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Leaving Home: The Art of Separating from Your Difficult Family
Why, after a childhood of emotional neglect and abuse, would a man move next door to the very parents who caused him pain? And how can a woman emerge from her mother's control in order to form healthy adult relationships?
Giving up family attachments that failed to meet our needs as children, David Celani argues, is the hardest psychological task an adult can undertake. Yet...more
Giving up family attachments that failed to meet our needs as children, David Celani argues, is the hardest psychological task an adult can undertake. Yet...more
Hardcover, 156 pages
Published
January 19th 2005
by Columbia University Press
(first published December 31st 2004)
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Although the author appears to be an excellent psychotherapist in terms of his results, unfortunately he seems largely unable to translate his insights for the reader in this work. The book completely fails to deliver on its goal of "outlin[ing] a quiet and reasonable program for the reader who is interested in separating from his or her family," including "the steps that help one to succeed at this difficult psychological endeavor." In fact, 95% of the book is spent outlining the Object Relatio...more
The writing is actually often awkward, poorly, or not even, edited. For example, it's at least fifth grade grammar to know when to use "a" vs. "an"; sometimes the punctuation is wrong, and sentence structure poor. Yeah, not great from a writerly aspect, but great, great, great in terms of explaining and showing how emotionally and/or physically abused children are damaged by their damaged parents. I think this is an excellent work for students of psychology and for therapists to read. And, certa...more
I read this book accidentally when I worked in a library. It had fallen off a book truck, and I got sucked in on the first page. I never thought of myself as having a bad family, but it was useful to read because he talks about family dynamics in a useful way. Many of the examples are families that are very dysfunctional, but some of the examples are of families that aren't quite so horrible. However, he does provide insights that are particularly useful for dealing with family relations that I...more
Even though I really liked this book, I have to say I felt it was lacking concrete information on how-to serparate oneself and feel good about it. After reading the book, I can now appreciate why it's necessary and that I shouldn't feel guilty about choosing to seperate...but I felt the book focused heavily on examples of those who need to physically seperate themselves. In fact, I'm pretty sure all of the examples involved children who's parents were physically involved in their day-to-day live...more
Extremely useful in my clinical work. Celani draws on object-relations theory and his own clinical practice to craft a thoughtful and comprehensive description of the paradoxical adult attachment of abused children to their abusive parents. His advice is practical, an dh strikes a nice balance between theory and practice application. Some of his case studies seemed a but long and I found myself skimming until I got to the summaries. Nonetheless, an extremely interesting and useful book.
This is one of those life-changing books that I recommended to a friend, who recommended it to everyone he knows, and so on. It's well-written and well-researched.
If you're looking for a book to tell you step by step how to get out from your parents house this is not quite the book. But it is for sure a book which helps you understand how your parents define your future, how to reach adulthood and how to identify illfated family relations. A good book with plenty of well thought advices.
While it's not necessarily a road map, it does provide some great insight and important knowledge/reminders for people struggling with how to relate with & to unhealthy parents. It's a good read for both the individuals in this challenging situation and the people who love them!
May 12, 2013
Mihai
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Dec 20, 2012
Lauren
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Shelves:
counseling-psychology,
families
Dec 06, 2012
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Oct 24, 2012
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