cover image You Can't Grow Up Till You Go Back Home: A Safe Journey to See Your Parents as Human

You Can't Grow Up Till You Go Back Home: A Safe Journey to See Your Parents as Human

William F. Nerin. Crossroad Publishing Company, $22.95 (194pp) ISBN 978-0-8245-1225-5

Expanding on the work of Virginia Satir, his mentor in family therapy, Nerin ( Family Reconstruction ) proves an appealing teacher in this guide to self understanding. In urging his clients to examine their roots (or lack of them), Nerin arranges role playing of their relationships with their families-of-origin; the reenactments focus on parents in their non-parenting identities. In the directed movement from a ``child-to-parent relationship to an adult-to-adult relationship that envisions the parents as human,'' there is demonstrable release from often inchoate negativities that hamper the lives of many. Family reconstruction--i.e., developing an adult understanding of the family one comes from-- is, in Nerin's paradigm, generally a healing experience. Innovative and helpful, this is non-judgmental family therapy. (June)