Have you searched for the best books for inner child work, healing childhood emotional neglect and overcoming child trauma? This article will give you everything you need when it comes to finding the top books to help you address the challenges you are facing.

I have some exciting news! I am pleased to announce that my new book ‘How To Heal Your Inner Child’ has just been globally released. Writing is my passion and after the success of my first two books I knew it was time to explore the roots of the difficulties I have faced with sadness, anger and feeling empty inside, this book was without doubt challenging that I have written, but I also feel it is the most powerful piece of work I have created and will help people change their lives. During the process of writing the book over eighteen months, I had to really dive deep into my past, looking at my childhood and how it has impacted my life from teenage years through to adulthood, it was a painful process at times, but it also cathartic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Find out more and get your copy here on Amazon >

As a child my father took no interest in me and then abandoned my mother and I when I was age two, I also had a mother who was emotionally absent, self-indulged and dealing with her own mental health issues. Combine this with me exploring alcohol and drugs in my mid-teens and sexual abuse by a neighbour and I found myself well on course to experience challenges in my adult life.

That is exactly what happened, I turned to alcohol and other addictions, all the while I felt like I had a void in my soul. I was disconnected from my emotions, plagued by anxiety and rarely felt happy or at peace.

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE LIST OF THE BEST BOOKS FOR HEALING CHILDHOOD EMOTIONAL NEGLECT & TRAUMA

 

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The turning point was after I stopped drinking alcohol, this gave me the clarity I needed to realise that there was way more going on than just a drinking problem. I no longer had my coping mechanism to numb the pain, I had no choice but to start facing into it.

So that is what I did, through a combination on 1-2-1 therapy, reading, workshops and group sessions I gradually experienced a transformation and healed the insecurities and wounds that had been caused in my childhood.

The process of healing has been one of the most profound experiences of my life, there were times when it was hard, but the growth has been incredible and worth the trade off that comes with facing into the discomfort.

My experience was so powerful that my third book shares the framework I used for healing my childhood trauma and emotional neglect, my hope is that it will help other people who identify with the 10 questions below:

* Do you have a sense that something is wrong, but you don’t know what it is?
* Do you have a feeling that you are hollow inside, that you are empty or have a void within?
* Do you react badly to rejection?
* Do you often feel sad, unhappy or down for no obvious reason?
* Would you describe yourself as highly sensitive?
* Do you have problems with relationships and intimacy?
* Do you engage in addictive behaviour – alcohol, drugs, gambling, shopping, food, sex, work, exercise?
* Do you have low self-esteem or self-worth – are you not ‘good enough’?
* Do you have a sense of being numb to your feelings?
* Do you rarely experience true joy and happiness?

If you have answered YES, to any of these questions then you are in the right place, read on to discover the best books that will help you heal and reconnect with your inner child.

As well as helping people overcome their addictions I am also passionate about addressing the underlying issues that exist at the roots of addictive behaviour. For many people this relates to their childhood, all to often I work with people who didn’t experience unconditional love, comfort, safety or security when they were growing up.

Here is a list of my best recommendations of books to help you handle these tough feelings.

How To Heal Your Inner Child 

Author: Simon Chapple

Having already written two popular sobriety books, ‘The Sober Survival Guide’ & ‘How to Quit Alcohol in 50 Days’, I have been keen to put together a new book. However, I really wanted to create another book that can go on to help others who are struggling right now. I have previously created YouTube videos that explore my past and dealing with healing the inner child within you and from the popularity of the videos and the comments left, I knew that I needed to write this book. It took time and the journey wasn’t always easy exploring my past but it has been so worth it.

I am really pleased with the feedback this new book has received so far, with authors such as Annie Grace stating, “a masterclass of understanding”. I decided to structure the book by having set out 10 questions for you (the reader) to answer and if you answer yes, to the majority of those, then you have likely experienced some form of neglect or trauma as a child. This being left unresolved has caused your inner child to still impact your actions, wellbeing and physical and mental state into adulthood.

For me, I know that past traumatic experiences from my childhood which were left unresolved manifested themselves into my alcohol addiction in later life. I had never learnt how to cope with my childhood experiences which my inner child could not escape from until those issues had been resolved and then my life truly changed for the better.

Buy How To Heal Your Inner Child on Amazon here 

 

Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child 

Author: John Bradshaw

This is an older book, which was written by John Bradshaw in 1999. However, the message given then is still just as relevant today. John, an experienced counsellor, public speaker and philosopher explores some of his best techniques in this book at revealing the inner child within you.

Having received great praise from readers which include Billy Connolly, this makes my list as a must-read if you are looking to further educate yourself on realising and dealing with the inner child within you.

