Adult Survivors of Emotionally Abusive Parents: How To Heal, Cultivate Emotional Resilience, and Build the Life and Love You Deserve

Campbell (Adult Survivors of Toxic Family Members) is a licensed psychologist with over two decades of clinical training experience providing counseling and psychotherapy to residents of Orange County, CA. In this book she uses what she calls “moments of truth” to explain how abusive parenting happens, addressing the societal norms that support or even ignore this behavior. The first moment of truth that she tackles is that not all parents are good parents. She notes that children have no choice in who their parents are and can be trapped in relationships where love is forced and not given. Campbell describes the characteristics of both healthy parents and abusive parents. She also explains specific types of abuse that children are exposed to and the lifelong emotional impacts these children experience as they age and become adults. Some of these emotional debts are depression, anxiety, apathy, and failure to thrive. She encourages adults to love themselves by developing a practice of healing that includes setting boundaries, affirmation statements, breathing, and getting necessary professional support.