The Emotional Incest Syndrome : What to do When a Parent's Love Rules Your Life

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Summary: This is an incredible book!!!!!!!
Review: A friend recommended this book to me. It is the most powerful book I have ever read in the self-help category. Before reading the book, I felt like I was weird and was the only one who ever experienced the problems I had been facing since childhood. This book helped me to accept that I wasn't the only person in the world with these problems. It helped me to learn to accept my past and deal with it so that I could have a productive and happy future. I have also learned forgiveness as well. I don't usually like having labels associated with people or issues. This book doesn't label anyone or any issue perdsay, but it does help articulate the experiences we've had and identify them. Putting it into words makes the issues clear so that they can be dealt with. I am very grateful for the book and the unique perspective that Dr. Patricia Love has brought to this pervasive problem. Thank you Dr. Love. I am now on the road to happiness and fulfillment, and acceptance!!!!

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Summary: No love in this book of Love
Review: Another in the series of trash-your-family and save yourself books, which begins with the usual composite case history - a woman who is looking for help with the pain of her Nth divorce, only to find out (within the first therapy hour) that it's all her parent's fault. As with so many of us. A check-list, with all the specificity of the daily astrological forecast, is included for those who might doubt that they were incested, albeit emotionally. Any doubt that this incest took place is "denial." To counter this denial, the reader is invited to ask himself his/her parents were more abusive or neglectful than he/she would like to believe. He may be "blocking" or "blind." Love spends one chapter on healthy families,as described by Minuchin - she self-discloses on page after sad page that she never experienced a normal family for herself. The ideal spousal unit (i.e., mother and father) is described: by implication, single or divorced parents might be ipso facto abusers. Ideal parenting characteristics are also listed - in a world with only perfect children and families totally detached from the outside world, no doubt such parenting would produce perfect adults. Validating feelings and setting limits may be more difficult with a hyperactive or drug-addicted child, for instance. And such children, grown, might indeed find themselves in therapy after their Nth divorce... Love's book is a compendium of unsupported assertions; some of them may indeed be true. "People who grow up in enmeshed families are likely to have boundary problems later in life." is one example. The client is (because of the incest) overinvolved or withdrawn - however, some babies are very social, others withdrawn, from birth. Is it all due to parenting? Could being picked on at school affect the child? No study is cited in support of this or any other assertion. Read with care.

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Summary: Get A Grip On Reality
Review: Emotional incest survivors... victims of abuse...
Come on get a grip on reality here.
Incest is a genuinely horrible form of abuse, I have worked years helping survivors put their lives back together and to overcome the abuse, so it really upsets me to see this issue trivialized by people trying to make up a disorder like "Emotional Incest". Come on doctor, look up Dependent Personality Disorder in the DSM IV and stop constructing dumb constructs. I wish I had came across this BS when I was writing my book (Codependent... What A Bore) which exposes such BS disorders... for it would have been one chapter longer.


Rating:
Summary: Read this if you have an enmeshed parent-child relationship!
Review: I have read many. many self-help books...but this is the only one that focuses specifically on this complex and often overwhelming problem. The author exactingly describes "incest" scenarios and the possilble background of your parents that makes them the way they are. I'm now in my 40s, and still struggling with the issues the author discusses...this book has been a tremendous resource. It's comforting to know I'm not alone...now if only we could all form our own support group!

Rating:
Summary: Read this if you have an enmeshed parent-child relationship!
Review: I have read many. many self-help books...but this is the only one that focuses specifically on this complex and often overwhelming problem. The author exactingly describes "incest" scenarios and the possilble background of your parents that makes them the way they are. I'm now in my 40s, and still struggling with the issues the author discusses...this book has been a tremendous resource. It's comforting to know I'm not alone...now if only we could all form our own support group!

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, groundbreaking
Review: I looked for years for a description and diagnosis of my abuse symptoms, and, after years and years of therapy, found this book to be the link between my existing abuse symptoms and my past. The best part of the book is it's forgiving approach. Heal yourself, don't condemn. Know that no parent is perfect, understand the source of the problem, understand what behavior needs to change & practical tips on how to do it.

A fine, insightful -- and I think -- groundbreaking book, though there seem to be others with similar theses.


Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT!
Review: I loved this book. It explained a lot for me and where to go from here. It doesn't blame parents, it helps you to see why it happened and what you can do to heal. I feel very empowered.

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Summary: It truly helped to understand what happened in my childhood.
Review: I read Emotional Incest during a time of great growth and self-understanding. It truly helped me to understand what happened, why it happened and how I could move on and rise above the damage. I am so thankful that I found it. One of the best things is that the language didn't hang me up. I loaned it to someone but want it back so I'm buying a second copy.

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Summary: This information was a revelation toward health for me.
Review: I read this book some 9 years ago when I was having marital problems. A Christian counselor recommended the book. She knew my family personally. The title frightened me, but I found truth in almost every word. I feel the insight I gained into the unhealthy way I had been relating to my husband and children (of course, I thought I was always the healthy one heretofore)enabled me to begin a process of change. I continue to refer to the book in my mind, as I continue to lend out each new copy I purchase to friends who want it and won't return it!

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Summary: A Very Important Book
Review: In this comprehensive book about emotional incest, Pat Love goes into great depth about the causes of emotional incest and its devastating consequences. The author explains how emotional incest can take on many forms, depending on whether the parent is neglectful, critical, or sexual. She also provides helpful exercises throughout the book to help emotional incest survivors come to terms with the abuse. Highly recommended.