Treating Attachment Abuse: A Compassionate Approach

by Steven Stosny

Attachment abuse can involve both physical and emotional violence between people in close relationships, which includes couples, parents and their children, and adult children and their aging parents, among others. Attachment abusers blame their victims for their own feelings of shame, inadequacy, or inability to love.

Dr. Stosny's innovative and integrative approach to the treatment of attachment abuse emphasizes the importance of compassion for both the abused and the abuser. This hands-on manual provides a series of treatment modules designed to teach the perpetrators and the victims how to cope with their feelings and to end attachment abuse. This volume will be of interest to psychotherapists, group therapists, social workers, and counselors working with abusive clients and their victims.

290 pages, Hardcover

First published January 15, 1995

About the author

Steven Stosny, Ph.D., is the founder of CompassionPower. His recent books are, Soar Above: How to Use the Most Profound Part of Your Brain Under Any Kind of Stress, Living and Loving after Betrayal, How to Improve your Marriage without Talking about It: Finding Love beyond Words, Love without Hurt, The Powerful Self, and Treating Attachment Abuse. He has treated over 6,000 clients for various forms of anger, abuse, and violence. He has appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” “The Today Show,” “CBS Sunday Morning,” many CNN shows, and in the New York Times, Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, WSJ, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, O, Psychology Today, USA Today. He has taught at the University of Maryland and at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He currently has a blog on Psychologytoday.com with over 9 million views.

Reviews

[Maryann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like a lot of books on attachment difficulties, this book does a great job of explaining exactly how attachment problems affect people, and what kinds of behaviors are likely from men who didn't bond well in childhood, but when it comes to what to do about it, the answers are vague and not very helpful. Plus the book is full of hype about other products you should buy, and that gets old fast.

The author insists that changing mens' ideas about women will not stop battering because their beliefs about the roles of men and women are chosen in order to justify their brutal behavior. I... don't agree.

The book tries to be all sciency with this little controlled study thing they did. I would like to see their results replicated by psychologists not connected with the author before I would give this much credence.