Reviews - Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

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Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

Although cloaked in a deceptively pop psychology package, this book is a treasure trove of psychoanalytic wisdom made accessible and digestible for parents of any age. I know what the old adage says not to do with book covers, but when first learning about this book I would never have expected to encounter the likes of Bromberg (standing in the spaces, or in Kennedy’s words, “two things are true”), Fairbairn (internalization of badness), Stern (unformulated experience…whoa, the B-sides!), Winnicot (transitional objects)…

Here I thought this was simply a parent-focused treatment of IFS (and I frankly avoided it for quite sometime due having already read far too many books on IFS), when in fact the author pays recognition to its ideological predecessors and thus checks its ego [far better than those more closely associated with IFS training and writing ever will…not that I’m naming any names].

Kennedy’s encouragement to sit in “not-knowing” experiences with kids is sage advice for the parent, teacher and therapist alike, guidance which channels the spirit of phenomenological and anthropological approaches to psychotherapy, and a posture especially needed for creating transformative experiences across various domains, therapeutic schools and movements (see Ecker et al’s work re: a unifying framework for psychotherapy).

cassidyemami's review against another edition

4.5

hopeful informative inspiring slow-paced

sadieweiss's review

4.25

informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

I really enjoyed this! I’m not a parent but I am a teacher and it’s useful for relationships with my students + just relationships in general! Learning how to communicate with grace and understanding. The “most generous interpretation” will most definitely come with me through the rest of my life!!!