BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment. You may recall your childhood as a time when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of responsibility in an effort to compensate for your parent’s behavior. These wounds can be healed, and you can move forward in your life.

In this important sequel to Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, author Lindsay Gibson offers powerful tools to help you step back and protect yourself at the first sign of an emotional takeover, make sure your emotions and needs are respected, and break free from the coercive control of emotionally immature parents.

Even though an entire generation of men have openly and freely come out of the closet, gay men still struggle with self-acceptance. Sexually transmitted diseases, depression, and suicide occur more frequently for gay men than straight men. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Through brave individual stories and compassionate analysis, The Velvet Rage explores how shame is insidious, and can be traced back to childhood feelings of “otherness”. Drawing on contemporary psychological research, Alan Downs offers a path to emotional well-being and an end to self-defeating behavior.

Velvet Rage is an empowering book you'll wish you read long ago. It’s not too late to begin the healing process.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.