Poisonous Parenting shows readers how to recognize the effects of negative parenting and strategies for helping adult children who are suffering from toxic attitudes and behaviors. Readers will learn when to try to save the relationship, when to proceed with caution, and when to disconnect in order to keep the poison from spreading.

How does the toxicity associated with particular parenting styles affect attachment? How do the contaminated views of themselves that children of poisonous parents have affect their relationships into adulthood? Like physicians, clinicians do not want to amputate, but they sometimes find it necessary in order to preserve the health of the larger system. Poisonous Parenting shows clinicians how to recognize the effects of poisonous parenting in adult children and how to heal the scars created by parents' toxic attitudes and behaviors. Readers will come away from the book understanding ways to counteract the effects of poisonous parenting so that clients can recover and lead a healthy life. They'll also learn techniques for determining when a relationship can be salvaged, when to proceed with caution, and when to disconnect in order to keep the poison from spreading.

"What happens to those disturbed parent/child relationships once everybody's an adult? And what can be done about them? Find out here! An enlightening look at a long- neglected topic." - Thomas W. Phelan, PhD, author of 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 "Although the relationship between childhood and adulthood has been explored for decades, this book, with its diverse authors and perspectives, deepens and enriches that scholarship and research. The authors not only show the deleterious interpersonal effects of 'poisonous parenting' on children and their future adult relationships, they extend their analysis beyond the interpersonal to the cultural, giving a balanced analysis to this critical discussion. The book will be an invaluable resource for the practicing clinician and an excellent biblio-therapeutic resource for clients. I loved it and highly recommend it." - Harville Hendrix, PhD, coauthor with Helen LaKelly Hunt of Giving the Love That Heals: A Guide for Parents "A clinically engaging and useful book on understanding, identifying and dealing with the effects of difficult and negative parenting. Clinicians will appreciate the conceptual and practical suggestions for helping their clients with these issues." - James H. Bray, PhD, coauthor of Stepfamilies: Love, Marriage, and Parenting in the First Decade and past president of the American Psychological Association "Poisonous Parenting...is a much-needed effort to extend the scholarship in this very important area of human development and therapeutic work. We believe this book is a great first step and we hope it will inspire future research and writing on this topic." - J. Douglas Pettinelli, Katie M. Heiden Rootes and Christine Schneider in PsychCRITIQUES