According to my mother, my first words were, “what’s that?” and I believe that’s indicative of the level of curiosity with which I try to approach life. That curiosity led me to write books about how we can better love ourselves and each other when depression is gumming up the works. Talking about mental illness is hard, and I aim to make it easier. I’m not a doctor or therapist. I am best described as a “sex writer with a theatre degree” and I like to say my work focuses on sex, mental health, and how none of us are broken.
Shame is a big piece of the mental illness puzzle; it can be both a symptom and what keeps us from reaching out when we struggle. I didn’t really understand that until I read Brené Brown’s extensive work on the subject of shame.
I recommend Rising Strong specifically because in addition to helping to understand the shame piece, it gave me a useful tool. Brown talks about the stories we tell ourselves that are often rooted in our fears. For me that resonated because when my depression gets worse my brain tells me darker and darker stories about everything.
This book helped me see that and communicate it. Learning to say “the story I'm telling myself right now is” was a relationship game changer, especially during dark times.
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As a philosopher, I’m not just interested in solving ‘academic’ problems that arise from philosophical inquiry. I also think philosophy should return to the role it often had in the ancient world, as a tool for helping us navigate the perennial challenges that being human presents us. Much of my own philosophical work has sought to help us figure out how to relate to arguably the biggest challenge we face: that we inevitably die. The books on this list are powerful examples of how philosophy can provide us with an emotional compass!
Like many emotions, shame seems like a double-edged sword. Shame seems to notify us that we haven’t lived up to our own ideals – that we’re not the people we thought or hoped we were. But shame has, as Thomason carefully delineates, a dark side: Shame can lead us to withdraw from the world in order not to be seen, and too often shame is a precursor to self-destructive behaviors. Naked ultimately argues that we need shame despite these drawbacks. Thomason’s book is also among the very best of recent books to use philosophical tools to investigate social media; her discussion of online shaming should not be missed.
We know shame can be a morally valuable emotion that helps us to realize when we fail to be the kinds of people we aspire to be. We feel shame when we fail to live up to the norms, standards, and ideals that we value as part of a virtuous life. But the lived reality of shame is far more complex and far darker than this - the gut-level experience of shame that has little to do with failing to reach our ideals. We feel shame viscerally about nudity, sex, our bodies, and weaknesses or flaws that we can't control.…
My parents survived the Killing Fields of Cambodia and the aftermath of the Vietnam War, so their love for us was always tinged with anxiety, fear, and a large deal of paranoia and control. All of my books are about the complex relationship between parents and their children, and the things we knowingly or unknowingly pass down. I’ve also worked a number of years as a university student counsellor, where the same enduring themes play out in my students’ experiences. So naturally, I am drawn to stories that explore difficult but loving family dynamics.
Renee’s father was in jail for murder, and her mother never got over the shame. This book is about family secrets and how corrosive they can be, and also how a child survives a manipulative mother. I was floored by the wild level of pain a parent could inadvertently bestow on their child, but there is also much grace and love in this memoir.
A gripping memoir that reads like a psychological thriller... When Anne wakes in hospital, she is unable to recognise anyone or anything, mistaking herself for a young girl at first. She can talk but cannot remember much, including, as it turns out, the birth of her daughter, her rocky relationship with a man who is said to be her husband, and a mysterious man she feels a deep longing for but is warned against. As Anne tries to recover and piece together what has happened, fragments of memory come back but do little to help and sometimes confuse her further.…
I was living one of the darkest periods of my life when a friend took me to a Louise Bourgeois show. I wandered among her pieces feeling numb. Then I entered a large room filled with Passage Dangereux from 1997. A most depressing art piece that put me into contact with the restrictions in a family, the limitations we set for each other, and the unhappiness everywhere. When I left the room, I felt a lift in my spirits. I’m a writer to try to put more precise words to what goes on inside ourselves when we are alone and when we fall in love and enter into a relationship with another person.
This is a very dear book to me since I came across it in a book review 15 years ago. It is an amazing book if you struggle with toxic shame, which I did and do, since such a thing never leaves completely. It can be put into you at a very young age and if that is taking place it becomes invisible. This book made it visible for me. It also gave me the tools to deal with it. But the book mainly gave me what felt like the full insight into a force that was governing my life without me knowing anything but a mere fraction of it. Thank you, John Bradshaw!
