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If You Had Controlling Parents: How to Make Peace with Your Past and Take Your Place in the World
 
 
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If You Had Controlling Parents: How to Make Peace with Your Past and Take Your Place in the World [Paperback]

Dan Neuharth (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)

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Book Description

September 8, 1999

Do you sometimes feel as if you are living your life to please others? Do you give other people the benefit of the doubt but second-guess yourself? Do you struggle with perfectionism, anxiety, lack of confidence, emotional emptiness, or eating disorders? In your intimate relationships, have you found it difficult to get close without losing your sense of self?

If so, you may be among the fifteen million adults in the United States who were raised with unhealthy parental control. In this groundbreaking bestseller by accomplished family therapist Dan Neuharth, Ph.D., you'll discover whether your parents controlled eating, appearance, speech, decisions, feelings, social life, and other aspects of your childhood—and whether that control may underlie problems you still struggle with in adulthood. Packed with inspiring case studies and dozens of practical suggestions, this book shows you how to leave home emotionally so you can improve assertiveness, boundaries, and confidence, quiet you "inner critics," and bring more balance to your moods and relationships. Offering compassion, not blame, Dr. Neuharth helps you make peace with your past and avoid overcontrolling your children and other loved ones.


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If You Had Controlling Parents: How to Make Peace with Your Past and Take Your Place in the World + Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life + Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation, and Guilt to Manipulate You
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As Edmund Burke said, "The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse." This is sometimes excruciatingly true with parents. There are the typically anxious ones who get a little uptight about letting their teenagers borrow the car, and then there are the rigid kinds who won't even let their kids leave the house when they want to--or even eat or go to the bathroom when they need to.

Written for the 14 million adult children who've survived an upbringing with the latter type of parents, If You Had Controlling Parents takes the classic Toxic Parents to a new level. Author Dan Neuharth, Ph.D., a family therapist, knows his subject thoroughly; he survived a childhood with a father who has the candor to refer to himself as "an S.O.B."

Neuharth says, "If your parents controlled you in unhealthy ways, they may have planted land mines in your psyche." Research shows that behaviors and traits exhibited by adult children of controlling parents include the following: depression, low self-esteem, distorted self-image, eating disorders and other addictions, stress-related health problems, inability to sustain an intimate relationship, and more. While this may seem like a heavy lot to handle, Neuharth maintains there's always hope of overcoming the past and changing yourself--even if it means making the drastic move of cutting off contact with one or both of your parents.

He gives a lengthy self-test to determine if your parents were controlling; gives profiles of eight typical styles of controlling parents to help you better recognize how you may be presently affected by your upbringing; and then delves into the process of understanding why your parents acted the way they did in order to start healing emotionally. This is especially important, he says, if you now have children of your own and want to stop the damaging cycle of parental control. He doesn't give a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all recovery plan, but rather suggests several "paths to healing" and exercises to help you, as he terms it, "emotionally leave home." The book's subtitle--"A Guide for Letting Go of Anxiety, Self-Blame and Perfectionism and Improving Assertiveness, Boundaries and Confidence"--says it all. This is self-help at its best. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Although the term "controlling parent" most often brings to mind a domineering parent, there are actually several ways in which a parent may use control. Labeling the types as smothering, cultlike, abusing, using, depriving, perfectionistic, chaotic, and childlike, Neuharth describes the characteristics of each, giving examples. The emphasis is on understanding parenting behaviors and their effects, as the author asserts that understanding is the key to future therapeutic success. The final section describes some steps, e.g., emotionally leaving home and writing down one's experiences, as coping techniques. These ideas are not innovative, but, as self-help materials are always in demand, this would be a beneficial purchase for most public libraries.?Susan McCaffrey, Haslett H.S., MI
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Harper Perennial (September 8, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0060929324
  • ISBN-13: 978-0060929329
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,866 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

48 Reviews
5 star:
 (41)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (48 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic book, May 20, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: If You Had Controlling Parents: How to Make Peace with Your Past and Take Your Place in the World (Paperback)
This book was written for those of us who grew up in an unhealthy environment, and had parents who controlled us in unhealthy ways. The author emphasizes working through our issues as adults, not playing "blame games." Interviews with people from all walks of life are liberally quoted throughout each chapter.

