You'll learn to:

✅ Identify and end toxic patterns
✅ Set and maintain healthy boundaries
✅ Communicate with clarity and compassion
✅ Reclaim your True Self in relationships

🎁 BONUS: Includes access to a free companion course + worksheets
👉 https://portal.serenitycreationsonline.com/i/ttr-dls

🕊️ Over 8,500 readers have already explored the Thawing the Iceberg Series.
Now it’s your turn. Start your healing journey today — for FREE.

📅 Ends September 5!
📍 Grab your copy now on Amazon → Click or Tap Here

#RecoveryMonth #FreeBook #EmotionalHealing #ToxicRelationships #Codependency #ThawTheIceberg #DonCarterLCSW

I'm thrilled to share that two books from the Thawing the Iceberg Series have officially returned to Amazon’s Top 100 in Recovery for Adult Children of Alcoholics — a category that means a great deal to me, both professionally and personally.

As of July 24, 2025:

• #67 – Thawing Adult/Child Syndrome and Other Frozen States

• #73 – Thawing Childhood Abandonment Issues

These books continue to find their way into the hands of people healing from childhood wounds, dysfunctional family systems, and the long shadows of codependency and addiction. That they’re ranking alongside some of the most respected works in the field is both humbling and motivating.

🔹 Why These Books Matter

Thawing Adult/Child Syndrome explores the invisible carryover of childhood trauma into adult life—especially in those who grew up in alcoholic or otherwise emotionally chaotic environments. It offers pathways to reconnect with a more whole, integrated self.

Thawing Childhood Abandonment Issues speaks to that deep, often unspoken wound—the fear of being unseen, unloved, or left behind. It's one of the most downloaded books in the series and resonates strongly with inner child healing, IFS work, and self-reparenting.

📥 Bonus Resources for Readers

If you own either book, don’t forget to unlock the free companion resources included inside:

• Guided worksheets

• Journaling prompts

• Bonus videos

• Exclusive discounts on related courses

• Click here to access the bonuses
  (Look inside the book for the exact URL)

🙏 Thank You

To everyone who’s read, shared, or recommended the books—thank you for helping spread the healing. These rankings aren’t just numbers; they represent thousands of people doing the hard work of recovery.

More updates coming soon as we prepare for a special edition box set, new audio resources, and expanded content to support your healing journey.

Stay tuned, and keep thawing.

With gratitude,
Don Carter, MSW, LCSW
Author | Therapist | Founder of Serenity Cafe Publications

👉 Nearly 10,000 copies sold across the Thawing the Iceberg Series.

That number represents something much bigger than books — it reflects thousands of courageous souls doing the hard, beautiful work of healing.

To say thank you, I’ve begun adding companion bonuses to each book in the series. These include:

• Streaming & downloadable audio tracks

• Guided imagery & affirmations

• Interactive worksheets

• And more, tailored to each book’s focus

📘 First Up: Thawing Childhood Abandonment Issues

Readers of this book now have access to a private bonus page with 60+ audio tracks — all available instantly. If you bought Thawing Childhood Abandonment Issues or if you are a past or present client of Don Carter or Angie Carter, collect your bonuses at the link below.

🎧 Click here to access the bonus

Each book in the Thawing the Iceberg Series will soon have its own resource page and healing tools to support you long after you’ve turned the final page. By all means make suggestions in the comments below to let me know what bonuses you want.

With deep gratitude,
Don Carter, MSW, LCSW
Serenity Cafe Recovery

Holts Summit, Mo - June 21, 2025-- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Best-selling author, therapist, and emotional healing pioneer Don Carter, MSW, LCSW, announces the release of his highly anticipated new book, Thawing the Inner Family of Self. This 8.5x11 inch workbook is a powerful companion to all six books in the transformative Thawing the Iceberg Series. The books takes the reader to another level of healing. The book is available now on Amazon.

Blending Internal Family Systems (IFS) principles with Carter’s original RADICAL Reintegration Process™, Thawing the Inner Family of Self invites readers on a profound journey of self-exploration, emotional healing, and inner leadership. Readers are guided to identify their “parts”—inner protectors, wounded child voices, saboteurs—and to approach them not as problems, but as doorways to healing and reintegration.

“This book is about reclaiming your wholeness by connecting with the parts of yourself that need your attention, compassion, and leadership,” said Carter. “It’s not just another self-help guide—it’s a transformational tool rooted in over 30 years of clinical, spiritual, and personal insight.”

