Healing From Family Rifts : Ten Steps to Finding Peace After Being Cut Off From a Family Member
- ISBN13: 9780071412421
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Ten steps to surviving a family rift, finding peace, and moving on
A family rift is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can face. It can have a profound effect on virtually every aspect of life, causing depression, relationship problems, and even physical illness. Healing From Family Rifts offers hope to those coping with a split in their families. Family therapist Mark Sichel addresses the pain and shame connected with family rifts and offers a way through the crisis and on toward healing and fulfillment. Uniquely, Sichel does not assume that every rift will or even should be mended. Instead, he offers ways to recover from any outcome, including:
A 10-step process to come to terms with the family dynamics that led to the split
Methods to find peace and personal reconciliation
Skills that help to build a second family of people whose values are in line with one’s own
Techniques to fight feelings of guilt when faced with a family rift
Includes inspiring and instructive stories drawn from the author’s patients that help readers put their own situations in perspective.
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What drew me to this book was the fact the author is a psychologist and has been through this experience himself. He can totally relate. The advice is sound and I now sleep better at night and am at peace with myself regarding current rifts in my family. I have recommended this book to others. There is some very good advice here.
Rating: 5 / 5
Healing From Family Rifts : Ten Steps to Finding Peace After Being Cut Off From a Family Member
This book is helpful to those of us in similar estranged family situations, especially since it’s a topic most are reluctant to talk about. Knowing others are dealing with the same issues was helpful.
Rating: 4 / 5
Healing From Family Rifts : Ten Steps to Finding Peace After Being Cut Off From a Family Member
The author of this book is a therapist who was estranged by his parents. He discusses lots of other family estrangement scenarios in the book, but not as much as I would have liked on adult children who have estranged the parents. Still, it’s a very helpful book in which a lot applies to my situation. I do slightly disagree that all estrangements are the same. I don’t think in general that people love their parents with quite the same intensity as they love their kids, so I think being estranged by adult children is a bit worse, akin to children who are abandoned in their youth by their parents.
The book starts out with a bang. On pg.2 there is one of the most empathetic statements I have heard in which he distinguishes trauma caused by family members from other disasters. Somewhat later in the book, he lists the characteristics of “injustice-collectors” vs. “people-pleasers.” A lot of my family including my mother and both kids are clearly “injustice-collectors.” While he doesn’t apply a psychiatric diagnosis to these terms, later in the book he acknowledges that the “injustice-collectors” have poor self-esteem, are unhappy and have many traits of borderlines.
A big part of his message is to eat the anger and resentment while protecting yourself. Some of the examples he gave of turning the other cheek put my stomach on edge and made me wonder if he’d crossed the fine line of accepting abuse.
He recommends a “second-chance” family once your own has turned out to be duds despite all your efforts. I think collecting a loyal and supportive group of friends when you’re younger is a lot easier than at the age at which parents are abandoned by their adult kids. He mentions 10 ways to cultivate and maintain family relationships. They’re all great ideas that would help a lot, but if I could even manage half of them, I should qualify for sainthood. Another helpful hint is 10 steps to letting go of resentment. He’s right again, but a little recognition of how difficult this is would be nice. Finally, he believes we should all acknowledge our complicity. Earlier in the book he tells us not to blame ourselves or re-live the past, but now he sort of changes his tune. Since nobody is perfect, we all have complicity, but in many cases, I think the vast majority of the causation is all on one side, and most of the reparative efforts are one-sided too.
Rating: 4 / 5
Healing From Family Rifts : Ten Steps to Finding Peace After Being Cut Off From a Family Member
When my family voted me off the island, I read everything I could lay my hands on to help me pull myself together and move forward. Three miserable years and many, MANY books later, this one showed up as a “recommendation” and it was as if someone had finally seen me and thrown me a lifeline. It’s the only really meaningful, helpful, and comforting book I’ve picked up. It was a much-needed hand-up from a man whose been there, done that — and more — and lived to write about it, with eloquence, empathy, and sound advice. It helped me make sense of the what and how of it all, and showed me, finally, how to move past the most painful time of my life.
If you ever read these reviews, Mr. Sichel, thank you. Very much.
Rating: 5 / 5
Healing From Family Rifts : Ten Steps to Finding Peace After Being Cut Off From a Family Member
This book was not only remarkably eye-opening to all the problems that I was having with my family, but it helped me to find resolution in my relationship with them. Mark Sichel is an expert at understanding how to find personal peace, despite the worst situation(s) that might come our way with blood ties.
Rating: 5 / 5
Healing From Family Rifts : Ten Steps to Finding Peace After Being Cut Off From a Family Member