Jed Diamond, Ph.D., LCSW
My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound
A Memoir of Redemption and Reconciliation
September 13, 2018
4 PM PDT | 5 PM MDT | 6 PM CDT | 7 PM EDT

“A father may be physically present, but absent in spirit. His absence may be literal through death, divorce or dysfunction, but more often it is a symbolic absence through silence and the inability to transmit what he also may not have acquired.” –James Hollis

“You will begin to forgive the world when you forgive your father.”

–Tennessee William’s psychiatrist

I was five-years old when my uncle drove me to the mental hospital. “Why do I have to go?” I asked.

“Your father needs you,” my uncle answered.

“What’s…what’s the matter with him?” I was bravely trying to hold back my tears.

Silence. In our family we didn’t talk about such things.

The trauma of growing up with an absent father and a death-obsessed mother contributed to my own bouts of depression, sexual addiction, and destructive relationships. It took me 65 years to have the courage to write this book and share the raw, personal, life experiences of trauma, betrayal, and reconciliation. Learning about my mother’s lost father helped me understand that the father wound impacts women as well as men. Healing intergenerational wounds put me on the path of becoming a psychotherapist who has been helping men and the families who love them for nearly fifty years.

In this discussion you will learn:

• How writing your story can heal your own wounds and pull together the disconnected strands of your life into a coherent whole.
• How to deal with traumatic memories without re-traumatizing yourself.
• Why Mark Wolynn and his book, It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle, gave me the courage to write about my own wounding and healing.
• Why combining a memoir and a workbook can expand our own healing to help others to embark on their own healing journey.

Jed Diamond is a psychotherapist and the author of 15 books including international best-sellers Surviving Male Menopause, Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions, and The Irritable Male Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression. Iyanla Vanzant, host of Iyanla, Fix My Life on OWN, says, “There are some skills you must have, some ways you must be, and some things you must learn or unlearn if you want to have a healthy, fulfilling, and loving relationship. Jed’s book covers all the ‘musts’ and then some. What a blessing. This will be recognized as your finest work. I am honored to support it and you.”

Links:
Get my first chapter for free here: http://menalive.com/my-distant-dad/
Visit me at my website: www.MenAlive.com