From the bestselling author of The Vagina Monologues--a powerful, life-changing examination of abuse and atonement.
"A triumph of artistry and empathy." --Naomi Klein
"A crucial step forward . . . This is an urgently needed book right now." --Jane Fonda
"Unflinching candor . . . immeasurable grace." --Anita Hill
"Courageous, transformative, and yes--healing." --Anne Lamott
Unflinchingly increases our understanding of the human experience. --Michael Cunningham
" The Apology] will change how all of us think about our souls." --Johann Hari
"Shatteringly brilliant." --The Times
The geometry of toxic masculinity is contained within these pages." --Marc Maron
A practical guide to better communication that will break the blackmail cycle for good, by one of the nation's leading therapists, Susan Forward.
"Breathe a sigh of relief Susan Forward helps you identify and correct an intensely destructive and confusing pattern of relating with those you love. I highly recommend this important book --Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., author of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
If you really loved me...
After all I've done for you...
How can you be so selfish...
Do any of the above sound familiar? They're all examples of emotional blackmail, a powerful form of manipulation in which people close to us threaten to punish us for not doing what they want. Emotional blackmailers know how much we value our relationships with them. They know our vulnerabilities and our deepest secrets. They are our mothers, our partners, our bosses and coworkers, our friends and our lovers. And no matter how much they care about us, they use this intimate knowledge to give themselves the payoff they want: our compliance.
Susan Forward knows what pushes our hot buttons. Just as John Gray illuminates the communications gap between the sexes in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, and Harriet Lerner describes an intricate dynamic in The Dance of Anger, so Susan Forward presents the anatomy of a relationship damaged by manipulation, and gives readers an arsenal of tools to fight back.
--Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., author of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
Imagination allows us to step out of the ordinary but also to transform it through our sense of wonder and play, artistic inspiration and innovation, or the eureka moment of a scientific breakthrough. In this book, Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei offers a groundbreaking new understanding of its place in everyday experience as well as the heights of creative achievement.
The Life of Imagination delivers a new conception of imagination that places it at the heart of our engagement with the world--thinking, acting, feeling, making, and being. Gosetti-Ferencei reveals imagination's roots in embodied human cognition and its role in shaping our cognitive ecology. She demonstrates how imagination arises from our material engagements with the world and at the same time endows us with the sense of an inner life, how it both allows us to escape from reality and aids us in better understanding it. Drawing from philosophy, cognitive science, evolutionary anthropology, developmental psychology, literary theory, and aesthetics, Gosetti-Ferencei engages a spectacular range of examples from ordinary thought processes and actions to artistic, scientific, and literary feats to argue that, like consciousness itself, imagination resists reductive explanation. The Life of Imagination offers a vital account of transformative thinking that shows how imagination will be essential in cultivating a future conducive to human flourishing and to that of the life around us.
Sexual abuse not only destroys trust, relationships, and dreams, it also causes grief, stress, and feelings of guilt and shame. This book examines the issues surrounding sexual abuse while looking to God for restoration and peace.
- Includes information about false memory issues
- Indexed for easy reference
- Also available: The Wounded Heart Workbook
This basic text for AA members and groups around the world lays out the principles by which members recover and by which the fellowship functions.
Originally published in 1952, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions is the classic book used by AA members and groups around the world. It lays out the principles by which AA members recover and by which the fellowship functions. The basic text clarifies the Steps which constitute the AA way of life and the Traditions, by which AA maintains its unity.
"Zolbrod shows great courage as she tries to answer difficult and troubling questions about herself and her family, a powerfully rendered struggle that will strike a chord with abuse survivors and their loved ones."
--Publishers Weekly
"Evocative, fiercely intelligent, and beautifully constructed. In telling her story, Zolbrod becomes a time traveler, making elegant leaps from early childhood to her unconventional coming of age to the embattled but deep satisfactions of her own motherhood. The Telling is a necessary memoir in every way." --Claire Dederer, author of Poser: My Life in 23 Poses
Zoe Zolbrod remained silent about her early childhood molestation for nearly a decade. When she finally decided to tell, she wasn't sure what to expect, or what to say. Through a kaleidoscopic series of experiences--Zolbrod hitchhikes with a boyfriend from one coast to another, hangs out in a strip club in Philadelphia, meets and marries her husband, and gives birth to her children--she traces the development of her sexuality, her relationships with men, and the cultivation of her motherhood in the shadow of her childhood sexual abuse. Bolstered with research, Zolbrod argues passionately for the empowerment of sexual abuse victims and the courage it takes to talk about it.
The Telling is an intimate examination of one woman's reckoning with a past she can't always explain, and a life lived in search for the right words.
Zoe Zolbrod's work has appeared in Salon, the Nervous Breakdown, the Weeklings, and the Rumpus, where she serves as the Sunday Editor. Her debut novel Currency won a 2010 Nobbie Award and received an honorable mention by Friends of American Writers. Zolbrod lives in Evanston, Illinois, with her husband and children.
In the 1980's, Janet Woititz broke new ground in our understanding of what it is to be an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. In this updated edition of her bestseller she re-examines the movement and its inclusion of Adult Children from various dysfunctional family backgrounds who share the same characteristics. After decades of working with ACoAs she shares the recovery hints that she has found to work. Read Adult Children of Alcoholics to see where the journey began and for ideas on where to go from here.
Even in the uncertainties of the coronavirus pandemic and the daily decisions of sobriety, there is beauty, grace, and possibility all around us. Here's hope and encouragement for our shared journey from those who have found gifts to share.
Inspiring stories from those who encountered life-changing blessings from seemingly unimportant events. "Why try?" we sometimes ask ourselves when faced with the uncertainties and hard work of recovery. But the answers are all around us, in the rich and spirited lives of those who have made the journey before us, each one a member of the joyful possibilities that await. These possibilities come alive in Gifts of Sobriety, a book that gives immediate meaning to the Big Book's promise: "We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness." In this book, Gifts of Sobriety, those who have freed themselves of alcohol or drug addiction share the gifts that sobriety has given them. Their stories are, in turn, a gift--for those who have made the journey and for those who, just embarking, seek gladdening news of the good life to come
With eloquence, candor, and simplicity, a celebrated author tells the story of his father's alcohol abuse and suicide and traces the influence of this secret on his life as a son, father, husband, minister, and writer.
Finally someone has gone straight to the real experts: hundreds of men and women who have resolved a drinking problem. The best-selling author Anne M. Fletcher asked them a simple question: how did you do it? The result is the first completely unbiased guide for problem drinkers, one that shatters long-held assumptions about alcohol recovery.
Myth: AA is the only way to get sober.Reality: More than half the people Fletcher surveyed recovered without AA. Myth: You can't get sober on your own.
Reality: Many people got sober by themselves. Myth: One drink inevitably leads right back to the bottle.
Reality: A small number of people find they can have an occasional drink. Myth: There's nothing you can do for someone with a drinking problem until he or she is ready.
Reality: Family and friends can make a big difference if they know how to help. Weaving together the success stories of ordinary people and the latest scientific research on the subject, Fletcher uncovers a vital truth: no single path to sobriety is right for every individual. There are many ways to get sober - and stay sober. SOBER FOR GOOD is for anyone who has ever struggled not to drink, coped with someone who has a drinking problem, or secretly wondered, Do I drink too much?
