Every Family Has a Story: How We Inherit Love and Loss - Hardcover

by Julia Samuel (Author)

Why do some families thrive in adversity while others fragment? How can families weather difficult transitions together? Why do our families so often exasperate us? And how can even small changes greatly improve our relationships?

In Every Family Has a Story, bestselling psychotherapist Julia Samuel turns from her acclaimed work with individuals to draw on her sessions with a wide varietyof families, across multiple generations. Through eight beautifully told and insightful case studies, she analyzes a range of common issues, from loss to leaving home, and from separation to step-relationships, and shows how much is, in fact, inherited--and how much can be healed when it is faced together. Exploring the relationships that both touch us most and hurt us most, including the often under-appreciated impact of grandparents and siblings, and incorporating the latest academic research, she offers wisdom that is applicable to us all. Her twelve touchstones for family well-being--from fighting productively to making time for rituals--provide us with the tools to improve our relationships, and to create the families we wish for. This is a moving and reassuring meditation that, amid trauma and hardship, tells unforgettable stories of forgiveness, hope and love.

Author Biography

JULIA SAMUEL, MBE, is a leading British psychotherapist and the author of the Sunday Times bestsellers Grief Works and This Too Shall Pass. During the last thirty years, she has worked in both public health service and private practice, and she is founder patron of Child Bereavement UK and a vice president of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. She is frequently cited across the national media, and has presented the podcasts Grief Works and A Living Loss.