Curious, Healing » psychology

“Forgive for Love” by Dr. Fred Luskin

Sonia Connolly — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:40:57 +0000

Subtitle: The Missing Ingredient for a Healthy and Lasting Relationship

Recommended by: my sister

There are some good ideas in this book, delivered in a patronizing, lecturing tone with a lot of repetition. Yes, people choose each other for a reason, and it’s useful to remember that when times get hard. No, staying with someone when pregnant and later having more children with them is not always an uncomplicated free choice in our misogynist society.

One of the recommended techniques is deep breathing to calm the nervous system. I liked the explicit tie from nervous system activation (stress) to continued struggles, and from nervous system calming to forgiveness. The more we can calm our nervous systems, the better we feel, regardless of how others behave.

I also liked the repeated statement that forgiveness and acceptance are two different things. One can forgive someone for behaving badly, and still get out of range of their bad behavior.

Being forgiving means understanding that you can’t force your lover to change just because you are uncomfortable, inconvenienced, or disturbed. It is up to you to manage your emotional reactions, not the responsibility of your partner. Once you are able to forgive, you can deal with the [original] problem with dignity and openness, not blame.”

Other good advice: Notice what does work, since our attention is often drawn to what doesn’t work. Be grateful for the blessing of being loved. Change “You must …” to “I wish…” and drop unenforceable rules. Grieve the losses when you don’t get what you want. Both recognize that you are flawed, and give yourself a break. Forgive yourself.

Sadly, the example couples are all heterosexual and all painfully adherent to their stereotypical gender roles, except in two examples where the roles are still stereotypical but it looks like the names have been swapped.

Race, ethnicity, and income are not mentioned, but all the names and stories read as white, European-American, and middle class.

There was one great example where, early in Dr. Luskin’s couple’s therapy career, a man came in with a long list of complaints about his wife. The therapist sat stunned, thinking that the wife deserved combat pay for putting up with this, and finally responded, “If she met your standards, why would this superwoman hang out with you?” His main point was that the wife forgave the husband for being critical. To me, that highlights the difficult line between forgiving people for having human failings, and tolerating abuse.

Recommended as a first book about forgiveness for heterosexual gender-role compliant white people in monogamous couples, or for anyone else who can be forgiving of the book’s weak points.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“Transition and Beyond” by Reid Vanderburgh

Sonia Connolly — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:57:42 +0000

Transition and Beyond

Subtitle: Observations on Gender Identity

Recommended by: Reid Vanderburgh, MA, LMFT

Speaking as both a trans man and a psychotherapist, Vanderburgh provides a compassionate, detailed tour through all the aspects of gender transition, from contemplation to completion. Client vignettes provide real-world examples.

The book candidly addresses every question I had about gender transition as well as many I had never considered. It does leave lingering differences to grow up socialized as one gender and transition to another. Conscious resocialization is needed. People transitioning male to female learn about losing male privilege and taking up less conversational and physical space to fit in with other women.

People with DID (multiple personalities) can be transgender, and at the same time a history of abuse is a complicating factor. In abusive families, children may desire to be a different gender to feel less vulnerable or identify with a less abusive parent.

Throughout, the book emphasizes the physically dissonant aspects of having the wrong hormones for one’s gender identity.

If a person is capable of developing truly intimate, honest, fulfilling adult relationships in the gender assigned to them at birth—they’re probably not trans. Part of what it means to be trans is an inability to truly mature into adulthood in one’s birth gender assignment.

Vanderburgh advocates a slow, self-observant approach to hormone therapy to help adult clients confirm that they are on the right path. Some transgender children are certain of their identity from toddlerhood and should be fully supported in social and physical transition when they are ready.

Recommended for anyone who is interested in learning in more depth about what it means to be transgender and how to help make transition easier.

Vanderburgh recently announced the closure of his therapeutic practice to pursue teaching and writing opportunities.

Available at Vanderburgh’s website.

“The Mother’s Voice” by Kathy Weingarten

Sonia Connolly — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 04:05:51 +0000

Subtitle: Strengthening Intimacy in Families

I read this by coincidence, and it fits perfectly with themes I’ve been thinking about lately. Kathy Weingarten, a family therapist, addresses double binds that society creates for women around acceptable roles and definitions of success. She talks about dominating behaviors in men and how to address them. She weaves her personal story of motherhood, illness, and family together with societal trends. Throughout, she maintains awareness of intersectional issues of race, class, sexual orientation, and gender.

When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she realized that her need to focus on her health conflicted directly with her need to be a “good mother” by focusing wholly on her pre-adolescent children. This contrast brought to light the invisible constraints society placed on her thoughts about mothering. She includes thoughts about the roles of wives and fathers as well.

At age 7, her son bullied her daughter, then 3 years old. She withdrew from his dominating behavior, and had to consciously reconnect with him. As she connects with him as “like her” rather than disconnecting as “alien, unlike her,” she has leverage to change the roles society prescribes for boys, sons, and men, as well as for mothers.

