Suggested Books about Domestic Violence and Intimate Partner Violence
The #1 bestseller that has helped heal millions of readers, this modern classic holds the key to understanding codependency and unlocking its hold on your life.
Melody Beattie’s compassionate and insightful look into codependency—the concept of losing oneself in the name of helping another— has helped millions of readers understand that they are powerless to change anyone but themselves and that caring for the self is where healing begins.
Is someone else's problem your problem? If, like so many others, you've lost sight of your own life in the drama of tending to a loved one’s self-destructive behavior, you may be codependent--and you may find yourself in this book. With instructive life stories, personal reflections, exercises, and self-tests, Codependent No More helps you to break old patterns, maintain healthy boundaries, and say no to unhealthy relationships. It offers a clear and achievable path to freedom and a lifetime of healing, hope, and happiness.
This ground-breaking book is even more relevant today, as readers confront new, urgent challenges with greater self-awareness, than it was when it first entered the national conversation over 35 years ago.
For seventeen years The Betrayal Bond has been the primary source for therapists and patients wrestling the effects of emotional pain and harm caused by exploitation from someone they trusted.
Divorce, litigation, incest and child abuse, domestic violence, kidnapping, professional exploitation and religious abuse are all areas of trauma bonding. These are situations and relationships of incredible intensity or importance lend themselves more easily to an exploitation of trust or power.
In The Betrayal Bond, Dr. Carnes presents an in-depth study of these relationships; why they form, who is most susceptible, and how they become so powerful. Dr. Carnes also gives a clear explanation of the bond that compels people to tolerate the intolerable, and for the first time, maps out the brain connection that makes being with hurtful people comparable to 'a drug of choice.' Most importantly, Carnes provides practical steps to identify compulsive attachment patterns and ultimately to change or end them for good.
Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.
In this groundbreaking book, a leading clinical psychiatrist redefines how we think about and treat victims of trauma. A "stunning achievement" that remains a "classic for our generation." (Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., author of The Body Keeps the Score).
Trauma and Recovery is revered as the seminal text on understanding trauma survivors. By placing individual experience in a broader political frame, Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman argues that psychological trauma is inseparable from its social and political context. Drawing on her own research on incest, as well as a vast literature on combat veterans and victims of political terror, she shows surprising parallels between private horrors like child abuse and public horrors like war.
Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most important psychiatry works to be published since Freud," Trauma and Recovery is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand how we heal and are healed.
Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.
Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?”
Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the book, she and Dr. Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future—opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.
In this groundbreaking bestseller, Lundy Bancroft—a counselor who specializes in working with abusive men—uses his knowledge about how abusers think to help women recognize when they are being controlled or devalued, and to find ways to get free of an abusive relationship.
He says he loves you. So...why does he do that?
You’ve asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men—and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn about:
• The early warning signs of abuse
• The nature of abusive thinking
• Myths about abusers
• Ten abusive personality types
• The role of drugs and alcohol
• What you can fix, and what you can’t
• And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely
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See all the books I recommend at Bookshop, and support your local bookstore in the process!
​Offering online counseling for people in Seattle, Bellingham, Tacoma, Olympia, Spokane, and all over Washington; and Miami, Orlando, Gold Coast, Gulf Coast, First Coast, Tampa, Jacksonville, and throughout Florida.
Offering online counseling for people in Seattle, Bellingham, Tacoma, Olympia, Spokane, and all over Washington; and Miami, Orlando, Gold Coast, Gulf Coast, First Coast, Tampa, Jacksonville, and throughout Florida. Serving the following Washington counties, online: ​Adams County, WA, Asotin County, WA​, Benton County, WA, Chelan County, WA​, Clallam County, WA, Clark County, WA​, Columbia County, WA, Cowlitz County, WA​, Douglas County, WA, Ferry County, WA​, Franklin County, WA, Garfield County, WA​, Grant County, WA, Grays Harbor County, WA​, Island County, WA, Jefferson County, WA​, King County, WA, Kitsap County, WA​, Kittitas County, WA, Klickitat County, WA​, Lewis County, WA, Lincoln County, WA​, Mason County, WA, Okanogan County, WA​, Pacific County, WA, Pend Oreille County, WA​, Pierce County, WA, San Juan County, WA​, Skagit County, WA, Skamania County, WA​, Snohomish County, WA, Spokane County, WA​, Stevens County, WA, Thurston County, WA​, Wahkiakum County, WA, Walla Walla County, WA​, Whatcom County, WA, Whitman County, WA​, and Yakima County, WA.
Serving the following counties in Florida, online: Alachua County, FL​, Baker County, FL, Bay County, FL​, Bradford County, FL, Brevard County, FL​, Broward County, FL, Calhoun County, FL​, Charlotte County, FL, Citrus County, FL​, Clay County, FL, Collier County, FL​, Columbia County, FL, DeSoto County, FL​, Dixie County, FL, Duval County, FL​, Escambia County, FL, Flagler County, FL​, Franklin County, FL, Gadsden County, FL​, Gilchrist County, FL, Glades County, FL​, Gulf County, FL, Hamilton County, FL​, Hardee County, FL, Hendry County, FL​, Hernando County, FL, Highlands County, FL​, Hillsborough County, FL, Holmes County, FL​, Indian River County, FL, Jackson County, FL​, Jefferson County, FL, Lafayette County, FL​, Lake County, FL, Lee County, FL​, Leon County, FL, Levy County, FL​, Liberty County, FL, Madison County, FL​, Manatee County, FL, Marion County, FL​, Martin County, FL, Miami-Dade County, FL​, Monroe County, FL, Nassau County, FL​, Okaloosa County, FL, Okeechobee County, FL​, Orange County, FL, Osceola County, FL​, Palm Beach County, FL, Pasco County, FL, Pinellas County, FL​, Polk County, FL, Putnam County, FL​, Saint Johns County, FL, Saint Lucie County, FL​, Santa Rosa County, FL, Sarasota County, FL​, Seminole County, FL, Sumter County, FL​, Suwannee County, FL, Taylor County, FL​, Union County, FL, Volusia County, FL​, Wakulla County, FL, Walton County, FL​, and Washington County, FL.