Freedom From Family Dysfunction

The headlines ring with stories of opioid addiction and overdose. Parents complain about their children’s screen addiction, law enforcement decries the flood of fentanyl, scores of Americans overdose and die daily, and teen alcohol poisoning and marijuana-induced psychosis rates continue to rise. Disabling depression and anxiety are diagnosed at alarming rates in families across the country. Now, more than ever, families struggle to live with, care for, and protect their family members suffering with addiction or mental illness. Kenneth Perlmutter, a California psychologist with 30-plus years in the field, has written Freedom from Family Dysfunction specifically for family members who love someone battling addiction or mental illness who want to break the cycles of codependency and relapse plaguing their dysfunctional systems. The combination of compelling vignettes, lively dialogues, and step-by-step instructions makes this guidebook an indispensable tool for the parents, partners, adult children, and the clinicians who treat them, to heal the powerlessness, pain, and impossibility of life with someone they’ve been trying to help, sometimes for decades. Perlmutter takes a systemic and inter-generational view, combining current knowledge with his deep personal experience of addiction and family dysfunction to guide readers toward understanding their systems, their positions in them, and the forces that keep things stuck. “Stress-Induced Impaired Coping (SIIC)” is the term he’s coined to describe his ground-breaking model of family system pathology and recovery. He invites families to see themselves not as dysfunctional, but as wounded, as they work toward connection, closeness, and the restoration of systemic mental wellness and sustainability. Best of all, the method works regardless of whether the one identified as “the problem” makes changes or not. Family members who take up Perlmutter’s method will: · ​create closeness by pursuing connection over being right · reject “tough love" · learn to communicate authentically and to set boundaries confidently and fairly · rebuild trust, authenticity and equality in family relationships · reduce chaos, anxiety and distress in the mind and in the home · shift the entire family system itself toward wellness

Is there a silver lining to growing up in a dysfunctional family? Twenty-four survivors recount their stories—and the strengths forged in the chaos. Living in a dysfunctional family isn’t easy. But while you can’t choose where you come from, you can choose the lessons you take away. Bestselling recovery author Karen Casey looks at stories of people who grew up in dysfunctional families and “the good stuff” that can, ironically, come from the experience. She interviews survivors who emerged from the fires of turbulent households affected by abuse, addiction, or other problems, and reveals how they came to process their often-harrowing personal trials and, against the odds, triumph over their difficulties—using skills they honed in response to their childhoods. In The Good Stuff from Growing Up in a Dysfunctional Family, Casey reveals the stories and the skills they developed to live more creative and fulfilling lives, and not just survive but thrive. “Using her interviews as groundwork, she explores the benefits that result from surviving in a dysfunctional family, including resiliency, perseverance, a sense of humor, forgiveness, kindness, and the ability to discern real love.” —Publishers Weekly “You just can’t go wrong with Karen Casey.” —Earnie Larson, author of Stage II Recovery