Buy Home Coming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child Here

 

 

 

Inner Child Workbook: What to do with your past when it just won’t go away

Author: Cathryn L. Taylor

This is a fantastic book by Cathryn L. Taylor. She makes the reader go back and take a proper in-depth look at their childhood, along with exploring grief, loss, shame and guilt throughout the 7 key stages of your development as a child.

I did find like other readers, that this book can be quite hard hitting at times and with inner child trauma still present, it can be tough in parts to continue reading. However, I found the benefits of completing this book really helped me lay foundation for addressing the inner child within myself.

Buy Inner Child Workbook: What to do with your past when it just won’t go away

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

 

 

Recovery of Your Inner Child: The Highly Acclaimed Method for Liberating Your Inner Self 

Author: Lucia Cappacchione

Lucia Cappacchione highlights in her book that we all have our inner child living within us. As we get older, our inner child gets masked by our adult selves, however it’s our inner child that impacts how we react and deal with relationships, intimacy and your physical and emotional well-being.

There are no two ways about it. This book like any others on childhood trauma require work from you. Reading is just one part and you need to really work on yourself to help deal with the inner conflict of your inner child. It can be traumatic and this book advises you to work through this book with the aid of a counsellor. If you are reading it with no support, then take it slowly, note that delving into your past can be extremely hard before it gets better.

Buy Recovery of Your Inner Child: The Highly Acclaimed Method for Liberating Your Inner Self

 

 

 

The Body Keeps The Score

Author: Dr Bessel van der Kolk

Dr Bessel van der Kolk offers a new paradigm for effectively treating traumatic stress. People who have experienced childhood emotional neglect or trauma when they were growing up will find this book a powerful tool in their arsenal when it comes to dealing with the issues from their past.

Neither talking nor drug therapies have proven entirely satisfactory or delivered the results that were hoped for.

With stories of his own work and those of specialists around the globe, The Body Keeps the Score sheds new light on the best routes away from trauma – which lie in the regulation and syncing of body and mind, using sport, drama, yoga, mindfulness, meditation and other routes to equilibrium.

The body keeps the score comes highly recommended and has been a big help for many of the people I work with.

Buy The Body Keeps The Score on Amazon here

 

 

Growing Yourself Back Up: Understanding Emotional Regression

Author: John Lee

Someone hurts you. You feel anger, scared, sweaty hands, tears — you feel like a child.

We have all had events where we lose control of a situation, as well as ourselves. In Growing Yourself Back Up, bestselling author John Lee tells of the circumstances that cause these seemingly uncontrollable feelings and explains how they are directly linked to our time as kids.

No adult should ever experience the helpless feelings of childhood again. Within are his methods and exercises, developed in his workshops. These help you to recognize, prevent, and diffuse this regression back into a child within ourselves and others. For instance, in the book, it is taught that adults cannot be abandoned. They can only be left. If we feel abandoned, we’re regressing. He also reminds us that no matter how overwhelmed we are, adults always have options; if we believe we don’t, we’re in a regression.

Buy Growing Yourself Back Up on Amazon here

 

 

The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships

Author: Patrick J. Carnes, PhD.

For seventeen years The Betrayal Bond has been the best source for therapists and patients fighting the effects of emotional harm due to exploitation from someone they trusted. These are situations of incredible intensity or importance which lend themselves more easily to an exploitation of trust or power. In The Betrayal Bond, Dr. Carnes presents an in-depth study of these relationships: why they form, who is most susceptible, and how they become so powerful.

Dr. Carnes also gives a clear explanation of the bond that compels people to tolerate the intolerable. He also, for the first time, maps out the brain connection that makes being with hurtful people comparable to ‘a drug of choice’. Most importantly, Carnes provides practical steps to identify compulsive attachment patterns and ultimately to change or end them for good.

Buy The Betrayal Bond on Amazon here

 

 

The Drama of Being a Child: The Search for the True Self

Author: Alice Miller

The first publication of The Drama of Being a Child and of this 1997 edition are separated by fifteen years of experience – the author’s experience with her own self-therapy and with other recent therapy methods, and finally her knowledge of the life histories of the several thousand readers who have written to her.

The research into childhood she has undertaken in this period has led to further fine-tuning of her earlier findings, as is ocumented and illustrated here with an abundance of examples. The author examines the consequences of repression at personal and social levels, the causes of the physical and
psychological harm done to children and how this can be prevented, and finally the new methods at our disposal for dealing with the consequences of infant traumas.

Buy The Drama of Being a Child on Amazon here

 

 

 

When Pleasing You is Killing Me: Setting Boundaries with the Controllers in Your Life

Author: Les Carter, PhD.

Are you one who likes to keep the peace even when it comes at a high emotional price for yourself? Do your attempts to resolve differences with someone leave you feeling wrung out and discouraged?  Dr. Les Carter takes you inside his office, inviting you to share in real life stories of people just like you who are trying to make sense of persistent, controlling demands from all sorts of controlling people. People pleasers are naturally positioned to increase their maturity since they are already predisposed to being loving, kind, and respectful. But when they routinely butt heads with controlling counterparts, their maturation is stunted as they predictably get pulled into power forms of communication that include coercion, shaming, accusations, defensiveness, anger, suppression, and the like.

