Who Exactly is my book “Navigating Family Estrangement” for?

As some who follow my work will know, my book “Navigating Family Estrangement” was released in June (available here) and I will continue to promote across as many channels as I can.

However, one question I have been asked several times, predominately from estranged people, is:

“Is this book for me or just academics and professionals?

The short answer is…100% YES, and throughout the writing process every estranged person I have ever worked with took centre stage in my heart and heart, driving the content and overall narrative.

However, thankfully the long answer isn’t too long.

“Navigating Family Estrangement” is technically my 2nd book on family dysfunction. The 1st (which is currently resting indefinitely on my laptop) was a self-help guide for estranged people to manage their family situation, but absolutely zero publishers were interested in it as they felt it was not a mainstream topic and would not sell.

My arguement then (and still now) is that these types of complex family issues are more considerably more prevalent than most realise and with the right marketing, it could find it’s audience.

Despite god knows how many rejections, I didn’t stop looking and eventually had a big stroke of luck when well known academic publisher Routledge expressed an interest. However, while they liked the topic of estragement, their audience is generally professionals and academics in various fields.

Although grateful for the chance, my initial reaction to writing an educational book was resistence, mainly as I never viewed myself as an educator and despite having a Masters degree with one paper published, my strengths were mostly as a practioner as opposed to researcher (I know there are plenty out there who are strong on both).

But the issue of families falling apart in various forms and for various reasons was too important to just stop.

So I embraced the opportunity and focused on creating something professionals, such as therapists, psychologists, socials workers, healthcare providers, coaches, etc. might also embrace in the different contexts in which they work. I’m hopeful this will lead to more positive awareness of the impact of estrangement in different environments, such as in colleges and the workplace.

But I was also aware of how contemporary readers were also embracing literature addressing complex issues such as trauma, relationship struggles, mental health challenges, etc. With this in mind, I worked hard to make the book accessible to any one interested or personally affected by family estrangement. I even wrote a section in the introduction to specifically speak to estranged adults as I wanted to make it clear this book is fundamentally both about and for them.

So yes, if family estrangement has or continues to play a significant part of your life, this book is for and I genuinelly hope it makes a difference as I know personally how all consuming and damaging an estragement can have.