Here are 100 books that Mother Hunger fans have personally recommended if you like
Mother Hunger.
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When I was four and a half years old, I found my mother passed out on her bedroom floor. She had overdosed—shortly after giving birth to my baby brother, and she went on to spend six months in a psychiatric hospital. While she was away, I remember sitting in the backseat of our car with my brother as my father drove us to the store when our car collided head-on with another vehicle. In the months that followed, I became parentless for a period that seemed like years. That experience set the stage for my lifelong interest in the impacts of childhood trauma. As a therapist, it also sparked my passion for healing others.
I love this book as the author, Jonice Webb, describes childhood neglect in depth. When I teach clients that neglect is a form of childhood trauma, difficult to detect, like carbon monoxide, I see light bulbs go off in their heads.
Webb describes in detail the 12 different types of childhood neglect that have a devasting impact on their lives today and how to heal them.
This informative guide helps you identify and heal from childhood emotional neglect so you can be more connected and emotionally present in your life.
Do you sometimes feel like you're just going through the motions in life? Do you often act like you're fine when you secretly feel lonely and disconnected? Perhaps you have a good life and yet somehow it's not enough to make you happy. Or perhaps you drink too much, eat too much, or risk too much in an attempt to feel something good. If so, you are not alone-and you may be suffering from emotional neglect.…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
When I was four and a half years old, I found my mother passed out on her bedroom floor. She had overdosed—shortly after giving birth to my baby brother, and she went on to spend six months in a psychiatric hospital. While she was away, I remember sitting in the backseat of our car with my brother as my father drove us to the store when our car collided head-on with another vehicle. In the months that followed, I became parentless for a period that seemed like years. That experience set the stage for my lifelong interest in the impacts of childhood trauma. As a therapist, it also sparked my passion for healing others.
I love this book because when I work with clients about their childhood developmental trauma, many times, they interpret being close to a parent as special and flourishing when they were growing up. Little do they know even though it may feel good to be a close friend or partner to a parent, I see them being used by the parent for emotional support and not being able to have their own life.
I like how Adams describes in depth why this is considered trauma and its impact today.
When a parent singles out a child for special privileges and attention, that child is often unaware that the relationship is unhealthy-even incestuous. As adults, these children struggle to feel validated, because while they have not been directly abused, they feel a sense of violation and crossed boundaries-usually done in the name of 'love' and 'caring.' The parent's love feels more confining than freeing, more demanding than giving, more intrusive than nurturing. Yet these children suffer from what psychologist Kenneth Adams calls The Silent Seduction-because there is nothing loving or caring about a close parent-child relationship that services the needs…
When I was four and a half years old, I found my mother passed out on her bedroom floor. She had overdosed—shortly after giving birth to my baby brother, and she went on to spend six months in a psychiatric hospital. While she was away, I remember sitting in the backseat of our car with my brother as my father drove us to the store when our car collided head-on with another vehicle. In the months that followed, I became parentless for a period that seemed like years. That experience set the stage for my lifelong interest in the impacts of childhood trauma. As a therapist, it also sparked my passion for healing others.
I love this workbook because it is straightforward in defining childhood developmental trauma. It explains the Autonomic Nervous System and how trauma stays stuck in the body today. I use diagrams and simple worksheets to explain why my clients feel the way they do.
I like that it explains that trauma is not just working out through the brain but includes the body, most importantly. I also believe that true healing from trauma has to include somatic body-based work, which this workbook explains.
Traumatic experiences leave a “living legacy” of effects that often persist for years and decades after the events are over. Historically, it has always been assumed that re-telling the story of what happened would resolve these effects.
However, survivors report a different experience: Telling and re-telling the story of what happened to them often reactivates their trauma responses, overwhelming them rather than resolving the trauma. To transform traumatic experiences, survivors need to understand their symptoms and reactions as normal responses to abnormal events. They need ways to work with the symptoms that intrude on their daily activities, preventing a life…
Sine, a professor of creative writing, accompanies Sam, a neuroscientist, on a conference trip to a Hotel Castle. Sam wants to present a new device, the "monitor." Sine hopes to recover from tending to her mother who just passed away.
When they arrive, Sine is in a dream-like state. Real…
When I was four and a half years old, I found my mother passed out on her bedroom floor. She had overdosed—shortly after giving birth to my baby brother, and she went on to spend six months in a psychiatric hospital. While she was away, I remember sitting in the backseat of our car with my brother as my father drove us to the store when our car collided head-on with another vehicle. In the months that followed, I became parentless for a period that seemed like years. That experience set the stage for my lifelong interest in the impacts of childhood trauma. As a therapist, it also sparked my passion for healing others.