A Capstone to the Iceberg Series

The Thawing the Iceberg Series, has helped nearly 10,000 readers (on Amazon alone) find clarity and healing in areas such as codependency, emotional trauma, addiction, and adult-child syndrome. Thawing the Inner Family of Self serves as the capstone, tying together the series' core themes and introducing a deeper level of inner work grounded in IFS and Carter’s structured 7-step RADICAL model:

1. Recognize Reactivity

2. Allow, Appreciate, and Ask

3. Disidentify

4. Interview and Investigate

5. Call the True-Self Forward

6. Achieve a Consensus

7. Let Go and Learn

The Start of a New Chapter

This new release not only closes one chapter but opens another. Carter is preparing a focused collection of companion workbooks that will apply the same RADICAL Reintegration process, blended with IFS and Ego-State Therapy, to targeted issues such as OCD, addiction, perfectionism, attachment wounds, and self-sabotage.

Availability

Thawing the Inner Family of Self workbook is now available on Amazon.com. For updates, free resources, and to explore the full Thawing the Iceberg Series, visit:
👉 Don Carter's Serenity Cafe

Media Contact:
Don Carter, MSW, LCSWMedia Contact:
Don Carter, MSW, LCSW
📧 support@serenitycreationsonline.com
🌐 https://serenitycreationsonline.com

About Don Carter MSW, LCSW

Don Carter MSW, LCSW is a psychotherapist, the author of the Thawing the Iceberg Series, and founder CEO of Carter Counseling & Coaching Services, SerenityCreationsOnline.com, Serenity Cafe Academy, and Internet-of-the-mind.com.

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In 'Thaw - Freedom from Frozen Feelings', Don unveils the profound impact of childhood experiences on our emotional health as adults. Through an in depth exploration of trauma and attachment wounds, the book addresses how early family dynamics shape our core beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world in general, often leading us into cycles of dependency, codependency, and/or addiction. Don Carter, leveraging his expertise as a seasoned therapist, guides readers through the intricate journey of dismantling these core beliefs and survival skills to forge a new, healthier relationship with themselves and others. Readers will learn not just to heal but to thrive by addressing the root causes of their emotional distress.

STOP Letting Your Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors Take Charge of You. START Taking Charge of Your Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors.

STOP Doing Your Pain in Advance. (9 times out of 10 it's Unnecessary Pain) START Letting Go of Worries, Anxieties, and Fears (WAFs).

STOP Protecting Yourself with a Scab of Contempt for Self and/or Others. START Practicing Assertiveness and Healthy Boundaries.

'Thaw - Freedom from Frozen Feelings' offers not only insights into the roots of emotional distress but also practical steps towards emotional freedom and self-actualization. Unlock your journey towards healing with 'Thaw - Freedom from Frozen Feelings' today!

Similarly, healing that accumulates as you work through the first stage forms a foundation for healing the second stage, and so forth. There is a strong focus on experiencing, integrating, and releasing the emotions of the past. For this reason, the program relies heavily on its more than 60 experiential audio programs to facilitate the emotional component of that healing process. Healing the first six of eight life stages makes it possible for the seventh and eighth stages to be the best of them all!

Take My Emotional Wounds Quiz

• STOP Re-Experiencing Painful Emotional Themes and Dysfunctional Relationship Patterns.

• START Identifying and Healing Your Emotional Triggers.

• STOP Doing Your Pain in Advance. (9 times out of 10 it's Unnecessary Pain)

• START Letting Go of Worries, Anxieties, Insecurities, and Fears (WAIFs).

• STOP Sabotaging Yourself with Short-Term Fixes, such as False Refuges like Alcohol, Drugs, Chocolate Cake, etc.

• START Achieving Your Goals and Dreams.

• STOP Feeling like an Imposter. Take Off the Mask of an Invented Self.

• START being Authentic and Share Who You REALLY are with Others ~ Your True Self.

• STOP the Cycles of Depression, Anxiety, Addiction, and Compulsion.

• START Healing the Emotional Wounds of Abandonment and Generating Cycles of Success!

• STOP the Inner Criticism and Infection of Shame.

• START Practicing Self-Compassion and Self-Leadership.

• STOP Protecting Yourself with a Scab of Contempt for Self and/or Others.

• START Practicing Assertiveness and Healthy Boundaries.

• STOP People-Pleasing and Approval Seeking.

• START to Uncover, Discover, Recover, and Share Who You Really Are ~ Your True Self.

