Emotional Unavailability : Recognizing It, Understanding It, and Avoiding Its Trap [Paperback]

Bryn Collins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 1998

"Bryan Collins explores the common problem of emotional unavailability from an original, practical, and non-judgemental perspective. This book offers usable solutions to this human dilemma."
Michael Share, Psy.D., L.P.

"Emotional Unavailability is an innotive look at ho a person's emotional style impacts his or her relationship patterns. The book goes beyond definitions of the various styles to provide techniques and tools for change."
James W. Keenan, M.S., L.P.,
Director Power of Relationships, PA

"I kept falling into stories that sounded uncomfortably like some that litter my own personal landscape."
Trudi Hahn
Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Bryn Collins examines the reasons we get into painful, frustrating relationships, and how we can make positive changes without blaming ourselves."
Gerrie E. Summers
Today's Black Woman

In this groundbreaking book, psychologist Bryn Collins opens up the discussion about life with an emotionally unavailable person. Using case studies, quizzes, and jargon-free, easy-to-understand concepts, she profiles the mos common types of emotionally unavailable partners, then offers the skills you need to change these painful associations. Based on her extensive clinical experience, she offers ways to recognize "toxic types" before you get too deeply involved, and she gives the emotionally unavailable partner techniques that teach how to connect with anothe person.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bryn C. Collins, M.A., L.P., is licensed psychologist specializing in relationships, post-traumatic stress disorder, families in crisis, and adult survivors of abuse. She has a Ph.D in philosophy.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (March 11, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809229145
• ISBN-13: 978-0809229147
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Emotions

More About the Author

I learned to be a writer because my parents were great story-tellers. Long car rides were filled with magical frogs, crafty minnows who loved peanut butter sandwiches and dragons who ate chocolate and read romantic fiction. How could I not write?

After undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, I lived in the Virgin Islands where I had a television show (Pots and Patter on Channel 10) and taught SCUBA diving. I lived in Miami and eventually I ended up living in New York where I bought my pink Selectric typewriter and began to write.
The Coral Kill was first. I was very lucky to find my amazing literary agent, Jean Naggar, who continues to represent me now. I then wrote Making It, Ambition, Behind the Badge, Dr. Beautiful (as Christina Blake), then collaborated with Barbara Atlee on Sacred Trusts and Butterfly Avengers. After that came Eve's Rib and then graduate school to become a Psychologist. Those studies and my practice led to Emotional Unavailability which was published in hardcover, hardcover reprint, soft cover, Polish, Czech and Taiwanese Chinese.

I'm currently still working as a Psychologist with a practice in Apple Valley, MN, and continue to write, working on a sequel to The Coral Kill and a non-fiction work about managing difficult people.

I'm very happily married for many years to Rod Collins. We have three dachshunds, much like living in a house full of cartoon characters. We love to travel, go to Mets baseball games, NASCAR races, Spyro Gyra concerts and interesting places. Life is good.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

116 of 120 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great book!, July 13, 2006

By 

Sammy Madison (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Emotional Unavailability : Recognizing It, Understanding It, and Avoiding Its Trap (Paperback)

"Emotional Unavailability" fills a big gap in books about troubled or abusive relationships. The title "Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them" seemed so promising to me when I was trying to figure out the seemingly inexplicable events of what I had thought was the love of my life, but the book told me nothing of value, so then I read "Women Who Love Too Much". Both books, though female readers seemed to love them, did nothing to explain how someone who claimed to love you could lie to you, steal from you, and abuse and denigrate you to others. The books seemed to blame the victim. I for one would never get together with a man who was abusive. The authors of these books assume that a woman in a bad relationship had agreed to the abuse. This is so wrong. I was seduced by a handsome, loving, successful man who seemed to think I was the best woman he had ever met. Only after I had altered my life course to be with him did the strange behavior start, and in the beginning there was always a good explanation. As my emotional and financial investment became greater, his performance as an emotionally stable person disintegrated. At great cost to myself, I left him, but I still wanted to know what had happened and why. The books I read told me nothing. Only through chance did I read a description of narcissistic personality disorder, and after much research found out that many other women had been through the exact same experience as I had, and that there were books written about such destructive relationships with pathological narcissists. Why didn't the books I had turned to in desperation at least mention the possiblity that the abuser has a personality disorder? "Emotional Unavailability" fills this gap. If you are in a bad relationship, and feel like you are not the one who is crazy, this book is the ideal first step in getting to the heart of the problem. Not only will the book help you figure out what is going on in the head of your abuser, it does not hesitate to tell you to get out of the relationship. This sounds rather obvious, but a lot of self help books give tips on STAYING with an abusive partner, and don't even recommend LEAVING. A very useful book.

