Why Can't I Let You Go?: Break Free from Trauma Bonds, End Toxic Relationships, and Develop Healthy Attachments

Break free from trauma bonds and develop the healthy, secure, and loving relationships you deserve!

If you experienced physical or emotional abuse, neglect, or abandonment as a child, you may struggle with unhealthy relationships as an adult. Hurtful attachments with our caregivers in early childhood can lay the foundation for toxic relationships. Those experiences can even affect the way we handle conflict, our feelings toward sex, and our expectations of our partners. But this doesn't mean you can't change. This book will help you gain a greater awareness of the trauma bonds that prevent you from getting the love, safety, and security you desire.

In Why Can't I Let You Go, relationship expert Michelle Skeen will help you identify your attachment style, core beliefs, and the harmful behavior patterns that are keeping you stuck in toxic relationships. You'll learn proven-effective skills to help you interrupt these unhelpful patterns and attachments in new and old relationships. You'll also discover what you really value in relationships and go on to develop healthy, secure, and lasting love.

Understanding yourself and your deeply held, and often unconscious, beliefs is the first step toward liberating yourself from trauma bonds. Change isn't easy, but in time you'll realize that it's easier and less painful than the heartache and self-doubt you've been enduring for years. With this compassionate guide, you'll find the support and guidance needed to create the loving relationships you truly want.

Michelle Skeen, PsyD, has a doctorate in clinical psychology. She is the author of Love Me Don't Leave Me: Overcoming Fear of Abandonment & Building Lasting, Loving Relationships and six other books. Her passion is coaching individuals in creating and maintaining healthy relationships by bringing awareness to core beliefs and the related patterns of behavior, which often work unconsciously to limit connections with others. Michelle believes that an early introduction and education in core values and healthy communication are essential life skills for success. To that end, Michelle and her daughter, Kelly, coauthored Just As You Are and Communication Skills for Teens.

Skeen completed her postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco. She co-developed an empirically validated protocol for the treatment of interpersonal problems that resulted in two books: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Interpersonal Problems and The Interpersonal Problems Workbook. Michelle's work has appeared in more than thirty publications around the world. To find out more, visit her website at www.michelleskeen.com.

Kelly Skeen is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, DC, with a degree in American Studies, Education, and Spanish. She is an art museum professional, developing meaningful, accessible, and relevant gallery experiences for diverse audiences. She is coauthor of Just As You Are and Communication Skills for Teens with her mother, Michelle Skeen. Skeen strives every day for greater self-acceptance and to embrace who she really is! To learn more, visit her website at www.kellyskeen.com.