I love this book because it addresses how important psychological boundaries are for healthy communication. I teach all my clients how to use these two kinds of invisible boundaries when relating to others.
I love the two parts: the speaking boundary, which helps contain my clients and keeps them respectful, and the listening boundary, which helps protect my clients from being too thin-skinned.
This groundbreaking definition and approach change their lives. I see that this is especially important for survivors of childhood trauma who were never protected. I love this book and live by it daily and personally.
In her first book in over 10 years, Pia Mellody—author of the groundbreaking bestsellers Facing Codependence and Facing Love Addiction—shares her profound wisdom on what it takes to sustain true intimacy and trusting love in our most vital relationships.
Drawing on more than 20 years' experience as a counsellor at the renowned Meadows Treatment Centre in Arizona, Mellody now shares what she has learned about why intimate relationships falter—and what makes them work. Using the most up–to–date research and real–life examples, including her own compelling personal journey, Mellody provides readers with profoundly insightful and practical ground rules for relationships that…
My 30+ years as a psychotherapist and mental health educator with a strong focus on codependency has enabled me to create, produce and provide compelling and life-changing books and seminars. My own experiences recovering from codependency led to the creation of my ground-breaking Human Magnet Syndrome, Self-Love Recovery Treatment, and Codependency Cure contributions. It is understood through my work that codependency is a mere symptom of not loving oneself. Codependency is not what needs to be treated, rather the root cause needs to be addressed. Therefore, I have re-defined and re-conceptualized codependency into “Self-Love Deficit Disorder™ (SLDD)," which is a trauma, core shame, pathological loneliness, and addiction disorder.
This book, written by fellow psychotherapist Terri Cole, is a valuable resource for those struggling to set boundaries in their relationships. Whether it be a romantic partner, friend, or colleague, Terri delivers very practical information that will help the reader develop skills to stop abandoning yourself for the sake of others. This book will help the reader understand why they feel powerless to set boundaries—while helping them gain the strength and confidence to do so. As a psychotherapist specializing in codependency, although aimed towards women, this book is an effective resource for anyone who struggles with setting boundaries.
Psychotherapist Terri Cole teaches a simple but powerful truth: without healthy boundaries, you can't live an authentic and fulfilled life. After all, if you're always smiling and saying "yes" to everything, how is anyone else supposed to know you're burnt out, overloaded, and not up to taking on yet another task?
This is especially true for today's women, who are often caught between cultural conditioning toward being "nice" and the need to protect their own well-being. With that in mind, Cole presents Boundary Boss, a comprehensive guide for any woman who wants to master creating and maintaining healthy boundaries.
I grew up in a home with severe emotional abuse and neglect. Scoring 6 on the ACEs (adverse childhood events) test became a wake-up call; according to the test, my life span had been shortened by 20 years and I was determined to get them back. I stopped protecting my abusive family and got honest about what I had been through. This drew an audience who said I helped them feel seen and heard (and they did the same for me). I’ve spent the last decade on a healing journey from addiction and self-sabotage, the culmination of which is my new book and trauma-informed coaching practice that transforms lives.
Having grown up with a mentally ill and emotionally abusive mother, I had never considered emotional abuse a form of emotional neglect.
My mother used silent treatment and contempt to control me and forced me to tend to her emotional needs while ignoring mine. She shared inappropriate personal information and used me as her confidante while offering me no support or guidance. This book helps explain the deep hole left from the mother wound and how to heal from the lack of emotional support.
This speaks directly to adults who wish to overcome their 'mother gap' through reflections, exercises, and explanations. Many people feel something was missing from their childhood and wonder why their mother didn't seem there for them. Though she may have physically cared, for many, there remains a sense of having been a 'motherless child.' It is then difficult to maintain a relationship with her as an adult.The Emotionally Absent Mother helps readers understand why their mother was so unable to provide what many others were able to.This expanded edition will describe how to:*Identify the impacts of emotional neglect and abuse…
In an age of splendor, a heretic king strips Egypt bare—forcing his queen to quell rebellion and plunging his children into a conspiracy against the crown.
Salvation in the Sun follows Nefertiti as she ascends the throne beside Pharaoh Amenhotep—soon to become Akhenaten—just as he declares war on Egypt’s ancient…
I have been to hell and back over the years. After experiencing childhood abuse, I lived through a succession of traumas with my family including fraud, painful experiences in church ministry, a death threat, and a catastrophic house fire accidentally started by my mother-in-law. While I was helped by counseling, prayer, and caring friends and mentors, something was still missing. I needed to process all that pain and loss but didn’t know how. I had to learn how to grieve. Over years of rebuilding, I’ve lived the lessons of lament and know the healing that is possible when pain is metabolized.
