The Toxic Parents Survival Guide: Recognizing, Understanding, And Freeing Yourself from These Difficult Relationships
Bryn Collins, MA, LP - Author of Emotional Unavailability
For the people who have endured nightmares or wastelands when it comes to their parental relationships, this book will explore tools allowing you to break the chains that hold you stuck in the mess you didn't create but have had to live with.
Eagan, MN, November 19, 2018 — It's your first relationship, and in many ways the most important one. The relationship we have with our parents should be a nurturing and loving bond, yet for many people it is a source of frustration, puzzlement, confusion, anger, attraction, and rejection interspersed with joy. They last with us our entire lives, even after they no longer live. The Toxic Parents Survival Guide: Recognizing, Understanding, and Freeing Yourself from These Difficult Relationships (HCI-ISBN-9780757321047 - $15.95) is for those who need some different ways to deal with our parent's dysfunctions so that they don't suffer and don't pass along emotional unavailability to the next generation.
Psychologist Bryn Collins explores complicated relationships with emotionally unavailable parents. Whether they were unavailable because of addiction, mental illness, being overly controlling or an iceberg, this imminently practical book willhelp validate your frustration and emotional struggles, help you set clear boundaries, and teach you how to un-mesh yourself and move forward to a place of strength and peace without guilt. The Toxic Parents Survival Guide uses case studies, quizzes, and jargon-free concepts, and Collins profiles the most common types of toxic parents and offers the tactics and tools needed to change and break free of these painful associations.
People who are emotionally unavailable are unwilling or unable to invest emotions in a relationship. This takes many forms. At its core, emotional unavailability is the inability of one person to connect with another in an emotional, appropriate way. Instead, the relationship is unstable, unmanageable, mysterious, and often unfulfilling. Like any skill, emotions have a language.
The Toxic Parents Survival Guide helps those in need to discover:
• How Emotional Location can enable you to stay in the Positive Solver space and bring your toxic parent there to actually solve problems.
• Specific actions to change the family dynamic.
• True stories from others that will validate your struggle and help you find peace.
• How to set clear boundaries and keep them in the face of challenges.
• The keys to a balanced relationship with toxic parents.
• How to distance or remove yourself from a relationship if necessary.
About the Author:
Bryn Collins, MA, LP, is a psychologist and author of Emotional Unavailability. In addition to her writing, she has a busy counseling practice in Eagan, Minnesota, where she sees adolescent and adult clients who are dealing with relationship issues. She is also an entertaining speaker on the issue of relationships. Bryn has been married to Rod Collins for almost thirty years.
Available wherever books are sold or to order from the publisher,
contact: (800) 441- 5569 or www.hcibooks.com
The Toxic Parents Survival Guide Recognizing, Understanding, and Freeing Yourself from These Difficult Relationships
$15.95 – October 2018
ISBN-9780757321047
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Author Interview:
1. Why should a quirky parent be a problem for an adult child? You don't live with them and can just ignore the quirks. Quirks can be ignored until they get in the way of the relationship in one way or another. These parents are also the grandparents of your children and the parents of your siblings. Unless you are completely estranged from them, you will have ongoing interactions which will be tainted by the exaggerated quirks.
2. In the book you say some people don't recognize their own or other's emotions. Why is this important? Emotions are an essential part of relationships. People who are disconnected from their own or other's emotions are likely to have difficult or unconnected relationships that can be harmful or even destructive.
3. What is Emotional Location? Emotional Location is a way of looking at interpersonal relationships. Unfortunately, four of the five locations are dysfunctional. The objective of emotional location is to help everyone meet in the Solver location where problems are identified and solutions are sought.
4. At what point does a relationship with a parent become toxic? If a person's relationship with a parent causes physical or emotional harm, it is toxic. Parents who use drugs or alcohol, who are physically or sexually abusive, who are verbally demeaning or ignore even the most basic boundaries are toxic.
5. Should you always terminate a relationship with a toxic parent? Terminating or at least limiting a relationship with a toxic parent is certainly an option but not always realistic. Try to make contact as limited as possible and terminate if you can.