In many ways, dysfunctional families are becoming the "new norm" in our society, affecting families in and outside the church. In this ebook, June Hunt explains the signs, characteristics, and impact dysfunctional families have on children's attitudes and behavior—revealing the ugly truth that dysfunction often produces more dysfunction. She presents practical ways to break the generational cycle of dysfunction—giving those who come from this background hope and equipping those who minister to them (pastor, church leader, or friend) with practical insight on how to help. Coming from a dysfunctional family can often make a person feel helpless—doomed to repeat the same mistakes and behaviors as their parents. June emphasizes that change is possible. Using the familiar Bible story of Joseph and his brothers, June reveals how God can use one family member yielded to Him to change the dynamics of an entire family. She also tells the remarkable true story of Catherine Brown Deeken, a woman who grew up in a shattered home with 2 alcoholics, but who now (through the grace of God) runs Rainbow Days, a ministry which supports over 65,000 children who are living in high-risk situations. Compassionate in its approach, rich with scripture, and easy-to-understand, this ebook explains how to reverse the impact of unhealthy family relationships • Includes a quick overview and key definitions. Answers— What is a dysfunctional family? What is a "functional" family? What are the dysfunctional family roles? How does being raised in a dysfunctional family affect future relationships? • Reveals signs, symptoms, and common characteristics of a dysfunctional family. Explains the 8 dominant traits characterized by dysfunctional families, including chaos, control, denial, inconsistency, emotional indifference, instability, shame, and unpredictability. • Explains how unresolved conflicts in the past often cause children to repeat the dysfunctional behavior of their parents. Includes a checklist to see if you—or someone you know—is showing signs of unresolved conflict. • Provides dozens of step-by-steps suggestions and practical ways to replace "old mindsets and behaviors" from unhealthy family relationships with God's truth. What Is a Dysfunctional Family? • A dysfunctional family is one where improper and immature behavior of at least one parent damages the growth of individuality and healthy relational skills among family members. • A dysfunctional family is one where family members are negatively affected emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. • A dysfunctional family is one where everyone is negatively affected even when only one family member experiences a problem. Dysfunctional Families Produce Dysfunctional Families Dysfunction looks different in each family. Here are some of the ways dysfunction can creep into the family unit: • Overly possessive or faultfinding parents • Poor organization or overly rigid structure • Inconsistent and indecisive parents • Emotionally abandoned children (including emotional abuse) • Overly rigid structure or lacking parental authority How Do Kids Cope? 4 Dysfunctional Family Roles Children Adopt When parents are unable to manage their lives, children learn to cope by playing specific roles in the family or "acting out" in damaging ways. Typically, the child will adopt one of four roles: • The Responsible Child The "hero" tries to fix the family problems and help create a positive family image through noteworthy achievement. This child receives positive attention but often develops perfectionistic, compulsive behaviors. • The Rebellious Child The "scapegoat" draws focus away from the family's problems and onto himself or herself with rebellious, uncontrollable behavior. This child consumes time and energy from the family members and often develops self-destructive life patterns. • The Reclusive Child The "lost child" hopes that by ignoring family problems, the difficulties will go away. This child avoids attention and is often lonely and withdrawn. • The Reveling Child The "clown" uses humor and antics to direct the focus away from family problems. This child is often highly active or hyperactive and usually seeks to be the center of attention. A child may even display a combination of these traits or progress through different stages as they attempt to manage their emotional pain...just seeking to survive. To find out more about the coping devices children us, check out June Hunt's Dysfunctional Family. How can I accept and let go of my dysfunctional past? Life is a series of choices! Here's just a few choices you (and those you are helping) can make to begin breaking free from the influence of your past. I will... • Give Christ first place in my heart. Ask Jesus to be Lord of my life. Accept His forgiveness and love. Be aware of His constant presence within me. Allow Him to lead in all I say and do. • Give thought to my present dysfunctional characteristics. Pray for God to reveal my weaknesses. Pray for wisdom to understand how to change. Pray that I will draw on Christ, who is my strength, to make changes. Pray for wise and discerning friends to enlighten and encourage me. • Give myself boundaries. Define who I am: "I am a child of God," and who I am not: "I am not a piece of property." Refuse to be manipulated or mistreated and learn to say, "No." Stop playing the victim: "As an adult, I am not powerless." • Give up resentment Consider the consequences of unforgiveness. Confess my own areas of unforgiveness. Contemplate the sins for which I have received forgiveness. Choose to forgive and keep on choosing to forgive. "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." (1 Corinthians 13:11) The dynamics of dysfunction are detrimental to the family. Discover how to cultivate your family now for the generations that follow as you establish and apply the principles of biblical truth in your own family. Look for all 36 titles in the Hope For The Heart Biblical Counseling Library. These mini-books are for people who seek freedom from codependency, anger, conflict, verbal and emotional abuse, depression, or other problems.

Revised and updated from the original, this honest and forthwright look at families of all shapes and sizes will help you down the path of healing (whether you know you need it or whether yo're just not sure). Unlocking Your Family Patterns combines decades worth of counseling wisdom and pastoral care insights into this one practical resource. Your past may hurt, and your family's patterns may have left emotional scars, but your future has not been laid in stone yet. There is hope for healing, there are lessons to learn, and there are paths toward family health. Using clinical, biblical and practical examples to help you uncover the patterns your family has lived in, this book might lead you toward the family u-turn you've been looking for.

Is there a silver lining to growing up in a dysfunctional family? Bestselling recovery author Karen Casey looks at stories of people who grew up in dysfunctional families and "the good stuff" that can come from the experience. "Throughout my many decades in recovery rooms I have interacted with thousands of women and men whose journeys reveal, in detail, the harrowing history of dysfunction that has troubled their lives," says Casey. "But what is also apparent in their stories is their eventual and quite triumphant survival, often against extreme odds." Casey interviewed more than 24 survivors of families rife with dysfunction; survivors who willingly shared their stories and came to realize they had, surprisingly, thrived as the result of their often harrowing experiences. In The Good Stuff from Growing Up in a Dysfunctional Family, Casey shares the stories and the skills these survivors developed to live more creative and fulfilling lives.

Today, in real families, only a very small portion of the population comes from nurturing and supportive homes; most individuals have been products of dysfunctional families instead. In A Time for Healing, author Dr. David E. Morgan provides a study of a dysfunctional family and presents principles necessary for sustaining a healthy family unit. Through the interplay of the fictional, four-generation Gardner family, A Time for Healing illustrates some events that can cause a family to be dysfunctional, reveals the carnage left from the pain, and discusses how to eradicate it. The Gardners story shows how unhealthy family rules of behavior are passed down from parents to children and what a devastating effect this process has on families, relationships, organizational lives, and society. With ideas gleaned from more than forty years as an educator in the Chicago public schools, including both part-time and full time in higher education, Morgan shows how we can envision and create a better way forward and avoid the imperfections of family dysfunction in the future. A Time for Healing offers help for reclaiming the family by creating real, effective positive change. Cleaning up the family is about character, communication, forgiveness, healing, integrity, love, redemption, respect, understanding and the ownership of our acts.

This is the official ACA Fellowship Text that is Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization (ACA WSO) Conference Approved Literature. Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families (ACA) is an independent 12 Step and 12 Tradition anonymous program.