Get the Paperback on Amazon Today

The following is taken from Chapter Seven of my book, “Thaw - Freedom from Frozen Feelings”

Growing up on the battleground of a moderate-to-severely dysfunctional family keeps a child on ‘high alert’. They are so focused on survival, self-protection, and physical/emotional safety that they rarely have time to settle into just being a kid. When they do let their guard down and relax into their childhood a new incident occurs, which reinforces the need to remain hyper-vigilant. This constant level of alertness keeps the stress response (fight-flight-or-freeze) turned on at the ready. As we will see, living in such an intense state of awareness is fertile ground for the creation of deeply ingrained patterns of behavior known as survival skills.

Pattern Matching

A little over 100,000 years ago a lone hunter made his way across the savanna looking for food. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining. The skies were blue with white, puffy clouds, and a gentle breeze was blowing. The hunter noticed that off to the left, out of the corner of his eye. A bush moved... The next thing he knew he was being chased by a saber-toothed tiger... Somehow he managed to get away.

About 30 days later the same hunter was out in the savanna again looking for food. However, this time he brought several of his friends with him... They made sure to go 30 miles in the opposite direction of where the tiger was last time. As the hunting party walked along it was a beautiful day... the sun was shining... the skies were blue with white, puffy clouds... and a gentle breeze was blowing. Then, off to the left, a bush moved...The hunter’s friends turned around just in time to see him duck behind a tree about a hundred yards away.

In just one very intense experience, the close call he had with that tiger had been "burned into his neural matrix" as a warning system to avoid getting eaten in the future. All of the elements of that first experience were there – the blue skies... the white puffy clouds... the gentle breeze... the beautiful day... the wetlands... the moving bush. All of these elements joined together in the proper sequence signaled the imminent probability of being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.

We are born with three basic survival systems encoded on neural networks, wired into a specific location near the reward center of the brain. In The Craving Brain, by Ruden and Byalick, these systems are the instinct to “Eat” (triggered by hunger), “Don’t Get Eaten”, aka Fight-Flight-or-Freeze instinct (triggered by anxiety), and the instinct to “Procreate” (triggered by sexual arousal).

This hunter’s "Don't Get Eaten" survival system instantly and subconsciously triggered a flight response resulting in a powerful jolt of anxiety and a need to find safety – right NOW! This is an example of a mechanism the brain uses in order to learn from experience. It’s called pattern matching (also known as classic conditioning).

Intensity & Repetition

There are two primary mechanisms that signal the brain to encode new learning into its neural networks – they are intensity & repetition. The hunter’s run-in with the tiger was so intense it resulted in one-trial

learning. All the sensory elements of that experience were instantly encoded into the Don’t Get Eaten neural circuitry of the brain after only one experience. Other, less intense experiences take more repetitions in order to be encoded as new learning. The less intense the experience, the more times it must be repeated in order to be encoded into the neural networks of long-term memory.

Learning to read is a good example. We started out learning to mouth one-syllable words or sounds and, with repetition, we got better at it. Then we added two and three syllables to form more complex words. When we could say our first word, everyone around us reacted very positively, which triggered the reward circuits of the brain adding intensity to repetition. The intensity of the positive reinforcement combined with the repetition creates a synergistic effect. Eventually, we learned the alphabet, then spelling, then reading, and later we learned grammar and syntax. All of these “learnings” now belong to the category of language. Whenever we learn something new about language, the information updates the implicit database (or neural network) of language making it larger and more sophisticated.

This is why the more we learn, the easier it is to learn. It would be pretty discouraging to have to re-learn the alphabet every time we wanted to read a book. Without our automatic pattern-matching abilities, we would be unable to learn. Furthermore, as seen with the example of the hunter and saber-toothed tiger, we might not have survived as a race. Knowing even a little about pattern matching and the role of intensity and repetition in learning makes it easier to understand how the survival skills we learn in a dysfunctional family system are the natural, logical, and creative outcomes of adapting to the environment in which we live.

Emotionally traumatic experiences are very intense. Take, for example, defending your country at war. Active combat is incredibly intense. The military knows this, so they want to do everything they can to prepare their soldiers quickly. They know that intensity “burns new learning into your brain” so they have a very intense person called a Drill Instructor (DI) be your teacher. The neural networks for survival at war time have to become automatic very quickly so the DI adds repetition to intensity to step up the training process they call “boot camp." Once boot camp is over the neural networks for survival are in place, and the soldier gets deployed. The battlefield or “theater” as it is now called, is even more intense, so all of those sights, sounds, smells, tastes, memories, and experiences get burned into the brain too. The neural networks created in basic training become even more ingrained and sophisticated through the intensity and repetition of the battlefield; so much so that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often results.