When she shares her true feelings and thoughts with her children in age-appropriate ways rather than maintaining a perfectly serene front, she builds real connections with them and allows them to see her as a separate person.

I appreciate how much consciousness and intention Weingarten brings to her mothering.

Some passages become repetitive, perhaps in an attempt to convince the reader, but that is a minor flaw. Overall, this is a beautifully written, carefully thought out, intimate gift of a book. Highly recommended.

Available at Guilford Press.

“I Thought We’d Never Speak Again” by Laura Davis

Sonia Connolly — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:48:35 +0000

Subtitle: The Road from Estrangement to Reconciliation

Recommended by: Laura Davis’s website

Laura Davis is co-author of the classic book about healing from incest, “The Courage to Heal.”

This book is written with compassionate awareness that not all stories have happy endings and not all estrangements can be reconciled. Nevertheless, I cried while reading it, for all the estrangements I have been unable to reconcile, and for all the reconciliations that turned out to be grave mistakes, and for all the fears that I should have been able to do it all better.

It has concrete suggestions for how to evaluate the possibility of reconciliation and take steps toward it, as well as a variety of gritty, beautiful stories about others’ attempts and successes. Davis’ reconciliation with her mother is woven through the book.

Recommended, if you have the time and energy to work through the feelings it might bring up.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“In an Unspoken Voice” by Peter A. Levine, PhD

Sonia Connolly — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 05:46:00 +0000

Subtitle: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness

This book is billed as a “culmination of his life’s work” on the back cover. It recapitulates material from Peter Levine’s earlier book “Waking the Tiger” about trauma and the nervous system, and uses many of the same case studies covered in the Somatic Experiencing curriculum. Somatic Experiencing is Levine’s protocol for healing trauma, taught through the Foundation for Human Enrichment.

I liked his emphasis on the need for therapists to be present, flexible, and cooperative, rather than distant, rigid, and controlling. I liked his quote from an (unidentified) soldier returned from Iraq: “I have a Post-Traumatic Stress Injury, not Disorder.”

I liked his distinction between awareness and introspection: awareness is experiencing the inner glow of an ember, while introspection is examining it with an external flashlight. Awareness allows; introspection dissects. He also distinguishes between feelings (bodily sensations), and emotions (fear, anger, etc.) which arise when impulses are interrupted.

There are some annoying aspects to the book, starting with overuse of italics for emphasis. When discussing the history of scientific discoveries about trauma, emotions, and the nervous system, he repeatedly uses the words “prescience” or “prescient” regarding earlier researchers, even though they clearly did actual science. When talking about the calming effect of being near a peaceful person, he names three specific famous men and the generic “loving mother peacefully nursing her infant.”

This book would make a good textbook for Somatic Experiencing classes (aside from the annoying bits). It is too dense for a layperson to enjoy, and yet doesn’t cover the healing process in enough detail to be a technical reference on its own.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t)” by Brene Brown

Sonia Connolly — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 04:03:19 +0000

Subtitle: Telling the Trust About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power

Recommended by: Pam Lyons

Brene Brown researches shame by listening to people’s stories. This book focuses on women for the most part, although she mentions how men’s experience of shame differs at the end of the book. The content overlaps with The Gifts of Imperfection quite a bit.

She describes shame as a “full-contact” emotion because it includes visceral and physical responses. Yes, emotions are physical. All of them. I became suddenly wary of an author who seems to live primarily in her head.

The writing tone is breezy and casual, overlaying the formal language of research. I can see the effort she put into structuring the anecdotes and creating the ideas of the shame web (people who engender shame) and connection network (people who support shame resilience) complete with cute iconic drawings.

On page 9 she puts in an “early call for compassion,” acknowledging that stories about shame are difficult to read, so we often leap to judgment rather than compassion to distance ourselves. I wonder how much of my reactions to the book fall in that category.

I appreciated her explicit inclusion of diverse women across race, class, sexual orientation, age, and religious identity. She includes a lot of her own stories, so there is a pronounced tilt toward mid/upper class white educated heterosexual married mothers of young children, but other voices are represented as well. She specifically mentions hair texture and skin tone as issues for women of color, for example.

One helpful bit for me was the typical responses to shame: moving toward, moving away, or moving against. I seem to have a lot of the moving toward response, and I hadn’t seen that reflected before. It’s not just me!

I’ve done a lot of personal work with shame and authenticity over the years. I suspect this book would be more useful for someone who has not thought about the subject as much. As I think about the fairly basic material and its presentation as earth-shaking new discoveries, I continue to get a sense that the author is disconnected from ongoing work about shame and community. Maybe no one else is pursuing that work in an academic context.

Edited to add: I thought a lot about the sense of distancing I got from the book, and the early disclaimer about shame being distancing. I decided my experience was valid (imagine that!) and the early disclaimer was the equivalent of “I don’t mean to be offensive, but [something offensive].” “I don’t mean to be distancing, but [distancing book].” I find it interesting that it took so much thought to validate my own experience.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“The Not So Big Life” by Sarah Susanka

Sonia Connolly — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 23:45:16 +0000

Subtitle: Making Room For What Really Matters

Sarah Susanka is a renowned architect, author of the “Not So Big House” series. This book is beautifully architected with parallels between life remodeling and house remodeling. For the target audience of people with plenty of money and a shortage of time, the book offers substantial, detailed advice on how to make satisfying life choices.

