Ready to Heal: Breaking Free of Addictive Relationships

by Kelly McDaniel

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Author: Kelly McDaniel

Publisher: Gentle Path Press

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 0983271399
ISBN 13: 978-0983271390

Break free from the chains of addictive relationships that sabotage happiness and self-respect.

It's no surprise that our culture is addicted to "love". The sappy love songs, the enticing ads for romantic getaways and the desire to be cherished by a special someone will never lose their appeal. But for some women, this poses a significant problem. Because of their insatiable desire for love, they will do anything to find it and ultimately land in destructive addictive relationships over and over again causing incredible harm.

This newly revised and expanded edition of Ready to Heal provides an opportunity for women to break free from painful addictive relationships. Kelly McDaniel provides the reader with the tools they will need to move along the path of living a life where intimacy is possible. Readers have an opportunity to begin to "connect the dots" in their own relationship patterns by following the stories of four brave women. A newly added chapter on "Mother Hunger" explores the role of the mother in infancy and how she ultimately impacts a daughter's ability to have healthy intimate relationships later in life.

Kelly McDaniel, MA, LPC, NCC, CSAT is a licensed professional counselor and sex addiction therapist in private practice in Nashville, Tennessee.

Review

"McDaniel offers rich reflections into the myriad of issues facing women sex and love addicts. Confronting cultural stereotypes that keep women in their shame and providing a clear path of healing, she uses her warm and perceptive insight to help women unburden and break free from the insidious hold of addiction. Her identification of "mother hunger" as a driving force for women sex and love addicts is one of the many gems this book contains. Ready to Heal is sure to become a classic for women struggling with addiction."

--Kenneth M. Adams, Ph.D.,CSAT
Clinical Director of Kenneth M. Adams and Associates
Suburban Detroit, Michigan and Life Healing in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Author of Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners and
When He's Married to Mom: How to Help Mother-Enmeshed Men Open Their Hearts to True Love and Commitment

"Nobody understands and explains sex and love addiction in women like Kelly McDaniel. Ready to Heal integrates compelling examples with clinical brilliance, lighting a path to personal healing and healthy relationships. The chapter on “mother hunger” is an invaluable work in and of itself. Therapists like us as well as our clients will be utilizing this powerful resource for many, many years to come."

--Bill Bercaw, PsyD, CSAT, CST & Ginger Bercaw, PsyD, CSAT, CST
Authors of The Couple's Guide to Intimacy: How Sexual Reintegration Therapy Can Help your Relationship Heal

"In a gentle and respectful manner, Kelly invites any woman to honor her authentic self rather than stay in the shame associated with behaviors that no longer work to relieve emotional pain. Not only can the reader learn ways to stop the addictive behavior, she can also discover how to rebuild a healthier life that respects the difficult journey on which many women have traveled."

--M. Deborah Corley, Ph.D. Founder and co-owner of the Sante Center for Healing
Co-author of Disclosing Secrets and Surviving Disclosure

"Ready to Heal brings a welcoming freshness to the tender arena of women who struggle with addictive love and sexuality. Its affirming approach clearly describes a woman’s experience to find attachment and meaning, even when those quests take her down a painful path. Most importantly, Ready to Heal addresses the deep longing for maternal nurture and offers practical ways to heal the mother hunger that aches within."

--Marnie C. Ferree, M.A., LMFT, CSAT
Director of Bethesda Workshops, Nashville, TN
Author of No Stones: Women Redeemed from Sexual Addiction

"Ready to Heal is a stunningly accurate account of what happens to a woman’s capacity for intimacy when early relational and childhood trauma are not repaired. It sets the pace for female sex, love, and relationship addicts who are ready to heal. A must read for traumatized women committed to restoring their sexual integrity, for those who love these women, and for therapists who treat this population."

--Alexandra Katehakis, MFT
Author of Erotic Intelligence: Igniting Hot, Healthy Sex While in Recovery from Sex Addiction

"Finally someone has put her finger on the missing ingredient in sex and love addiction for women: the concept of “mother hunger”. McDaniel has captured both the problem and the solution for women who struggle with dysfunctional relationships. By following this book, readers will be able to break free from these addictions, stay free, and heal."

--Milton S. Magness, D. Min
Author of Stop Sex Addiction; Thirty Days to Hope & Freedom from Sex Addiction and Hope & Freedom for Sexual Addicts and Their Partners

"This groundbreaking book is a blood transfusion for love junkies. For the first time, someone nailed “mother hunger” as the pulsing heart of love and sex addiction. By doing so, she provided me freedom from a lifetime of toxic relationships. Ready To Heal created a roadmap to recovery, studded with gently lit landmarks leading me home. Along the way, self-hatred morphed into compassion. This book taught me how to love myself."

--Rachel Resnick
Author of Love Junkie and Literary Alchemist at Writers In Fire

About the Author

In her private practice as a therapist, she assist adults and couples. Incorporating a background from the Jean Baker Miller Institute of Relational/Cultural therapy, and the latest training in addiction research, she works closely and confidentially with individuals seeking support with relationship difficulty, general life dissatisfaction, family of origin issues, and attachment fear.
In addition to individual sessions, she conducts retreats in the Texas Hill Country for couples and for women. The "Ready to Heal" retreats for women focus on healing damaging cultural beliefs that affect sexuality and self-development and can lead to addictive relationships. Issues of childhood upbringing, culture, and biology affect the development of the sexual arousal template. Couples retreats explore these dynamics with partners seeking a more fulfilling, healthy and loving life. Retreats can be customized to address: codependency, sex and love addiction and recovering couples issues.
Additionally, she offers sensitive, specialized support to mothers and parents committed to attachment parenting. Since important neurological patterns are set in the first 18 months of life, she sees parents as architects of their child's brain development. They often need education and support with this critical task.
Professional affiliations include certification as a sex addiction therapist (CSAT) from the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals (IITAP), membership in the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH), membership in the Texas Association of Marriage and Family Counselors, Licensure as a Professional Counselor in Texas (LPC), National Certified Counselor (NCC), and a Post Induction Trained therapist in the developmental model designed by Pia Mellody.
Education includes an MA from Georgetown University in Washington, DC and an MA from St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas.

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Ready to Heal: Breaking Free of Addictive Relationships