Dr. Gemma Newman is a GP (British equivalent of what in America is called a “family doctor”) who realized she was functioning great as a diagnostic flowchart interpreter and pill dispensary, but not actually doing much of what she got into the job to do: helping people.

Her patients were getting plenty of treatments, but not getting better. Often, they were getting worse. And she knew why: they come in for treatment for one medical problem, when they have six and a half medical problems probably a stack of non-medical problems that contributed to them,

So, this book sets out to do what she tries to do in her office, but often doesn’t have the time: treat the whole person.

In it, she details what areas of life to look at, what things are most likely to contribute to wellness/unwellness (be those things completely in your power or not), and how to—bit by bit—make all the parts better, and keep them that way.

The writing style is conversational, and while it’s heavily informed by her professional competence, there’s no arcane science here; it’s more about the system of bringing everything together harmoniously.

Bottom line: if you think there’s more to wellness than can be represented on an annual physicals chart, then this is the book to help you get/keep on top of things.

Click here to check out Get Well, Stay Well, and do just that!

Not everyone had the best of parents, and the harm done can last well beyond childhood. This book looks at healing that.

Dr. Gibson talks about four main kinds of “difficult” parents, though of course they can overlap:

1. The emotional parent, with their unpredictable outbursts
2. The driven parent, with their projected perfectionism
3. The passive parent, with their disinterest and unreliability
4. The rejecting parent, with their unavailability and insults

For all of them, it’s common that nothing we could do was ever good enough, and that leaves a deep scar. To add to it, the unfavorable dynamic often persists in adult life, assuming everyone involved is still alive and in contact.

So, what to do about it? Dr. Gibson advocates for first getting a good understanding of what wasn’t right/normal/healthy, because it’s easy for a lot of us to normalize the only thing we’ve ever known. Then, beyond merely noting that no child deserved that lack of compassion, moving on to pick up the broken pieces one by one, and address each in turn.

The style of the book is anecdote-heavy (case studies, either anonymized or synthesized per common patterns) in a way that will probably be all-too-relatable to a lot of readers (assuming that if you buy this book, it’s for a reason), science-moderate (references peppered into the text; three pages of bibliography), and practicality-dense—that is to say, there are lots of clear usable examples, there are self-assessment questionnaires, there are worksheets for now making progress forward, and so forth.

Bottom line: if one or more of the parent types above strikes a chord with you, there’s a good chance you could benefit from this book.

Click here to check out Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, and rebuild yourself!