Love Me, Don't Leave Me: Overcoming Fear of Abandonment & Building Lasting, Loving Relationships

Everyone thrives on love, comfort, and the safety of family, friends, and community. But if you are denied these basic comforts early in life, whether through a lack of physical affection or emotional bonding, you may develop intense fears of abandonment that can last well into adulthood--fears so powerful that they can actually cause you to push people away. If you suffer from fears of abandonment, you may have underlying feelings of anger, shame, fear, anxiety, depression, and grief. These emotions are intense and painful, and when they surface they can lead to a number of negative behaviors, such as jealousy, clinging, and emotional blackmail. In Love Me, Don't Leave Me, therapist Michelle Skeen combines acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), schema therapy, and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) to help you identify the root of your fears. In this book you'll learn how schema coping behaviors--deeply entrenched and automatic behaviors rooted in childhood experiences and fears--can take over and cause you to inadvertently sabotage your relationships. By recognizing these coping behaviors and understanding their cause, you will not only gain powerful insights into your own mind, but also into the minds of those around you. If you are ready to break the self-fulfilling cycle of mistrust, clinginess, and heartbreak and start building lasting, trusting relationships, this book will be your guide.

Author: Michelle Skeen
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
Published: 09/01/2014
Pages: 200
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781608829521

About the Author
Michelle Skeen, PsyD, is a therapist who lives and works in San Francisco, CA. She has provided brief and long-term therapy for individuals and couples utilizing schema, cognitive, and behavioral therapies to address interpersonal issues, weight management, anger, depression, anxiety, disabilities, and trauma. She is author of The Critical Partner and coauthor of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Interpersonal Problems. Skeen hosts a weekly radio show called Relationships 2.0 with Dr. Michelle Skeen on KCAA 1050 AM. To find out more about Skeen, visit her website at www.michelleskeen.com.

Foreword writer Wendy T. Behary, LCSW, is founder and clinical director of the Cognitive Therapy Center of New Jersey and a faculty member at the Cognitive Therapy Center and Schema Therapy Institute of New York. She is also a distinguished founding fellow of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. She maintains a private practice, specializing in narcissism and high-conflict couples therapy.