"I used to drink," writes John Bradshaw, "to solve the problems caused by drinking. The more I drank to relieve my shame-based loneliness and hurt, the more I felt ashamed."
Shame is the motivator behind our toxic behaviors: the compulsion, co-dependency, addiction and drive to superachieve that breaks down the family and destroys personal lives. This book has helped millions identify their personal shame, understand the underlying reasons for it, address these root causes and release themselves from the shame that binds them to their past failures.
Key Features
This is not just a recovery book. Among other things, it…
I spent many years deeply angry at my parents and not really understanding why. When I found out about shame, and how it was passed down from generation to generation, I was finally able to crack the code. Their “permissiveness” was actually neglect. Without meaning to, they had put their shame on me and I was still suffering from not really being seen. I made it my mission to help others heal their shame so they can be better people and better parents, and live fuller lives. I am the co-director of the Center for Healing Shame and co-author of Embracing Shame.
Though it was written in the 1980s, I still found this the most personal, most accurate and most interesting book on shame.
Reading this book opened my eyes and launched me into my career as a teacher of how to heal shame. Kaufman is a true expert on shame and has written many other excellent books, including one about kids and one about alternative sexuality. I like this book best because it is his most personal. John Bradshaw based Healing the Shame that Binds You on this book.
All of us embrace a common humanity in which we search for meaning in living, for essential belonging with others, and for valuing of who we are as unique individuals. We need to feel that we are worthwhile in some special way, as well as whole inside. We yearn to feel that our lives are useful, that what we do and who we are, do matter. Yet times come upon us when doubt creeps inside, as if an inner voice whispers despair.
Above all else, shame reveals the self inside the person, thereby exposing it to view. To feel shame…
While growing up in Spain, history was not my favorite subject. As told at school, it was a dreadful, long list of kings and battles. But, from time to time, I discovered, among the dry facts, a legend, a romanticized story of an event long past that ignited my imagination. Among these legends, the defeat of the last Visigoth king by the Arabs and the Asturian chieftain Pelayo’s consequent victory over them were my favorites. I believe these two stories, that figure so predominantly in my writing, are behind my love for books full of romance and adventure that take place in ancient worlds, like the ones I recommend here.
One of my all-time favorite series, The Shamer Chronicles, forces us to take a harder look at the nature of power and the real meaning of courage.
In The Shamer’s War, Dina, our protagonist, is thirteen and in love for the first time. The object of her unrequited affections is none other than Nico, the rightful heir to Dunark who has taken refuge with her family. When Nico decides to challenge his half-brother to stop his thirst for blood, Dina follows him. But this time, even her powers may not be able to protect them from the war that’s coming.
Unrequited love, dragons, magical powers, a reluctant hero, a strong antagonist, and a well-plotted story makes The Shamer’s War a worthy conclusion to this series.
The Dragon Lord of Dunark will stop at nothing in his persecution of Shamers, and he is determined to crush any community that shelters them. Those struggling to resist his cruel power have realised that hiding won't work any more. It's time to fight back.
But as preparations for the rebellion begin, Dina starts to have doubts - can she really be part of a plan to unleash war? There must be another way, but can she find it before her world is torn apart?
In That’s What Friends Do, the #MeToo experience that Sammie’s mom shares with Sammie is my story. I was thirteen. I never told anyone. Even as I started writing my novel, it didn’t occur to me to share with my husband, or my teenage children, my experience. But one evening, as the #MeToo movement was exploding in the media, I was sitting around a dinner table with several other couples. All of the women had had a #MeToo experience. Most of us were young teens when it happened. Shame and guilt had kept us silent for far too long. My novel – and the others on my list – are working to break through that silence.
This lyrical novel-in-verse tells the story of fifth-grader, Tori, whose uncle does something bad to her on the couch in the basement of her house. The story begins immediately after the incident, which is described very obliquely, and beautifully captures Tori’s shock, shame, anger, and profound sense of brokenness. Adults who should listen to her and help her don’t always come through, and Tori’s shame also causes her to pull away from her closest friends. But slowly, with the help of her mom, her little sister, and her teacher, Tori begins to speak up.I thought Sonja Solter beautifully captured Tori’s grief, her retreat to silence and smallness, and her gradual, incremental healing process. I especially loved Tori’s relationship with her little sister and how it evolves.
When you know what I know, you'll wish you didn't.
It's not the kind of thing you can talk about at school, or at the park, or anywhere, with a new friend or an old one, or even with your sister. (She's too little.)