This book has helped me see a clearer path toward healing and wholeness. It has also allowed me to cultivate more compassion for the trauma in my own and my loved ones’ stories.
Her question, ‘What does safety feel like in your body?’ hit like a lightning bolt. I realized I had no idea. Her authenticity about her own experience of trauma made her a trustworthy guide in finding that and other answers.
The exercises paired with each chapter are practical and profound, resources I return to regularly.
When it comes to difficult circumstances, we've all heard the platitudes: "No pain, no gain." "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But if we spend our lives trying to be "the strong one," we become exhausted, burned-out, and disconnected from our truest God-given selves.
What if it were different? Could there be a different way to be strong? Could strength mean more than pushing on and pushing through pain, bearing every heavy burden on our own? What if, instead, true strength were more like the tide: soft and bold,…
There’s something deeply alluring about the glamour of fame, even if it’s not all as shiny when you look closer. My first celebrity crush was on Jason Donovan—I’m guessing that some of my fellow British Gen Xers might relate! In my arguably more mature 30s, I developed an interest in a show slightly more critically acclaimed than the Australian soap Jason had come to prominence in, and it ended up changing my life in ways I could never have predicted. I’m a passionate person, and those passions have shaped me, which I think is why I love tales of celebrity crushes.
Rarely have I felt as seen and understood by a book as by this one. I recommend it to anyone who’s ever had a celebrity crush or any kind of pop culture obsession that people around them struggle to understand.
It’s wry, insightful, and candid. Reading it feels like chatting with a smart and funny friend who encourages you to see your passions as just as valid as anyone else’s—and to embrace joy.
A hilarious, heartfelt memoir about one woman's midlife obsession with Benedict Cumberbatch, and the liberating power of reclaiming our passions as we age, whatever they may be.
Tabitha Carvan was a new mother, at home with two young children, when she fell for the actor Benedict Cumberbatch. You know the guy: strange name, alien face, made Sherlock so sexy that it became one of the most streamed shows in the world? The force of her fixation took everyone - especially Carvan herself - by surprise. But what she slowly realised was that her preoccupation was not with Benedict Cumberbatch at…
Helping others and getting help has been an integral part of my life and career. Over 30 years in the mental health world allowed me to explore many books, individuals and the simple ones are the best. They get to the core of change quickly which is vital sometimes to keep people alive. Supporting others is my passion and the truth is reading has allowed me to continue without burnout and some of my reading list are my go to books when this feels like it maybe coming.
I laughed and cried whilst reading this book which was recommended by my youngest son.
Jimmy explored the management of the day-to-day life of someone who is seen as a successful person apart from trying to dodge his taxes. I would say it is cynical, but funny with it. Don’t not read because you don’t like the author, read to take the knowledge which I did that I have been able to share with others.
Born the heir of a master woodcutter in a queendom defined by guilds and matrilineal inheritance, nonbinary Sorin can’t quite seem to find their place. At seventeen, an opportunity to attend an alchemical guild fair and secure an apprenticeship with the…
As a busy businesswoman and coach, I felt like I had always been pushing for what I thought represented success, racing from task to task, project to project almost without stopping to take a breath. Eventually that caught up with me and I found myself feeling over-stressed and unfulfilled. This was the catalyst that ignited a need to make some changes in my own life. I read these books to both learn and heal myself. They are all now books I refer to–to keep focused on a more mindful way of being and maintain my own self -awareness.
I loved this book because it was so authentic and inspiring. I really like it when an author shares her own experiences and those of her wise friends, as it makes a book so much more relatable. I found myself focusing on the little things that I could do on a daily basis just to calm down and be present.
I reconnected with my own inner calm as a result. I found the book accessible and easy to relate to. The front cover image is calming in itself! A great book to have beside me.
THE FOLLOW UP TO THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, HAPPY: FINDING JOY IN EVERY DAY AND LETTING GO OF PERFECT
'Calm for me is less about thought and much more about feeling. It is a stillness that allows my lungs to expand like hot air balloons. It is an acceptance of the noise around me. It is a magic alchemy that might last a second or a whole day, where I feel relaxed yet aware; still yet dynamic; open yet protected . . . '
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In today's always-on world, for many of us it seems impossible to relax, take time…
