An eloquent book that explores the impact on one's life of losing a parent as an adult, and the effect it has on families, careers, and friendships -- now in paperback. Losing a parent is an event that happens, sooner or later, to nearly everyone. Yet seldom has the impact of parental death on the identities of adult offspring been examined. This book fills that gap. Backed by her original study and filled with compelling case histories, Secunda's book explores what happens to men and women when they are on their own in ways they have never been before. She addresses myriad issues, including: What does it mean to be living without parents to please or rebel against? How does adult "orphanhood" alter relationships with one's siblings, partner, friends, children, or one's career choices? How does it reshape one's sense of self? Losing Your Parents, Finding Your Self offers the assurance that out of loss can come unforeseen gain -- that on the other side of sorrow, we can discover new hope, wisdom, and strength.

“A book of great value for every daughter and every mother; useful for sons, too.”—Benjamin Spock, M.D. From the Introduction: The goal of this book is to help readers achieve that separation so that they can either find a way to be friends with their mothers, or at least recognize and accept that their mothers did the best they could—even if it wasn't “good enough”—and to stop blaming them. Among the issues to be covered: • To understand how a daughter's attachment to her mother—more so than her relationship with her father—colors all her other relationships, and to analyze why it is more difficult for daughters than sons to separate from their mothers, as well as why daughters are more subject than sons to a mother's manipulation • To recognize the difference between a healthy and a destructive mother-daughter connection, and to define clearly the “bad mommy,” in order to help readers who have trouble acknowledging their childhood losses to begin to comprehend them • To conjugate what I call the “Bad Mommy Taboo”—why our culture is more eager to protect the sanctity of maternity than it is to protect emotionally abused daughters • To describe the evolution of the "unpleasable" mother—in all likelihood, she was bereft of maternal love as a child—and to recognize the huge, and often poignant, stake she has in keeping her grown daughter dependent and off-balance • To illustrate the consequent controlling behavior—in some cases, cloaked in fragility or good intentions—of such mothers, which falls into general patterns, including: the Doormat, the Critic, the Smotherer, the Avenger, the Deserter • To understand that the daughter has a similar stake in either being a slave to or hating her mother—the two sides of her depen dency and immaturity • To illustrate the responsive behavior—and survival mechanisms —of daughters, which is determined in part by such variables as birth rank, family history, and temperament, and which also falls into patterns, including: the Angel, the Superachiever, the Cipher, the Troublemaker, the Defector • To show how to redefine the mother-daughter relationship, so that each can learn to see and accept the other as she is today, appreciating each other's good qualities and not being snared by the bad • Finally, to demonstrate that a redefined relationship with one's mother—adult to adult—frees you from the past, whether that re definition ultimately results in real friendship, affectionate truce, or divorce.

A guide to living life to the fullest after you have lost your parents. It seeks to help people to move beyond grief into the next stage of adult life, demonstrating how to turn a loss that one must accept into a possibility for growth and positive change. The author, Dr Shari Butler, explores the liberating effect the loss of our parents provides and teaches the reader how to understand this experience while releasing them from guilt. She provides exercises to help the reader cope with feeling sad, alone, scared, disconnected, guilty and/or remorseful, and presents a therapeutic plan to help discover and utilize a new kind of freedom.

First you marry a man who does not want children. He cheats and you divorce him. Then you marry the love of your life and find out he does not want to have children with you either. The three he has are more than enough. Although you always wanted to be a mother, you decide he is worth the sacrifice, expecting to have a long happy life together. But that's not what happens. This is the story of how a woman becomes childless by marriage and how it affects every aspect of her life. This is the book of my heart, the one I had to write. Ever since I realized I was not going to have children, I have felt recurring grief and an emptiness in my heart. I am different from most women, but I have found that I am not alone. There are many of us childless women, and I think it's important to share our stories about what it's like when you don't have children in a world where most girls grow up to become mothers. I hope this book offers comfort to those who are childless and understanding to those who are not. If it makes you smile here and there, even better.

This book is not about one story of loss or one grief therapy approach. This book contains exactly what grieving couples have asked for: what they wanted to know in exactly your situation; what they have mentioned and pointed out they would need or would have needed in that horrendous time of loss. Books written by bereaved parents often follow the formula: "My life was beautiful, then my child or baby died and then my life was never the same again. I had to write a book about it." These books are usually self-therapy, rather than a way to help others. Books by therapists often talk about their work from a theoretical basis that lacks personal experience. They discuss people who experience complicated or chronic grief as opposed to encouraging the resilience that lies within each and every one of us. I have experienced the loss of a child and I am a grief therapist, but this book is not a memoir about my loss. Neither is it just a book written from the perspective of a therapist having worked with countless clients experiencing loss. This book focuses on the effect parental bereavement has on the parents and their relationship. It is about surviving loss as a couple and the re-emerging from grief into a life of joy and melancholy, laughter and tears, happiness and sadness. Not either/or but BOTH/AND. This book will, teach you understanding and acceptance of the grieving process each and everyone chooses. In a relationship, each partner is equally responsible to take part in sailing the ship together. Surviving Loss as a Couple is about how you can re-emerge from this crazy ride through the darkness of grief with renewed depth and understanding with your partner. This book is based on bereaved parents' needs, challenges and what they said has helped them, based on a worldwide survey I have conducted. It contains detailed descriptions of what has helped eighteen individuals and couples that I have interviewed, couples in varying situations and at different stages of their journey with grief.

When a parent dies, most adults are seized by an unexpected crisis that can trigger a profound transformation. Using in-depth interviews and national surveys, Dr Umberson explains why the death of a parent has strong effects on adults and looks at protective factors that help some individuals experience better mental health following the death than they did when the parent was alive. This is the first book to rely on sound scientific method to document the significant adverse effects of parental death for adults in a national population. Exploring the social and psychological risk factors that make some people more vulnerable than others, readers will come to view the loss of a parent in a new way: as a turning point in adult development.

A large segment of the population struggles with feelings of being detached from themselves and their loved ones. They feel flawed, and blame themselves. Running on Empty will help them realize that they're suffering not because of something that happened to them in childhood, but because of something that didn't happen. It's the white space in their family picture, the background rather than the foreground. This will be the first self-help book to bring this invisible force to light, educate people about it, and teach them how to overcome it.