Every Family Has a Story: How We Inherit Love and LossPaperback, 26 December 2023

With her usual warmth and wisdom, bestselling psychotherapist Julia Samuel explores the family: what we inherit and how we can change.

In Every Family Has a Story, bestselling psychotherapist Julia Samuel turns from her acclaimed work with individuals to draw on her sessions with a wide variety of families, across multiple generations. Through eight beautifully told and insightful case studies, she analyzes a range of common issues, from loss to leaving home, and from separation to step-relationships, and shows how much is, in fact, inherited--and how much can be healed when it is faced together.

Exploring the relationships that both touch us most and hurt us most, including the often under-appreciated impact of grandparents and siblings, and incorporating the latest academic research, she offers wisdom that is applicable to us all. Her twelve touchstones for family well-being--from fighting productively to making time for rituals--provide us with the tools to improve our relationships, and to create the families we wish for. This is a moving and reassuring meditation that, amid trauma and hardship, tells unforgettable stories of forgiveness, hope and love.