Preview more from Thaw

Unauthorized Networks

Every time we have a new significantly intense experience the brain does a database search for similar experiences and encodes the sensory elements of the new experience in the same “category” or neural network. So, our natural pattern-matching ability is the basis for all sorts of phobias and panic disorders such as the saber-toothed tiger example described above. For example, all it takes is one intensely frightening experience with a spider to develop a spider phobia.

• Seeing a spider = freaking out

• Reading the word ‘spider’ = freaking out

• Feeling something on the skin that could be a spider = that’s right.

Pattern matching is also responsible for cravings and relapses back into addictions after a period of recovery. For example, hearing a bell could trigger someone addicted to gambling to feel the urge to go to the track to put a bet down on his favorite horse. Just reading the word "chocolate" can trigger an urge to find and eat some chocolate.

Returning to our analogy of a moderate-to-severely dysfunctional family as a battleground; to a small child sleeping in her bed at night, isn’t suddenly hearing mom slamming dishes on the floor while screaming at the top of her lungs, or dad punching holes in the front door while yelling obscenities at mom just as intense as an exploding roadside bomb is to a real soldier? You bet it is. And it can have the same impact if it occurs repeatedly – a mild, moderate, or severe form of PTSD.

The emotional wounding process may be much more subtle than the above example. A child may be forced to wear a pretty dress, with white gloves, and patent-leather shoes all day, every day. She may be allowed to “…go outside, but sit on the porch and don’t get dirty!” by a parent who likes the accolades of having such a well-behaved, presentable child – an example of Impression Management rather than healthy parenting. Alternatively, a child may not be allowed to have his feelings or opinions. The unwritten rules might be “Don’t feel," “Don’t trust," or “Don’t talk” – in other words, “Don’t be you!” or “Don’t be different than me!” or “Be who I want you to be.”

Frozen Feeling-States

When these kinds of experiences occur early in life, while a child is negotiating the delicate and complicated tasks associated with normal developmental stages, there is a deviation from “normal” development. The child has to learn sophisticated methods of self-protection called survival skills. The child has no one to rely on to accomplish this learning except their own instinct to survive – i.e., pattern matching and the fight-flight-or-freeze response. These survival skills are learned behaviors that are encoded in the neural circuitry of our brain. They help the child to adapt to the dysfunctional patterns, cycles, and rules of the family.

Information that gets encoded into our brain falls into two primary categories; information having to do with self-preservation (survival) and information having to do with self-actualization (growth). The information having to do with survival is more difficult to access and update than information having to do with growth. One reason for this is that the latter is in a constant state of flux as new learning is occurring daily. This growth-oriented information is stored in the higher cortical regions of the brain, i.e., the “thinking brain." Survival-oriented data is stored in the deeper emotional and visceral regions where it is immediately accessible to all the structures of the brain responsible for the fight-flight-or-freeze response. The survival systems of the brain are more difficult to update for another reason – the prime directive of the brain is self-preservation. Everything else is deemed less important than that – including growth.

Once a survival skill or experience is learned it becomes tagged as valuable data and must be protected. Think of it as being encoded in an especially secure area of the brain where there is a firewall around it so that hackers can’t get in and change or delete a pattern that may make the difference between life and death. So the survival skills that are learned by a child growing up in a dysfunctional family are rooted in a protected, hard-to-update area of the brain – immediately accessible to all the structures responsible for the fight-flight-or-freeze response.

One of those structures is the amygdala, the part of the “emotional brain” that is responsible for tagging an incoming experience with feelings. When an incoming experience is similar to that of a previous experience that has been categorized as a threat or danger the amygdala sounds an alarm by charging the new experience with fear, anxiety, and/or anger – the feeling-states of the fight-or-flight response. A momentary freeze may occur because the brain needs a second to evaluate the incoming data in order to choose which feeling state to create if any at all. The chosen feeling state is then followed by an automatic behavioral response – i.e., fight or flight.

