Julia: And that whole idea of being a soft skill is not. It’s really, really hard. And it is the only thing that matters, it’s the best medicine. Right. But it is not so scary. It requires. Yes. Unbelievable. Endurance, patience, fury, rage. You know. Because where you feel most you feel most. So if you have joy, one end of the bandwidth of love, you’re going to feel fury as well. You know, it’s wide it’s as big as a yes you get. Julia: You know, emotions are transmitters of information that run through our body to give us information, basically to know whether we’re safe or in danger and also whether we’re in a good place or not. And the actual pure emotion probably doesn’t last that long. It lasts about 90 seconds. But we can dig on that emotion Julia Samuel is so wise and compassionate. I love every word she writes and long for every reader—every person—to experience her unique and generous way of being in the world.” —Cathy Rentzenbrink

In the eight case studies we are gently guided . . . towards a deeper understanding of the importance of honesty, self-examination and communication within all relationships. . . . [An] engrossing book [with] extraordinary personal honesty.” — Daily Mail Julia: And that in trying to protect them, you would also exclude yourself and each other. And there’d be that presence of absence even when you were alive. So it’s it’s better to be a messy fighting person who’s real. I mean, I remember telling my daughter. Julia: It was really intense, but it actually only took like eight sessions. And the thing that is so powerful is it renewed their relationship with their mother and it protected their children. So one of the things, if you want to kind of think about not passing down inherited trauma kind of deal with it in your lifetime because you will pass otherwise, you know, suicide is like a cluster bomb. It puts shards of agony in in everybody in different places. But by looking at the shards and naming them and having a clearer understanding, it means you don’t take the flinching and the injury of the shard to your own children. Family stories casually chatted about at the dinner table, or regaled again and again at family gatherings can parallel great epics or notable short stories. The memorable stories of our lives and of others in our family take on special importance because they are true, even if everyone tells different versions of the same event. These tales are family heirlooms held in the heart not the hand. They are a gift to each generation that preserves them by remembering them and passing them on.” (Heather Forest)Kita, vis dažniau knygose mane atrandanti tema yra karantinas! Ta universali pasaulio patirtis jos metu! Ir, tiesą pasakius, aš tarsi vis laukiau, ką psichologai tirs ir kalbės apie pandemijos įtakas ir poveikius. Ši dalis buvo labai įdomi, nors jai skirtas foninis, antraeilis dėmesys. 💛 Family stories can be told nearly anywhere. They cost us only our time, our memories, our creativity. They can inspire us, protect us, and bind us to others. So be generous with your stories, and be generous in your stories. Remember that your children may have them for a lifetime.” (Elaine Reese) The holidays are prime time for family storytelling. When you’re putting up the tree or having your holiday meal, share a story with your children about past holidays. Leave in the funny bits, the sad bits, the gory and smelly bits–kids can tell when a story has been sanitized for their protection. Then invite everyone else to tell a story too. Don’t forget the youngest and the oldest storytellers in the group. Their stories may not be as coherent, but they can be the truest, and the most revealing.” (Elaine Reese) This is a wise and insightful exploration of modern life that will help us create the families we wish for. A wise and important book, full of insight into the pain and beauty at the heart of family life... I loved it' Clover Stroud