The topics include, among others, noticing inspiration, removing clutter, meditation, dream analysis, and maintenance of your newly remodeled life.

Susanka uses a Jungian approach to dreams where every element of the dream represents the dreamer in some way. She also espouses the Jungian belief that the external world is a perfect mirror of the internal world. I am wary of Jungian psychology since a session with a Jungian therapist whose only tool was to ask me how the abuse I received had benefited me.

I read this book because I have already chosen to lead a “not so big life” and I was looking for validation of my choices. Since I’m not in the target market for the book, I was left with the feeling that it is more valid to be wealthy, overwhelmed, and in need of life-downsizing than it is to have already chosen a less lucrative, more meditative path.

One thing I did get from the book is the idea that whatever I’m doing now is my life. I don’t have to keep looking around to check if I’m doing the right thing or not.

In summary, if you’re in the target audience of this book, I think you’ll get a lot out of it.

A typographical note: Since I’m designing my own book, I’ve been paying close attention to book typesetting. Oddly, this book is set in a sans serif font, Quadraat Sans. It grabs my attention every time I open the book (although I had to look at the colophon for the name of the font).

Available at Powell’s Books.

“The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown

Sonia Connolly — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 03:26:43 +0000

Subtitle: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Addtional subtitle: Your guide to a wholehearted life

Recommended by: Brene Brown’s Ted talk on vulnerability

Brene Brown studies shame resilience and wholehearted living by collecting people’s stories and searching for patterns of what works and what doesn’t. It turns out that perfectionism doesn’t work. Neither does changing ourselves to fit in. Nor seeking certainty.

What does work? Worthiness, rest, play, trust, faith, intuition, hope, authenticity, love, belonging, joy, gratitude, creativity. Embracing tenderness and vulnerability.

The four elements of shame resilience: Name it. Talk about it. Own your story. Tell your story. But only to someone who has earned the right to hear it and won’t shame you further.

The gifts of imperfection: courage, compassion, and connection. Courage – originally “speaking one’s mind by telling all of one’s heart.” Compassionate boundaries and accountability. “Compassionate people are boundaried people.” “Love and belonging are always uncertain.”

“Revolution might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance. Choosing to live and love with our whole hearts is an act of defiance. You’re going to confuse, piss off, and terrify a lot of people – including yourself.”

This book went by too fast. I wanted more of the validation and relief I felt as I read.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“Undefended Love” by Jett Psaris and Marlena Lyons

Sonia Connolly — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:43:01 +0000

A thought-provoking book, more profound than I expected. Refreshingly, both same-gender and opposite-gender couples are used for the examples.

The authors warn several times to be sure a relationship is not abusive before using it as a crucible for personal work. This is a warning that’s missing from most relationship books I’ve read, which instead blithely assure the reader that one-sided work can fix everything.

The requirements for a close relationship are covered first: Reciprocity, Entitlement, Approval, Consensus, and Trustworthiness, conveniently abbreviated REACT.

In an non-abusive, close relationship, conflicts can help the partners look inward to discover their “Cracked Identity,” pass through the agony of the Black Hole instead of defending against it, and emerge into peaceful, joyous essence on the other side.

This is similar to the process of accepting and integrating past trauma, so that all made sense to me.

I was less comfortable with the hierarchy of needs, wants, desires, preferences, and no preferences. It’s too easy for me to pretend my needs aren’t important when I know it’s “more enlightened” not to have preferences at all. At the same time, I know that an issue will be much less urgent for me if I have processed past associations with it.

Despite the much-needed warnings about abusive relationships, I am still uneasy about the power dynamics that aren’t addressed. Calmly witnessing someone’s deep personal work takes training, and it’s not necessarily healthy for couples to act as therapists for each other. Also, saying that it’s better to act from essence than from personality is yet another judgment of ourselves and each other.

That said, the more people healing their inner wounds, the better!

Available at Powell’s Books.

“Nasty People” by Jay Carter

Sonia Connolly — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:38:25 +0000

Subtitle: How to stop being hurt by them without becoming one of them

Re-read while writing my double bind article.

The first half of this book talks about invalidators and how subtle and awful they can be. The tone is affirming and validating for those who have been invalidated in the past.

The second half abruptly changes tone and says there are no invalidators, only people using invalidating mechanisms which can be catching from one person to another. It is true that we have all invalidated others at times, but the shift felt awkward and unsettling.

The gap is bridged by saying that 1% of people are incorrigibly invalidating, but 20% can change their ways with suitable feedback.

I had a mixed reaction to this book. It contains some helpful information, delivered as absolute statements, some of which contradict each other, and many of which talk down to the reader.

Available at Powell’s Books.