My Forthcoming Book
My Forthcoming Book: Self-Abandon No More: A Therapist’s Quest For Wholeness
My instructional memoire, Self-Abandon No More: A Therapist’s Quest For Wholeness, offers a precious glimpse into a feminist psychotherapist’s internal battle with independence, dependence and entitlement. Like so many women, I dared not confess that on some level I still long to be provided for. But this has been my truth, and I fear the secret truth for generations of women. Swashbuckling my way through the vicissitudes of divorce, single parenting and financial ruin, I courageously tackle out loud the shameful topic of female self-abandonment in my ruthlessly honest memoir.
Newly divorced and freshly jilted from a rebound relationship with a dashing venture capitalist, raising two teenage sons in a rented farmhouse I can barely afford, I am forced to confront the constraints of my resources and my own power-leaking ways. I eventually coin The Provider Myth to describe this self-abandoning pattern. With echoes of Betty Friedan’s “the problem that has no name”, the Provider Myth is rooted in feminine self-abandonment, highlighting the flawed perception that women need something, anything, from outside themselves, to supply the love, inner-comfort and financial freedom we require to be whole, fulfilled and fully alive.
Pursuing a graduate degree at fifty, I embarked upon a brand new career in clinical social work, ministering to the desperately poor and drug addicted just north of my rented Berkshire homestead. The opioid infested neighborhoods become a fertile environment for forging my new career and fresh identity. Earning the trust of each client proved to be the soul’s work I had always longed for, even answering the ultimate question, “Am I a good person at the core?” Leaning into my purpose with passion and compassion, this job opened the door for every other missing part of my life; a career with heart, a path to financial security, a community of amazing colleagues and a new identity I could be proud of.
Whether struggling to find the money to pay for groceries and car repairs or resurrecting my friendships after two years of single parenting through grad school, I really try to show readers how I learned to ask for help and receive that help from friends, mentors, and sometimes the universe itself.
Accumulating 3000 clinical hours and passing two professional license exams, I eventually set up a lucrative private practice and am able to provide my sons a respectable middle class life and college education. No longer looking for a rescue, I discovered a new kind of partnership with an adventurous photo-journalist I used to ski with. More interested in being a partner who provides, I revised expectations of relationship. Over time I am able to view and celebrate the many struggles of loneliness and financial lack through a heroic lens, allowing my trials to take on a transformational quest-like quality.
My instructional memoire demonstrates how women might attain genuine self-efficacy through optimizing what can be learned from overcoming the struggles found within each obstacle they face. I can only hope that women undergoing all variations of life upheaval, will find a steady pillar of support in Self-Abandon No More. Full of helpful skills I have taught to thousands of clients, Self-Abandon No More guides and instructs with relevant psychological theory pertinent to female identity formation.
In the Homeric tradition, I am happy to report that I emerge a full blown heroine from my own identity questing odyssey, with the holy grail prize in hand and it is a simple one: “You are the only one who you can always count on, to never abandon you in any way ever again.” Thoroughly grateful to achieve my long held goals, it still amazes me that the true prize of the quest is never the grand goal we originally set, but it’s the person we have become from everything we had to master while pursuing that grand goal.
Self-Abandon No More is a guidebook for women who want to attain that coveted female milestone of achieved identity. I believe that shining an honest spotlight on the ancient pattern of ambiguity about female self-abandonment and feminine wholeness makes Self-Abandon No More an important work for our time.
My book is completed, and edited by an awesome team of discerning readers. I am currently in search of a publishing home for Self-Abandon No More. I will let you know just as soon as the book is ready. We are creating a wait list here if you wish to be first to get your own copy.
GALLERY: As I watch for photos to reveal a perfect moment, it really allows me to steep in gratitude for the life I have created through my divorce-transformation initiation.
