[.ca] Adult Children: The Secrets of Dysfunctional Families (ISBN 0932194532)

Read this book first:
An excellent overview of dysfunctional lifestyles and symptoms, easy to read, with useful, well-researched and thought-provoking information. Not a quick-fix self-help book (to which you can become addicted!) but rather one that goes deep down to the roots of your problems, tells you how and why you got stuck and how to go about getting unstuck (a time-consuming process that you shouldn`t attempt on your own). A bit brief, but encourages you to dig deeper...

It will help you:
I highly recomend this book for it has helped me to grow inorder to help myself and deal with my disfunctions. I purchesed the book years ago and had to replace it recently. I first purchased it after reading "Hidden Guilt" which is no longer in print and not as easy to read. I seem to read the book more as a reference on what not to do in my life and how to move on to better things.

Easy and Extremely Informative:
This book appears at first to deal just with additctions. Further reading proves this book to be excellent reference for any individual suffering from depression, anxiety, childhood trauma and different kinds of abuse suffered during childhood. It explains how being an addict, depressed, anxious etc...are only symptoms of a dysfunctional family system. It will become easier to understand while reading this book why we are the way that we are. It offers comfort, insight, and the how to change if we so choose to. To me this book is the Bible that unlocks the secrets of the symptoms to my sometimes very difficult life.

Achieving Understanding:
This incredible book leads those of us in recovery from dysfunction to attempting normalcy. It is written specifically for those who have no idea what normalcy is. Our parents, who loved us, unknowly led us into a life that is lived without the skills to develop intimacy that is necessary for our closest relationships. The Friels explain our losses without blaming anyone and give concrete ways to help adult children recover their true selves.It explains how some of the most severe comditions of mental illness can be related to our dysfuncional families. Most of all it gives us hope for the future and for developing loving relationships.

A MUST READ BOOK:
This book has really put a lot of things in persepective for me. It tells me why my family is like the way they are and that it is not my fault they are at war with each other. It also has given me a view as to why my husband's family act like they do. It really does shed light on a lot of things about our families.