10 books about dysfunctional families

What happens when children are more mature than their parents? Growing up with an emotionally unavailable, immature, or selfish parent is painful, but rarely discussed. In this breakthrough book, clinical psychologist Lindsay C. Gibson exposes an often overlooked, yet extremely common syndrome that shapes the lives of so many people. Gibson also provides powerful skills to help the adult children of self-centered parents gain the insight they need to move on from feelings of loneliness and abandonment, and find healthy ways to meet their own emotional needs.

In this revised and updated edition of Repeat After Me, Dr. Claudia Black's revolutionary self-help workbook, readers are provided with a step-by-step framework and a guide that takes them through a process to recognize how present challenges are influenced by growing up in a troubled family system, release the parts of the past they wish to leave behind, and take greater responsibility for how they live today.

A resource for daughters of mothers with narcissistic personality disorder explains how to manage feelings of inadequacy and abandonment in the face of inappropriate maternal expectations and conditional love, in a step-by-step guide that shares recommendations for creating a personalized program for self-protection and recovery. Reprint.

A remarkable account of what it means to cut ties to toxic family abuse and thrive in the aftermath.

In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric. Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in the heart of Queens, New York, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. and Donald. A firsthand witness to countless holiday meals and interactions, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humor to sometimes grim, often confounding family events. She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald’s place in the family spotlight and Ivana’s penchant for regifting to her grandmother’s frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump’s favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer’s. Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have sought to parse Donald J. Trump’s lethal flaws. Mary L. Trump has the education, insight, and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick. She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider’s perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world’s most powerful and dysfunctional families.

Everyone suffers when there s an addict in the family. Written by an expert in alcohol and drug addiction and recovery and drawing on her own personal experience with her brother s addiction this no-nonsense guide will help readers understand the causes of addiction, end their enabling behaviors, support their loved one s recovery, and learn how to cope with relapses."

"Surviving the Toxic Family" is a valuable book for anyone trying to recover from the devastating effects of growing up in a toxic or dysfunctional family. Drawing on engaging case studies, this book shows you how it is possible to recover from the trauma associated with a toxic family and leads you through the process to complete recovery. This book utilizes a three step process: Understanding why your family acts the way they do and why they treated you so poorly Changing the rules so that you do not have to continue being mistreated by them Taking your life back and living a life that's more authentic and genuine "Surviving The Toxic Family" promises to be a valuable tool for anyone who has a dysfunctional family, those with a loved one whom struggles with their family, and for therapists seeking to help clients from toxic families. This book provides practical hands-on strategies for surviving even the most toxic and dysfunctional families.

"A tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family, about a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for--and everything she feared. Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting, supportive mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood's exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter--Violet rejects her mother, screams uncontrollably, and becomes a disturbing, disruptive presence at her preschool. Or is it all in Blythe's head? Her husband, Fox, says she's imagining things. What he sees is an overwhelmed wife who can't cope with the day-to-day grind. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well. Then their son Sam is born--and with him, Blythe has the natural, blissful connection she'd always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall-out forces Blythe to face the truth. Here, we see the making and breaking of a family in crystalline detail, and what it feels like when women are not believed. The Push is a tour de force you will read in a sitting, an utterly immersive pageturner that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about our children, and about what happens behind the doors of even the most perfect-looking families. . "--

Patricia Jones, M.A. provides help, hope and advice for how to understand what scapegoating actually is and how to prevent this form of abuse from one's own family of origin, by removing yourself as their "target" and finally finding peace in your adult years. Patricia Jones, M.A. has written this book to those who have discovered that they are the Scapegoat in their families of origin and who as grown adults are still begin scapegoated by their families. The tactics used by these families are slander, lies, blaming, ostracizing the scapegoat, and a complete lack of love and respect, among other things. These toxic methods are so toxic, that their families will even slander the scapegoat to the other relatives and friends of the scapegoat so that it infiltrates their entire extended families and friends. Finding themselves in a "no win" situation with their narcissistic family members, they are desperate to find the answers to this puzzling dilemma and are searching for peace in their lives and a way to end this toxic treatment by their own families. Patricia Jones, M.A. is a therapist who was the scapegoat in her own family of origin and she has written this book as a witness and testimony revealing how she came to understand that there is an evil pattern of "narcissism and psychopathic traits" in these very dysfunctional family members that creates a favorite "golden child" sibling or siblings who can do no wrong, and the "targeted Scapegoat child" who is completely innocent and who does not deserve such unfounded and unjust treatment from their parents and siblings. As a counselor who has counseled hundreds of scapegoats from all over the world, Patricia Jones, M.A. has determined that being the Family Scapegoat has reached "epidemic levels" and is the cause of intense suffering for those "targeted" by their own families for such abuse. She reveals the "root cause" of how and why this is occurring and the solution to how to stop the generational cycle of abuse that occurs in these families. And finally Patricia Jones, M.A. gives hope and confidence to the scapegoated person, detailing how they are not the problem within their dysfunctional families, and never were. It is the narcissistic family members who are the problem and who have been "gas lighting" the scapegoat for their entire lives. She shows the scapegoat how to remove themselves permanently as the "family target" and to move on with their lives without guilt and remorse, and who then can begin to enjoy their lives and find the happiness that has eluded them for years and that they so deserve.

The Dysfunctional Dance Of The Empath And Narcissist takes an in-depth look at the dynamics between the loving, compassionate, and often selfless empaths and those willing to take from them, the self-serving narcissists, and endeavors to uncover the unconscious patterns that keep them trapped in cycles of abusive, toxic relationships.