Showing titles in Dysfunctional Families

For more than two years, BBC Radio 4's The Archers ran a disturbing storyline centred on Helen Tichener's abuse at the hands of her husband Rob. Not the kind of abuse that leaves a bruise, but the sort of coercive control that breaks your spirit and makes it almost impossible to walk away. As she listened to the unfolding story, Helen Walmsley-Johnson was forced to confront her own agonising past. Helen's first husband controlled her life, from the people she saw to what was in her bank account.

It's Them, Not You offers a pathway to heal your inner child and break free from past trauma. Whether your solution is to go 'no contact', place new boundaries or reconnect with community, this book is the ultimate handbook to help get unstuck and heal from the strongest wounds.

In A Cult of One, Richard Grannon exposes the insidious effects of narcissistic abuse and shares his own winding road to recognition and recovery. Through martial arts, mysticism, psychedelics, and psychology spanning over four continents and 44 years of life, Grannon discovered a systematic discipline for healing. Join him as he explains step-by-step with courage, humor, and optimism how to forge your own path to a better life.

Stephen Smith is the boy who did not exist. Born out of wedlock in the early 1960s, Steve's parents - both devout Catholics - had felt so 'shamed' by their son's illegitimate birth that they hid him away from the world by locking him in the cellar...for 13 years. Apart from a few admissions to hospital as a result of his 'imprisonment', Steve remained in the coal cellar of the family home where he was deprived of daylight, his childhood, school and human contact until he'd reached his teenage years.

In Gay Girl, Good God, author Jackie Hill Perry shares her own story, offering practical tools that helped her in the process of finding wholeness. Jackie grew up fatherless and experienced gender confusion. She embraced masculinity and homosexuality with every fiber of her being. She knew that Christians had a lot to say about all of the above. But was she supposed to change herself? How was she supposed to stop loving women, when homosexuality felt more natural to her than heterosexuality ever could?

A devastating story of coercive control and domestic homicide. Why would an 'ordinary' father murder his family? On 19 July 2016, Claire and Charlotte Hart were murdered in broad daylight, by the family's father, using a sawed-off shotgun. He then committed suicide. Luke and Ryan Hart, the two surviving sons, open up about their experiences growing up and the circumstances surrounding the murders. They hope to highlight the patterns of behaviour in coercive control and its deadly consequences, improving public awareness and leading to informed discussion on domestic abuse.

When you said, “I do”, you entered marriage with high hopes, dreaming it would be supremely happy. You never intended for it to be miserable. Millions of couples are struggling in desperate marriages. But the story doesn’t have to end there. Dr. Gary Chapman writes, “I believe that in every troubled marriage, one or both partners can take positive steps that have the potential for changing the emotional climate in their marriage.”

When 16-year-old Jess arrives on foster carer Maggie Hartley's doorstep with her newborn son, Jimmy, she has nowhere else to go. Arriving straight from the hospital, having just given birth, Jess is like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Scared, alone, and practically a child herself, she is overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for a newborn without the support of a loving family or her beloved boyfriend. With social services threatening to take baby Jimmy into care, Jess knows that Maggie is her only chance.

You fell in love with him. But over time you've come to realize he's in love with himself - and you feel trapped. His needs, his problems, and his plans always seem to take precedence over yours. Dr. David Hawkins, director of the Marriage Recovery Center, offers a guide to help you identify signs of narcissism, understand how your loved one's issues are affecting you, and prepare a biblical game plan for freeing yourself to live courageously in light of God's love.

Why do women keep themselves small and quiet? Why do they hold back professionally and personally? What fuels the uncertainty and lack of confidence so many women often feel? In this paradigm-shifting book, leading feminist thinker Bethany Webster identifies the source of women’s trauma. She calls it the Mother Wound - the systemic disenfranchisement of women by the patriarchy - and reveals how this cycle is perpetuated by wounded mothers who unconsciously pass on damaging beliefs and behaviors to their daughters.

Following her disastrous first year in the adult world, it's hard to imagine how seventeen-year-old Keri's life could possibly get any worse. However, as anyone who's ever been down can attest to, getting back up can often be difficult without a helping hand...But what if all the hands around you only want to push you down further?

You cannot change a narcissist. But you can change how you deal with one. Psychologist Dr Sarah Davies offers this practical guide to understanding and healing from a relationship with a narcissist. With case studies and expert guidance on rebuilding self-confidence, developing emotional regulation skills and learning mindfulness and grounding techniques, How to Leave A Narcissist For Good will help you turn your back on narcissists and look forward to future loving relationships.

Angie, 6, and sister Polly, 4, are utterly distraught when they arrive to stay with foster carer Cathy Glass. Their older half-sister Ashleigh has accused their father of rape, and the two young sisters have been removed from home to keep them safe. Cathy tries to comfort the girls, but they are inconsolable. They just want their mummy and daddy, who they love dearly. The girls appear to have been well looked after, but as they settle and start to talk of life at home, it becomes clear something is badly wrong.

Those who have had a narcissistic parent can testify to how damaging it can be to one's psyche. Narcissistic parents lack empathy, show a severe sense of entitlement to micromanage the lives of their children, and often subject their children to neglect, as well as emotional, psychological, and physical abuse. From the unique challenges daughters of narcissistic fathers face to the ways in which adverse childhood experiences affect our brains, Shahida Arabi's insightful essays resonate deeply with those who have been raised by narcissistic parents.

Struggling to cope with three young children, Janie turns to experienced foster carer Cathy Glass. Helping the family each morning, Cathy soon uncovers how dangerous their situation has truly become. Riley and his two little siblings, Jayden and Lola, are not safe at home. With all three children in her care, will Cathy be able to rebuild their lives – and Janie’s?

In her unflinching memoir, Balascio bravely reveals an astonishing tale of a lifetime of manipulation, unexplained upheavals, and silent fear. Some part of her had always known what her father was capable of, but the full truth of how she came to these revelations is as riveting as it is quietly terrifying. Through searing storytelling, dedicated research, and intimate insight, Raised by a Serial Killer is a gripping, courageous memoir unlike any other.

A ferocious, sharp, darkly funny, and wholly compelling memoir of families, the pain they can inflict and the legacy they leave, The Erratics has the tightly coiled, compressed energy of an explosive device - it will take your breath away.

It's late on Friday night when Casey's mobile starts to ring. She is expecting it to be her daughter, Riley. But it isn't Riley. It's a woman from the Emergency Duty Team. So begins Casey and Mike's latest fostering challenge - a 15-year-old girl called Keeley who's run away from her long-term foster home 25 miles away.

Being partnered with a narcissist or borderline personality can be hard enough, but learning how to shield children from the fallout is paramount. Here, the authors tell listeners how to manage parenting when a narcissistic or borderline partner is part of the equation.

In her new book, the Sunday Times and New York Times best-selling author of Damaged tells the story of the Dawn, a sweet and seemingly well-balanced girl whose outward appearance masks a traumatic childhood of suffering at the hands of the very people who should have cared for her. Dawn was the first girl Cathy Glass ever fostered. Sweet and seemingly well balanced girl, Dawn's outward appearance masked a traumatic childhood so awful, that even she could not remember it.