Healing the Shame That Binds You

by John Bradshaw

Book Overview

In an emotionally revealing way John Bradshaw shows us how toxic shame is the core problem in our compulsions, co-dependencies, addictions and the drive to super-achieve. The result is a breakdown in the family system and our inability to go forward with our lives. We are bound by our shame. Drawing from his 22 years of experience as a counselor, Bradshaw offers us the techniques to heal this shame. Using affirmations, visualizations, "inner voice"...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0932194869
• ISBN13: 9780932194862
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Health Communications
• Length: 245 Pages
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Understanding needed for healing

Bradshaw was great at explaining what people have been through and how to heal. As a trauma therapist and survivor, I found this work very validating and useful for healing myself and my clients. This book is timeless and still very valid.

It's a hard read. It's got the science and development of a child info which is positive in underst

I was so excited to pick up this book. I found it to be overly challenging to read and was really disappointed. It was not what I thought it was at all! I was not a fan of the flow of the book and the personal story woven in. Now, with that said, it opened wounds and allowed "reason" behind the atrocities to be understood which was extremely important to see perspective. The stages of development in a child totally explain and align with the disorders one would have as an adult. I'll try this one again someday I think, but for now it has to be shelved.

Good book

This was a good self help book. It was kind of a hard read because it is a little boring and drags on at parts. That being said I think it was helpful in my journey to recovery from verbal and emotional abuse. I would recommend this book

retrieve your soul from hell

It is no exaggeration to say this was the most helpful self-help book i've ever encountered. For a long time I was always a seeker but could never get to the bottom of the "soul sickness" I felt within my deepest sense of self. I was operating under the general theory my soul had been stolen from me in my early childhood. [I was raised by a brutal Amish preacher father who was very abusive physically and emotionally] I could never feel right about who and what I was as a person. This book truly opened my inner eye and gave me the insights and tools to take that mythical inner journey into my own "underworld" and find and retrieve my soul. After many years of depression, divorces, alcoholism, feeling absolutely defective as a human being, this wonderful book brought tears to my eyes, light to my mind, and true healing to my heart. I feel now I am a completely different person than I was during those years of toxic shame hell. While the healing is still ongoing, the light and growth of self esteem I've found are sure and precious treasures "The Universe" , [God?] has blessed me with. If your life seems depressing and out of control and sad; please read and reread this masterful work of self exploration. It can save you from much shame and pain. If you are as toxically shame based as I was, this book could very well save your life and engender a new feeling in your heart and soul: peace and happiness!

this is one of the most helpful books i have ever read.

i have trouble with low self-esteem. this book has helped me to see why i have low self-esteem. i have enjoyed this book more than any book i have ever purchased

Sensitive, probing study of toxic shame

John Bradshaw has written a thorough, concise guide to victims who suffer from toxic shame, in order to help them identify the shame they are feeling and then to alleviate and eliminate that shame. An all-intrusive emotion, toxic shame can devastate a life, destroy marriages, and leave the suffering victim alone and confused. Bradshaw has drawn a road map for these victims to help themselves find the way out of the endless cycle of shame and guilt that surrounds their lives every single day. Since he is also a victim of childhood abuse, Bradshaw has a keen insight into the haunting terrors of being ashamed of your family because of alcoholism, drug dependence, sexual abuse...he covers it all. This book is a must-read for the adult who has been raised in a traumatic setting. Healing the Shame that Binds You is a life-line to victims, and can be the first step on the road to recovery from toxic shame and other psychological problems brought on by dysfunctional family situations.