there was nothing I could have done and nothing I can do to make it any different. There is much healing and insight to be gained from this book.I am estranged from my Mother and although I do not feel reconciling is an option, it is incredibly helpful to have read this for my own well being.

As a 73-year-old man who, as a much younger man, underwent 12 years of life-saving psychoanalysis, I can vouch for the fact that anyone whose parents did not love him or her, despite all attempts to heal, will most likely live their entire life with a hole in their heart that never quite heals. The condition can be coped with, but never quite eradicated. I'm not a reader of "self-help" books, but was attracted to this one by its title, having no idea that a category like this existed in therapeutic literature. I'm glad I bought it. With nothing more than daily dipping into its pages I have found much that has brought me comfort, a deeper self-knowledge, and a broadened awareness of the ways that my early life still inserts itself into my present behavior. This is powerful, helpful knowledge not only to me but for the ones with whom I live, love and work with. For one thing,Dr. Gibson is spot-on in her observation that certain people, due to their upbringing by rejecting parents, have a hunger for contact with people who think about them in kindly ways. Just having this pointed out to me helps me to see how, in the past, I have occasionally gone overboard, so to speak, with certain friends and acquaintances in my need for emotional support. This kind of information (and this book has plenty more of it) is emotional pay dirt and well worth the investment.

This is such a wonderful and helpful book! I read it in two days and I can’t even express how much it’s helped me understand! Every page hit me with some kind of truth I’d never really known or learned to accept. If you are struggling or even just have slight doubts about the security of the relationship you have with your parents, I highly recommend this book.

This is a fascinating read. It's given me an insight to many of my behaviours and where they have come from. Anyone struggling with their past due to dysfunctional parenting will like this book.