Now remember that children in a moderate-to-severely dysfunctional family are like prisoners of war – the younger they are the less able they are to outwardly fight back or flee. So when they encounter a new threat, they can get stuck in the freeze response for a lot longer than usual. The clinical term for this is dissociation – a process in which the child “zones out” or “goes somewhere else” in their mind while the mind takes care of the business at hand. During this time, the brain continues to process the incoming data, continues to trigger the alarms (increasing in intensity), and continues to search for an appropriate behavioral response. The pre-frontal cortex (thinking brain) comes to the rescue by devising a plan for how to deal with these experiences – creating a survival strategy. If the whole ordeal is intense enough, one-trial learning occurs in the same way as our example of the hunter and saber-toothed tiger. Sometimes the dissociation or “zoning out” or “going somewhere else” itself becomes the survival mechanism creating a dissociative “disorder” – which was, at the time it was created, actually a solution.

the Academy @ Serenity Cafe

This is where what I refer to as frozen feeling states come into play. It is very important to recognize a couple of things. First, the survival skills that are burned into the most highly secure area of the brain as a result of intense, traumatic experiences are created by a child, with the mind of a child, the experience of a child, the understanding of a child, the physiology of a child, and with the only inner resources available to the child at that time. They are imprinted into the neural circuitry for survival in the same way as our friend the hunter.

Secondly, due to the repetition of these experiences and the intensity of hyper-arousal from an ongoing lack of safety, these imprinted survival circuits are reinforced and strengthened with each new similar occurrence – and these emotion-laden states are frozen in time, sometimes at several points in time! In other words, due to pattern matching and the way the brain encodes information related to self-preservation, all the elements of these survival strategies remain the same as the day they were imprinted including all the beliefs, physiology, behavioral responses, emotions, and sensory data (hear, see, feel, smell, taste) taken in by the child during the imprint experience, resulting in the creation of what I refer to as a frozen feeling-state.

Here is an example: A four-year-old boy is being severely abused in a very dark room and there is a strong smell of garlic present at the time. His mind represses that memory because it is much too intense for him to handle at four years old. Twenty-five years later that same person finds himself in a dark room with the scent of garlic hanging in the air. Suddenly, he is in the grip of a horrible panic. He feels as scared and vulnerable as a four-year-old boy, backs up against a wall, and hunkers down into a fetal position. There may be no images or other memories (it was dark); only the feelings, physiology and behavioral response, and a strong sense that he’s been here before. This is a clear-cut example of the frozen feeling state known as a “flashback."

Many people who grew up in a moderate-to-severely dysfunctional family had less clear-cut experiences on a more subtle level. If you have ever gotten into a fight with a significant other and afterward wondered how two grown adults could act so immature – you may have had a flashback. If you’ve ever felt childish after an argument with a coworker – you may have had a flashback. If you have ever felt scared and small after a scolding from your boss – you may have had a flashback. If you have a long history of stormy relationships fraught with such occurrences – you may have a form of PTSD. Indeed, if you are familiar with the cycles of abandonment, shame, contempt, and other patterns outlined in this book you're likely to have a moderate-to-severe form of PTSD known as Adult/Child Syndrome.

I understand Adult/Child Syndrome to be a condition where an adult who has grown up in the types of dysfunctional environments that produce the emotional wounds of abandonment, shame, and contempt is set up to experience the frequent triggering of frozen feeling-states that were imprinted as a natural, logical, and creative means of survival. These emotionally wounded people “live life in reaction” by acting out (Externalizing), or acting in (Internalizing) their wounds in their most significant relationships.

I also believe that this syndrome is at the root of most of the mental health, substance abuse, and interpersonal issues we see in people today whether it is addiction, codependency, obsessions & compulsions, treatment-resistant depression, anxieties and phobias, borderline personality disorder, anti-social personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, etc. Having said that, in my experience, the above complexes and conditions need to be identified, treated, and stabilized BEFORE one can address the underlying emotional wounds of Adult/Child Syndrome – i.e., abandonment, shame, and contempt.

All of these clinical syndromes are labels clinicians use to discuss clusters of symptoms. Many of these “symptoms” were once natural, logical, and creative “solutions” I have referred to herein as survival skills. They were born of the instinct for self-preservation, which takes priority over self-actualization (growth). If there is an attempt to remove a symptom-solution without taking into account the underlying emotional wounds – there will be resistance. We will discuss this when we look at the concept of homeostasis in Chapter Nine.

Preview the Book

Thawing Addiction answers questions like, "Why don't they see what they're doing and just stop (drinking, drugging, sexing, gambling, caretaking, rescuing, etc.)?" The courses explore:

• The causes underlying addiction and codependency 

• Why addiction is a Family disease and a Feelings disease 

• Self-sustaining nature of addiction and codependency 

• How to prevent chronic relapse syndrome. 

