Family Psychology

A clinical psychologist’s exploration of the modern dilemmas women face in the wake of new motherhood. When Molly Millwood became a mother, she was fully prepared for what she would gain: an adorable baby boy; hard-won mothering skills; and a messy, chaotic, beautiful life. But what she did not expect was what she would lose: aspects of her identity, a baseline level of happiness, a general sense of well-being.

Today's kids have adopted sedentary lifestyles filled with television, video games, and computer screens. But more and more, studies show that children need "rough and tumble" outdoor play in order to develop their sensory, motor, and executive functions. Disturbingly, a lack of movement has been shown to lead to a number of health and cognitive difficulties, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), emotion regulation and sensory processing issues, and aggressiveness at school recess break.

What would it be like to see everyone as a friend? Twelve-year-old Eli D'Angelo has a genetic disorder that obliterates social inhibitions, making him irrepressibly friendly, indiscriminately trusting, and unconditionally loving toward everyone he meets. It also makes him enormously vulnerable. Eli lacks the innate skepticism that will help his peers navigate adolescence more safely - and vastly more successfully.

Dr. Ross Greene, a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the treatment of kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, has worked with thousands of explosive children, and he has good news: these kids aren't attentionseeking, manipulative, or unmotivated, and their parents aren't passive, permissive disciplinarians. Rather, explosive kids are lacking some crucial skills in the domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, and they require a different approach.

Known for his magnetic and radiant personality, Frank spends his time training thousands of clinicians around the world on how to help clients with complex trauma make sense of their suffering. But underneath this charismatic exterior are his dark family secrets, including the marks of child abuse from his father and the invisible scars of shame.

Now updated with new material throughout, Alicia F. Lieberman's The Emotional Life of the Toddler is the seminal, detailed look into the varied and intense emotional life of children aged one to three. Hailed as "groundbreaking" by The Boston Globe after its initial publication, the new edition includes the latest research on this crucial stage of development. Alicia F. Lieberman offers an in-depth examination of toddlers' emotional development and illuminates how to optimize this crucial stage.

Over her decades as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Mona Delahooke has routinely counseled distraught parents who struggle to manage their children’s challenging, sometimes oppositional behaviors. These families are understandably focused on correcting or improving a child’s lack of compliance, emotional outbursts, tantrums, and other “out of control” behavior. But, as she has shared with these families, a perspective shift is needed. Behavior, no matter how challenging, is not the problem but a symptom; a clue about what is happening in a child’s unique physiologic makeup.

"Is this normal picky eating stuff, or is there more going on here?" It's a question many parents worry about, and the same question one mom asked Jennifer Friedman in a session about her son Ryder, who struggled to eat more than chicken nuggets and french fries. In Stories of Extreme Picky Eating, Jennifer invites you into her nutritional therapy office to meet real kids struggling with serious food aversions, and learn the strategies that helped them come to eat a wider variety of nutritious foods with more ease.

This original and lucid account of the complexities of love and its essential role in human well-being draws on the latest scientific research. Three eminent psychiatrists tackle the difficult task of reconciling what artists and thinkers have known for thousands of years about the human heart with what has only recently been learned about the primitive functions of the human brain.

The New York Times best-selling author of Untangled presents an urgently needed guide to the alarming increase in anxiety and stress experienced by girls from elementary school through college.

Most parents understand that free, unstructured playtime is great for children’s development. What they may not know is that playful interaction with parents is also a powerful way for kids to cultivate healthy emotional development and resilience. Kids often want their parents to play with them, but many parents don’t know how to play or see it only as an (often boring) way to kill time. Playing with your kids doesn’t have to mean enrolling in countless parent-and-me classes or getting on all fours and making toy car sounds; the little daily moments together can make the most impact.

Playful Parenting means joining children in their world of play, focusing on connection and confidence, giggling and roughhousing, and following your child's lead. This audiobook is an exciting approach to raising children that will help you nurture close relationships and solve behavior problems.

If you're a parent of one of the more than one million children in this country with obsessive-compulsive disorder, you know how confusing, even frightening, the symptoms of OCD can be. You're terrified of losing your child and angry about the havoc this disorder has wreaked. More than anything, you want to be able to unlock the secrets of OCD, understand the cause, and help your child break free. In this book, Dr. Tamar E. Chansky creates a clear road map to understanding and overcoming OCD based on her successful practice treating hundreds of children and teenagers with this disorder.

Questioning thousands of parents and educators, Dr. Wayne Dyer learned firsthand what people really want for their children. They don't particularly want their kids to go to fancy schools, acquire riches, or live "the good life". They do want them to have personal integrity and high self-esteem, and to grow up with love and peace in their hearts. Children raised the Wayne Dyer way feel useful and needed. They are inner- rather than outer-directed. They live a stress-free life naturally, without resorting to drugs.

Combining cutting-edge research with broad anecdotal evidence from her work as a clinical psychologist to illustrate just how invaluable spirituality is to a child's mental and physical health, Miller translates these findings into practical advice for parents, giving them concrete ways to develop and encourage their children's - as well as their own - well-being. In this provocative, conversation-starting book, Dr. Miller presents us with a pioneering new way to think about parenting our modern youth.

Scottish comedian Fern Brady was told she couldn't be autistic because she'd had loads of boyfriends and is good at eye contact. In this frank and surreal memoir, she delivers a sharp and often hilarious portrait of neurodivergence and living unmasked.

Everyone has loving and wise ancestors they can learn to invoke for support and healing. Coming into relationship with your ancestors empowers you to transform negative family patterns into blessings and encourages good health, self-esteem, clarity of purpose, and better relationships with your living relatives.

When children "push our buttons", we find ourselves reacting in ways that are far from our principles, often further inflaming a situation. When our children are at their worst, they need us to be at our best - or as close to it as we can be. Educator and family counselor Kim John Payne, author of Simplicity Parenting, offers techniques that simply and directly shift these damaging patterns in communication and parental behavior.

Michele Borba has been a teacher, educational consultant, and parent for 40 years - and she's never been more worried than she is about this current generation of kids. The high-achieving students she talks with every day are more accomplished, better educated, and more privileged than ever before. They're also more stressed, unhappier, and struggling with anxiety, depression, and burnout at younger and younger ages - "we're like pretty packages with nothing inside," said one young teen.

A guide to leaving painful, destructive relationships behind - both at home and at work. Toxic relationships are characterized by the slow erosion of self-esteem, a loss of personal identity, or a growing desire to please friends, partners, and family members who are impossible to please. In this uplifting and informative audiobook, psychotherapist Avril Carruthers shows why we get involved in toxic relationships in the first place, and instructs the listener on how to recognize if they’re involved in one.