GROUNDBREAKING FAMILY THERAPIST USES THE POWER OF STORY TO TACKLE THE GENERATIONAL CYCLES OF POVERTY, VIOLENCE, OPPRESSION, & MENTAL HEALTH
In her book Opening Up: The Parenting Journey, courageous family therapist and social worker Anne Peretz, MSW, LICSW, chronicles her experiences founding and shaping The Parenting Journey, now an international organization which offers compassionate programs to parents suffering from internalized stress, trauma and other struggles, helping them to regain stability and achieve richer, fuller, happier lives.
This is not only a book about economic inequality and race. It is not only a book about justice. Rather it is about growth, and recovery from the terrible damage done to so many families who have been subjugated to the intractable knot of poverty, racism, violence, depression, stress and hopelessness As Henry Louis Gates states in his forward, “In 2021 in America these endemic ills have combined with twin pandemics of racial unrest and COVD-19 to virtually affect every person and family. Now, more than ever, Peretz’s affirming stories offer much needed hope and inspiration, an invaluable gift in these times.”
Over nearly 4 decades, the Parenting Journey has developed and trained hundreds of facilitators in groundbreaking parent group programs, now practiced in more than five hundred sites throughout the United States, Africa and Central America. Rather than focusing on deficits or using psychiatric diagnoses, Parenting Journey builds on the inherent strengths of families with intergenerational trauma. Beautifully recounted by Peretz through dozens of deeply moving stories, and effortlessly woven together with her decades of clinical experience, Opening Up is the inspiring story of a bold and vibrant organization that takes a different approach to helping families in need. Peretz has a gift for turning dark to light, communicating complex subject matter in an accessible, profound and inspiring way. This book is a must read for all of us, especially those interested in the helping professions, for we all come from unique, intricate, and complicated families, who, as Peretz will demonstrate, have unlimited potential for beauty, connection and resiliency.
Opening Up: The Parenting Journey, released through Radius Books is available to order on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble and other bookstores.
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