It Ends With You: Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Family dysfunction often runs through succeeding generations like a snowball rolling down a hill, gathering speed and power as it goes. In 25 years of counseling people in recovery, licensed psychotherapist Tina Tessina has worked with many clients struggling with problems stemming from dysfunctional families-anxiety, depression, feeling out of control, relationship disasters, and a pervasive feeling that they don't know what "normal" is. No matter how old they are, they don't feel like they've really grown up. They never learned the confidence, self-motivation, and emotional management tools they need to live healthy, happy lives, because their families didn't provide good role models, structure, and information. The exercises and guidelines in this book will help you finally understand what a functional family is, how its members are still affected by early experience, and how to develop the skills necessary for successful living and loving. It will help you make sure that the effects of family dysfunction will end with you.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: New Page Books (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564146499
• ISBN-13: 978-1564146496
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #250,383 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It Ends With You - A Brilliant Book, November 28, 2003

By	W. THURSTON "Book Reviewer" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Doctor Tina Tessina's new book tackles a problem that is difficult to live with. Dysfunctional families do cause life long problems for their members. It leaves them with emotional baggage that is very difficult to dispose of.

I know this is true because I live in such a family. The exact details of my problem will not be revealed in this review. But I think it gives me a greater understanding about what Doctor Tessina is trying to achieve than most.

The book explains in easy to understand language about the problems faced by people raised in a non-caring and sharing environment. There are two important aspects of the human psyche that need to be addressed by those damaged by a dysfunctional family. These two aspects are, self-awareness and self-acceptance, together they form the basis of human dignity.

Guidance on how to achieve self-awareness and self-acceptance is well documented. I found the exercises most valuable and relevant to my needs. I am sure that other people in my situation would find them just as useful.

Once a person has accepted who they are and learnt to love themselves, they can relate better to others. The book shows in some detail how to achieve this. If the steps set out in the exercises are practiced regularly I am confident they will bring about positive changes.

To develop as an individual you need to learn new skills, to be shown your deficiencies, your strengths, how to plan ahead, become aware of yourself and be in control. Mastering all of these tasks is impossible without some form of guidance. It Ends With You - is the perfect tool to guide those wanting to grow away from dysfunction, and embark on the path to realizing their true potential. That is a well balanced, loving and caring person.

This is a book that I know will help those seeking to find answers to their dilemma. No one should be made to suffer when a solution is at hand.

I regard this book as the best of it type on this topic and cannot recommend it highly enough.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dr. Tessina Helps You Help Yourself, February 27, 2004

By	P. Riley (Sunrise, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Does everyone have a 'wounded child' in their psyche? And is it really necessary to undergo years of analysis to exorcise these leftovers from childhood? Psychologists are moving away from long, drawn out therapeutic interventions in favor of a much quicker method of helping dislodge dysfunctional patterns to make way for healthy relationships and happy lives. And Prozac and Paxil aren't necessarily part of the picture.
Tina Tessina, PhD, provides a road map for those who are ready to face and change the patterns that prevent happiness and fulfillment in their lives. It Ends With You, Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction, is a self-help tome that makes relatively quick work of years of therapy that some endure on an expensive couch.
Like a fruitful meditation, It Ends With You is a guided visualization through one's past history and into a healthier future. Tessina understands that each of us is in charge of our own mental health, and helps readers find the reigns to take control of their happiness and their lives.
"The task for all of us is to rise above the issues and wounds of childhood," writes Tessina. "Becoming truly adult, autonomous, able to govern ourselves and our responses to those around us."
Tessina takes readers on a journey that examines family patterns that persist for generations, mapping the positive and negative trends to help recognize the habits we've unconsciously brought into our own lives from childhood. She helps us recognize negative habits of thinking and behavior and replace them with positive routines that lead to healthier outcomes. She calls it "recreating yourself."
Tessina uses the weather to help readers identify and understand emotions - comparing sadness to a rainstorm, happiness to a clear, sunny day. She equips readers with the skills to be their own life coaches.
"Ultimately it is you who must do the changing," Tara Solomon, Advice Diva of the Miami Herald advised a reader recently. "When you start believing that you have the ability to change the course of your life, including your relationships with men - no matter what you have been through - you will."
But Tessina also offers guidance on selecting a therapist if the going gets too rough to manage on one's own, and tips to realizing when it's time for help. One way or another, Tessina helps readers put dysfunctional family habits in cold storage, for good
Because as Solomon says, "Don't you want to be happy?"

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Tempering the positives..., December 13, 2007

By	O. Delio - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I wanted to write my own review to temper the glowing and perhaps overly positive reviews preceding mine which led me to buy this book. The book is good, yes, but only if you have little-to-no exposure to other, similar literature dealing with adult children of alcoholics or the roots of codependency (for example). The exercises in the book are useful if you've never kept a journal or practiced another form of self-awareness discovery. Otherwise, you may find them boring and obvious.