Becoming Myself: Living Life to the Fullest After Losing Your Parents

Insight and understanding for those facing the "adult orphan" syndrome

The loss of one's parents is an inevitable fact of life. Ultimately, each of us will become an adult orphan, solely responsible for ourselves for the first time. In Becoming Myself, Dr. Shari Butler shows readers how this profound loss can be a force for growth and positive change, a uniquely liberating opportunity to reevaluate one's life, discover a new sense of completeness­­and rediscover talents, desires, and needs that might have been overlooked.

Using an approach drawn from studies of the orphaned adult patients from the author's practice, as well as the loss of her own parents, Becoming Myself offers a therapeutic plan that moves beyond grief into using the past in a different way that stimulates maturation, creative energy, and personal power. This insightful program includes innovative exercises to help readers cope with feelings of disconnection, guilt, and sadness, ways to break free from old patterns of being, as well as guidance and encouragement in taking on positive characteristics that might previously have been associated with or "owned" exclusively by the parent.