Buy When Pleasing You is Killing Me on Amazon here

 

 

 

Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect

Author: Jonice Webb, PhD.

Childhood neglect is an invisible force from your childhood which you can’t see, but may be affecting you profoundly to this day. It is about what didn’t happen in your childhood, what wasn’t said, and what cannot be remembered.
Do you sometimes feel as if you’re just going through the motions in life? Are you good at looking and acting as if you’re fine, but secretly feel lonely and disconnected? Perhaps you have a fine life and are good at your work, but somehow it’s just not enough to make you happy.
If so, you are not alone. The world is full of people who have an innate sense that something is wrong with them. Who feel they live on the outside looking in, but have no explanation for their feeling and no way to put it into words. Who blame themselves for not being happier.

Buy Running On Empty on Amazon here

 

 

Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families

Author: Charles L. Whitfirled, M.D.

Dr. Whitfield provides a clear and effective introduction to the basic principles of recovery. This book is a modern classic, as fresh and useful today as it was more than a decade ago when first published. Here, frontline physician and therapist Charles Whitfield describes the process of wounding that the Child Within (True Self) experiences and shows how to differentiate the True Self from the false self. He also describes the core issues of recovery and more. Other writings on this topic have come and gone, while Healing the Child Within has remained a strong introduction to recognizing and healing from the painful effects of childhood trauma. Highly recommended by therapists and survivors of trauma.

Buy Healing the Child Within on Amazon here

 

 

 

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

Author: Lindsay C. Gibson, PhD.

Are you one of the countless people who grew up with emotionally immature parents? If you suffer from this troubling parent/child dynamic, you may still recall painful moments from your childhood when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of maturity in an effort to “compensate” for your parents’ behavior. And while you likely cultivated strengths such as self-reliance and independence along the way- strengths that have served you well as an adult-having to be the emotionally mature person in your relationship with your parent is confusing and even damaging.

If you are ready to gain the insight you need to move on from feelings of loneliness and abandonment and find healthy ways to meet your own emotional needs, this book will help light the way. 

Buy Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents on Amazon here

 

Nasty People: How to Stop Being Hurt by Them Without Stooping to Their Level

Author: Jay Carter, Psy.D.

This book provides surefire methods to neutralize the nasty people in your life. Have you been hurt, betrayed, or degraded by a nasty person? Perhaps it’s your boss, your parent, or your spouse. Whoever it is, he or she is an invalidator who feeds on your self-esteem, mental anguish, and unhappiness. But you can stop this cycle of abuse and put an end to sneak attacks on your soul – without resorting to nasty tactics.In this updated bestselling guide to staying sane while dealing with difficult people, Jay Carter, Psy.D., calls upon decades of practice and observation to offer proven strategies for avoiding toxic relationships. With straight-talking advice, real-life anecdotes, and psychology that makes sense, Dr. Carter gives you the surefire tricks and techniques you need to: identify the invalidators in your life; protect your sanity; use humor to get out of the blame game; conquer self-doubt; stop invalidating yourself; confront emotional bullies; see the bigger picture; and reclaim the captain’s seat of your soul.

Buy Nasty People on Amazon here

 

Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Care for Yourself

Author: Melody Beattie

In a crisis, it’s easy to revert to old patterns. Caring for your well-being during the coronavirus pandemic includes maintaining healthy boundaries and saying no to unhealthy relationships.
The healing touchstone of millions, this modern classic by one of America’s best-loved and most inspirational authors holds the key to understanding codependency and to unlocking its stultifying hold on your life.
Is someone else’s problem your problem? If, like so many others, you’ve lost sight of your own life in the drama of tending to someone else’s, you may be codependent–and you may find yourself in this book–Codependent No More. The healing touchstone of millions, this modern classic by one of America’s best-loved and most inspirational authors holds the key to understanding codependency and to unlocking its stultifying hold on your life.
With instructive life stories, personal reflections, exercises, and self-tests, Codependent No More is a simple, straightforward, readable map of the perplexing world of codependency–charting the path to freedom and a lifetime of healing, hope, and happiness.

Buy Codependent No More on Amazon here

 

It’s been such a beneficial journey for me writing this latest book and I really do hope that you enjoy reading it and find it as lifechanging as I have writing it. I also hope that my suggestions of other authors above and that their take on the inner child can also help you if you are struggling at the moment, or if you are aiming to self-develop to improve your life.

Do you have any suggestions of your favourite books related to inner child or sobriety? I would love for you to leave a comment with your favourites and I will be sure to check them out as well.