Based on Thawing Addiction, the Serenity Cafe Recovery Center is different than the other courses here at Serenity Cafe. It is built to provide an online structure, services, and Community similar to an intensive outpatient program. Inpatient and intensive Outpatient Treatment are harder to come by than ever before. Due to recent advances in online coaching, conferencing, webinars, and small groups online, it is now possible to fill the gap left by dwindling services with the Serenity Cafe Recovery Center

One of the most frequently asked questions in counseling offices today is: "But why dig all that up again?"  Answer? "Because it keeps getting triggered!" Below are more good reasons to do this for yourself. 

So You Can…

• STOP Living in isolation, further alienating yourself from others. 

• START Reaching out to people who can help. People who have been there and done that. People who have found a way out.

• STOP Re-Experiencing Painful Emotional Themes and Dysfunctional Relationship Patterns.

• START Identifying and Healing Your Emotional Triggers.

• STOP Doing Your Pain in Advance. (9 times out of 10 it's Unnecessary Pain) 

• START Letting Go of Worries, Anxieties, and Fears (WAFs).

• STOP Sabotaging Yourself with Short-Term Fixes, such as False Refuges like Alcohol, Drugs, Chocolate Cake, etc.

• START Achieving Your Goals and Dreams.

• STOP Feeling like an Imposter. Take Off the Mask of an Invented Self. 

• START being Authentic and Share Who You REALLY are with Others ~ Your True Self.

• STOP the Cycles of Depression, Anxiety, Addiction, and Compulsion.

• START Healing the Emotional Wounds of Abandonment and Generating Cycles of Success!

• STOP the Inner Criticism and Infection of Shame.

• START Practicing Self-Compassion and Self-Leadership.

• STOP Protecting Yourself with a Scab of Contempt for Self or Others.

• START Practicing Assertiveness and Healthy Boundaries.

• STOP People-Pleasing and Approval Seeking.

• START to Uncover, Discover, Recover, and Share Who You Really Are ~ Your True Self.

Thawing Toxic Relationships is a book about healing and co-creating healthy, functional relationships for those who grew up in a dysfunctional family. If you relate to Don Carter’s Iceberg Model and would like to have a genuinely happy and functional relationship, then this book is for you! Building healthy relationships, a skill that eludes most people who have been raised in a less-than-nurturing family, is the ultimate objective for Thawing Toxic Relationships.

Read about the Cycle of Drama, the Chemistry of drama how to save your marriage, improve communication, set and maintain healthy boundaries, be assertive, and identify relationship mind games (Distance and Pursuit games, the Punishment Cycle, the Drama Triangle - and why we play them). Gather the tools and skills necessary to overcome these and many other dysfunctional relationship patterns. (Amazon reviews below as of today)

Thawing Toxic Relationships - Sample of Content

• NOTE: All books in the Thawing the Iceberg Series contain the Iceberg Model in the first five chapters so that they stand alone as a complete work.

• Chapter 1: "What the hell is wrong with you?" (p.4) Motivation, Dependency Needs, Iceberg Model

• Chapter 2: Anatomy of an Emotional Wound (p.16) Abandonment, Shame, & Contempt - False Self

• Chapter 3: The Art of Survival (p.28) External Focus, Impression Management - Invented Self

• Chapter 4: Who am I Really? (p.36) Imperfect World & Spirituality - True Self

• Chapter 5: Distractions & Dependencies (p.40) Addictions, Obsessions/Compulsions, and Other Issues

Sample of Exercises & Recovery Activities:

• Workbook Introduction: Separateness & Connectedness (p.46) Distance & Pursuit; Ego-State Functioning

• From Section 1.1: Core Issues & Relationships Styles (p.49) Externalizers & Internalizers; Codependents & Counter-Dependents

• From Section 1.2: Exploring Your Developmental Stages (p.54) Assessing the Development of Psychological Positions & Relationship Styles

• From Section 1.3: Infatuation & Identification vs. True Intimacy (p.65) Why we Hurt the Ones we Love: Cycles of Abandonment, Shame, and Contempt

• From Section 1.4: Psychological Sweatshirt's (p.72) Examples of Mixed Messages & Relationship Polarities

• From Section 2.1: Structuring Time & the Three Hungers of the Inner Child (p.76) Structure Hunger, Stimulus Hunger, & Position Hunger

• From Section 2.3: Games We Play (p.86) Complimentary & Crossed Transactions

• From Section 2.3: Distorted Perceptions, Payoffs for Playing Games (p.94) Some Classic Mind Games, Moves, and Payoffs

• From Section 3.3: Are You Living Life in Reaction? (p.110) Friend or Foe? - Treating Each Other Like an Enemy

• From Section 3.7: Key Relationship Skills (p.119) Communication & Ego-State Functioning

• From Section 3.7.6: Analyzing Your Transactions (p.127) Analyzing Communication, Feelings & Emotions

Thawing Toxic Relationships Online Course At Serenity Cafe Academy

After almost a year in the making, newest release! ~ Thawing the Spirit, Blending Science With Spirituality From a Christian Perspective

“The Solution is in the Symptom." What does that even mean?!

