Family Psychology

Child development expert Ellen Galinsky challenges widely held assumptions about adolescents and offers new ways for parents and others to better understand and interact with them in a way that helps them thrive.

If you have a family member who suffers from mental illness, but refuses to seek treatment, you may feel like you're caught in a trap. If you try making life easier for your loved one, you wind up perpetuating dependency and entitlement. If you push for treatment, you are met with resistance or outright animosity. And when you reach out to professionals for help, you are told that nothing can be done unless your family member is ready to change. So, how can you escape the "family trap?"

Are you having trouble understanding what anxiety and depression look like in your teen, and you need some help identifying the roots? Have you seen the troubles your teen is going through with anxiety and depression, and you need some strategies for tackling the problem? Is it heartbreaking to see your teen isolate themselves and all you want to do is help them as much as possible? This is your moment to do something about it. Help your child become the best person that they can be and guide them to a fuller and happier life.

After almost every presentation activist and writer Mia Birdsong gives to executives, think tanks, and policy makers, one of those leaders quietly confesses how much they long for the profound community she describes. They have family, friends, and colleagues, yet they still feel like they're standing alone. They're "winning" at the American Dream, but they're lonely, disconnected, and unsatisfied.

Just as sturdy scaffolding is necessary when erecting a building and will come down when the structure grows stable, good parenting provides children with steady and warm emotional nourishment on the path toward independence. Never-ending parental problem-solving and involvement can have the opposite effect, enabling fragility and anxiety over time.

Navigating parenthood is hard enough on its own. If you are faced with a blended family situation or are worried about your child’s emotional development, you may have spent hours looking for ways to help you on your parenting journey. Many people struggle with emotionally unresponsive children or have trouble navigating a new life with their stepchildren. If you have tried disciplinary techniques that don’t work, it may be your approach that needs to change. Welcome to the simple road map you have been looking for!

Reconnected Kids is a groundbreaking guide to help parents resolve their child's behavioral problems—without medication, strife, or drama. This empowering method shows parents how to first identify their own role in their child's behavior, and then how to guide the child to focus on goals, practice lifelong good habits, and stay motivated.

The comprehensive guide explains what BPD is and what a patient's treatment options are, including an overview of the revolutionary new treatment called dialectic behavior therapy. Author Blaise A. Aguirre, M.D., one of the foremost experts in the field, describes recent advances in treatments and brings into focus what we know, and don't know, about this condition.

Open adoption isn't just something parents do when they exchange photos, send emails, share a visit. It's a lifestyle that may feel intrusive at times, be difficult or inconvenient at other times. Tensions can arise even in the best of circumstances. But knowing how to handle these situations and how to continue to make arrangements work for the child involved is paramount. This book offers listeners the tools and the insight to do just that.

Many times infidelity is the death of a relationship - but an affair doesn't have to mean the end. Realistic ways of coping with pain, restoring self-esteem, and rebuilding trust and intimacy are available for the first time on audio in this guide by Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring. Dr. Spring is one of the few clinical psychologists in the US who specializes in infidelity. She offers original and proven strategies to those seeking guidance, sympathy, and solutions, laying to rest blame and recrimination and focusing instead on recovery.

As a boy, Raun Kaufman was diagnosed by multiple experts as severely autistic, with an IQ below 30, and destined to spend his life in an institution. Years later, Raun graduated with a degree in biomedical ethics from Brown University and has become a passionate and articulate autism expert and educator with no trace of his former condition. Thanks to the Son-Rise Program, a revolutionary method created by his parents, Raun experienced a full recovery from autism.

Millions of families are affected by eating disorders, which usually strike young women between the ages of fourteen and twenty. But current medical practice ties these families' hands when it comes to helping their children recover. Conventional medical wisdom dictates separating the patient from the family and insists that 'it's not about the food', even as a family watches a child waste away before their eyes.

Keeping children bodies, minds, and emotions on task just got easier with this new book from self-regulation expert Teresa Garland. Featuring more than 200 practical and proven interventions, strategies, and adaptations for helping children gain more control over their lives. Each chapter provides rich background and theoretical material to help the listener better understand the issues our children face.

Since its first publication in 1983, Surviving Schizophrenia has become the standard reference book on the disease that has helped thousands of patients, their families, and mental health professionals alike. In clear language, this much-praised and important book describes the nature, causes, symptoms, treatment, and course of schizophrenia, and explores living with it from both the patient’s and the family’s point of view.

If you're like many parents, you may wonder what's going on inside your child's mind when they throw a temper tantrum, refuse to cooperate, or become overly excited. Written by two experts in child development and education, The Emotionally Intelligent Child offers a groundbreaking approach for understanding your child's behavior in the context of their development, as well as tips for parenting with compassion, and strategies for helping your child build emotional intelligence—a key element of success in today's world.

Leading medical innovator Kenneth Bock, MD, has helped change the lives of more than 1,000 children, and in this important book he offers help to children everywhere. This is the book that finally puts hope within reach. Doctors have generally overlooked the connections among the 4-A disorders, despite their concurrent rise and the presence of many medical clues.

Realistic advice from Zoë Kim, author of the popular minimalism blog The Minimalist Plate, offers guidance and support based on her continued experience of incorporating the principles of minimalism into her family life. With Minimalism for Families you’ll find everything you need to begin incorporating the principles of minimalism today.

This edition of Positive Discipline for Teenagers shows parents how to build stronger bridges of communication with their children, break the destructive cycles of guilt and blame that occur in parent-teen power struggles, and work toward greater mutual respect with their adolescents. At the core of the Positive Discipline approach is understanding that teens still need their parents, just in different ways—and by better understanding who their teens really are, parents can learn to encourage both their teens and themselves, and instill good judgment without being judgmental.

If you're a parent of one of the more than one million children in this country with obsessive-compulsive disorder, you know how confusing, even frightening, the symptoms of OCD can be. You're terrified of losing your child and angry about the havoc this disorder has wreaked. More than anything, you want to be able to unlock the secrets of OCD, understand the cause, and help your child break free. In this book, Dr. Tamar E. Chansky creates a clear road map to understanding and overcoming OCD based on her successful practice treating hundreds of children and teenagers with this disorder.

Nobody affects us as deeply as our brothers and sisters - not parents, not children, not friends. From the time we - and they - are born, our siblings are our collaborators and co-conspirators, our role models and cautionary tales. They teach us how to resolve conflicts and how not to, how to conduct friendships and when to walk away.