117 of 124 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book in identifying destructive relationship patterns, April 19, 2005

By 

A Reader with Gratitude and Appreciation (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Emotional Unavailability : Recognizing It, Understanding It, and Avoiding Its Trap (Paperback)

Emotional Unavailability by Bryn C. Collins, is an excellent book for everyone of us learning and identifying different patterns of toxic relationships. The author provides excellent examples of these different patterns through his professional experience as a therapist. To become emotionally available, one sometimes need to open up and be vulnerable, allowing themselves to be potentially be hurt. This is the way one needs to do in order to emotionally connect with others to find a content, joyful and peaceful life. When I was reading this book, I can echo the people I have met who fit into those descriptions to a great extent. The Blamers, the Fixers, the Poor Me, the Player, and the Solver... What a great, accurate observation about patterns of people. I also like the way the author who tries to teach readers how to switch from a blaming/poor me position to be the Solver position ("I'm sorry you feel this way. What can I do to make the situation better?") The author also gave a very accurate picture about what therapy can and cannot do.

However, this is my view and thoughts after reading this book. People are not perfect and they never will be. Every one of us carries some sort of a flaw in some sense in handling human relationships. I think sometimes we need to carry appropriate expectations on others. People can be blamers, getting stuck with the victim mentality, the player attitudes. That is just the way people are. Sometimes people exhibit these traits only on certain occasions while others exhibit these behaviors in consistent basis. Some people are worse. They are narcissists and/or sociopaths. For us to live emotionally healthy, I feel that it is our job to set limits of how much manipulation games, lies, blaming words we are going to tolerate in every relationship. If we have determined people are toxic to us, it is time for us to get up and walk away. If they are our loved ones, of course setting limits and boundaries will be challenging. However, it is also about time for us to set healthy boundaries in order to live in an emotionally healthy life. We ultimately want a content, joyful and peaceful life. Sometimes it is hard to separate us from the drama too, especially if the drama was introduced to us since childhood. However, breaking away from the drama some parents/siblings created is the only way to find peace and harmony. It takes work... but I hope everyone of us can identify and learn from our destructive behavior from the past to create a more healthy, loving and caring relationships with others.

103 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At Last, August 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Emotional Unavailability : Recognizing It, Understanding It, and Avoiding Its Trap (Paperback)

For many years now I have been driving myself wild in a relationship with an 'intellectualizer'who never dares bare a hint of genuine reaction.

Then, searching for yet another source of answers, this book jumped right off the shelf. Emotional unavailability...Could any other phrasing describe the situation better? The contents did not let me down. I read the entire book in a single sitting; not that I had time for such things, but it was so well written, said so much, and flowed so easily, that I felt as if Bryn Collins was there in person. She really speaks from heart as well as the mind; there was no hint of arrogance or hidden agendas for her writing, moreso a desire to enlighten those seeking answers.

I must admit, I started reading this book with the idea of "Ah hah! Here is his problem. This fits him perfectly." What really surprised me was to see myself in there as well, in some ways benefiting from the distancing. This time however I was left with the feeling that things really are not hopeless; though the author goes into depth about which types of relationships are fixable and which are not, and how people and relationships evolve to be as they are.

The biggest surprise was seeing my husband pick up the book of his own accord, actually read it, and then comment about what a great book this is. This was definitely a first.