Thawing the Spirit "cracks the code", telling us to STOP treating symptoms of emotional or psychological distress and use them to trace, unpack, and heal the root cause of those symptoms.

An Integrative Psychotherapist and Author of the bestselling Thawing the Iceberg Series, Don Carter MSW, LCSW offers Thawing the Spirit as a distillation of his personal, professional, academic, and spiritual experience as he approaches 40 years of service with advanced certification and experience in the treatment of trauma, Complex-PTSD, attachment wounds, mood disorders, addictions, and relationship issues. He has accumulated years of specialized training and experience in the use of advanced clinical hypnotherapy, ego-state therapy, Internal Family Systems, EMDR, Gestalt, and other complementary forms of psychotherapy.

Over the years, Don has integrated that training and experience to create his "Reverse Engineering Symptoms Process" and "R.A.D.I.C.A.L. Reintegration Protocol" which he introduces in this book.

Don Shows You How To Use These Tools with Multiple Case Examples:

★Learn to use the Reverse Engineering Symptoms Process to unpack inadequate psychological strategies.

★Discover why those strategies are both inadequate AND solutions for unmet needs.

★Trace those unmet needs back to the root cause that created them.

★Then zoom in to the precise location (i.e., neural network) with the R.A.D.I.C.A.L. Reintegration Protocol to heal the root cause.

Printed in Color with 40 Diagrams and Illustrations, you will see how Don, a devoted Christian, supports what he teaches with evidence-based practices and scriptural references to show you how he blends...

✓Neuroscience with Spirituality

✓Physics with Spirituality

✓Psychology with Spirituality

✓Psychopathology with Spirituality

✓Chronic stress with Spirituality

PLUS through the following models, you will learn how trauma and attachment wounds from childhood create challenging patterns of thought, feelings, and behaviors that follow us into adulthood. You will also learn the concepts, principles, and skills necessary to effectively manage and modify those patterns.

✓The Iceberg Model

✓The Lifescripts and Parts Matrix Model (LSPM)

✓The Mental Filters and Normalcy Bias

✓The Victim and Creator Mentalities

✓The Flashlight of Awareness Model

✓The Precision-CBT Model

✓The Three Ego-State Maps

✓And More

Get started right away!

Get it on Amazon.com

(Disclaimer: This book is for educational purposes only and is not meant to substitute or replace professional evaluation and treatment. It is recommended that persons who have moderate-to-severe trauma, depression, anxiety, addiction or other mental/emotional pain seek professional help.)

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I'm about a quarter of the way into the book and already with the first two exercises I've gained great insight into myself. I can see where this is going in a lot of aspects and am unsure what the next step is at the same time I know it's a step forward.

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Thawing Adult/Child Syndrome is geared toward surfacing the underlying patterns of behavior and limiting beliefs that keep us stuck in alcoholism, codependency, unproductive relationships, the original wounds of abandonment, shame, and contempt, and how our subconscious mind adapted to the unique circumstances of our childhood by creating survival skills that now interfere with healthy coping.

Anyone who has ever found themselves repeating dysfunctional patterns that have caused problems in their lives and relationships, and then wonder "Why do I do that?" or "Why am I like this?" is likely to experiencing habitual subconscious programming that has been referred to as Adult-Child Syndrome.

Thawing Adult-Child Syndrome and other Codependent Patterns focuses in on the "here-and-now" symptoms of dysfunction in our adult life and relationships. This insight-oriented program helps bring one's "Inner Family of Self" & "Life Script" to the surface so that appropriate changes can be made. The program helps heal the relationship with self, which is based upon the idea that "One cannot have a healthy relationship with others until they first develop a healthy relationship with themselves."

