If there was any single book that applied to nearly all of my clients, this would be the one.  Emotional neglect is incredibly common, super hard to see, and yet it results in complicated feelings and issues that shape personality and behaviour.  AND it’s treatable.

This is a must read for anyone who lives or works with teen girls! Lisa Damour has a delightful understanding and appreciation for teen girls and generously lets the rest of us in on all the secrets. In this book, Lisa aims to untangle the confusion of adolescent development for us and present it as seven transitions that teen girls must go through. In Untangled, Lisa aims to help parents untangle themselves from the “emotional knots we get caught in with our teenage daughters.”

Somehow, when people are able to see that they didn’t run their own lives into the ground on their own, something shifts. They start to believe in themselves again. They start to reject the pieces of culture that don’t bring them life. Things start to get just a tad easier. When we stop thinking that we are the problem, we gain the power to become the solution.

I have been recommending the book, Attached, to lots of clients lately. It’s been around for 12 years now, but seems to be catching on recently. It goes through the three major categories of attachment, giving lots of clear examples of how that shows up in adults and how various combinations work together in relationships.