But it's everywhere once you know, once you can't not know. In your face, under your eyelids. If you turn your back on it, there it is anyway.
One day after school, in the basement on the couch, Tori's uncle did something bad. Afterwards, Tori did the right thing, and told her mom. But even if…
I am a psychoanalyst, AEDP psychotherapist, emotions educator, author, speaker, and blogger. My passion is sharing what I learned in my psychotherapy training with people interested in improving their emotional health. I became increasingly outraged that everyone did not have access to this crucial information on emotions so I started writing and teaching. After almost 20 years of teaching and using the Change Triangle, I have found it to be the most practical tool to increase emotional health and to reduce and heal anxiety and depression at its roots for lasting change. It is a true game-changer for well-being.
I recommend The Psychology of Shame by Gershen Kaufman because it is a manual for how to be with others in ways that are loving, kind, healthy, and healing. Our societies shame us left and right. And deep-seated toxic shame ultimately causes mental illnesses like chronic anxiety, eating disorders, addictions, and depression.
In this classic volume, Kaufman synthesizes object relations theory, interpersonal theory, and, in particular, Silvan Tompkins's affect theory, to provide a powerful and multidimensional view of shame. Using his own clinical experience, he illustrates the application of affect theory to general classes of shame-based syndromes including compulsive; schizoid, depressive, and paranoid; sexual dysfunction; splitting; and sociopathic. This second edition includes two new chapters in which Dr. Kaufman presents shame as a societal dynamic and shows its impact on culture. He examines the role of shame in shaping the evolving identity of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, and expands his theory…
I spent many years deeply angry at my parents and not really understanding why. When I found out about shame, and how it was passed down from generation to generation, I was finally able to crack the code. Their “permissiveness” was actually neglect. Without meaning to, they had put their shame on me and I was still suffering from not really being seen. I made it my mission to help others heal their shame so they can be better people and better parents, and live fuller lives. I am the co-director of the Center for Healing Shame and co-author of Embracing Shame.
The original breakthrough in understanding shame was from Sylvan Tomkins, whose book Shame and Its Sisters is well worth reading. Gershen Kaufman and Donald Nathanson were his two main disciples.
This book is a vast volume, beautifully supplementing Kaufman’s book. It covers all the emotions. The section on shame is amazingly powerful and thorough. I am most in love with his section on the reactions to shame: attack self, attack others, deny, and withdraw. I have fleshed out his idea and use it in every workshop I teach and with every client I see.
Drawing on every theme of the modern life sciences, Donald Nathanson shows how nine basic affects-interest-excitement, enjoyment-joy, surprise-startle, fear-terror, distress-anguish, anger-rage, dissmell, disgust, and shame-humiliation-not only determine how we feel but shape our very sense of self.
For too long those who explain emotional discomfort on the basis of lived experience and those who blame chemistry have been at loggerheads. As Dr. Nathanson shows, chemicals and illnesses can affect our mood just as surely as an uncomfortable memory or a stern rebuke. Linking for the first time the affect theory of the pioneering researcher Silvan S. Thomkins with the entire…
As a mental health therapist, I’m passionate about helping daughters heal. Daughters who have experienced repeated abuse, hurt, trauma, or neglect from their mothers will often grapple with the decision to stay connected to their mothers or estrange in adulthood. Many of these women come to therapy for additional support on their self-discovery journeys and have felt validated and seen when books were written for their experiences and perspectives. I’ve seen how these books have helped my clients heal their attachment trauma over the years, and I’m confident they can help even more women from here!
Karen has written about mother-daughter dynamics for decades. Her willingness to share stories from her own life, as well as the women she’s helped over the years, adds a lot of heart to the content of this book.
My favorite element of this book was Karen’s visual exercise of letting go and healing generational trauma and shame. Similar to what I’d explore with a client in therapy, these visualizations are empowering and bring hope to adult daughters wanting to heal themselves with or without their mom being a part of their life.
"Karen is the wise voice you want whispering in your ear when shame knocks on your door, reminding you that you are so much more than your relationship with your mother." -Maggie Reyes, master certified marriage coach & bestselling author of The Questions for Couples Journal
#1 New Release in Adult Children of Alcoholics and Parent & Adult Child Relationships
What is your relationship to shame? How can you overcome it and live an intentional life of vulnerability? You Are Not Your Mother guides readers on how to see shame, and live separately from…
