Love Me, Don't Leave Me: Overcoming Fear of Abandonment and Building Lasting, Loving Relationships

Description

Everyone thrives on love, comfort, and the safety of family, friends, and community. But if you are denied these basic comforts early in life, whether through a lack of physical affection or emotional bonding, you may develop intense fears of abandonment that can last well into adulthood-fears so powerful that they can actually cause you to push people away. If you suffer from fears of abandonment, you may have underlying feelings of anger, shame, fear, anxiety, depression, and grief. These emotions are intense and painful, and when they surface they can lead to a number of negative behaviors, such as jealousy, clinging, and emotional blackmail. In Love Me, Don't Leave Me, therapist Michelle Skeen combines acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), schema therapy, and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) to help you identify the root of your fears. In this book you'll learn how schema coping behaviors-deeply entrenched and automatic behaviors rooted in childhood experiences and fears-can take over and cause you to inadvertently sabotage your relationships. By recognizing these coping behaviors and understanding their cause, you will not only gain powerful insights into your own mind, but also into the minds of those around you. If you are ready to break the self-fulfilling cycle of mistrust, clinginess, and heartbreak and start building lasting, trusting relationships, this book will be your guide.

Michelle Skeen, PsyD, is a therapist who lives and works in San Francisco, CA. She has provided brief and long-term therapy for individuals and couples by utilizing schema and mindfulness-based approaches to address interpersonal issues, weight management, anger, depression, anxiety, disabilities, and trauma. She is author of Love Me, Don't Leave Me and coauthor of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Interpersonal Problems. Skeen is also coauthor of Communication Skills for Teens with her daughter, Kelly Skeen. She hosts a weekly radio show called Relationships 2.0 with Dr. Michelle Skeen on KCAA Radio 1050 AM and iHeart Radio. To find out more, visit her website at www.michelleskeen.com.

"The way out of the woods is to find a path through--a way to walk through deep-seated fears of abandonment and emerge with the ability to build, maintain, and enjoy lasting, loving relationships. In Love Me, Don't Leave Me, Michelle Skeen has expertly crafted one such path. With skill and compassion, Skeen guides readers through a journey that facilitates self-knowledge, self-discovery, and ultimately, the personal transformation needed to enjoy lasting, loving relationships." --Lissah Lorberbaum, MA, coauthor of Anxious in Love: How to Manage Your Anxiety, Reduce Conflict, and Reconnect with Your Partner "Love Me Don't Leave Me ventures into the rough terrain of your most challenging relationships. Michelle Skeen provides you with an indispensable map and clear direction toward a new pathway to heal yourself and develop smart and healthy ways to interact with others. This book will offer you clear tools to realign with your core values. Reading this book feels like you are sitting across from a deeply caring therapist. Pull up a chair and experience Skeen's warm and compassionate guidance for yourself." --Rebecca E. Williams, PhD, clinical psychologist and coauthor of the award-winning The Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction "Love Me, Don't Leave Me is the perfect book for anyone who is tired of the dark shadow of abandonment. It's a powerful resource for those who feel as if no one could ever really love them. And it's ideal for anyone who is exhausted from chasing partners who are unpredictable, unreliable, or just plain unavailable. With her trademark style of compassion and clarity, Michelle Skeen will quickly help the reader identify the heart of his or her abandonment patterns. This book provides robust tools for change, with plenty of self-score inventories, cognitive techniques, meditations, and case studies. Love Me Don't Leave Me offers an escape from the gravitational pull of abandonment and offers real answers for creating loving, relaxed, and satisfying relationships." --Shawn T. Smith, PsyD, author of The Woman's Guide to How Men Think and The User's Guide to the Human Mind "Finally, a book that skillfully addresses an all-too-often overlooked aspect of relationship struggles: the fear of abandonment. This book will invite you on the journey of embracing the most elemental aspect of our humanness--our sense of connection to one another--and what can happen when this connection becomes disrupted. Michelle Skeen masterfully walks you through a comprehensive exploration of looking into how your experience of connectedness--or various lacks thereof--contribute to your relationship struggles. So much of the suffering experienced in relationships stems from this fear of abandonment, yet very little is offered to help those who confront this in their lives. In Love Me, Don't Leave Me, Michelle Skeen offers powerful insights, and, most importantly, tools to help successfully navigate how this fear plays out in relationships. Now, get a pencil and start to read and follow the instructions. You will be glad you did." --Thomas Roberts, LCSW, psychotherapist; clinical hypnotherapist; mindfulness and meditation teacher and retreat leader; and author of The Mindfulness Workbook "In this insightful and compassionate book, Michelle Skeen has illuminated two crucial aspects that govern relationship issues in today's world: She asks the readers to delve deeply into themselves to resolve what they may be contributing to repeated unsatisfactory relationships, understanding fully that significant change happens first within the self. She then clearly states what traps lie in wait for those who unwittingly recommit to partners who continue to evoke negative triggers from past relationships. Her writing is concise and wonderfully clear, with many excellent exercises to give the reader the opportunity to make actual positive changes." --Randi Gunther, PhD, clinical psychologist and author of Relationship Saboteurs and When Love Stumbles "Michelle Skeen's Love Me, Don't Leave Me is a smart book. She uses sound exercises and worksheets to help anyone suffering from abandonment find their triggers and develop mindfulness skills for communicating in healthier relationships. Anyone who wants to understand their own needs and learn how to change their relationships with their thoughts and emotions should read this book." --Tammy Nelson, PhD, psychotherapist, international speaker, and author of The New Monogamy, Getting the Sex You Want, and What's Eating You? "This book offers elegant pathways toward the self-understanding that creates lifelong, loving relationships. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has ever suffered in the name of love." --Jason B. Fischer, MA, LPC, author of The Two Truths about Love: The Art & Wisdom of Extraordinary Relationships "With compassionate and loving clarity, Michelle Skeen guides us through our labyrinths of unworthiness and fear to discover in our own deep being that we have always been enough and we no longer need all the barriers to love that we have created in our lives. This book is for everyone that would find and live in the joy and fulfillment of lasting, loving relationships." --Steve Flowers, MFT, author of The Mindful Path through Shyness and coauthor of Living with Your Heart Wide Open