Have you been especially troubled by your relationship with a parent? Have you struggled to understand the difficulties in that relationship? Despite your efforts, has this relationship failed to improve? It may be that your parent has a personality disorder. Personality disorders are long-standing in nature, undergo little change, and end up hurting others, particularly family members. This damage may occur through a self-centered approach to life as well poor decisions (such as addictions, problematic spending, and selecting poor relationship partners). People with personality disorders also harm through their inability to be honest (factually and emotionally), as well as their emotional or physical overreactions to situations. In this book, you'll begin to understand the essential nature of a personality disorder and how it applies to your parent. As examples, the authors describe two in-depth cases. Each case illustrates one of two personality disorder styles that appear to be relatively common: the intrusive personality style and the distant-hostile personality style. The authors offer a number of practical tactics for transcending, both psychologically and spiritually, the problematic past of having been raised by a parent with a personality disorder. This book is designed to offer supportive guidance in the murky terrain of toxic parent-child relationships. It's a must-read for everyone trying to understand and resolve difficulties in their relationships with their parents.
About the Author: "This is a valuable book. It makes the point that if one or both your parents were to any degree immature and self-serving, or their parenting was deficient and harmful in some way through any other form of 'personality disorder', you have a choice: to see this as an obstacle (and risk getting stuck) or see it as an opportunity (and start to grow). It gives you the chance to transcend victimhood and use your painful experiences as the fuel for a kind of pilgrimage of personal and spiritual development. Then the authors tell you how to go about it. I recommend it." Larry Culliford, author of 'Love, Healing & Happiness' (O Books, 2007) and 'The Psychology of Spirituality: an introduction' (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2011). Randy A. Sansone, M.D., is a professor of psychiatry and internal medicine at Wright State University School of Medicine in Dayton, OH. Dr. Sansone has published more than 400 articles and book chapters. He co-edited the books "Self-Harm Behavior and Eating Disorders" and "Personality Disorders and Eating Disorders," and co-authored the book "Borderline Personality Disorder in the Medical Setting." Dr. Sansone has maintained an active interest in the treatment and research of personality disorders throughout his career. Michael W. Wiederman, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Columbia College in Columbia, SC. Dr. Wiederman has published more than 200 articles. He authored the book "Understanding Sexuality Research," co-authored "The Complete Guide to Graduate School Admission: Psychology and Related Fields," and co-edited the "Handbook for Conducting Research on Human Sexuality."