Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dan Neuharth, Ph.D., is a licensed family therapist with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. A popular speaker, college educator, and award-winning journalist, he specializes in helping adults cope with the challenges of unhealthy family control. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Do you sometimes feel as if you are living your life to please others? Do you give other people the benefit of the doubt but second-guess yourself? Do you struggle with perfectionism, anxiety, lack of confidence, emotional emptiness, or eating disorders? In your intimate relationships, have you found it difficult to get close without losing your sense of self?

If so, you may be among 15 million adults in the United States who were raised with unhealthy parental control. Too much or the wrong kinds of control in childhood can cause lasting problems in adulthood, and these connections are often subtle and hard to spot. If you have problems or habits that stubbornly resist change, they may be symptoms of unresolved issues with a controlling parent or upbringing.

In this groundbreaking book, accomplished family therapist Dr. Dan Neuharth offers a self-test to help you identify whether you are facing problems in adulthood caused by unhealthy control in childhood. You will understand both how and why your parents may have overcontrolled you and find dozens of practical suggestions that can help you solve your problems at the very root.

This book will enable you to quiet your "inner critics," bring more balance to your moods and relationships, increase your optimism and assertiveness, and achieve greater autonomy. It offers a variety of ways to deal with stressful family holidays, parents who still control, and parental aging and mortality. It will help you to make peace with your past and break the cycle of control so you can avoid overcontrolling your own children and other loved ones.

Based on extensive interviews and research and packed with thought-provoking insights, If You Had Controlling Parents also includes engaging profiles of a richly diverse group of adults who grew up overcontrolled. These inspiring examples of how others have come to grips with the detrimental consequences of early control will provide you with a road map for accelerating your own growth and healing. If you have felt driven to pursue your parents' values and dreams ahead of your own, this compassionate book explains that no one is to blame and reminds you that unhealthy control is a generations-old cycle that can stop with you.

If your parents controlled you in unhealthy ways, they may have unwittingly planted land mines in your psyche. As a result, you may tiptoe through life expecting buried danger, not treasure, in your path. You may wait...and wait...for permission to love, succeed, and feel content. Permission you're not sure how to get. Permission you may have difficulty granting to yourself.

This book is packed with features to help you thrive even if you had far too little permission to be yourself as a child. Knowledge is power, and powerful growth and healing come from understanding, not blaming, your parents or upbringing. You'll discover:

• Fifty reasons why people control in unhealthy ways--and how recognizing these reasons can help you cope with controlling mates, friends, family members, or work associates

• How overcontrol of your eating, dress, privacy, social life, speech, and feelings in childhood may still hamper you in adult life

• How controlling families use "Truth Abuse" to cement unhealthy loyalties that last for years--and how to gain autonomy

• The eight styles of controlling parenting--Smothering, Depriving, Perfectionistic, Cultlike, Chaotic, Using, Abusing, and Childlike

If you or someone you love grew up with unhealthy control, this book offers discovery and resolution. With the guidance of accomplished family therapist Dr. Dan Neuharth, discover what may lie underneath some of your most stubborn and troubling habits, patterns, or problems and resolve your relationship with your parents, whether they are living or dead. If your childhood felt like a scene from Mommie Dearest or The Great Santini--or if you simply feel confused about how you were raised--make peace with your past so you can truly take your place in the world.

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If You Had Controlling Parents

How to Make Peace with Your Past and Take Your Place in the WorldBy Dan Neuharth

Cliff Street Books

Copyright © 1998 Dan Neuharth
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060191910

Healthier Parenting Versus Controlling Parenting
If you bungle raising your children, nothing else matters much in life.
--Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Healthy parenting is simple: Raise children well and set them free.
Being a healthy child is also simple: Play, learn, grow up, and leave home.
But while both job descriptions are simple, neither is easy. The primary difference between healthier families and controlling families is that the parents in healthier families allow their children to grow up as persons in their own right.
Controlling parents fail to protect and nurture, robbing their children of playtime by using harsh or erratic discipline. They model unhealthy habits and hamstring their sons' and daughters' efforts to individuate. That's why people who grow up controlled sometimes struggle to emotionally leave home well into their thirties, forties, or fifties.
The following chart shows eight major differences between healthier families and controlling families. You might notice which side of the chart most closely parallels your childhood experience.


