100 books like The Emotionally Absent Mother

I recommend this book because it is a deep dive into trauma and how it can impact all of our lives. This book helps the reader understand the consequences of trauma and how to ultimately heal from the trauma. In my personal and professional opinion, everyone should read this book to better learn about themselves.

The key to growing and becoming better daily is to have self-awareness. This book helped me develop self-awareness about others and my clients as well. I have learned how to be more empathetic towards others by reading this book.

In this book, a medical doctor makes the connection between suppressed emotions, especially anger and rage, and disease in the body.

When we live inauthentic lives, our bodies manifest this self-abandonment through auto-immune issues (literally the body turning against itself). He notes that women especially have the tendency to abandon themselves to serve others which creates repressed resentments that come out as disease in the body. It helped explain my painful bout with shingles which became a turning point for me in committing to living for myself instead of others.

Pete Walker is most well known for introducing the fourth “F” response when it comes to trauma: FAWN.

For me personally, growing up in an environment where submission and appeasement was key, fawning became a natural state I lived in. Pete’s work helped me understand Complex PTSD on a deeper level and gives incredible tools and interventions to the reader to help navigate through a process of healing. 

This book helped me realize how emotional neglect in my childhood had contributed to my innate sense that something is wrong with me.

Since emotional neglect is more what your parents did not do than what they did, it’s hard to put into words why you feel the way you do. I blamed myself for my struggles and felt completely disconnected from others and the world. I had difficulty understanding and regulating my emotions, and often felt shut down and flat.

The only way to feel good and escape the pain was to drink too much, eat too much sugar, and take unhealthy risks, all of which negatively impacted my life outcomes. This book will help you know you’re not alone and that emotional neglect is a form of abuse.

I read Homecoming before becoming a therapist and at the height of struggling with inner conflicts, the sorts that were born from a neglectful childhood. John Bradshaw taught me how to have those necessary conversations that I would have had as a child, if only I had been an adult. As a child, we haven’t got the experience, skills, or authority to point out what we need to feel protected, supported, or loved. I learnt a lot from following the exercises in Homecoming; one very important realisation was that I needed to re-parent myself and I did the best I could.

If I could have a conversation with John Bradshaw, I’d thank him for his book because without it I would probably have repeated some of the damage done to me, on my own child.

After reading this book, I discovered a new art form.

Lucia was a multifaceted creative professional. She collaborated with schools to train teachers in creative journal writing, developed a method called "healing the inner child," and co-wrote The Arts in Schools program with L.A. school officials.

The book discusses brain functions and ways to enhance creativity. The author recounts her experiment with drawing and writing using her non-dominant hand and encourages readers to try it themselves.

I tried it out as a test subject, and instead of drawing upside down, the author asked me to write a question with my dominant hand and answer it with the other.

The answers were unexpectedly profound, and drawing with my non-dominant hand was an eye-opener.

My students loved this process.

This book, written by my friend and fellow psychotherapist Robert Jackman, helps readers explore unresolved wounds from their childhood. Robert describes his own past, and his journey to assist readers with developing a deeper understanding of their relationships and codependency patterns. As many people are not aware of the unresolved emotional pain that they may carry, this book is a very valuable resource as it explains why childhood trauma may be the root cause of their feelings of depression, anxiety, and other negative emotions. A truly valuable book written by Robert’s own experience healing his lost inner child.

This is Robert Jackman’s second book, which explains why unresolved inner child wounding contributes to codependency patterns in relationships. This book helps the reader develop a deeper understanding of codependency, which, as a result, helps them identify the unresolved trauma that contributes to it. This book is a useful resource to help the reader answer questions as to why they feel their relationship has gone off-track, and why they may struggle with communication. This book is recommended to those who are currently in a relationship or want to avoid falling into the same pattern in their next relationship.

Human creativity is on full peacock feathers out display with this one.

The story is laid out as a series of postcards and letters written between two people. Many of them are letters, on separate pieces of paper tucked inside envelopes that are inside the book. This one will be over the head of younger kids but because of the interactive nature, the colorful pictures, and the solve-a-mystery vibe of the story it could be a fun one to read with slightly older kids. 

For me, I started it one night with my six-year-old and then continued to dig through the letters on the floor next to their bed long after they fell asleep. It feels voyeuristic reading through it. Who are these people? What’s inside this next envelope? Do they know I am reading their letters? It’s clever as hell and a lot of fun to read.

I loved this book as it follows the author’s quest to reconnect with nature and rediscover a sense of enchantment following the challenges of the COVID lockdowns.

Split into the four elements – earth, air, fire, and water – the author describes her explorations of each element in her life and how if leads her back to herself. I love the book as it enabled me to see nature through the author’s eyes, and with a perspective that is in some ways almost entirely different to my own, and in others, in harmony with my own thoughts and feelings. It was indeed an enchanting read.