Why do some families thrive in adversity while others fragment? How can families weather difficult transitions together? Why do our families drive us mad? And how can even small changes greatly improve our relationships? The best loved stories are not from books or films, but those from our own families.” (Jane McGarvey) Our children are an integral component of our stories as we are of theirs and, therefore, each child acts as the knighted messengers to carry their forebears’ stories into the future. To deprive our children of the narrative cells regarding the formation of the ozone layer that rims the atmosphere of our ancestors’ saga and parental determination of selfhood is to deny them of the sacred right to claim the sanctity of their heritage. Accordingly, all wrinkled brow natives are chargeable with the sacrosanct obligation of telling their kith and kin the memorable story of the scenic days they spent as children of nature splashing about in their naked innocence in the brook of infinite time and space. We must scrupulous document our family’s history as well as scrawl out our personal story.” (Kilroy J. Oldster)We don't usually interact with loved ones through interviews, so the format can feel awkward. The best way to break through the tension is to start with a few warm-ups — basic fact-gathering questions such as a favorite memory from childhood — and continue with open-ended versus yes or no questions ("How was X?" or "What did Y mean to you?"). Having read Julia Samuel's previous book about grief I had high hopes for this book and was not disappointed. She has a remarkable gift of getting to the nub of issues and being able to communicate to the persons involved how best to move forward to improve their mental health and happiness. Doing this for multiple family members simultaneously and also writing it all down in a clear and helpful book within months of meeting the families is extremely impressive. Her introduction where she explains about the advantages of these family group sessions having to go online due to the covid pandemic is fascinating. Julia: I think what I offered was the space for him and them, being a third party, you know. In fact, I was like the sixth person. But being someone who’s outside the family, I think that there is something about having a witness who isn’t emotionally invested with you. Hmm. That is a it’s like a holding power that allows them then to have very difficult conversations where they could hear each other because they had me to kind of keep them safe or to balance them. They weren’t responsible for each other’s distress or trying to protect each other from the pain that they were facing. And I think in voicing their fear, they were also very clearly voicing their love. And that for the for the dad is what mattered most. And that really supported him. He said, this is the worst time in my life, but also the best time in my life. That strange kind of duality. Because he really knew he was at. Kate: Yeah, that’s right. The thinning of all these things that hold us up, the cutting of all of our puppet strings. You write very movingly about a family who is trying to say goodbye. It was a family trying to say goodbye in the impossibility of losing a parent with cancer. And you were walking them to the edge of a difficult grief in an impossible moment of pandemic isolation. How did you help them live inside of a story that was going to be and feel incomplete in such a big way?

Tiesiogiai su psichologija susijusias knygas aš skaitau, kaip terapiją ir pagalbą sau. Ir šią skaityti man buvo emociškai sunku. Vienoje iš istorijų radau daug panašumų ir skaudėjo už juos ir už save. Bet pats procesas džiugina, kai tokiu būdu gali permąstyt save, naujai, iš kito kampo pamatyt situacijas, o perėjus viską pasijaučiu lengvesnė. 💛 Kim Hawley's family at her baptism in 1990. Before you start documenting, think about what you want to accomplish — what period of time or story do you want to learn about — and who you want to tell the story?If I recall correctly, this book was mentioned in Esther Perel's newsletter, and its title immediately caught my attention. This year, I've been delving into novels that explore the intricacies of family dynamics, so I felt it was the perfect time to explore a nonfiction book on the subject. Yes, it is up to us to pass on family stories—especially ones about God intervening in our lives and homes. And doing this does not need to be complicated. We can share family stories with our children and grandchildren while washing dishes together, taking a relaxing walk, or going on a drive.” (Mary May Larmoyeux) In her bestselling follow-up to Grief Works and This Too Shall Pass, much-loved psychotherapist Julia Samuel invites us into her sessions as she explores the relationships that have the power to touch us and hurt us most: those with our family.

Kate: Yeah. Your book has these incredible case studies of families learning to negotiate that dynamic. Can you give me an example of if someone who’s acute pain like required them to embed themselves and maybe they had to engage in a story that was their parents or grandparents? Kate: I remember trying to ask my dad if. You know, parents have this overwhelming desire. It’s like the first thing on their mind. If they see their kid in pain. How can I take this on to me? Like, how can I just absorb this? I remember how much work I was doing in trying to wrap things up. It was just. It was such a rough time that it just kept going. It was like the first two years of endless. You know, almost dying, almost, almost, almost, almost all the time. And and. So I was I was kind of caught in that push pull feeling where I kept trying to sort of, like, pump the brakes for them, give everybody closure before. I was done living and remember the first time I lost it. Sharing your family’s stories will give your descendants a glimpse into what your life and your family are like. You will also be grateful in the future when you have stories recorded to tell to your own children. You may not think your memories will fade, but you never know what you’ll forget if you don’t record it somewhere. And as you work on recording your family stories, you may even discover things you never knew before.” (Mindy Raye Friedman)The author Julia Samuel was in conversation with Stephen Gross at our event. Please find out more here. Through eight beautifully told case studies, covering a variety of families across multiple generations, she analyses common issues from losing a parent to children leaving home, and from separation to step-relationships. In doing so she shows how much is, in fact, inherited -- and how much can be healed when it is faced together. Of course, if one is reflexive and honest, we always hold views that are difficult to shake off but surely therapy is about active listening and approaching a non-judgmental stance. There are clear examples of a somewhat paternalistic approach and moreover there is nothing within the book that reflects how families access her services, what her fees are and whether that means as a necessity she excludes certain (lower income) families. That sits awkwardly for me as trauma is perhaps disproportionately encountered by those who have poor housing, no or low incomes, have encountered difficulties in the Armed Services and so forth. Indeed, there is no rationale as to why she chose the families that she did.