What makes this book exceptional is that the author is advocating education and change, not revenge. He shows how examining your parents' history in detail can help you heal and move forward as a fully functioning adult free to make decisions based on something else than what your parents' would say.

Controlling parents don't have to be outwardly abusive nor do they always have malevolent intentions towards their children. However, trauma stays with a person and its after-effects can be passed on to the next generation.

The author clearly contrasts unhealthy with healthy parenting and offers checklists to help the reader. He explores why people overcontrol, and he provides exercises to help the reader work through his or her feelings. Most helpfully, he reiterates that it was not the reader's fault, and it is not required that the reader change - but if he or she begins to explore that possibility, it can lead to great rewards.

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67 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A book to understand sibling rivalry in "adult children"ÿ, November 20, 1999
This review is from: If You Had Controlling Parents: How to Make Peace with Your Past and Take Your Place in the World (Paperback)
I am a fifty-one year old single parent and college professor who, on the outside, appears to have a successful life. My career goals have been met--twice--and my appearance is one of a confident female in her field. My two children are in college and doing well in this age of disconnectedness between parents and children,

What my friends and colleagues do not see is my inner life of poorly chosen relationships, broken dreams, self-hate, and fear of failure. After years of therapy, I knew that there was something not right in my original family--sibling agression, phobias, etc.--that I feared confronting. Through Dr. Neuharth's book, I targeted the problem and now know I am not unique in being a child of controlling parents, and that my siblings are struggling with their own self-doubt and fear. This book takes a simple approach to understanding a complex problem by explaining why so many of us are still struggling with just trying to grow up. What a revelation!

I recommend this book to anyone who feels there is a problem with themselves but are not able to put their finger on the reason and who would like to finally do so. The format of checklists with dialog cuts to the chase without having to read through volumes of related literature.

I have sent copies to my brothers and sisters and can now feel 'okay' about my decision to put space between my parents and me while I learn to deal with the situation. This was the best book I have ever read to sort out the "whys" of my feelings: a definite 'MUST-READ'!

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105 of 115 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A spark of hope has entered my life........, January 7, 2000
By 
This review is from: If You Had Controlling Parents: How to Make Peace with Your Past and Take Your Place in the World (Paperback)
This book is one of the best self help books I have read in a long time. It dealt more with the emotional than the physical abuse in childhood. I have always had a hard time because to me emotional abuse specially when mixed with religion can be so easily justified in your mind. You can feel like "something is really wrong here", but then in the same breath say "well they love me so much and are just obeying God and what he requires of parents". I have been eaten up with guilt for the rebellion against my parents that I displayed as a teenager. Now though I realize I rebelled against their control, not against them inorder to hurt them or make them miserable. I read this book, started seeing a therapist and confronted my parents and let me tell you how much freedom I feel for the first time in life. I actually feel happy, and a great sense of hope. What do I owe my parents? Why am I so fearful of hurting their feelings? Why can't I just do what is healthy for me? The book answered these questions and the exercises were wonderful. We need more books like this one because obviously there is a problem in parenting that needs to be looked at and changed fast! Kids are becoming more violent, less respectful of authority, and completely losing any conscience what-so-ever. So if I can break the generation sin that has been passed down for generations, then I am thankful I was put in the home I was put in and strong enough to SURVIVE!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Healthy parenting is simple: Raise children well and set them free Being a healthy child is also simple: Play, learn, grow up, and leave home But while both job descriptions are simple, neither is easy. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
many controlling parents, most controlling parents, unhealthy control, inherited distortions, healthier parents, internalized parents, inner tyrants, controlling families, controlling parenting, destructive cults, controlled children, healthier families, eight styles, excess control, emotional separation, healthier balance, actual parents, next style
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Dirty Dozen, Truth Abuse, People Overcontrol, Bantam Books, One Depriving, Ballantine Books, Declaration of Independence, One Cultlike, Mother's Day, Toxic Parents, Deerfield Beach, Health Communications, Independence Day, Making Peace, Method Examples Potential Consequences, One Using, Perhaps Lucy, Perhaps Nathan, Step Three
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