In my article THE ABANDONMENT WOUND I mentioned that I would post a list of books to read that I found very helpful. All of them are different in ways, but point towards the core issue of abandonment. Some are geared towards the mother wound and others the father wound or both. I’ll give a short descriptions o you can choose which ones resonate with you best.
book list
This was one of the first books I read in this journey of healing. It opened my eyes to why I felt the way I did and made me realize it none of it was my fault.Here is a little snippet about what this book is about.
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.
I highly recommend this book, especially if just going through a break up. The author goes through the stages of losing someone but in a way through a relationship rather than a death. It is focused all on the abandonment wound, the how and the why and I promise you will feel refreshed after reading this.
FACING LOVE ADDICTION by pia mellody
This one is for the ladies who find themselves in relationship after relationship. Never really having a break in between. Pia outlines the toxic patterns played out by love addicts and love avoidant that are repeated over and over. Showing how our childhood experiences of abandonment influence our choices of partners. I love that in the end of the book she includes a lot of journal exercises to help through the process.
There are three types of attachment. The anxious attached, avoidant attached and secure attached. This book goes into detail on the attachment styles and how they are formed. This book can help you understand your relationships better and gives scenarios for each case further helping you figure out your style. Our attachment styles are formed based off our childhood relationships with our caregivers.
I’m going to post here what the forward of the book says because it best describes this one.
With Mothers Who Can’t Love: A Healing Guide for Daughters, Susan Forward, Ph.D., author of the smash #1 bestseller Toxic Parents, offers a powerful look at the devastating impact unloving mothers have on their daughters—and provides clear, effective techniques for overcoming that painful legacy.
In more than 35 years as a therapist, Forward has worked with large numbers of women struggling to escape the emotional damage inflicted by the women who raised them. Subjected to years of criticism, competition, role-reversal, smothering control, emotional neglect and abuse, these women are plagued by anxiety and depression, relationship problems, lack of confidence and difficulties with trust. They doubt their worth, and even their ability to love.
Forward examines the Narcissistic Mother, the Competitive Mother, the Overly Enmeshed mother, the Control Freak, Mothers who need Mothering, and mothers who abuse or fail to protect their daughters from abuse.
There is one more book I want to share, but I have not yet read it.The reviews are good and its on my reading list. I wouldn’t usually share something I haven’t read yet, but I haven’t shared any books that just focus on the father and would like to. This is the one I will be reading next. I wanted to share it incase it reallly resonated with someone and they needed it now.
THE WOUNDED WOMAN : HEALING THE FATHER- DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP; BY LINDA SCHIERSE LEONARD
DESCRIPTION FROM FORWARD: This book is an invaluable key to self-understanding. Using examples from her own life and the lives of her clients, as well as from dreams, fairy tales, myths, films, and literature, Linda Schierse Leonard, a Jungian analyst, exposes the wound of the spirit that both men and women of our culture bear—a wound that is grounded in a poor relationship between masculine and feminine principles. Leonard speculates that when a father is wounded in his own psychological development, he is not able to give his daughter the care and guidance she needs. Inheriting this wound, she may find that her ability to express herself professionally, intellectually, sexually, and socially is impaired. On a broader scale, Leonard discusses how women compensate for cultural devaluation, resorting to passive submission (“the Eternal Girl”), or a defensive imitation of the masculine (“the Armored Amazon”). The Wounded Woman shows that by understanding the father-daughter wound and working to transform it psychologically, it is possible to achieve a fruitful, caring relationship between men and women, between fathers and daughters, a relationship that honors both the mutuality and the uniqueness of the sexes.