Characteristics of Healthier Vs. Controlling Families
Healthier FamiliesControlling Families
1.Nurturing Love
*Parental love is relatively
constant
*Children get affection,
attention, and nurturing
touch
*Children are told they
are wanted and loved
2.Respect
*Children are seen and
valued for who they are
*Children's choices are
accepted
3.Open Communication
*Expressing honest
thought is valued more
than saying something a
certain way
*Questioning and dissent
are allowed
*Problems are
acknowledged and
addressed
4.Emotional Freedom
*It's okay to feel sadness,
fear, anger and joy
*Feelings are accepted as
natural

Healthier FamiliesControlling Families
5.Encouragement
*Children's potentials are
encouraged
*Children are praised
when they succeed and
given compassion when
they fail
6.Consistent Parenting

*Parents set appropriate,
consistent limits
*Parents see their role as
guides
*Parents allow children
reasonable control over
their own bodies and
activities
7.Encouragement of an Inner
Life
*Children learn
compassion for
themselves
*Parents communicate
their values but allow
children to develop their
own values
*Learning, humor, growth
and play are present
8.Social Connections
*Connections with others
are fostered
*Parents pass on a broader
vision of responsibility to
others and to society

The Consequences of Unhealthy Parenting
Healthier parents try, often intuitively and within whatever limits they face, to provide nurturing love, respect, communication, emotional freedom, consistency, encouragement of an inner life, and social connections. By and large they succeed--not all the time, perhaps not even most of the time, but often enough to compensate for normal parental mistakes and difficulties.
Overcontrol, in contrast, throws young lives out of balance: Conditional love, disrespect, stifled speech, emotional intolerance, ridicule, dogmatic parenting, denial of an inner life, and social dysfunction take a cumulative toll.
Controlling families are particularly difficult for sensitive children, who experience emotional blows and limits on their freedom especially acutely. Sensitive children also tend to blame themselves for family problems.
The more your experience mirrored the "Controlling Families" side of the preceding chart, the greater your risk of inheriting distorted views. You might note whether one or more of the following five distortions causes problems in your present life:
1.Distortions of Power and Size
If one or both parents demanded absolute control and dependence or treated you in ways that made you feel small, you may have inherited distortions of power and size. You may automatically view yourself as less capable than others or, alternatively, as so big and powerful that you have to protect others from yourself. You may feel you lack permission to do things that are within your perfect right. You may feel intimidated or, conversely, contemptuous in the presence of authority figures. Distortions of power and size can handicap you at work, as a parent, and in your other intimate relationships.
2.Distortions of Feeling and Wanting
If emotions were banned, inflated, or feared, and your desires shamed or thwarted, you may have inherited distortions of feeling and wanting. You may regard emotions such as anger, fear, sadness--even joy--as life-threatening and overreact to them. You may be unable to tolerate a loved one's strong feelings. You may deprive yourself of legitimate yearnings or live with unrealistic hopes. You may unconsciously expect life to be painful and, as a result, you may automatically become uncomfortable whenever good things happen. Distortions of feeling can lead you to fear or ignore your emotions and misinterpret the emotions of others. Distortions of wanting can leave you feeling deprived.
3.Distortions of Thinking
If truths were denied, perceptions discounted, or blame and shame heaped on you, you may have inherited distortions of thinking. You may accept overcontrol from others, thinking that it is normal. You may chronically doubt your perceptions. You may leap to conclusions based on all-or-nothing reasoning. Distortions of thinking may lead you to avoid personal responsibility or to assume too much responsibility for others' actions. Distortions of thinking can put you at risk for misreading others and yourself.
4.Distortions of Relating
If closeness was dangerous, or if you were infantilized for too long, or if you were thrust into the caretaker role too soon, you may have inherited distortions of relating. You may be unable to get close to others even when you want to. You may unwisely trust others or be unable to trust at all. You may see others as threats or as saviors--not simply as people. Distortions of relating can rob you of intimacy and pleasure.
5.Distortions of Self and Identity
If your intuition, initiative, or needs were devalued, you may have inherited distortions of self and identity. You may underrate your abilities, undercut your potential, or underplay your strengths. You may banish parts of your personality, present a false front to others, or see yourself as an object instead of a person. Distortions of self leave your primary relationship--that with yourself--underfueled.
But remember: Knowledge is power. By recognizing these distortions in your life, you can heal them.
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Excerpted from If You Had Controlling Parentsby Dan Neuharth Copyright © 1998 by Dan Neuharth. Excerpted by permission.
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