I have learned a lot in the past 10 years since the first release of “Thaw-Freedom From Frozen Feelings”. It is time to celebrate 10 years and thousands of books sold and now out there helping people from all over the world. Part of my celebration is to revise and update a 2nd edition of Thaw this year in 2022!
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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.
Thaw-Freedom From Frozen Feelings