Getting Over Your Parents by Alain de Botton

Our parents are a huge deal: no matter what our relationship to them happens to be, who we are today (what love stories we get into, our attitudes to work, our self-esteem) is crucially determined by our families of origins.

Our parents are a huge deal: no matter what our relationship to them happens to be, who we are today (what love stories we get into, our attitudes to work, our self-esteem) is crucially determined by our families of origins.

Following on from the bestselling How To Overcome Your Childhood, Getting Over Your Parents is a practical guide on how to navigate the complex legacies left to us by our parents. By exploring different types of parents, such as “The Preoccupied Parent”, “The Overprotective Parent”’ and “The Controlling Parent”, it gives us a vocabulary with which to understand some of the stranger and more difficult things that parents sometimes do to their children, as well as advice on how to move forward from our puzzles or confusions. The emphasis is never on blame, always on understanding.

Offering constructive solutions for dealing with the symptoms of a difficult childhood, this book helps us to explore the past so that we can avoid the mistakes our parents made, and secure for ourselves the more creative, calm and loving future we deserve.