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Summary: Growing is a necessity
Review: I bought this book about a month ago. This book has validated most of my feelings about my childhood!! I confronted my father years ago, and about a year ago confronted my mother for being the "silent partner". My family has all turned on me, except for one sister (out of five), for upsetting the "family balance". I didn't know there was such a book out there, but am glad I found this book, Toxic Parents. It has helped me understand why my sisters turned on me, and has helped me in my constant feelings of guilt and blame, by validating them. I enjoyed this book, and passed it on to my sister, and bought one for my sister-in-law. I plan to re-read it when my sister gets done, to help me in the confrontation part, since I didn't confront my mother in a mature way. Victims of emotional and physical abuse need to have closures in their lives to grow!!!!!
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Summary: Toxic Parents=Toxic life
Review: This is the second time I have read this book in five years. The first time I used it to understand why my parents behaved the way that they did when I came out of the closet as a Gay man. I have re-read it now 5 years later after leaving a co-dependant relationship and have found even more information in it. It has enabled me to see the damage that is still being caused to me by my parents. It is helping me rebuild my emotional life and not make the same mistakes again. If you think that your parents are not "normal" the chances are that you are right. The chances are that they are also controlling your life right now, even if they are dead! Invest a few dollars and a few hours that will change your life and your understanding of the family unit that you were bought up in. Life can never be the same again
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Summary: An extremely useful book, non-academic and easy to read
Review: Open the front cover to this important book by Dr Susan Forward and almost as an introductory note we are told that toxic parents are the inadequate parents, the controllers, the alcoholics, the verbal abusers, the physical abusers and the sexual abusers. This is not a book about parents who get things wrong. As parents we all get things wrong - I know I do, we all do things that perhaps we regret - this isn't being toxic, it's called being human. These mistakes very rarely do harm. A toxic parent on the other hand is an individual whose behaviour scars and harms their child/ren to such a degree that often it can seem like the there can be no resolution to the damage caused. As a result the children grow into adulthood feeling inadequate, unloved and worthless. This book is about and at the same time is for those adult children. As children, our parents give us a script, a way of being that we use to filter all that we experience. If that script is one that says ' you are worthless, to be abused - sexually, physically, emotionally ' then all I do in my life, all my actions, my reactions and interactions will be through the filter of my lack of worth. This is a book for those adults whose sense of worthlessness underpins all they do. I work as a counsellor and often those I work with tell me that they are responsible for what their parents did. "If I hadn't cuddled Daddy he wouldn't have got in to bed with me", "If I'd done better at school I wouldn't have got punished". A valuable message in this book is that the child is a child not a mini adult. The real adults are the responsible ones and it is they that are accountable for the abuse inflicted on their children. The abused adult child is however responsible for their actions as an adult no matter their experiences as a child. From this perspective the adult abused as a child has it in his/her control to change the script that has been given to them If you want to change your unhealthy script or life pattern this book is for you. There are some aspects of 'Toxic Parents' that I have some professional and personal difficulty with. Chapter Seven for example is titled 'Confrontation: The Road to Independence'. I wouldn't agree that confrontation is the only road to independence, indeed change, growth, self determination and awareness can all be experienced and lived without the need to confront. This aside, Dr Susan Forward has written an extremely useful book, non-academic and easy to read. As a result it will provide to those who have experienced toxic parents a valuable tool for change. The journey to change will be difficult, it will be lined with pain and tears but you can get there, 'Toxic Parents' will be a useful signpost on that journey.
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Summary: From Funhouse to Freedom
Review: As children, we assume that what exists in our home is "normal." Only as adults are we sometimes able to grasp the reality of what life in a dysfunctional family truly was all about. TOXIC PARENTS is a very useful guide to overcoming the often crippling effects of a childhood in an abusive family. In a society which frequently loves to blame the victim, TOXIC PARENTS can help to heal wounds inflicted on children by adults who themselves were the victims of abusive childhoods. PLEASE CLICK ON MY NAME, ABOVE, TO VIEW OTHER TERRIFIC, OFTEN UNDERRATED BOOKS AND CDS.
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Summary: Helpful!
Review: I've been a practicing psychotherapist for 25 years. I frequently recommend books to my clients. I have recommended this book many,many times and each time it has been a valuable, practical and supportive resource for my clients. It's a very difficult task - making peace with such painful situations. Susan Forward's book is a gift. Thank you!
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Summary: Toxic Parents - Toxic Indeed!
Review: A "solid majority" of the clients of Dr. Susan Forward (that is, PhD, not MD)are victims of their abusive parents. They walk into her office saying their childhoods were grand, and in the very next sentence reveal repeated beatings, incest, alcoholism. This is improbable, to say the least. About half the book is a catalogue of horrors inflicted on children by parents. There is no attempt to verify the accusations, nor any allowance for cultural relativity. Symptoms of abuse include pessimism, bad relationships, fear of abandonment, social insecurity, mood swings, perfectionism, and workaholism. That's a solid majority of most people right there. Violence and criminality are not mentioned, though it is generally thought that abuse passes on through the generations. Naturally, adult children of parents who caused such mayhem are advised by Dr. Forward to elicit an apology from their progenitors, and to minimize or eliminate all contact. They are carefully coached to parry any "denial" by the parents they are accusing. I would advise all parents to read this book before investing in therapy for their children.