Thawing Adult/Child Syndrome - Sample of Contents

• Workbook Introduction An Overview of Program Contents

• The Wound of Abandonment - Exploring the original Abandonment & Shame of Childhood

• The Scab of Contempt - Characteristics and Functions of Internalizing & Externalizing Contempt

• Introducing the Wounded Inner Children - The Wounding of the Child-Created Ego-States

• The Five Drivers & the Safety Net - Feeling "Ok" by Obeying Inner drivers to "Be perfect," "Be strong," "Please others," "Hurry up," and/or "Try hard"

• "Scripty Feelings" & The Ok Corral - Exploring the Emotional Cycles of Abandonment, Shame, & Contempt

• Compound Decisions & Contamination - Compound Decision Worksheet & Contamination of the Adult Ego-State

• Drivers & the Mini-Script Process - Summary of Drivers, Mini-Scripts & "Allowers"; Intro to Script Elements

• A Framework for Adult/Child Recovery - Guidelines and requirements of recovery from Adult-Child Syndrome

• Hero's Journey & the Figure-8 Journaling Process

Also Available as an Online Course @ Serenity Cafe Academy

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• STOP living life in reaction

• START living life on life's terms - proactively

• STOP doing your pain in advance

• START letting go of worries, anxieties, and fears

• STOP re-experiencing painful emotional themes

• START healing emotional triggers

Thawing Childhood Abandonment Issues mimics the developmental processes of childhood. During the developmental stages of childhood, the emotional pain that accumulated during the first stage of development was carried forward as a foundation for the work of the second stage, then the combined pain from the first and second stages are carried forward as a foundation for the experience of the third stage, etc.

Similarly, the healing that accumulates as you work through the first stage is carried forward as a foundation for healing the second stage, then the combined healing from the first and second stages are carried forward as a foundation for healing the third stage, etc. There is a strong focus on experiencing, integrating, and releasing the emotions of the past. For this reason, the program relies heavily on its many experiential audio programs to facilitate the emotional component to that healing process. Here is a summary from Amazon Reviews for Thawing Childhood Abandonment Issues:

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What's Included and what you will learn...

• How the emotional wound of abandonment, the emotional infection of shame, and the emotional scab of contempt creates a counterfeit "False Self."

• How to initiate emotional healing in all six developmental stages of childhood

• How healing the first stage creates a foundation for healing the second stage

• How a developmental recovery process mimics and reverses the wounding process

• How the developmental tasks of each stage affect how we live and love

• How to target the appropriate stage of development to heal the emotional roots of dysfunctional patterns in relationships

• This Book Contains Sections that are greatly enhanced by the use of 60+ MP3 Audios that are sold separately: You get the first two sections of the online course with audios and videos. 

Don't Put This Off! Initiate Your Healing Process Today... Scroll Up and Click the ‘Get it on Amazon’ Button. The online course if available at Serenity Cafe Academy on Don’s website:

Thawing Childhood Abandonment Issues @ Serenity Cafe Academy

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THAW - Freedom from Frozen Feelings, is a book about the emotional wounds of abandonment, shame, and contempt created by growing up in a less-than-nurturing family. If you experience abandonment issues, emotional flooding, toxic shame, a pattern of dysfunctional relationships, or you help people who do, THAW - Freedom from Frozen Feelings is a "must have”.

The book outlines the wounding process experienced by those who were raised in alcoholic and other less-than-nurturing family; how those emotional wounds show up in various personal and interpersonal problems in adulthood. An innovative, easy to understand, integrated model of recovery from alcoholism, addiction, codependency, enabling relationships, Adult/Child Syndrome and other manifestations of emotional abandonment is presented. The book includes an Inner Child focus along with transactional analysis and gestalt therapy techniques.

Moderate to severe cases of abandonment comes from situations, such as a family where alcoholism and codependency are present, where the child does not fully or consistently get their emotional dependency needs met such as when the child lives in a shame-based family system. In such families the children get messages of disapproval through constant criticism rather than messages of approval and warmth. A shame-based family system is characterized by the parent's use of shame to provide direction.

Children who get their dependency needs met fully on a regular basis will thrive, flourish, and grow at a healthy pace. Life will be good for these kids. In the worst case scenario, kids who do not get their needs met at all will experience a failure to thrive and many will even die from these emotional wounds, also known as original pain of abandonment of childhood dependency needs.

When parents do not meet the needs of their children it is not usually because the parents don't love them. I say 'usually' because there are those cases that one cannot understand, accept, explain, or excuse for any reason. But most parents do the best they can, given the internal and external resources they possess, to take care of their children. In fact, I cannot count the times I have heard parents say "I try hard to make sure my kids have it better than I did." This speaks very loudly to me. It says that these parents are familiar with unmet dependency needs.

So, most often it is not the parent's lack of love or effort that is to blame. Wounded people wound people!

NOTE: Each of the books in the "Thawing the Iceberg Series" contain the Iceberg Model but each one branches off into their own specific directions addressing issues that spring from childhood abandonment issues.