Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance

I have completed an MS in Marriage and Family Therapy and currently am a Ph.D. student and working as a marriage and family therapist intern. I have run psychotherapy groups for several years already with addicts and their families, and I've been trained in multiple therapy modalities (EFT, SFBT, Gestalt, CBT, MI). This is a book that I wish I had written. Even though I posted this review nine months ago, I continue to recommend this book to both my colleagues and friends. I still have not found any books as comprehensive and balanced, as this book offers the latest research and integrates a spectrum of our field's freshest relationship theories into one book. She helps us move closer toward a "Grand Unified Theory" of therapy and integrates attachment theory, attachment injuries, updates in the codependency literature, research on emotions, PTSD, ADHD, grief, depression, anxiety, and more, and she makes it applicable to the lay person as well as to the therapist. This book can help clients understand how therapists can help, while giving therapists an updated look at how research on attachment theory can be integrated with the fields of substance abuse. For example, a lot of people still treat substance abuse using old models, using cognitive-only approaches, outdated notions of codependency, and overlooking the role of the brain, emotions, biology, trauma and the family system. She validates the newer approaches of using more experiential, emotionally-focused and systemic approaches with addicts and families and gives us clear language to explain why it works. Dr. Dayton stops us before we "throw the baby out with the bathwater." The pop psychology concept of "codependency" was popular in the addiction recovery field, but it was criticized mainly because there is little or no scientific evidence to support basic tenets of codependency theory, it became so watered down that it was useless, it seemed that every behavior was codependent, and was generally used as a derogatory label that tended to apply more often to women. Thus, Dr. Dayton prefers to talk about "relationship trauma." Nevertheless, Dr. Dayton provides her own definition of codependency, but links it to the latest research on adult attachment. You may also be interested in some recent research on codependency & attachment styles I came across by Whiteleather & Doumas (2004). [...] Using the four quadrant model of attachment styles, they correlated the concept of "codependency" with the anxious/preoccupied attachment style. Dr. Dayton defines codependency using an integration of attachment theory and Bowen family systems theory which I agree with and couldn't have said better: "Codependency, I feel, is fear-based and is a predictable set of qualities and behaviors that grow out of feeling anxious and therefore hypervigilant in our intimate relationships. It is also reflective of an incomplete process of individuation....Though codependency seems to be about caretaking

Emotional Sobriety has given me path way into myself, into recognizing my feelings. It also gave me such a clear plan for living a happy and balanced life. Dr. Dayton was able to answered questions no one has been able to answer for me.

Awesome, awesome book! The author starts by explaining the way our brains and bodies work, and the way our emotions by-pass the thinking part of the brain, and go to our instinctive survival parts of the brain. She explains how we have body memories of suppressed emotions, and why, when we have been through relationship trauma, we store the pain in our bodies and it causes us to self-medicate with activities or substances that chemically help us to deal with it. With kindness, compassion, and solid factual information, she explains what's going on inside of us, below the surface, and steps to take to release the pain, reframe our thinking, and become whole again. The last part of the book focuses on constructive steps to release pain, retrain ourselves to respond differently, and ways to accomplish the same pleasure and self-nurture that we were seeking, but how to do it in healthy, life-affirming ways. It's a blend of research and information, years and years of experience, and a kind, beautifully written coaching to renew and restore and grow into the person we were meant to be. The tone is respectful, informative, concrete, specific, and hopeful. Reading it was a journey. So rich that I decided after I returned it to the library that I needed to own my own copy. I have never read anything by her before, so I don't know if there are any overlaps, but it's one of the most helpful I have read.

Thank God for Tian Dayton! Now I have an understanding of how my life has been and a language to describe it. I am relieved and renewed - something I hadn't thought possible. What a gift! I can't recommend this book highly enough - it's clear, concise, compassionate. And life changing! Thank you so much for this wonderful, original work.

Once again, Dr. Dayton has hit the nail on the head. Her writing and insights are always fresh, understandable and practical. She visits and revisits challenging situations with specific, useful guidance for dealing with very complicated emotional issues. I will be adding this one to my collection of her earlier work.