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Summary: One of the best books I ever read!
Review: I would have to list this book in the top ten best books I ever read in my life. Easily. If you do the exercises, then you'll be pulled out of that "victim" mentality and regain your dignity. I can't say enough about this book!
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Summary: A very supportive approach for abuse survivors
Review: I first read this book six years ago. I found it confronting and very supportive. I believe this book has the power to encourage a lot of personal growth for people who have experienced abuse of all types in their childhood. What I found particularly effective about this book was that it covered a range of abuse patterns, which I believe many abusive parents use. Other books I have read tend to focus on one form of abuse exclusively, whereas if you have experienced physical abuse or sexual abuse, you may be likely to have experienced verbal and psychological abuse also. I read through this book with a pencil in hand, I found so many parts that rang true for me. The checklists in the book are a way of gauging honestly where you in dealing with your life and your relationship with your parents. Now six years later, I have just reread this book and I see how much I have grown in this time. No longer is this book so confronting for me, I was more able to appreciate the suggestions and exercises made. I have been thrilled to see that this book had planted seeds of thought and realisation within me, and that over the years I have been able to instigate real change within me and in my relationship with my parents. These relationships are far more real and true to me. I now speak with more personal authority and honesty to my family. One criticism I have is the way that confrontation is seen as a necessary goal. It is certainly helpful if it feels right and necessary to the reader, but i feel that the most effective form of healing is to reach a point in ourselves where we know our own truth and set out our own rules, whether we need to confront our family with our truths or not. I think in many ways survivors of abuse have attempted to reach out to their families and communicate their feelings, but I take on board that this may be more effective with self-knowledge and improved communication skills.Personally I have tried confrontation and found it ineffective, but by believing in myself, being honest and creating a life that is right for me, I have found freedom. This may not be the case for many readers, so I do not mean to deter you. I offer my silent support. All in all, this is an extremely useful, supportive and valuable book which I would recommend to anyone who wants to improve their relationship with themselves, their families and create a life which has more potential for truth and happiness
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Summary: It¿s hard to recommend this book too highly.
Review: I have been interested in the field of childhood trauma for ten years and found Toxic Parents to be one of the most direct and practical things I have ever read. I think it will be transformational both for individuals who are trying to move beyond a difficult past and for therapists who want to grapple with a remarkably simple and direct approach to psychological healing. The more I think about this book, the more I realize how strange (and telling) it is that the author's approach is not already standard in the fields of self-help and psychotherapy. I suspect it will be before long; it's just too good, too real, and too direct not to become so. There really isn't much else I want to say about this book; read it and decide for yourself. If you're miserable, order it by One-Click. There are several other books that, like Toxic Parents, go to the core issues. For the typical self-helper, these books will be a more challenging read than Toxic Parents, but I think many will find them worth the effort. For therapists and intellectually sophisticated self-helpers, these books are essential. The books I refer to are (a) anything and everything by Alice Miller (including Prisoners of Childhood [read the original text, currently available only in hardcover], For Your Own Good, and Banished Knowledge); (b) Betrayal Trauma by Jennifer Freyd; (c) Making Sense of Suffering by J. Konrad Stettbacher; and (d) Soul Murder by Morton Schatzman. Note that this last book is inexplicably out of print; don't confuse it with an in-print book of the same title by Leonard Schengold; you can get Schatzman's book from libraries or via interlibrary loan. Toxic Parents, plus the other books just listed, should be considered core reading for anyone serious about psychological healing. There might be some others that I haven't "discovered" yet (emails welcome!), but these are pretty darn great. In my view, the world is stuffed full with facile self-help books and bloated psychological trash. If some magical spirit could wipe them all into a big, green, smelly dumpster, and replace them with the books discussed here, the world would rapidly become a much happier and healthier place.
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Summary: Unusually insightful
Review: This book verbalized so much of what I couldn't make sense of as a child. Forward has an unusual understanding of the workings of "toxic parents" -- indeed, the very term "toxic" describes very well (much more descriptive than the word "abusive," which is rather general and is now associated with many things) the nature of such parents. One of the unusually insightful things that Forward does in this book is that she dares to suggest that it is not necessary to forgive one's toxic parents to heal. This is a controversial stance she takes, but from personal experience, I see her statement to ring true. As a client of hers summed up, "God wants me to get better more than he wants me to forgive." Naturally, Forward's statement should not be misconstrued as to mean that you should not forgive. She merely means that forgiveness should come as a second step in the healing process, if at all. The book offers very insightful and helpful healing tools. The checklists and exercises the author has devised are right to the point and obviously evidence a lot of thought and care on the author's part. This seems to be one of the best books out there to help abused children/adults of abusive parents. Bonuses: very little, if any, psychobabble!! Also, very easy-to-read language. For adult abused children dealing with issues related to past abuse, this book will most certainly bring up many emotions.
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